The Australian trade is currently taking the lead in assessing the direction in which the gaming machine market will move over the next 10 years, citing technological evolution as the major driving force...

“It will be a revolution for the industry – probably within the next five years – but will only appear a moderate change to the player,” said Ross Ferrar, chief executive of the Australian trade association, AGMMA, who chaired a number of meetings on the subject with the seven major equipment suppliers to his own market.

The gaming machine industry in Australia sees a far closer relationship between the ‘street’ market and that in its 13 casinos.

The bulk of gaming machines in Australia (200,000) are used in private clubs, often but not always with a sporting interest.

They offer a gaming style and entertainment product similar to that of casinos and often with comparable rewards.

Development

The AGMMA ‘think tanks’ headed by Ferrar contain the top development brains contributed by the seven indigenous suppliers, Aristocrat, Ainsworth, Aruze, IGT Australia, Global Gaming Industries, Star Games and Konami.

“A few years ago it would have been unthinkable for representatives of these companies to sit around a table together, far less contribute their ideas on how the industry can react to what is happening in technology,” said Ferrar.

“But everyone recognises that there are major areas of development in which the only way forward for the industry is together.”

He cited several examples of co-operation between fierce competitors in the gaming machine market globally in recent years as evidence of this new ‘co-operation.’

Towards the end of 2006 the AGMMA board held discussions on the way forward for the industry and since then the committee representing the seven manufacturers has met several times.

“The board decided that any modern board of directors should be devoting one-third of its meeting time to strategic planning and that has driven this initiative.”

He said that the planning took the form of twin objectives, to identify the size, shape and trends within the industry in five and 10 years respectively, so that the industry could adequately prepare itself for the challenges ahead.

“What will happen in five years is probably 50 to 70 per cent visible on today’s horizon,” said Ferrar. “But beyond that we are perhaps moving into what some people might term fantasy. But there has to be some means of identifying the direction that today’s fast-moving technology will take.”

He added: “The motive for everyone at the meetings is to prepare themselves collectively to deliver a quality product to the players, but also to do so within the rules of integrity which apply to everyone within the industry today.”

Technology needs to change

Ferrar said that it quickly became clear that the current technological environment needed change.

In the last five years there had been a considerable amount of change undertaken at great speed.

“Technology is now changing on a two-year cycle; in five years’ time that cycle will be down to one year. The industry has to plan for the raw materials to be in place to satisfy such rapid change.”

Common platforms and common protocols are already beginning to be a regular occurrence between machine makers.

“In five years’ time the process of radical change will be such that it will represent a revolution for the machine makers but only a moderate change for the players.

By this I mean that players might be able to personalise a gaming machine.

If you like a particular game with a particular denomination and with a particular feature, then the machine’s technology will be able to produce it for you exclusively on the terminal in front of you.

“Similarly, machines will recognise groups of individuals scattered throughout a location favouring largely similar playing characteristics and will offer them a group product tailored to the highest common denominators rather than to the lowest."

‘Peer’ gaming will become a common practice, as will individual jackpots.

The ability to personalise an offering to a player on any gaming machine will certainly be here within those five years.

“This is the type of technological development which everyone in our regular meetings is now identifying as a major influence on tomorrow’s games, so that the means to deliver that kind of product can be produced by co-operation between us.

“We want to be in a position where slots can be installed on to a base without having to drill new holes to secure it – this is just an illustration of the manufacturing standards which will come from this kind of co-operation and forward planning. As long as it is done with the kind of integrity which is paramount to the regulators, then Australia could lead the global industry with this kind of initiative.”