The Smoking Gun: Facebook slots; bum deal for Betfair
Toilets, motherships and 15-year-olds all feature in this month's TSG. Plus, a rather special view from the hotel at the World Gaming Executive Summit in Barcelona.
Parental advisory
[Son] Ah thanks dad. Yep, I’m just going to log on and use your credit card to buy mummy a lovely birthday card so we can give it to her next week and then I’ll leave it on the side here. Okay?
[Dad] Right you are, son. I trust you.
[Son] Yeah, the one with the flowers on it but inside there’s a picture of her next to Sean Bean dressed as Boromir, the last ruling Steward of Gondor from Lord of the Rings. She loves him doesn’t she? More than you I reckon dad. [Sniggers]
[Sniggers become louder as teenager concocts plan to use credit card to account details into casino on a popular network]
[Typing heard]
[Takes a few seconds in, a few more to chips but far less to purchase more virtual credits to boost his balance]
Slots on Facebook are beginning to generate some serious cash and are today more profitable per average user than other games on Facebook, hence the reason any developer worth their salt is, as we speak, cracking more code than Bletchley Park in its heyday.
The issue is, however, in a completely unregulated environment, just how much is being spent by minors?
Under the Freedom of Information Act, we’ve asked the Gambling Commission, but have yet to receive an answer [keep waiting “ Ed]. In the meantime, however, it seems some people have taken it upon themselves to undertake some homemade detective work… by hiring their children [doesn’t that kind of defeat the object? Ed].
One UK City analyst, well known for his love of one of the industry’s biggest suppliers, recently said in a note: “A 15-year-old, co-opted to the Leisure Team, was able to buy coins. Having set up a UK iTunes Store account with correct age and address information, they entered their own Visa debit card details into their iTunes account and were able to buy “coins” within Zynga Slots through iTunes “ simply by confirming their iTunes password.”
A great note and staggering work worthy of a slot on BBC consumer affairs programme Watchdog, alongside a segment on Korean cordless steam irons that explode when switched to a “cotton” setting, but equally one where an underage child has been used as a guinea pig “ admittedly on this occasion in a controlled environment “ to prove that despite not being able to cash out and win money, you can rapidly lose all your, or your parents’ money in an unregulated sector that refuses to call its products “gambling”.
The only issue being, of course, that the analyst’s test subject was his, er, daughter. Worth it though, right?
Bum deal
When advertising their mobile products, what images do egaming operators normally use? Placing a bet at the pub? Winning a hand of poker when watching TV? How about a spin of the roulette wheel while sat on the toilet?
Well, for 10% of Betfair customers, that has become a reality over the course of the last 12 months. Clearly, few are worried about the omens of playing games of chance while in such a precarious spot. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “squeaky bum time”.
Motherload
The Gun isn’t sure what happens when your boss wants you to come back to the office pronto in Gib, Tel Aviv or even Douglas. Well, actually we do know what happens in Douglas or in Gib. Turn 360 degrees and you’ll usually find yourself back in the office ready to face the music.
The hip, cool Cali Facebook kids, on the other hand, have a different way of being summoned from up on high. In an automated email response to some of their senior execs, TSG discovered that when the kid with the fro wants you back at the ranch, you just drop what you’re doing (note how they can’t spell the word “visiting”) and holler how high:
“Facebook: Thanks for your email. I’m in California visting the mothership so there will be a delay in my response. If urgent please text/call on…”
Location, location, location
Attending the recent GES World Gaming Summit is a regular on the majority of online gaming professionals’ calendars, until last year, that is, when some clever clogs decided to book one of Madrid’s worst hotels in the downtown area of the city, on the edge of a motorway and directly in line with the airport’s flight path. TSG’s abiding memory was arriving at 10pm to be greeted with graffitied expletives sprayed across a section of the building that would make former England football captain John Terry blush.
This year, however, was a different matter altogether with clearly a much brighter person allocated the task of choosing the conference location “ the glorious W hotel on the Barcelona coast. Meeting and interviewing executives in the lobby or on the decking overlooking the city’s nudist beach, however, was, let’s just say, distracting. We look forward to next year.