Firstly, online casinos are excellent customer acquisition platforms. They’ve built up an audience of millions who enjoy playing games for free or even real money. The barrier to get started is very low because all you have to do is create a game, get approved by the casino and you’re good to go! All canadian online casino have requirements about what kinds of content can be featured on their site so it’s usually best if your game is family friendly since there are many kids enjoying these sites as well.
If you do get approved then that’s where things start getting interesting! There are two main reasons why gambling companies work closely with individuals like us.
The main reasons
Firstly, they like to work with us because our games are usually very targeted (otherwise why would they want them on their site?) It’s common for casinos to do research into how much time people spend playing certain game genres or specific developers in order to find out who would be the best fit for them. If you’ve got a game where players typically play 10+ rounds then that’s likely perfect for some online casinos https://canadianonlinecasino.bet/.
Secondly, many of these sites have made it part of their business model to give back to their community by helping independent developers promote and distribute their content . That means that if your games are free then the casino will allow you direct access through one of their promotional channels such as a mini-game or bonus feature.This is a big reason why we partnered with Skillzzgaming on our new free-to-play slots title ” Fortune Heist”.
Fortune Heist features the characters from our upcoming game ‘Job Simulator’, which makes it a great promotional tool for both titles. In addition, the gambling site offers players a chance to win real money prizes! This offer may not sound that appealing but becoming a casino affiliate is somewhat of an arms race. The more competitive you are on your promotions, the more traffic you will get back from them and there’s no better way to do this than offering real money prizes! So if nothing else then partnering with casinos allows us to acquire customers cheaply by piggybacking their marketing budgets; whilst also introducing these players to our premium games.
Another reason we like to work with casinos is that they’re an excellent source of data and feedback. This ties in with our previous article about online metrics. If you get featured by a casino then the gambling company will monitor how your game performs on their site, usually by measuring things such as: How many new players does it bring? Does it retain them long enough to play for real money? What kind of revenue does it generate per session and over time? By partnering with us, some sites also gain additional insight into what players enjoy and dislike because we can run polls or surveys where we collect this information directly from the players who are playing our games. We’ve had great success running these kinds of promotions and learning from them and we encourage you to do the same.
Companies
We’ve noticed that some companies working closely with developers can be unresponsive or slow to process your requests so you should expect this and plan accordingly. We’ve had over 100 games featured over the years by different casinos and whilst there are a few stand-out companies such as Euro Games Technology, Pragmatic Play and Skillz Gaming, it’s important to remember that these sites operate at a very large scale. This often means that their casino managers have a lot of responsibilities on their plates and may not always notice when a new game is submitted. One way around this is to try understanding how they work internally by reading through their help articles, contacting customer support etc. But it’s also good practice to have a media kit prepared.
This is essentially a document that explains your game and what makes it worth featuring. There are no strict guidelines to follow but here’s an example media kit for the game “Job Simulator”. To produce this we first looked at what kind of games worked well with their casino (we used our intelligence gathered from working with other gambling companies). We then analyzed the game’s theme, deciding which player demographics would most likely enjoy playing similar titles; before presenting how it fits into their existing portfolio by highlighting its strengths, unique features and promotional opportunities.
After putting together your media kit you should contact their support team or affiliate managers directly (if not already done so) and make sure to include all relevant information about your games such as: Name Release date Genre Browser compatibility Metacritic scores Number of players in multiplayer mode (if applicable) Keywords that describe your game (e.g. 3D, exploration etc.) Sales trailer or gameplay footage (we like to provide trailers that are less than 1 minute long).
Finally you must remember that gambling commissions are not the only income stream for developers who operate in this space and therefore need to be priced accordingly. We’ve seen many great games get rejected purely because the casino didn’t believe they would make enough money off their commissions; which is always difficult at first but can easily be addressed by exploring alternative options such as licensing or direct sales.
The main thing to keep in mind is that you should always negotiate terms such as commission rates and payment schedules before signing an agreement; rather than after when it may be too late for you to make alterations.
Good luck with your negotiations and we look forward to hearing about all of your future successes!
