The popularity of online slots isn’t limited to just one part of the world, as people all over the planet now play these games. You may wonder whether the fact that they’re so widely played means that we all play the same games no matter where we live. The answer is that some games are global hits while others are most specific to certain places.
The Classic Themes Played Globally
For an idea of what a classic slot looks like, we could look at the Fruity Burst slot game from Virtue Fusion. It’s based on fruit symbols, which have been a traditional theme in this industry since its earliest days. While the symbols are of the classic type, the use of a 5×5 grid and cascading symbols are a couple of modern touches that mean that the gameplay is innovative.
Similar themes that work in just about every country include slots based on diamonds, gold mines, fishing trips, and wild animals. Since the gameplay is so simple, developers who want to create a global slot just need to concentrate on finding a theme and images that pretty much everyone can relate to.
Another example comes with the games based on Egyptian Gods and pyramids. While this sort of game is location-specific, they tend to focus on using the sort of classic Ancient Egyptian imagery that most people can easily relate to and that is covered on the World History site as representative of the culture.
Certain Themes Are Perfect for Specific Markets
The flip side of this is that some slots appear to have been made with a specific market in mind. One way of finding them is by looking for slots based on the sports that are most popular in a particular country. So, Brits can find soccer and cricket slots while Canadians can look for hockey slots and Americans can expect to play games based on football.
We can look at the entertainment industry to find games based on shows and movies that are particularly well-loved in certain places. They can also be based on popular personalities like Ozzy Osbourne or Alice Cooper, who are perhaps considered more interesting for gamers in some countries than in others. Slots based on Bollywood are offered to players in India, while Australians will find games based on some of the cultural icons mentioned by the National Museum of Australia, like boomerangs and kangaroos, easy to find.
Since many online casinos offer their services on a global basis, this gives them the question of whether to remove a location-specific slot from other regions or look for a way of localizing it. In some cases, they may translate it to the local language, while in other cases they may consider that removing it gives the site the right look and feel for the local market in question.
This brief look at online slots confirms that it’s now a global phenomenon that has grown partly due to the way that the local culture and interests can be incorporated into the games. The way we play doesn’t vary all that much around the planet, but the images used tend to be those that the operator feels will be particularly attractive to locals.
Published by HOLR Magazine.