There has been a recent surge of cookie-cutter exclusives making their way onto operators’ platforms. These games often lack visuals, bonus gameplay elements and even background imagery. They are simply the raw gameplay mechanic and the opportunity for players to bet on them.
There are questions about whether launching such basic products is an easy way to gauge player interest before committing to a full title, but these cookie-cutter exclusives also pose another interesting angle. If every operator has an indistinguishable exclusive, are they actually exclusive at all? And how are affiliates meant to approach the situation?
What can affiliate comparison sites do with cookie cutters?
One of the biggest drivers for review-based affiliates is finding a unique angle to pitch an online casino to customers. Perhaps it is an online casino with PayPal deposits, or it could be a sportsbook with instant withdrawals, but there has to be something to make it stand out from the crowd.
While these ‘exclusives’ really were unique at the beginning, this appeal has dropped since almost every operator has begun offering them. It makes it incredibly easy for these affiliates to note that these operators do offer titles such as Plinko and Mines, but these are becoming as standard as slot and live casino titles. Of course, fully-developed arcade-style games such as Aviator do still stand out in this regard, but the cookie-cutter exclusives lend themselves more to an easy word count than a distinguishing feature.
On the other hand, a large majority of these exclusives are made by the operators themselves or by reputable slot providers. This instils an immediate level of trust in players that might not happen if the arcade vertical were populated with games from unknown companies. But that assumes players even care about the studios if they offer them a new experience in the arcade game genre.
How can affiliates benefit from showcasing?
Some affiliate models focus on showcasing one studio, genre or game for a set period of time. These are a great way to promote exciting or unique releases, especially if they come from smaller studios that might not have the same instant reach as Pragmatic Play or Evolution, and keep fresh ideas entering the industry.
While this sounds like it would go hand-in-hand with showcasing arcade-style games, the exclusives at the centre of this discussion do not lend themselves well to such an approach. While they work well as a placeholder for operators, there is no way to highlight any particular features or aspects of them. Their advantages lie entirely in their simplicity, but so do their disadvantages. It would make for an interesting section, though, to compare each of these exclusives against one another.
As for companies that showcase one casino at a time, they are well aware that pitches need to land within a few seconds before a potential customer has made their first impression. Each game or feature shown within these few seconds is vital to the landing, and a game with minimal graphics would only be occupying the space of a fully polished game instead.
Is that the way the cookie crumbles?
With multiple operators all boasting their exclusive arcade games, each of which being indistinguishable in gameplay or visuals from one another, it feels like shopping for a new car in East Germany during the 70s – will you buy a Trabant through one seller, or the same Trabant through another?
This has created a good opportunity for studios to create fully developed crash and arcade-style games, but if operators are using these cookie-cutter exclusives to gauge player interest, then they may not be ready to sign an integration deal just yet.
Ultimately, it may take some time to see where these exclusives will thrive in the industry. They have their uses, and although they might be launched to make one casino stand out from another, they have created a marketing hurdle for affiliates in the meantime.