May 2009 Well Worth The Risk: Slot Innovations by John Grochowski Sometimes companies are born of innovation. Sometimes they’re driven by the innovations of others. Either way, it takes further innovation to survive and thrive in a competitive environment. So it goes with International Game Technology and WMS Gaming, two of the major competitors among America’s slot manufacturers. IGT was born of the idea to bring draw poker to a video game format, one of the major innovations of the 1970s. WMS evolved from generations of pinball and arcade game makers and made its big breakthrough in gaming by adapting Australian slots for an American audience. Today, both continue to innovate, continually giving us new ways to play the slots. INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY It was the mid-1970s, and Si Redd, working for Bally Gaming, had an idea. What if you took five-card draw poker on a video screen, and instead of having the player compete against another hand, paid according to a paytable instead? Bally didn’t want the game, and allowed Redd to keep the patent as he partnered with Fortune Coin to form Sircoma to sell video poker machines. When Redd took the company public, it was christened International Game Technology. At first, IGT focused on Redd’s innovation, leading the charge into a video poker future. When it branched into three-reel slot machines, with games including Double Jackpot, Wild Cherry, Red, White and Blue and Double Diamond, IGT was a fast success, becoming the world’s biggest slot manufacturer. To get there and stay there, IGT has continued to innovate, and to capitalize on the innovations of others. An innovation of its own? Try Megabucks, which has led to the whole Megajackpots line of wide-area progressive slot machines. This one game in the mid-1980s linked $1, three-reel slot machines at different casinos throughout Nevada to a common jackpot. When you wagered on Megabucks at one casino, a percentage of the bet would register on jackpot meters above banks of machines throughout the state. It all went live in 1986, and that was the first time jackpots had been linked in different casinos. It was an immediate success, and the links at other denominations, including Quartermania and Nevada Nickels, quickly followed. Today IGT offers wide-area progressives on a variety of games, including Wheel of Fortune, Elvis, the Beverly Hillbillies and Uno video slots. And you can find wide-areas through most of the nation, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Michigan and Oklahoma in the Midwest. The exceptions are Illinois and Indiana, where it is illegal to link jackpots in different casinos. Capitalizing on the innovations of others? The prime example is Wheel of Fortune. The prize wheel rising atop slot machines was devised by Anchor Gaming in the mid-1990s. The wheel originally was an add-on to standard slant-top slot machines by other manufacturers, the Bally game Wheel of Gold at first. When the prize wheel symbol landed on the payline, a tone would sound, and it seemed there was magic. When that tone sounded, signaling the player to push a button to start the wheel spinning, it seemed the world would stop. Other players at the bank of machines would pause and watch. Passers-by would stop in their tracks to see what was going on. Wheel of Gold caught EVERYBODY’S attention, not least of all IGT’s. This was an innovation they could run with, and they did. IGT licensed the wheel, then licensed rights to a TV game show favorite, morphed the two together and voila! Wheel of Fortune was born for its continuing run as America’s favorite slot game. Another innovation by others that IGT went on to make its own: Triple Play Poker. The game in which we start with one five-card hand, decide which cards to hold, then have our draws played out three separate times from cloned decks was devised by Anchor Gaming’s Ernest Moody. With IGT having been the video poker king right from the beginning, it’s only natural that’s where Triple Play should wind up. IGT took the concept and went to town, also marketing further Action video poker wrinkles including Five Play, Ten Play, Fifty Play, Hundred Play and Spin Poker. Leading Edge Design got in on the act with its own video poker innovation, Multi Strike Poker. A winner or free pass on Hand No. 1 earns the player a second hand worth double payoffs, which can bring a third worth 4x payoffs, which can bring a fourth worth 8x payoffs. A quarter player making a maximum 20-coin bet could draw a royal flush worth $8,000 on the top hand. The natural home for the innovation: IGT, which has continued to work with Leading Edge on further versions of Multi Strike, including taking the concept beyond video poker and onto video slots. Among the latest IGT innovations is REELdepth with MLD — for Multi-Layer Display — technology licensed from the California firm PureDepth. MLD has a number of potential applications in medical, financial and entertainment worlds, but the piece IGT is concerned with is innovating with three-dimensional images on slot machines. MLD uses layered video screens to create a 3D effect without special glasses. For IGT, that means it can give the illusion of spinning reels on a video game, or create the illusion of a hawk or butterfly flying practically out of the screen, right toward you in video bonus type games. “We think we’ve hit a home run with MLD,” says Ryan Griffin, product manager of standard products at IGT, who points to the three-reel game Diamond Fire. “Listen to the clicks. It sounds like a stepper slot. Feel the vibrations on the button panel. It has sounds and feels like a stepper slot.” That gives IGT all kinds of flexibility for further innovation. With REELdepth, IGT can put reel-spinning-type games on the same multi-game machine as video-type games. Three-reel games with four-reel games, with five-reel games. Let the player decide. It’s also an innovation that gives IGT’s systems people room for extra innovation as they prepare for a transition to server-based gaming. One of the features IGT has been showing on its server-based prototypes the last couple of years is called the Service Window. Video reels can be compressed as a length-of-the-screen touch screen opens to allow instant communication between casino and customer. You can redeem points, make show or dinner reservations or call for an attendant. Or the casino can communicate with you to make special offers. If a check of sales shows empty seats for that evening’s show, the casino can use the service window to offer you a show comp on the spot. Instant two-way communication. At first, IGT struggled with how to bring the Service Window and other server-based applications to reel-spinning games. REELdepth changes that. “What’s really interesting to me is the convergence with the MLD, our REELdepth product,” said Javier Saenz, vice president of product and marketing. “We take a spinning reel type game and open the service window, and the game scoots out of the way and you can interact with the touch screen. It’s just amazing to watch reels move.” When even the innovators are amazed, you know there are more innovations ahead. WMS GAMING It was the mid-1990s, and WMS was starting to make an impact with one of its earliest innovations: the Dotmation screen, which was placed atop three-reel slots for bonus play. The big initial Dotmation hit was Piggy Bankin.’ As you played, coins were added to a piggy bank, depicted in orange dots on the top screen, with the amount of your potential bonus written on the pig’s side. When the Break the Bank symbol landed on the payline, a hammer animated on the screen would bust open the piggy, coins would fly out and you’d collect the amount that had been displayed. A follow-up game, Jackpot Party, was carving out a niche. It was another three-reel slot, and when three noisemaker symbols turned up, a cry of “Jackpot Party!” would sound, disco music would play, and a grid of orange Dotmation squares would appear on the top box. The player would use a button on the machine to stop at squares, opening them to reveal either a bonus amount or a “pooper” that would end the round. It was fun, innovative, and short-lived. WMS was found to be in violation of IGT’s Telnaes patent for mapping a virtual reel and using a random number generator to determine outcome. WMS was issued a cease and desist order for further distribution. That was eventually sorted out by WMS paying IGT a licensing fee, but WMS had an ace up its sleeve. The company had taken note at the popularity of new video games, especially from Aristocrat, in Australia and the Pacific Rim, and was sure it could adapt that to a format that would attract American players. The result was Reel ‘em In!, not the first video slot, and not even the first video slot with a bonus event, but the first to become a megahit among American players. The Reel ’em In! format was classic, one that proved a template for WMS success to come. It was and is a five-reel video slot game, with fishing-related symbols on the reels. The first release had five paylines — three across the reels, a V and an inverted V. Three scattered fishing lures triggered the bonus event. Video reels were replaced by a scene of five fishermen on a pond, and the player would select one to reel in the prize, the bigger the fish, the bigger the bonus. WMS was confident the game would be a success, but the size of its popularity caught other manufacturers by surprise, and they scrambled to get in on the sudden video madness. Casino execs had been sure video gaming was going to take an expanded role beyond video poker, but the early favorite as a template for American video success was Silicon Gaming, with its elongated video screen and high technology, using a hard drive instead of the microchips that were driving slot machines. But WMS’ early releases were much less expensive than Silicon’s, and the players seemed to be having more fun. Silicon’s early quarter games drew more play than casino averages, but Reel ‘em In! far outperformed Silicon’s games, even though the WMS videos were nickel games. It’s hard to pin a revolution down to just one moment, but Reel ’em In! no doubt was a turning point for video slots, a cornerstone for WMS. Reel ’em In! has remained a key component of success for WMS, which has returned to the theme in several different formats, including the new Community Gaming version Reel ’em In: Compete to Win, in the last decade-plus. For that matter, the reel-spinning innovations have remained important to WMS, too, with the pig theme introduced in Piggy Bankin’ returning in the early video slot Filthy Rich and again recently in the Community Gaming slot Bigger Bang Big Event. From those 1990s innovations, WMS has built a company that takes pride in innovating, and which has taken a big step ahead in the last couple of years with what it calls its Tri-Innovations: Community Gaming, Sensory Immersion Gaming and Transmissive Reels Gaming. “If you recall back in October 2006, we launched our Tri- Innovations, which consisted of Community Gaming, Sensory Immersion Gaming, and Transmissive Reels,” said marketing vice president Rob Bone. “Each of those categories have seen multiple themes and multiple executions, so we’re on our ninth Transmissive Reels, we’re on our sixth Community Gaming, we’re on our fifth Sensory Immersion. We’re going to continue to innovate, and while others may talk about Community Gaming, we’re on Community Gaming 2.0, the next gen version. We’re defining how networked gaming is going to unfold. And the key soundbite is we’re doing it one step at a time. Product by product and bank by bank.” First of the Transmissive Reels games was Monopoly Super Money Grab, a reel-spinning game with an eye-catching difference. A video image can be transmitted onto the glass in front of the physical reels. While the reels are spinning, Mr. Monopoly can be walking his dog down the Boardwalk on the screen. And in a bonus event, the reels can be darkened, and the entire front glass used as a video screen. The concept has been used again and again in the last couple of years, including in the pig-themed Bigger Bang Big Event, where pigs can squeal right from an overhead display onto the glass on individual games, surrounding the reels, creating wild symbols, adding bonuses and whipping up creative fun. Community Gaming, where players get a chance to go to bonus rounds together, is an innovation that makes playing the slots a more social experience. First in the series was Monopoly Big Event, with five potential community bonuses, including a trip around a giant Monopoly board and a whole bank full of players rooting for the dice to take them all to the Boardwalk. It’s a versatile theme, with room for competitive community bonuses as in Reel ‘em In: Compete to Win, where everyone is hoping to be the one to land the biggest fish. Sensory Immersion Gaming, with special chairs equipped with Bose speakers for a full sensory experience, began with the thrills of being in the cockpit, shooting down bonuses in Top Gun. From there, it went to a journey through a storyline in the Wizard of Oz, and is continuing along the same lines with a thrill-seeking Dirty Harry game and the story line of Time Machine. Those are some pretty hefty innovations, but WMS isn’t stopping to consolidate. “Wizard of Oz and Sensory Immersion have been a huge success for us. Transmissive and Community games have shown some of the best performance our company has ever seen,” Bone said. “So whereas we hoped one or two of them would work, it’s clear to us that all three have worked., and now we’re commercializing Adaptive Gaming.” Yes, Adaptive Gaming is yet another innovation, one that can draw on the Tri-Innovations along with giving players a chance to adapt games to the way they want to play. The first in the Adaptive Gaming line is Star Trek, with a fourth theme, The Enterprise Incident, soon to be added to the initial release with “Trek Through Time,” “The Trouble With Tribbles” and “Explore New Worlds.” As you play one game, Star Trek-themed bonus rounds allow you to earn Federation medals toward unlocking the next game. And if you’ve already unlocked The Trouble With Tribbles, or are part way toward earning the next game, you don’t have to start from scratch next time you play. WMS’ WAGE-NET wide-area network can remember an identity you create, allowing you to pick up where you left off by logging back in, even at a different casino. Innovative? Sure, but just a beginning. That’s one thing about innovations. They unlock doors and point the way to still more innovation. — John Grochowski is the author of The Casino Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book, The Video Poker Answer Book and the Craps Answer Book, available through Bonus Books, Inc. at (800) 225-3775.