I read on Egaming Rewiew’s website that Ladbrokes launched a new version of its poker client from Microgaming. And I thought I would try it out since it’s been a while since I played on Ladbrokes.
It sure surprised me when I launched the flash poker client and saw that my username from my Unibet account was already pre-populated in the username field. I thought “oh great I can use the same username since both Unibet and Ladbrokes have the Microgaming poker client“.

Image 1. Ladbrokes flash poker client

Image 2. Unibet’s flash poker …

Last night I tried to sign up at 888.com to play casino. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do. The registration form is pretty straight forward but the thing that made me get stuck was the password field. In the images below you see what it looks like.
Today

Image 1. Password fields

Image 2. Help information for password field
What was really confusing and took a while for me to discover was that the password have to be exactly 8 characters long. There are a few things that add to the confusion:

You don’t get …

Today most gaming portals offer bingo, casino, games, poker and a sportsbook. Is this the best way? Look at Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and PartyGaming who promote brands for one kind of game.
For instance players go to PokerStars to play poker, but when you go to for instance bwin, Unibet, Ladbrokes and many more gaming portals it is difficult to know what the player want to play.
Almost all gaming portals offering many different games have a start page where they show their different offerings where the player have to make a choice …

In May I will run a workshop around gaming portals of the future. It will be a very hands on day where you will learn new tools to be able to build better portals.
The workshop will include sections about

User Experience & Agile Development
Prototyping the User Experience
Personalisation: Gaming Portals 2.0
Social Media: Gaming Portals 3.0

More details will be available in the coming weeks. You can sign up here to be notified when the details are ready.
If you have any questions or suggestions for the workshop then don’t hesitate to contact me, staffan.schroder@inuse.se
/Staffan

I wrote about bingo back in the beginning of december, Why do all bingo clients look the same? Where are the innovations?, but there are a few companies doing some innovations.
We have seen Live Casinos (where you play online against a real dealer) for a while and now it is showing up in bingo clients as well. One company doing this is Atac Media.
I think having a real person calling out the numbers will be more fun. The problem is that I couldn’t try it out. The bingo opens at …

I wrote a blog post back in October, Show Folded Cards - Great feature implemented differently, where I looked at PokerStars and Full Tilt and how differently they had implemented their Show Folded Cards feature.
Today when I played on Full Tilt I noticed that they had changed their implementation. Now it works like it should, showing the player his cards when he moves the mouse over his position. Good job Full Tilt!
As I wrote back in October, it isn’t always enough to have all the functionality, you also need to …

Gaming VC, an online gaming company with brands like Casino Club, Poker Kings and Betaland, said they will invest up to €7 million during 2010 to build the new businesses.
The have hired former PartyGaming marketing chief Jon Salmon and former Sportingbet head of sportsbook Jim Humberstone for the expansion.
It will be interesting to see if they will use some of the funds to design a great player experience around their offering or if everything will go towards marketing costs.
I believe focusing on the player experience and find ways that will let the …

This year’s International Gaming Expo (IGE), incorporating ICEi, is over and I’m back home. My reflections from the expo are mixed.
Most positive: I was impressed by Net Entertainment and  Betsoft’s games. The quality in their games is really good. It is especially interesting to see that Betsoft incorporate their controls as a part of the game.
Most negative: The Innovative Showcase (it was a new addition addition to IGE 2010 that gave exhibitors the opportunity to present to IGE visitors) was a major dissapointment! Many of the presenters didn’t even show up for their presentations, …

I wrote a blog post, Betsson can make it easier for their poker players. Here is a suggestion!, giving Betsson a design advice back in September (read the post here).  And today when I played on Betsson I saw that Betsson had redesigned their poker section on Betsson.com and the solution I suggested is implemented.
My design advice back in September was “Today when you click on the “Play in the browser” button on the poker start page you don’t start the poker client, insted you come to a page with …

Rush Poker is a new poker game just released at Full Tilt Poker; this is a new and completely different way to play poker and probably one of the most innovative things to happen to poker in many years.
The idea of Rush Poker is extremely easy, insted of playing at one table you join a pool of players playing at many tables. When you are finished playing the hand you are moved to another table where a new hand is begins right away. You don’t even have to wait until …

It really doesn’t matter to which operator in online gaming you play with today. Gaming portals are very similar when it comes to everything from available games, user flows to registration and deposits. Bingo clients almost look identical from one provider to another. Why is that? Are software providers afraid to differentiate themselves by innovation?
I think that winners in the industry the next couple of years will be operators and software providers that put a lot of focus on the player experience. This is because you can have a really …

Is instant poker as good as the download versions? Not at the moment!
If you compare Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars mac client with an instant version from any of the competitors then you’ll see that Full Tilt and PokerStars is way ahead. It is faster to load, faster to start tables and have more features.
An instant version works well when you are using a computer on which you aren’t allowed to install software.
Many poker rooms today have both a download version and an instant version of their poker client.
You can …

NordicBet has launched a new download casino from Net Entertainment.
I was really excited about this and wanted to try it out as fast as possible since Net Entertainment produce really good games.
But I was really disappointed when I went to NordicBet’s portal to download the client, I found the download page but it doesn’t say what the system requirements are.
I’m usually on a mac and tried to download it on my mac. This didn’t work very well so I guess you need a PC to get it to work.
NordicBet could …

This year’s IGE is just a few weeks away and I’m starting to get excited about the event. It will be great to find out what will be the next big things in the igaming industry this year.
I believe the following topics (among others) will be very important for igaming companies this year:

personalisation
social media
retention
focus on the player
prototyping
innovation
development processes

I’ll be at the IGE all days so if you want to meet up and discuss igaming and user experience. I’m also working on a workshop covering many of the topics above that …

OnGame Network have a new Sit & Go Coinflip, generating 10,000 plays per day.
I had to try it out since I really enjoy playing around with new features.
It is a fun new game which just last about 10 seconds. But it takes longer to register for  a new Coinflip. You have to click three times before being back in the lobby and then another three clicks before you are registered for a new game.
So 6 clicks before you are seated at a new game. This is way too long! This could …

Do you develop gaming software?
Do you prototype?
If you do prototyping then great! If you don’t, then it is time to start doing it!
A prototype is a representative model of the final product.
Why should you build prototypes?
Prototyping is an interative and generative process. You’ll never get the best solution at your first try. Prototyping will give you many new ideas when you work through the prototyping process. It helps you get your ideas into something everyone can play around with. This will generate lots of feedback and ideas for new and …

I really enjoy playing poker on Full Tilt. They have a good client and lots of tables to play on.
There is lots of interesting stuff both in the client but also on their website. But it is really hard to find it.
So my 20 minutes today is used on redesigning is about promoting more things in the client to help players explore all Fullt Tilt Poker has to offer.
In the image above you see how it looks today. You have one banner and then a message area.
What I’ve done is …

It is just a little over a month left until the International Gaming Expo takes place in London between the 26th and 28th of January.
It will be very interesting to find out if there are any new innovations within the industry. Maybe some new mobile solutions? Or maybe a new poker game?
Will I see you there? I’ll be there for the whole three days this year. Wanna meet up and discuss user experience, social media and igaming?
Send me an e-mail, staffan.schroder@inuse.se, and let’s set up a meeting :)
/Staffan

LAUNCH A GAMING PORTAL, advertise, give players big bonuses.
Today, sadly, that recipe is no longer sufficient if you want keep your players. Gaming operators need to put more focus on the player experience and each aspect of it. Everything from the registration and deposit flows to how the help a player find a game and start playing that game.
Most gaming portals (and software) display the same information, options and games for all their players. But it is now time to take gaming portals to the next level and to start …

When will we see new innovations when it comes to online bingo?
Today almost every bingo client have the same functionality:

Buy tickets/Play bingo
Play minigames
Chat

There are great opportunities to create an online bingo that is much more integrated with social media. Why not let players do stuff (besides chatting)?
And when will we see bingo sites where you don’t just open up a bingo client in a new window, insted have the bingo incorportated with other stuff?
There is so much that could be done!
So why don’t you get started? (need help? send me …