Can you design great games and software if you don’t know your players and their goals? In my experience a lot of software are designed without having the players in mind.
Today many companies in the gaming industry don’t dedicate resources for target group analysis, interaction design and usability!
It has up til now been possible to develop software (because gaming companies have made money anyway) where you just add feature after feature without knowing if your players want them and they are often not properly designed when it comes to the user …

How do you know if your gaming portal (games) is the right one for your target groups? Do you release software without testing it on real players? Then you are in trouble!
Today I see so many simple usability mistakes in gaming software.
I think there are at least three main reasons for that:

You don’t have user experience people focusing on the user interface and the users in your company and projects.
You don’t involve the players in the process
You don’t test your software on real players

In the near future I know …

Is there a reason why the largest gaming portals today use almost the identical top navigation?
In the picture above you can see the top navigation for the gaming companies below:

Sportingbet: Promos, Sports, Casino, Poker, Games, 1v1, Backgammon, Video Games, Mobile, Financials
bwin: Sports, Poker, Casino, Games
William Hill: Sports, Casino, Poker, Games, Vegas, Live Casino, Skill, Bingo, Lotteries
paddypower: Sports, Livebetting, Poker, Casino, Financial Trader, Games, Player, Lotteries, Bingo, Mobile
Bet365: Sport, Liveodds, Casino, Poker, Games, Bingo
Betsson: Sportsbook, Exchange, Scratch, Casino, Poker, Bingo, Trader, Games
Unibet: Sportsbook, Casino, Live Casino, Poker, Bingo, Games, Skill, Scratch …