The major suppliers of electronic gaming machines to Macau’s casinos will need to decide which games they will permanently remove from gaming floors as part of the process to become compliant with the government’s new EGM Technical Standards 2.0.
The details contained within Tech Standards 2.0, which came into effect in September 2021, and what suppliers are doing to meet necessary deadlines are outlined in the April edition of Inside Asian Gaming’s monthly magazine, in an article titled “Slots 2.0”.
Under the standards, all games submitted to the DICJ for approval after 31 December 2022 must be 2.0 compliant, while 40% of all EGMs on casino floors must be compliant by 31 December 2023 and 100% by 31 December 2024.
Suppliers IAG spoke to revealed that some older cabinets and the games they are home to will be removed by necessity because they cannot be made 2.0 compliant, while decisions will have to be made on many other games which can be made compliant but will require significant work to do so.
“It’s effectively building a new game,” one supplier said of such upgrades. “It’s like renovating a house compared with building a new house – it can often be the same effort and time.
“So the big decision everyone has to make is how many games to redo and at what opportunity cost, because we only have so many resources to devote to game development for the region.”
Some suppliers said they may decommission more than half of their current Macau games catalog, although most are already well into the process of upgrading those that will stay.
The full article “Slots 2.0” is available here.
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