Don’t be a digital dinosaur

While the habits and behaviours of the consumer are changing, we have to be constantly developing and looking toward the future.

But instead, the gaming industry remains a digital dinosaur, and we keep hearing the same old arguments about societal benefits versus individual integrity.

However, that shouldn’t prevent us from trying to reduce irresponsible gaming by better understanding and acting according to each individual player’s needs.

It is time for a new deal in which technological innovation builds to benefit both the individual consumer and society.

The global digital gaming and entertainment industry is growing despite fewer people playing, since those who do play are betting more.

While this was recently brought to light in Sweden after a Swedish Gambling Authority report, it comes as no surprise for us in the gaming industry.

In fact, we have seen this trend for many years, as the gaming market keeps growing in depth but not in width. It is time to start using innovative digital technology for each individual gamer, based on their risk behaviours.

Sure, many gaming companies are already categorising their players, often based on product usage, but how many companies in the gaming industry have actually attempted to completely understand the individual player’s needs and expectations, and take action based on their risk behaviours?

We need to use technology to analyse, understand and act on an individual level. We need to use behavioural analysis, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data mining by embedding this in our analytical tools and products.

Customer insights

There are certainly challenges to this approach, such as existing national laws and new EU directives that govern how personal data can be handled.

Not surprising, nor impossible to solve. It requires competence, awareness and a willingness within the company to balance customer insights with societal needs and an individual’s rights.

For this reason, we need to tell our customers in the gaming industry how we want to use their gaming data, and ask if we can use the information we gather to help them keep their playing under control.

It is their choice and their opportunity. The winners in the modern digital gaming and entertainment industry are not the ones who talk the most about responsible gaming, whether it’s in their glossy brochures or long speeches.

The winners are the companies that know their customers, use cutting edge technology for analysis and decisions, and develop modern integrated warning systems based on knowledge and well-founded decisions.

Today it is possible to analyse actual customer data and combine that with a player’s own perception of their playing patterns based on risk, intensity, change, and volume.

New knowledge creates new needs. This knowledge is the basis of how to approach marketing, development of new games, content of customer journey, as well as each player’s individual dashboard.

It makes the business smarter, more stable, and sustainable as well as broadening the horizons on how to react from all customer dimensions.

We have developed the Mr Green Predictive Tool to analyse whether an individual player is in the risk zone for unhealthy gaming.

With modern algorithms and advanced techniques, we can ensure that we get to know our customers better and can adapt, or completely exclude, what we offer to them according to the level of risk.

Within a few years, we are confident that the gaming industry operators will no longer be digital dinosaurs, and start using advanced digital tools to understand and analyse their customers and their limits.