The move to a more social experience is changing how the industry looks at technology. Hai Ng from Continent 8 Technologies explains why
The i-gaming industry is going through interesting times. From the expansion of licensing jurisdictions in Europe continuing at a good pace, to the uncertain optimism of a grand return to the US - well punctuated by shots heard across the i-gaming world on Black Friday and the recent indictment of Calvin Ayre - there is certainly no shortage of news and events.
Away from all that excitement, there’s another facet of i-gaming that is undergoing transformation and evolution that lurks with less fanfare - the i-gaming industry is going social.
While some have argued that with the jurisdictional and regulated nature of i-gaming, it is a different business online, others have long-stated that i-gaming is simply another form of online entertainment that will have to compete with other internet businesses for their customers. With the rush into social i-gaming, this is certainly becoming evident.
This move towards a more social, more mobile i-gaming experience is certainly changing how the industry looks at technology and the overall approach to system design and deployment. There is a need to move out of traditionally encapsulated environments to one that is much more scalable, adaptable and can be integrated into social and mobile platforms.
Exciting developments certainly include IGT’s Caesars move into the social gaming space with its recent acquisitions, as well as the innovative embracing of Twitter by 888 Poker.
Adding to the mix, the cloud has also roiled the industry, bringing efficiency to some, marketing clout to others and a healthy dose of confusion to go around.
So what is this cloud and how will it affect the i-gaming space?
The definitions of the cloud are as varied as the types of clouds and the names that meteorologists and geologists give them. In i-gaming, that’s no different. Everybody has a different interpretation of what their cloud is and how it will differentiate them from their competition.
From a technical perspective, the cloud can be described as an elastic computing platform that moves away from describing computing resources in terms of an immutable set of servers, processors, memory and storage.
This feature can be read in full in the second 2012 edition of iNTERGAMINGi.
