While it may not seem obvious to someone who just got into the industry in the last 1-2 years, online casinos are changing all the time, adding new features, new games and new experiences to their repertoires in order to keep enticing new players. The changes are typically pretty gradual, only happening every few years when there’s a really major development, but they are inevitable – even top casino sites like this one get updated occasionally to reflect the newest online casino features. With that said, a very fair question to ask might be what does the future hold for us, online casino fans, exactly? Well, how about, just this once, we take out our roulette-wheel-shaped crystal ball (don’t ask how that works) and gaze deep into the future of online casino entertainment! What exciting new features are going to be expecting us in the next 10-15 years, and how will the casino landscape change in general? Let’s find out!
VR Games
VR is currently being The Next Big Thing™, with several companies, including, but not limited to, Sony, HTC, Facebook and Samsung developing their own virtual reality headsets. For those of you who don’t know, VR headsets are essentially huge devices that you place over your eyes which are designed to transport you into an alternate reality using immersive 3D technology. Its primary use is going to be gaming (that’s why Sony threw its hat into the ring and made a VR system exclusively for use with PlayStation 4), but there are going to be other uses for it too, such as fully immersive 360 degrees movies and videos. Can this technology be used for gambling, you ask? Definitely – in fact, prototypes are already being made! Last year, at the Global Gaming Awards, Microgaming snatched the award for Digital Innovation of the Year with a prototype for a VR roulette game, which means that plans are already being made to utilize VR technology for gambling. While VR headsets are currently too expensive and require too much power to operate, I expect that within the next 10-15 years they’ll become a lot more affordable and manageable. Now, do I think that all casino games will be played with a bulky headset on your head? No, obviously, but I think that in the near future it might become a market on par with mobile gambling.
More Variations on the Classics
Right now, most casinos tend to offer hundreds upon hundreds of slots… And not much else. I mean, for every version of blackjack available in your typical casino, there’s literally something like 50 slots. Considering the fact that slots are actually the most popular and most profitable game in online casinos, I think there’s a lesson to be learned here – people like variety. They don’t want to be stuck playing the exact same game over and over and over again. When we play slots, it’s easy to justify going back to them because every new slot provides a slightly different experience. But the differences between European and French roulette are marginal at best. Now, if there were more variants such as “Deal or No Deal Roulette” or “Marvel Roulette’, that would’ve actually been pretty fun. Don’t get me wrong – the classics are always great, and I do agree that they should be given special priority and always placed at the top in order to avoid drowning them in a sea of variants. But once people get sick of them, there’s only two things they can do – move on to something else or quit. And online casinos are going to want to do their best to make sure their players stick around. I believe that more variants of classic games are the most surefire way to do so!