Constructive Competition
Open communication allows gaming manufacturers to compete on functionality rather than user access
Technology competition in the past used to mean manufacturers racing to get their proprietary systems adopted as the industry norm.
An early example of that from the consumer sector in the 1970s was the battle between Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s VHS format for dominance in the home video recorder market. As history shows, Sony lost that particular battle, but Betamax remained the analogue videotape standard for the professional television industry until the advent of digital video technology in 1995.
The personal computer industry led the way in developing open technical standards so that peripherals such as external memory capacity could be developed and marketed as universal ‘plug and play’ equipment. There are caveats to that ‘universality’. Within the basic USB format of a universal memory stick, for example, ‘driver’ programs still need to be written to make the equipment compatible with the varying computer operating platforms developed by Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
That doesn’t happen by magic and needed people within that industry to sit down and discuss interoperability issues.
Groundwork
The Gaming Standards Association fills a similar role within its sector. One of the important benefits of the GSA for its members and to the industry as a whole is the ability to organise committees of cross industry experts to discuss, develop and implement common standards.
“In response to requests from the Native American gaming industry in the United States, GSA developed a language that allows us to extract information from their system servers. It’s called S2S—System to System. So the operators implemented the S2S language and they now can communicate to one server. The servers can now ‘talk’ to each other using one simple language.”
In this context, manufacturers that have spent a lot of time and effort developing competing, rival technologies need to be confident that open standards do not mean surrender of competitive advantage. This is especially important in Asia, where the protection of intellectual property rights and enforcement of those rights varies across legal jurisdictions.
“We have policies in place that govern the way we operate,” says Mr DeRaedt.
“We have anti-trust laws in place about the way we deal with intellectual property and anti-trust issues. That structure is very well thought out over the last 11 years. We have clear directions from our board that define the focus groups. At this point in time, it happens to be about communication standards. But that doesn’t stop us looking at other technical standards for the industry.”
Keep it not so simple
Open communication standards are driving innovation in the marketplace. For example, under the shared protocol approach, an interactive player screen from Supplier A can be fitted to Supplier B’s slot machine. This benefits all: the companies, the casino and the players. Supplier A increases its market reach and Supplier B boosts the functionality of its own slot product.
“[Slot] Machines used to be relatively simple,” says Mr DeRaedt.
“Information used to be exchanged in a unidirectional way. That means from the gaming device to the computer at the back end. In that world it made sense to use proprietary protocols for data collection. What you were able to get out [in data] is what you had available to work with. There was no interaction with the player. There was no ability to offer services. There was no capability for people to do side bets or multiple bets at the same gaming terminal in the case of slot machines.
“Now slots have the capability of the service window. So you suddenly have an interaction between the back of the house and the front [of house] where the player is. You can now reach out to the player and have ‘conversations’,” points out Peter DeRaedt.
“Whether these ‘conversations’ are the operator offering products, such as discounts in a restaurant, or the ability for the player to order drinks doesn’t really matter. The key thing is the ability to interact, very much in the same way as if you log in to Amazon.com and the site sends you a screen where you can start ordering stuff.
“Communication is now a serious issue, and the industry has addressed that with GSA’s standards system.”
