G2E 2016 Preview - 8 - Aristocrat

Aristocrat Technologies
Booth  1141

My husband and I play a lot of Aristocrat games. We like the old Legacy games in the cabinets that let us choose to play either an old favorite or an updated revision: the Timberwolf Games, Five Dragons, Wicked Winnings II or IV, and on and on. We like to revisit our old favorites, games we played five or six or even more years ago - so many titles to choose from, so much fun to play,  and most still in the casinos we visit.  But we don't just play the old familiar titles from years ago. We also like the newer games from Buffalo Gold to Brittany to Big Bang Theory. With Aristocrat there is no limit of games we like to play.  

Aristocrat ranks number three in the North American market now and aspires to climb even higher. To reach that goal, they are testing some new design concepts that they claim really stand out.  The first, called the Flame, is a completely new take on the curved-monitor cabinet. There are actually two curves in the format. The vertical monitor is formed in the shape of an S with the bottom and top monitor both tilted toward the player. YouTube videographers will probably hate it.  

The second, unnamed at press time for Global Gaming Business Magazine, the source of most of this information, is a shorter and wider version of the Arc Double - optimized for a single player, but large enough that two players could play at once. The new cabinet is equipped with a "sound bench"  and an optional set-up with two buttons will be launched at the show. It will contain a new version of Game of Thrones and also with a game featuring Mariah Carey and her music.

Pop culture and razzle-dazzle will abound.  Besides old favorites, Aristocrat is showing a bevy of new games based on films, music, television, and other aspects of pop culture.  Aristocrat broke the mold when it introduced The Walking Dead. The game was a trend setter opening the entire industry to a whole new group of licensed brands: Tarzan, The Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead 2. This coming year you can expect to see more of these licensed slots. My Cousin Vinny, based on the 1992 comedy, is expected to appeal to the film's cult following.  Another film being brought to life on the Arc Double is the Big Lebowski, a 1998 comedy about a laid back aging LA hippie and avid bowler, another film with a cult following.

Other branded titles include Sharknado, based on the TV disaster film series, Downton Abbey a British TV hit that was previewed last year at G2E and has been refined and is ready to release, and Tim McGraw with country songs that hopefully will not cause copyright problems for the YouTube filmers.

We're all familiar with Progressive slots, especially the ones with the large million dollar payouts. Aristocrat is bringing out Fast Cash, a quick-hitting multi-site progressive. Most MultiStateProgressives have million dollar + jackpots that hardly ever hit.  Fast Cash will have an average jackpot of $40,000, and the company says it will hit every two or three days -- a very different concept than most MSP games.

For you Class II slot players, Aristocrat's core video games will be joined by Aristocrat's first line of stepper slots made possible by the company's acquisition of Tennessee based Class II supplier Video Gaming Technologies (VGT).

A final note about a series of my favorite Aristocrat games in recent months: the  Lightning Link progressive games.  These Class III games are designed for players who enjoy frequent jackpots. Available on the technologically advanced Helix cabinet, you may have played one of the four versions of the game in casinos this past year:  Magic Pearl, Happy Lantern, High Stakes, and Sahara Gold. Each has player selectable denominations, 1 cent or 2 cent for a 50 line game and 5 cents or 10 cents for a 25-line game.  Bonuses are proportional to the denomination, but progressive jackpots remain the same.

What you might not know is that there are not 4 Lightning Link games - there are 8.  Two of them are at Harrah's SoCal (Rincon) and recently at Pala: Moon Race with a space theme and Best Bet with a theme of horse racing.  The other two I have not seen, but I feel they are being tested somewhere: Tiki Fire and Heart Throb.  I'm hoping they will be at Aristocrat's booth for us all to see.  

G2E 2015: Aristocrat Highlights

I am excited to see all the new games from G2E showing up on YouTube this week. I can hardly wait until they show up in our casinos as well. I shared some of the Scientific Games films made by  Random $$ Slots, Brent’s Lucky (& Gay) Slot Channel, and Dianaevoni here a few days ago. Today I’m going to give you a taste of what Aristocrat has in store for us in the near future. But first I want to give you some links to some great slot channels where you can find these games for yourself as they are posted onYouTube. New games are being added daily, so you’ll want to check back often. 

If you’ve been following these filmers, you know they have different styles of presenting their films. Some film without speaking at all, but give you a lot of information in the printed narrative to explain what is going on. Some chat about the games as they play, sharing what’s going on with their friends. Most watch their language so as not to offend their viewers, but a few - and you know who I mean - frequently drop the f-bomb and other expletives which not everyone finds entertaining. I’ve included them for those who enjoy that humor. If you have films of G2E, and you are not on this list, I’m sorry. I did the best I could. If I didn’t know about your videos so I could include you, send me a message with your information, and I will edit the list. Here are the good ones I know about. Click on the filmer's name to go to his play list.

Dianaevoni

Brent’s Lucky (& Gay) slot channel

Random $$ Slots

Shamus of Slots

CT Slotters

SDGuy1234

There are a few things to look for as you watch the games. Here’s the most exciting special feature I know about. SDGuy has a role in the new Walking Dead slot! He’s one of the pick-em characters for the bonus. The film below is the one from Shamus, but you can also hear Brent point out SDGuy’s role in the game in his video too.

Brent has a lot of games to show you, but I’ve chosen to include his Elvira because he seems to enjoy pointing out certain aspects of her anatomy so much.

Game of Thrones is one of my favorite TV shows and series of fantasy novels.  You can watch it as filmed by one of my favorite videographers: Random $$ Slots, who I suspect has never seen the show at all.

The final film is by CT Slotters. This is the first of their films I have ever watched, and I’ve chosen Miss Kitty Gold for their initial view. They have other good films on their link that you can watch also. I received a recommendation from a viewer a few hours ago that Dianaevoni's Miss Kitty film is also fun to watch.

I can’t show it all. There are Aristocrat games that aren’t on the list, but you can find and watch at the six sites I gave you earlier…Downton Abbey, Ted,  A Christmas Story to name a few. Don’t forget to check back with the gamers above as they add more videos for you to watch. Enjoy!


UPDATE: Saturday night, October 10. Miss Kitty Gold.  I'm not a slot fanatic, but I like to read slot fanatic threads now and then. Tonight I was browsing on their site and found a thread started by LVLADYGAMBLER called Miss Kitty...the sequel?? Let me quote it to you. "Hello my Slot Fanatics friends, We are tossing around some game ideas over here for making new versions of classic Aristocrat titles. Miss Kitty came up. Because I love her, I thought I would pose a couple of questions and get some additional slot player feedback. If you play Miss Kitty, what do you like about the game? What would you like to see in a Miss Kitty II game? Thanks."  She signed her post Veronica, Aristocrat Marketing Department & mini-slot fanatic.

Veronica got a lot of replies to her question. The one I found particularly interesting was posted 6/10/2014, 12:10 AM and was written by slot fanatic and YouTuber DProxima. I'm sure all of you have enjoyed his posts. Here's what he told the lady from Aristocrat over a year ago.

"I love the sticky wilds, but would love a game where if another lands on an already stuck wild, it multiplies the wild - essentially adding a multiplier. This can repeat too ideally with no end. Of course your spins are limited but perhaps when a multiplier is given, it adds an additional spin too. Yes, more volatility, but that's why I enjoy many of your games."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it. Sounds like Miss Kitty Gold, doesn't it?I wonder if DProxima remembers giving Aristocrat the idea for the new Miss Kitty Gold slot? Someone really should ask him.

G2E Preview - Part 3: Aristocrat/VGT

I live in Southern California, where real buffalo still roam on the grounds of some of the reservations where our NA casinos are located. And every year in SoCal, between April 1 and May 15, readers of the SoCal Gaming Guide cast their ballots for the 2015 Reader’s Choice of the best NA casino and best slots to play there. Barona, naturally, was voted everyone’s favorite casino. 

And, this year, the overwhelming favorite for the best slot company, taking first place in eleven of fifteen categories, was Aristocrat. The company’s Buffalo Stampede topped the competition for the best video slot, the best bonus round, the luckiest slot, the best slot graphics, and the best penny slot. Another Aristocrat title was a big winner. The Walking Dead was named to the list of top three in the categories of Best Video Slot, Best Progressive Slot, Best Video Bonus Round, and Best Slot Graphics. Aristocrat’s CanCan de Paris and Mr. Cashman were also winners in the Best Penny Slots and Best Classic Slots, respectively.  A great win for the Aussies

Aristocrat will be sharing a booth this year at G2E with Video Gaming Technologies which it acquired in October, 2014. In our third installment of G2E, let’s take a look at what these two companies will be showcasing for us if we attend G2E in Las Vegas at the end of the month. 

Aristocrat/VGT

aristocrat-us.com

G2E Booth #1141

If any slot manufacturer could be said to be trying to have something for everyone, it is Aristocrat. The Australian company, whose history we covered in part 2 along with Ainsworth, offers games for every type of player. Players who prefer more of an entertainment experience. Players who love the thrill of frequent jackpots. People who love progressives - yes, IGT has some competition! Players who want an immersive experience with their favorite movie or TV characters. Players who love the old core games and Mr. Cashman’s surprise appearances. Aristocrat has something for them all according to their press releases.

Many of the games highlighted in recent press releases are games we have already seen on our casino floors this summer. Some of them are games I wrote about last fall. At G2E this year Aristocrat is showcasing its new gaming hardware. They’ll present the ginormous Behemoth cabinet housing Buffalo Stampede. And they’ll show us their Arc Double Cabinet housing entertainment themes such as Britney Spears and the Big Bang Theory. You can already enjoy these games in many casinos and on YouTube videos. These recent releases will soon be followed by other games based on licensed brands. They include Buffalo Grand, the latest version of the Buffalo game, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and the holiday favorite A Christmas Story.

One new Aristocrat offering that you may find interesting is Lightning Link or Lightning Cash. These are Aristocrat’s very first Linked and Stand-alone Progressive games to feature selectable multi-denominations. Players select either 1 cent or 2 cents for a 50 line game (500 credit max bet), or 5 cents or 10 cents for a 25-line game (250 credits max bet). The progressive jackpot is the same whichever denomination you choose, but the bonuses are proportional to the denomination. There are four fun titles to choose from: Happy Lantern, High Stakes, Magic Pearl, and Sahara Gold.  News releases say the games are designed for players who enjoy frequent jackpots, and a medium-high volatility range.

Other items to look for are Cashman Fever II and Cashman Takes Flight, 5 level progressives based on Buffalo and Five Dragons. Superman the Movie, Sons of Anarchy, and Can-Can Paris have already made it to the casinos. Ted, based on Seth McFarland’s raunchy 2012 comedy about a living adult teddy bear might show his face any time.

A lot of what Aristocrat brings to G2E this year is for the casinos, not their players, and is called Oasis 360 system. This is a system to keep casino operators connected to their customers on property and off. It allows casinos to track customer behavior when they patronize affiliates and strategic partners, empowering them with crucial data to meaningfully reward customers. 

I’m not sure I like this. I don’t like being tracked. I hope it doesn’t mean any more than modifying the Total Rewards system to allow tracking Caesar’s play at Harrah’s would. Those of you attending G2E should try to find out more for me. 

The system’s ONE LINK technology works on any suppliers system. It allows operators to centrally configure, manage, and display table signage. It provides flexible slot bouncing including mystery bonuses, magic-hour bonuses, and Hot Hand Bonus Poker. I don’t know what any of that is - and it probably doesn’t mean anything to most of us players -  but the casino operators will probably think it’s great.

HALO is another offering for the casinos that will let them manage their customer loyalty programs. They will be able to easily manage tier promotion and demotion, and it will allow staff to take the player’s club to the casino floor to reprint cards, issue comps, add comps, enroll new players and more.

Aristocrat will also be showing their new beverage ordering system, Drinks on Tap. This system will allow players to order and pay for drinks from their electronic gaming machines (EGM) and will let you even add a tip.

MOBILE CONCIERGE is Aristocrats fancy name for its new mobile app which appears to me to be just another way to send the promotional material they now send us through the US Postal Service mail or our computer’s email to our phones as well.  As I said, a lot of what Aristocrat is showing off this year is for the casino, not for the player.

The big news for Aristocrat this past year was its acquisition of VGT, Video Gaming Technologies. VGT was founded in 1991 and was acquired October 20, 2014 by Aristocrat for $1.3 billion. VGT is headquartered in Franklin, TN, and its game design studio is in Reno, NV. It has won awards as the #1 provider of Class II gaming machines in the US, and is the #2 lessor of gaming machines to Native American tribes.

Before acquiring VGT, Aristocrat had no Class II presence, so acquiring the company with its market-leading footprint in Oklahoma made a lot of sense. There are opportunities for Aristocrat to take VGT’s mechanical reel expertise and apply that in a Class III market. There is an opportunity for VGT to take some Aristocrat content and place it into the Oklahoma market. 

The companies are very complementary, very synergistic. VGT leads in Class II gaming. Aristocrat wasn’t in Class II at all. VGT leads the stepper segment of the market. VGT has had a challenging time developing successful video product. VGT has wanted to do a wide-area progressive (WAP) for some time, but the technology was beyond them. Aristocrat happened to have a WAP which they quickly put together. A win-win for both companies. VGT recently premiered its wide area progressive, Easy Money Jackpot, which includes Mr. Money Bags, Hot Red Ruby, and Lucky Ducky titles. They have big hopes for the progressive market.

Some of the innovations new to the US were tested in Australia earlier. The Lightning Link stand-alone progressive jackpot game was big in the Australian market about three years ago for example. The company has great hopes for that game’s success. One of the keys to the progressive game's success is its ability to effectively merchandize and attract play, according to developers. “You’re taking some of the big pays out of the pay table and you’re displaying them in a progressive jackpot so players can see where the money’s at. These certain jackpots will get high and players will start playing them.” 

Like the lottery, I guess, when the jackpot gets high and people who normally don’t buy a ticket, decide to take a chance.  Does that increase MY chances of winning? What do you think?

Stay turned. In a few more days, we’ll look at what we can expect from another one of the companies that we count on to entertain us. I wonder which it will be.