Slots Today Versus their Inception
Despite being only 25 years old, online slot games have made enormous strides in their short time in the digital sphere. From games so simple they made Snake on mobile look complicated, contemporary slots have become advanced and broad-reaching experiences. Looking back on this short history, it’s possible to get a greater appreciation of how far we’ve travelled, to not take current games for granted, and maybe even predict what might come next.
Slot Infancy
The very first online casinos hit the web in 1996. Years before the popularisation of the internet, these casinos were limited by necessity to a level that many users today would struggle to engage with. Low resolutions, poor graphics, often non-existent music, and clunky design were all par for the course, but this didn’t mean the games struggled to perform.
Instead, the early success of casino games like slots was, like many forms of entertainment on the early web, owned in no small part to novelty. It can be easy to forget today when internet usage is so ubiquitous as to be a mainstay, but back then, we were fascinated to even get online. Just being able to talk to people on the other side of the world was a game-changer, and being able to play games online for real money was a revelation.
“Windows 95 and floppy disks” (CC BY 2.0) by яіску ѕнояе
In those days, the early slots tied into systems like Macromedia’s Flash, an early online software so widespread it even became the basis for early YouTube, as noted by The Verge. Though slow and ugly by modern standards, being able to wait just ten or fifteen minutes to play a basic interpretation of slots was something special. These casino games like slots would prove so popular in fact that casino services would avoid the dot-com crash that killed so many early online businesses.
Levelling Up
Rather than improving by leaps and bounds as we see with technology like video game consoles, the changes of slots were slow but continual. In essence, these slots would rely on ever-improving average technology, where developers could slowly put more and more into their work as systems grew more powerful. This meant better graphics, faster loading, and more complex bonus features with each passing year.
“iPhone button” (CC BY 2.0) by gadgetdude
Eventually, when smartphones became popularised with the iPhone in 2007 as The Conversation explains, slots had reached a point where they were no longer imitations of physical machines, they were expansions of. Now pushing onto mobiles, these games became more capable than hardware-only units, demonstrating that software systems had a serious and appreciable advantage in certain situations.
Slots Today
Today, online slots have grown to such a size that major websites commonly host hundreds of different titles. For an example of this, users can play Rainbow Riches casino game for a taste of what one of the most widely played games in the history of online slots accomplishes. With multiple versions, smooth mobile integration, and advanced special features like the Road to Riches and Wishing Well bonuses, this game illustrates just how far slots have come. Ultimately, it’s not just one area that has evolved with modern slots, it’s all of them, and there’s still no end in sight.
Judging by the trajectory so far, it’s likely that the next generation of slots is going to take what already makes the games popular, and extend them even further. Rather than the massive evolution that has taken place so far, however, the next few steps are more likely to be in refining rather than a reimagining. It’s a matter of the limit being the creativity of the designers, and for slot enthusiasts, this makes the next few years ones to look forward to.
Martin Jacobson was cooking up meals in the Swedish Navy before his breakthrough in poker. His Poker career started in 2008 when he won an entry into the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. He was given the option of a $1000 buy-in and forego competing, but he decided to compete after being advised to do so by his Mom and was out after only three hands.