Server-Based Gaming: A system that provides for the high-speed delivery of game content, game configurations, and direct player marketing. The downloaded game content is played on the machine and the result is determined by the machine. The system may also allow for the downloading of software updates, such as customer notifications, and also can be used to update peripheral software like bill acceptors, ticket printers, etc.
— Source: IGT.com Slot Glossary
Server-Based Gaming 1.0
“What is server-based gaming?” I’ve read definitions like the comprehensive one shown above on IGT’s website, and for a few years I was certain that I knew what it all meant, but today you might as well ask me, “What is the meaning of life?” It was at a G2E Exposition that seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when vendors first hinted at a world where revenue yields would be automated. This would be a place where weekends would bring a floor magically transformed into a mix of high-win-per-unit games that tourists couldn’t resist. This same nirvana, come Sunday evening, would look to an auto-scheduler to morph the entire lot of machines back into a sea of maximum seat-time devices in low denominations that locals couldn’t resist. If that weren’t enough, this amazing shift in matching the games to the guests would occur without a single penny being spent on conversions, tech time or regulatory compliance agents (and error-free setup to boot). It would be a dream come true… and it was just around the corner: “Do you want to see a demo?”
I think that was also the first year, of several years to follow, that the demo didn’t quite work right. Not to worry, the engineers said, “We’ll solve those speed issues next month.” Another promise was that the regulators would quickly adopt this technology since the software was controlled in just one place and featured a hacker-proof audit trail. The last tempting morsel was that this technology would virtually assure that the then-proposed GSA tech standards would be rushed into reality since this was the killer app that would finally put some steam behind the standards.
When I rushed back to Southern California to share the magic I’d seen in Las Vegas, my co-workers gave me a strange look. Since they hadn’t seen this remarkable vision in the desert, they simply pointed to the hundreds of Class II machines scattered about and said, “Aren’t these server-based games?” I stammered and said, “Yes, but they’re not downloadable server-based games.” They countered with, “Yes they are.” And thus began that first year which I now call the “year of definitions.”
It seemed that every slot tech seminar spent half the allotted time just defining the words that would be used in the second half of the meeting. I think it was GLI’s James Maida who first managed to reduce one of the basic arguments from 30 minutes to 30 seconds by simply saying, “If you cut the cable and the game works, it’s ‘downloadable’; if it doesn’t, it’s ‘server-based’.”
Server-Based Gaming 2.0
At that moment he invented the concept of TTFNP (Translating Technology For Normal People). James had been making a living doing this for some time, but server-based gaming now guaranteed that he, and others with his skills, would make a bundle writing and lecturing about this stuff for years to come to bewildered regulators, patent attorneys and advertising executives.
By the following year’s G2E, some heretics were asking disturbing questions like, “Do players really want this?” These people were quickly silenced and isolated like protesters at the Beijing Olympics. The marketing folks countered with a powerful new analogy: “We’ll use this just like Amazon.com does with their readers. Imagine tempting players with, ‘If you like Cleopatra, you’ll really love Queen of the Nile.’” Again, this was another dream come true. And don’t worry, we’ll solve the speed issue next month, they promise again.
This concept of a slot machine as a jukebox seemed perfect. It would be the ultimate multi-game, multi-denomination machine. No one even questioned that existing multi-game, multi-denom games had never really topped anybody’s performance spreadsheet. Would this distinction really work better if it were simply faster and richer in content, or would it be like speeding up when you’re lost?
Then there was that speed issue, the one they’ll solve next month. Most of us now realize that “speed” and “gaming regulators” are seldom mentioned in the same sentence. Operators were looking to change a game in the blink of an eye; regulators thought something like 24 hours might be too hasty. Progress has been made on this issue, but there remain more than a few minutes separating these two groups today.
This period, about three years ago, was the most frustrating. You told every writer or financial analyst who called that you were looking forward to server-based (SB) slots, but secretly you had no idea why. You knew that your casino floor was years away from accommodating USB, Ethernet and XML; GSA standards were coming, but your current machines were not even running the latest version of SAS. And was there really any reason to suggest adding SB hardware to your capital budget when there was no definable ROI? It was acronym hell!
Those were the darkest days, but the dawn now seems to be coming. If you buy any standard machine today, it probably has a split SB personality. Displays are flexible, USB ports are hidden on the motherboards, and for just an extra hundred thousand dollars, your system provider will upgrade you to be completely compatible with SB games and features. While that sounds negative, it’s not.
During all that confusion, several folks were using the building blocks of SB machines to make some real progress on those games and features that players may actually want to play tomorrow. Communal bonuses, through apps like WMS’ WAGE-NETTM, Bally’s Networked Floor of the FutureTM and IGT’s sbTM Products, offer some real promise. Server-based potentials did actually provide the major economic spark that helped solidify adoption of GSA standards. Did you ever think you’d see an IGT system hosting a WMS game or a Bally system providing the backbone for an Aristocrat game? It’s happening now, and SB is the reason.
Server-Based Gaming 3.0
The model followed by the early automated slot systems is worth noting. They began as simple technology-based accounting applications, but later found wide acceptance as revenue-generating marketing solutions. Server-based slots seem to be headed in the same direction. Upgrades, software revisions and perhaps yield management may be some of the side benefits to SB, but it is the marketing features that offer the real promise. A fully deployed SB system could do for slot players what the iPhone is doing for mobile data. Show reservations, slot locators, shared bonuses, casino-wide progressives, demographically controlled pay tables, e-mail links, and a network of outside providers selling casino space are just some of the promises waiting to be fulfilled. All we need is that speed improvement that’s coming next month.
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