Casino Enterprise Management

If there’s one thing WMS President Orrin Edidin wants casino operators to know, it’s that WMS is still all about the games. “I want to talk about the games. I want to talk about the specific portal applications that allow personal player recognition and customize the experience for the players,” he says.

All of the recent talk throughout the industry of networked gaming and technology may have muddied the waters. Edidin says: “Networked gaming is only relevant insofar as its ability to deliver the product. The product is not networked gaming. The product is the application.” The games and applications WMS offers are what company leaders believe will set them apart from the competition by increasing coin-in and responding to operators’ needs.

Passionately, Edidin said he wants operators to know, “Networked gaming is simply the vehicle through which these games are delivered.” And WMS is excited to help operators take advantage of the vehicle, which many of them are already capable of enjoying, without hefty additional financial investments. Edidin explains, “In large part, our customers have already made these investments by purchasing WMS products that currently support network-enabled games and applications.”

Edidin also wants operators to know he believes it is the responsibility of WMS to ensure that a customer placement of networked games happens effortlessly, seamlessly and without risk to operators. It’s part of the company’s goal to be a trusted partner. “In fact, WMS will shoulder the efforts and risks of floor placements to prove to the customers that the technologies are simply enablers that deliver higher earning products to the casino floor.” WMS has networked gaming technical office teams in the field that work with operators to ensure a smooth installation and to make the process as easy as possible.

Larry Pacey, executive vice president, global products and chief innovation officer, explains from his point of view. “Networked gaming should be completely transparent and an afterthought to the operators … it’s about the game that it’s going to enable. Our focus is on the player experience and how are we going to customize the player’s experience in a game, how we can recognize their status in achievements both in the casino and through a social network environment. That’s what’s really cool. That’s what we’re selling.”

WAGE-NET® Portal Applications
The power of networked gaming can be seen in WAGE-NET, the WMS Wide Area Game Enhanced Network, which includes Player’s Life® Web Services, GamEdge, FreedomPort and an innovative set of portal applications, which are now being approved and placed on casino floors. These include the Ultra Hit Progressive® (UHP) Jackpot Explosion® and Piggy Bankin’® themes, and Winner’s Share™ Peng-Wins™, all of which are available now. Future portal application products include Mega Multiplier® Super Shot™ and Metascreen™ Pirate Battle®.

Portal applications allow operators to mix and match games, offering a tailor-made solution. Pacey says these applications help operators do what they’d been asking WMS to help them with: increase coin-in, differentiate themselves from other properties and increase efficiency.

Phil Gelber, senior vice president of product development, explains the power of portal applications from a player’s point of view. He uses the example of a player who loves the game Zeus, but after a while just gets tired of it. Now, that player can play Zeus with Jackpot Explosion, and three months later when they come back, they can play Zeus with Pirate Battle while keeping the same core experience they love. Gelber says, “We kind of call it the Garanimals of slot machines—just giving the operator more flexibility to create more interesting floors without having to constantly upgrade themes.”

Laurie Lasseter, senior vice president of engineering and chief technology officer, says the power of portal applications is this mixing and matching. She adds, “Most of the base games that we’re developing now are portal-ready and will run with any of the portal applications that we’re launching.”

Edidin wants operators to understand that portal applications are simply another product WMS is offering to operators, which enhance the base themes by creating a second dynamic game. Portal applications are available today and can be implemented on a bank-by-bank basis.

Several locations have been running the UHP portal applications for more than a year and early results have shown that the products experienced an average 30 percent to 40 percent increase in coin-in compared to the games without UHP.

Edidin says portal applications will give operators the flexibility to leverage their current investment like never before. “We have many months of uninterrupted performance and thousands of game days of metrics that prove out the significantly increased coin-in on the games that are running with these types of applications.”

Edidin says WMS is going to keep evolving the customization and personalization aspect of the applications created. “That is what the customer expects,” he adds. “That is the future of gaming—available today, approved today and ready to go.”

Gelber adds, “It’s really a product that takes advantage of all the plumbing that networked gaming gives.” UHP is a mystery-triggered, multi-level progressive. It combines the base game paytable with the UHP paytable to determine the game’s ultimate return. When players are enjoying their base game on the machine, they are automatically eligible for the UHP awards.

Operators have reported a significant lift in performance on the UHP- enabled games. Mark Pace, vice president, network gaming engineering, says: “While many still think that networked gaming is a future event, at WMS we have proven that it is here and now. In early deployments, we had operators install our first networked game enablement product Ultra-Hit Progressive on a set of EGMs identical to others they had on their floor to see what the outcome would be. Operators are excited about the sustained performance lift.” 

Cynthia Hays, senior director, network gaming technical operations, reports that customers appreciated the WMS collaborative approach. “By working with regulators to help them understand the technology and adopt standards to allow it was above and beyond their expectations and in their words ‘invaluable.’ This approach makes both our customers’ and their regulators’ jobs and adoption of networked gaming much easier.”

Edidin says the product allows him to give operators an example of the benefits networked gaming provides. He says: “When you try to explain it, all they hear is ‘networked gaming. Oh no, I can’t do that. I can’t afford that.’ So we say, ‘OK, forget about all that noise. Look at this product—the Ultra Hit Progressive. It’s going to increase the coin-in on your game by 35 percent for months and months for a sustained period of time. What do you think of that?’ ‘Oh I like that; I’ve got to have that.’ ”

Lasseter adds UHP is just scratching the surface of what the technology will do for game play. Networked games will continue to leverage the ability to move data around the floor. “It will be used to enhance players’ excitement about things that might be going on elsewhere on the floor, and really capitalize on the network and using floor-wide information to provide customized experiences, tournament-type experiences, and player collaborative experiences,” Lasseter explains. “The premium performance speaks for itself.” 

Player’s Life Web Services
Portal applications are just one network solution WMS offers. Player’s Life Web Services offers operators strategies and solutions to bring the casino experience to players at any location.  Players can save their place in a game to pick up later and earn achievements outside of the casino to be redeemed when they return. This is already available with The Lord of the Rings™, which is currently on casino floors.

Introduced as a pilot program, Lord of the Rings uses the WMS Player’s Life platform and was hatched from ideas first introduced in Star Trek™. Gelber says, “Player’s Life has been a bit misunderstood, but it’s really about creating the games, making them stickier.”

Pacey says Player’s Life is now taking off. “What the customers are going to see as this product is leveraged more and more across our portfolio is that it’s a powerful tool for the operator to really communicate to their players and to really touch their players in a way they’ve never done before.”

Player’s Life has evolved into a powerful business-to-business offering from WMS. It is a new marketing tool for operators. WMS is helping operators bring the services to their own website so a player can visit them directly and play, view leader boards, unlock features and check on and share trophies and accomplishments.

Edidin says Player’s Life results from the company’s early acknowledgement that social networking is here to stay. “Four or five years ago, we saw that as an indispensible element of our product road map,” he says. “This is going to be the source from where players are going to be recruited—the source from where operators are going to market to their current players.” Edidin shares that as Facebook was beginning to become more popular, WMS already had Player’s Life in development.

This move into social networking is one way WMS is staying contemporary with modern trends so that players don’t take their entertainment dollars elsewhere. Gelber says: “The worst thing that could happen is, with all the distractions out there, casino game patrons could get hooked on a free non-casino game online. And that’s the last thing we want, right? We want to keep them in that gaming mentality and bring them back to the casino to keep the industry going.”

As operators use the product, they’ll be able to capture player data and drive online players to the casino through targeted marketing efforts. Gelber explains:“There’s no actual value in the social network, maybe virtual value, but the actual value is only realized at the actual casino. You can reward them through Player’s Life.”

FreedomPort™

Another product WMS is working on that will soon become reality is called FreedomPort, which offers an on-screen user window designed to provide a more interactive player experience. BLUEBIRD2 and BLUEBIRD xD™ will both be capable of running FreedomPort in the future.

Gelber explains FreedomPort as the next generation of what portal applications are today. “The operator can run their marketing apps and we can run our game apps on the side as well,” he explains. “So it’s more of a plug-and-play architecture.”

Pacey says WMS heard from customers that they wanted a platform that could serve as a marketing tool and communications tool, allowing them to access different types of data and information. It starts with marketing tools connected to a CRM package that will allow information on a game screen to be highly tailored to a player’s preferences.  “There could be offers for amenities, accessing your status, comps, promotions, those kinds of tools,” Pacey expands. “Then there are product-level innovations, like accessing your status on Player’s Life.”

Technology, Game Development and Innovation
The WMS leaders all agree: WMS is not a technology company. WMS is a game and product company that uses technology as a vehicle to deliver a differentiating player experience that will bring players back time and time again. Games and technology develop side by side at WMS.

Ideas come from everywhere at WMS, Gelber says, which he believes is a great advantage. However, until technology is tied to a game, it doesn’t get any traction. He explains: “We just don’t make technology to make technology. It’s got to have a game; it’s got to have a hook. It’s got to have a reason that players are going to want to play it and, more importantly for the operators, it’s got to increase coin-in.”

Lasseter believes this mentality is something unique about WMS. “A lot of companies have a technology group that develops cool technology and then other groups in the company try to figure out how to use it. We don’t operate like that; we approach it from the opposite side. Our game developers are focused on compelling experiences they can give to the player. They figure that out, and then we ask, what kind of technology is it going to take to make that happen? Then we determine how to make the vehicle to fulfill their vision of the great game experience.”

An example Lasseter gives is the development of Transmissive Reels, which allows video to be played over the mechanical reels of a game. She recalls, “Of course our team, at first, said,  ‘Well, we don’t know how we could possibly build that.’ Fast forward a few years later and we’ve got it out on the floor and it’s an industry standard. It’s the way to make mechanical reels work in a networked gaming world.”  The Wizard of Oz™ Over the Rainbow™ is a 5-reel mechanical with a Transmissive Reels LCD screen and available in stand-alone and wide area progressive formats.

Pacey says the development of the Transmissive Reel shows that WMS is following a road map customers can count on. “These aren’t accidents. They’re not technology pieces that just came about. We didn’t just say, ‘Wow this is cool.’ There’s a reason why it exists—it’s a continuum in this long-term journey.” If a technological advancement meets the criteria, WMS will lead the way.

“My game designers at WMS are continuously challenged to create the next big idea—the must-play game that will exceed players’ expectations. Designers love that challenge,” Bradley Rose, executive director, game development, said. “It was their relentless pursuit of a groundbreaking experience that created the first Big Event community gaming. Past successes aren’t enough; they are always pushing each other and exploring new ways to excite the player.”

In order to provide its customers with a future-ready product, WMS believes it is responsible for building for the future. “Innovation leadership is not the goal,” Pacey explains. “The goal is really to be a better partner. We want to be a trusted partner that operators know they can look to—that we have their backs. We’re building something that’s ready for tomorrow.” Company leaders can also be confident that WMS will create games that appeal to the players of today, while offering products that will create the next generation of casino patrons. ­

Edidin adds that innovation for the sake of innovation is not a business model. Edidin says the WMS leadership team decided in 2000, when Brian Gamache joined the company as president and COO (he currently is chairman and CEO) to allow players to drive innovation. “With that model, we stay ahead of the curve. It’s less predictable and it’s more difficult to manage, but I think we’ve proven that we’re pretty good at it.”

A Trusted Partner
Along with the need to innovate responsibly, to be a trusted partner, WMS is working to provide an open source solution. For example, while FreedomPort is not fully commercialized, the  company has already announced interoperability partnerships with IGT and Konami so that content can flow across their systems as well. It is also being designed so that third parties can develop applications to run on the platform.

Lasseter says this type of open development is for the operator. “If we provide a tool and it only works on our games, it’s of no benefit to the customer,” she says. “They need floor-wide solutions; they need flexible, open solutions that work on all manufacturers’ products. That’s always been our philosophy.”

Pacey says WMS believes the future is a true interoperable world where standards really are open, “and it is literally as easy as the operator choosing to put this type of content on the gaming device as they would put it on their website.”

WMS is also focused on preserving its customers’ investments by making sure the products operators buy today will support the new technologies and game play WMS is introducing tomorrow. “Gaming devices are not inexpensive,” Lasseter says. “We want them to be able to provide compelling experiences into the future.” For example, Lasseter says customers with the original BLUEBIRD® cabinet can upgrade to take advantage of FreedomPort, portal applications and more.

Edidin adds one more level of WMS responsibility to the customer. “Last but maybe foremost, is the responsibility to listen to our customers,” he says. “These are new frontiers.” WMS has made changes to its portal applications and Player’s Life in direct response to customer feedback received during pilot programs.

WMS also listens to players. It takes time to understand the player and use market research to exceed players’ gaming expectations. The findings are used to continuously improve WMS products.

Final Thoughts
WMS leaders are looking forward to helping operators discover the benefits of networked gaming as they start a revised conversation highlighting the money-making applications available today. Pacey says, “We don’t make a technology, we make an experience.”

Pacey believes the floor-wide adoption of networked gaming is a longer tale, but he’ll continue working in that direction. Pacey says WMS is on a journey that never ends. “We have that vision,” he says. “We’re providing those capabilities. So as they want to flip that switch as time goes on, they’re already ready. They’ve made the investment. That’s the benefit of having a casino-evolved vision—to have a vision of the future where these devices are networked. It’s bank by bank, product by product. Then, they’re going to realize, at some point, that they’re networked.”

Edidin says, just look at our company’s rich history, reputation and solid track record for consistently delivering great games. “We know what we’re doing here! We’ve delivered high-performing products consistently time after time. And now, we have the network-enabled tools to deliver and leverage game experience to entirely new levels.”





Sarah Klaphake Cords is the New Media Editor for Casino Enterprise Management. She can be reached at editor3[at]aceme.org.