Long ago I listened to Scott Adams talk about the failure of the Dilbert animated series. Fans of the comic strip wouldn’t watch the cartoon. One reason is they hated the sound of Dilbert’s voice.
Now contrast the success of the Dilbert comic strip with the lack of details within the strip itself. We don’t know Dilbert’s last name, where he lives, his job title, or even what his company does. His boss’ name is just The Boss.
Now consider the most successful casino games on the market and look at their themes:
- Generic Chinese theme
- Generic Egyptian theme
- Generic Greek theme
- Jewels
- Strong animal
- Sexy lady
- etc…
These themes may sound high level, but there’s actually not much more to them than what’s written on each bullet point.
The more details you add when it comes to casino games, the more chances you have to turn off the player.
As a concrete example, take a look at a game like Crash. You watch a rocket ship and a number go up, then you decide to cash out. That’s it. Do you think the game would be as successful if it was themed around hang gliding? What if they told you who was inside the rocket ship? Where the rocket’s trying to go? Why it’s trying to get there?
