Play online gambling long enough (or do, like, 15 minutes of research on the subject), and you’ll inevitably come across a somewhat official term typically used to describe online casino, online betting and other gambling activities which are performed over the Internet, namely – iGaming. In fairness, I have mostly encountered this term in relation to people speaking about online casinos than in online casinos, but regardless, it is a valid definition that has been used in the names of several different conventions, like the awesome “Excellence in iGaming” which I personally visited last year and had an absolute bomb. Anyway, the point that I was trying to make is that it doesn’t really take a genius to figure out that the words “iGaming” and “gaming” are extremely similar to each other, except one refers to casino games and the other – to videogames. Totally different things, right? Well… Maybe not so much.

Over the years, those two industries have intercrossed more times than I can count. We’ve seen countless casino games portrayed in videogames (from full-on blackjack and roulette in adult-oriented titles like “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” to more child-friendly representations of slots in something like “Pokémon”), and we’ve also seen plenty of slots based on popular videogames, such as “Tomb Raider”. But it goes even deeper than that. Gaming and iGaming share some very similar design sensibilities, or at least they should. Playing a slot and playing something like, say, “World of Warcraft” fires up the same areas of our brains and releases the same chemicals (which is why both activities can be equally addictive). Hell, videogames have realized the similarities long ago and have adopted some very iGaming-like design sensibilities, such as microtransactions, within themselves, but for some reason iGaming refuses to alter itself in order to resemble its big brother. I could write an entirely different article about why that is, but for now, let’s just focus on how iGaming can change to resemble its counterpart.

What I’d love to talk about is something called Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types, which is a truly fascinating read that I don’t really have a lot of time to fully go into, so you should fully check out for yourself. According to Richard Bartle (you can think of him as the guy who basically created the genre that “World of Warcraft” belongs to), players can be segregated quite neatly into four different categories. We have the achievers, who want to fulfill the game’s goal in the best way possible; the explorers, who want to discover the game’s world, story and secrets; the socializers, who like to make friends and play together with other people; and the killers, who mostly play to provoke drama and impede other players (if you’re a bit more Internet-savvy, you may also know them as “trolls”). Obviously, most iGaming players fall quite squarely into the Achievers category – the casino game has a certain goal (usually “win as much money as possible”), and they aim to accomplish it. But do you notice how iGaming is basically excluding 3/4ths of all gamers by focusing solely on a single player type?

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t really think that “killers” have a place in iGaming. However, why do we not have a slot machine that tells a good story, or has a world that can be explored? Some have tried, like the excellent “Aliens” (whose bonus game allowed you to walk through a hallway full of aliens and eventually destroy the Alien queen), but none have taken that extra step. There’s certainly plenty of room there for a slot filled with secrets and story bits that lucky players should discover. The same goes for social players – the overwhelming amount of online casinos have absolutely no social features whatsoever outside of live casino, which is completely unforgivable considering the fact that real casinos are very social spaces. The thing is, I don’t think that iGaming really needs to change all that much – it’s more profitable than ever, so it’s obviously doing something right. But maybe if, instead of just churning out the same games over and over again, developers made the effort to cater to any of the other player groups? I’m not saying that there’s going to be a 200% increase in player participation if that happens, but there will definitely be some increase – and that’s all that really matters.