Slot manufacturers appear to agree that even though it remains a demand, the progressive slot market is pretty mature. But on this day and age, “mature” does not mean progressive slots are forever unchanging and staid.

Due to popular demand, slot manufacturers are continuing to supply quite a lot of linked progressive (LAP) games, which provide the similar jackpot levels as traditional progressive banks but with fewer machines. Basically, operators are addressing the demand for LAPs by reducing the dimensions in their progressive banks and placing several several types of LAPs on their floor.

Standalone progressive (SAP) technology has also continued as a typical add-on for a person machine. However, the variation between LAPs and SAPs is that SAPs usually incorporate engaging bonus entertainment along with standard play. This link can also be within an area area network (LAN) or involve machines in a large area network (WAN).

“As the slot products evolved into video reel slots, multi-level progressives became the dominant sort of progressive games,” said Allon Engleman, senior vp and chief design officer at Scientific Games Corporation. “Now many sorts of traditional progressives and mysteries with three, four, five or more levels are the standard.”

“We continue to look enthusiasm for multi-link progressives and standalone progressives,” added Victor Duarte, global chief product officer, gaming for IGT.  “Our new 99 Riches standalone mystery progressive offers four different progressive levels that help drive gameplay and lines more ways for the player to win. This title spotlights another progressive trend—enabling players to win a progressive jackpot at any bet level.” 

Meanwhile Ainsworth is drawing operator attention with games that provide what they give thught to to be obtainable progressives. “Something that players see incrementing at a gradual pace, they know at the ceiling, they know when it'll hit, they know what to appear for and the way that progressive operates,” said Cody Herrick, product marketing manager at Ainsworth.

Few would argue that the best good thing about progressive slots are the jackpots; not only for the players, but for casino operators seeking the promoting draw created by these large jackpots as well.  “Different progressives reach different player demographics,” said Steve Walther, director, product management, games at Konami Gaming. “There are some progressives with large or life-changing, high dollar jackpots that cater more to entertainment-style players who will throw some money towards that jackpot hoping they win it big. Or there are lower progressive top awards with greater hit frequency that appeal more to the regular gambler who wants that extra pay-out potential or is asking to make their money go a little bit further at the floor.”

Manufacturers are continuing to adapt progressive awards, experimenting with new play mechanics, interactive components and skill-based concepts. Walther sums up why progressive slots are so enticing to players, “There’s something that gamblers inherently enjoy about watching their wager go towards an incrementing award meter that they are able to potentially win on every spin,” he said. “When a player puts money right into a progressive machine, they may be able to actually see the jackpot steadily grow higher and better with each bet, so that they know the money they’ve invested within the game has the prospective to be won back. Players bet that investment into the jackpot, hoping they are able to win a better return.”

So… what are manufactures doing in any such mature market to carry interest? Below one can find a listing of slot manufacturers and their latest progressive slot developments:

IGT

IGT operates in additional than 100 countries worldwide and gives the industry’s largest end-to-end product portfolio. Their industry-leading R&D investment enables them to foster innovation and deliver compelling games to varied progressive players within each market.  IGT continues to provide customers a large choice of progressive-themed configurations including wide area progressive, linked, standalone, mystery progressives and others.

“IGT has the biggest amount of progressive jackpot titles within the market,” Duarte said. “We are introducing a compelling collection of progressive links, combined with market-attuned content, to construct our progressive business.  We’re also leveraging our cross-platform content development and distribution with progressive game themes similar to Megajackpots Cleopatra and Siberian Storm, elevating IGT’s interactive portfolio for desktop and mobile content offerings.”

Wheel of Fortune was established because the most successful slot theme of all time for IGT, revolutionizing the progressive slot experience with greater than 200 game themes enjoyed by players in additional than 20 countries worldwide. Wheel of Fortune has created greater than 1,000 millionaires and awarded greater than $3 billion in jackpots, setting it excluding every other game theme within the industry.

IGT has enhanced its progressive content portfolio with its award-winning TRUE 3D technology. “Our TRUE 3D library has transformed slot play with a singular glasses-free 3D gaming environment, and has integrated compelling progressive bonuses to ignite the player experience,” Duarte said. “We originally introduced SPHINX 3D slots, which provide five progressive jackpot levels while IGT’s Cash Fever 3D game offers various bonus progressive levels. IGT’s Wheel of Fortune Double Diamond 3D melds probably the most successful slot theme of all time with one of the crucial celebrated video slot technologies of new years. Leveraging three unique multi-level progressives, Wheel of Fortune Double Diamond 3D is the industry’s first wide area progressive to add TRUE 3D technology.”

Progressive fan-favorites similar to Megajackpots Cleopatra and Siberian Storm have successfully launched in Europe and are enabling players to qualify for progressive jackpots at any bet; offering more opportunities to win in any respect levels while boosting operator revenues.

Moving forward, IGT is building at the evolution of progressive slot play by delivering game content across channels, to desktop and mobile devices.

INCREDIBLE TECHNOLOGIES

Incredible Technologies (THIS CAN BE A) Class III slot manufacturer currently licensed in 23 states within the U.S., multiple international jurisdictions and on iGaming platforms. IT introduced the Infinity Link premium product segment in 2015, with a nationwide rollout set for 2016.

Infinity Link is a bank-wide local area progressive that utilizes a modified version of the company’s Simple Sign Display Kit with a wise controller to promote progressive meters, bonus wins and other merchandising effects. IT also features linkable progressives in games featured within the Infinity Skybox product segment, in addition to in several high performing core games.

IT recently launched a brand new premium product segment, Infinity Skybox, which heightens their Infinity U23 cabinet with the addition of an integrated 55-inch vertical monitor to display local area progressives in an impactful way. Infinity Skybox debuted with two flagship titles—Crazy Money Deluxe and Money Rain Deluxe. Each game is outfitted with a linkable Sky Wheel—a massive digital bonus wheel displayed overhead to trigger progressive jackpots and other bonus awards.

“Progressives became the most important component of product segmentation for Incredible Technologies,” said Dan Schrementi, vice chairman of gaming sales & marketing at IT. “Customers wish to see depth in a catalog, and within that depth must be categories that touch on their players’ needs.  Kinds of progressives and the shape factor they’re shown in became crucial pivot-point in our product marketing mix.”

Infinity Link launched with two progressive game families—Color Pays and GoldLink Progressives. “Color Pays and GoldLink are both innovative game families utilizing unique progressive triggers that players will find not just exciting but in addition easy to grasp and approachable,” Schrementi said.

In 2016 WILL PROBABLY BE debuting ways that they leverage the joy of progressive jackpots to affect more players on a selected bank of linked games.

KONAMI GAMING 

Konami Gaming creates all kinds of progressive slots—from SAPs which can be integrated within select game themes to SAPs that exist a la carte, like Quick Strike and Jackpot Streams. These progressives have compatibility across multiple cabinets and ready to be put on top of most any in their base game products, their linked products that work the similar way and to their most common—the add-on extended ROM-style progressive.

Konami allows casino properties to possess and create their very own custom progressive games using system-delivered progressive functionality through its SYNKROS casino management system. “Because SPM can launch progressives to any slot machine at the floor without a additional in-machine hardware required, operators have the versatility to deploy linked progressives to the precise banks or standalone machines they want,” said Michael Ratner, director, product management, systems at Konami. “In addition, future development of SYNKiosk Mobile will provide customers with real-time information at the casino’s own progressive jackpots—such because the current progressive values and the volume of time since they last hit—all via smartphone, so players can get the most recent updates on their favorite jackpots from anywhere.”

Konami’s latest progressive slots games are Wheel of the Imperial Eggs and Jackpot Ball. Both being the primary standalone progressives offered at the new Concerto video cabinet, and will be combined with quite a few KP3+ platform base games at the bottom screen. With the improved power and speed of Concerto’s KP3+ platform, these new extended ROM games feature more vivid bonus animation across both video screens, which makes for a bigger, bolder celebration. “For the primary time, we’re also introducing a longer ROM to our Rapid Revolver video-mechanical hybrid cabinet that may be combined with most any KP3 base game at the lower screen.” Walther said. “It’s a game called Lucky Sticks, and the bonus awards are now delivered through a mixture of interactions between the lower video screen and 6 big mechanical reels stacked around the top box.”

 “Our R&D team is actively exploring a diversity of recent opportunities to create games that captivate casino audiences like nothing else before,” Walther added. “We will continue to push the envelope to search out new how one can bring engaging entertainment to the following generation of progressive slots, similar to you saw us do with Titan 360.”

SCIENTIFIC GAMES

Scientific Games provides an entire range of progressive slot products, offering games with standalone progressives, multi-level linked progressives, mystery progressives and wide area progressives. A lot of their hottest games, like Blazing 7’s, Quick Hit, Hot Shot Progressive, Lifetime of Luxury, and 88 Fortunes have incorporated progressive jackpots and their wide selection of WAP games include one of the most top third-party brands within the industry today. 

The award winning, 88 Fortunes is currently considered one of Scientific Games’ most successful progressive slots. “The game is renowned around the globe and leads the market within the United States, Australia, and Asia,” Engleman said. “The unique theme, authentic Chinese artwork, enticing progressive jackpots starting at $10,000 for the penny denomination, and frequent jackpot hits set it excluding the competition.”

In addition, Quick Hit progressive games stay a staple of progressive products in North America. The max bet progressive games are available countless styles, but all offer progressives which can be triggered by scattered Quick Hit symbols at the reels. “Quick Hit progressive’s games became so popular that casinos will include several banks of games in one property,” said Engleman. 

TwinStar is certainly one of Scientific Games latest games and provides two new types of progressives with Bally’s new Quick Hit series Volcano and Jungle; each offering a five-level progressive jackpot. Additionally, Zeus Son of Kronos and Kronos Father of Zeus are WMS branded progressive games which might be featured on TwinStar.

AINSWORTH GAME TECHNOLOGY

Progressive slots encompass a big a part of business at Ainsworth.  “Out of all of the games we make, that's 60-plus games a year, 99 percent of these have progressive or may have some form of progressive on them,” Herrick said.

Ainsworth is continuous to grow with customized progressives throughout the QX32 Link Controller which will run progressives on 1,000-plus Ainsworth machines. A single QX32 Link Controller can support 12 separate progressive parameter sets and every parameter set supports eight levels of progressives.

Ainsworth could be very versatile within the progressive market with standalone progressives, standalone mystery progressives, in addition to linked symbol-driven and their hottest customizable linked mystery progressives, featuring customized start amounts, hit before amounts and increments.

Sky High Stacks is the most recent addition to Ainsworth’s Premium Plus range. In accordance with max bet jackpot play, Sky High Stacks features four standalone progressives, bonus prizes, special expanding wild symbols and other entertaining features.

Moving forward, Ainsworth could be that specialize in continuing and improving support of the QX32 Link Controller. “Initially we developed it and we put it behind the closet where shall we run progressive graphics off of it,” Herrick said. “Starting to advance that, and looking out to do a large area with it within the future, in addition to some accounting features, remote auditing and hot swat backup, in addition to we've designed some new design packages [regular overhead, overhead topers, LCD toppers, or some LCD monitors], it'll support that with custom graphics.”

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