Originally based on purely hardware-based mechanical systems, slot games are a fantastic illustration of how powerful software can be as a replacement for traditional systems. Where a single hardware machine could once take up the space of an entire cabinet, a single smartphone now has access to thousands of titles from anywhere on the go. It’s been a long and interesting journey, where we now find ourselves in what could be a true golden age of slot entertainment.
In the Modern Day
Before turning back the clock, we need to understand the enormous scope of the modern market. A great example is illustrated when you check out how to play Slingo games like Hot Roll and Capital Gains. Based on traditional slot ideas, Slingo titles use software to evolve traditional slot capabilities with new systems and features. They’re still about spinning and luck, but they’re also accomplishing something new, and they’re available on a huge range of platforms like smartphones, tablets, desktops, laptops, and more.
The Very First Steps
Casino games first arrived in the software space in 1996. This was just a few years after the internet went live, with the computers and online connections of the time being hilariously limited by today’s standards. As explored by the website DosDays, an average computer of the time had around 4MB of slow RAM, for example. Modern smartphones commonly feature a thousand times this capacity, with speeds hundreds of times faster.
“Windows 95 and floppy disks” (CC BY 2.0) by ricky shore
Fortunately for slots, the idea behind the titles was easy to translate into the software space. Early slot games might have been ugly and slow by today’s standards, but they still captured the gameplay we all love, so they managed to draw players into the potential online casinos promised.
An Age of Revolution
Around 2000, the internet became a mainstream force that even the technophobic couldn’t ignore. Computers had become faster and easier to use, and the introduction of DSL connections over 56k meant wait times for pages to load were no longer a necessary part of the experience.
This extra speed and power manifested in the casino software space as slots that didn’t just accurately mimic their hardware cousins. In many cases, they surpassed them. Software meant games could do more than physical hardware made possible, and with the popularisation of smartphones around 2007 thanks to the iPhone, they went mobile too.
“3 Generations of iPhone” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by renatomitra
The Era of Choice
As online connectivity entered total ubiquity, computers and internet connections broke off the last shackles which formerly held them back. Today, the biggest problem slots developers have is deciding what to do with all the power they have to work with. It’s no longer about creating a regular game, or even an incredibly attractive game, slot software now means keeping up with the cutting-edge. It’s a challenge for developers, but this also means enormous choices for players.
In the next decade, developers will be asking themselves how else they might raise the bar. We’ll see explorations in VR and maybe AR, with programmers and websites experimenting to find the next big thing. The software has come a long way, but like our tastes, this evolution is never truly done.