The games you find in online casinos can hardly pass as engaging. We would at most describe them as a means to access the excitement of real money gambling rather than playing to scratch a gaming itch. The depth of games is shallow, storylines are limited to characters and a theme, and achievements are random and relate to whether you win or lose money. Another boring aspect is that most casino games, like online slots, are single-player with few social features.
There have been experiments of software providers experimenting with 3D and VR, with no real breakthroughs besides creating some buzz around a brand. A more promising development is the addition of crash gambling sites, which can change the casino game stereotype. Maybe even to a point where it’s no longer embarrassing or taboo to say you’ll play some casino games when you get home tonight. After all, not all gambling is bad. Setting aside some money for fun and excitement doesn’t have to be much worse than buying junk food or visiting the movies. But yeah, maybe telling your friends and family that you’re on your way home to play casino games is still some time away. Either way, there’s finally some innovation in a stagnant industry of software providers producing the same games and online casinos offering little depth and variety.
Crash Games Can Create a New Type of Casino Gamer
Along with games that lack depth, online casinos have looked the same over the past 20 years. Development has been stagnant for much of the last ten years. The most significant progress in casino games with graphics was the introduction of immersive video slots with more advanced visuals, storylines, and reel combinations for bonus features and effects. Video slots marked the advancement from legacy slots with few reels and limited features.
Since then, there’s been some progress around 3D slots, but casino games with graphics have remained the same over the past ten years. During this time, the audience has changed; people growing up during the 2000s and early 2010s are now young adults. Most of these people, generation Y and Z, have grown up playing video and computer games. As such, more youthful people today have different expectations and needs regarding gaming experiences.
This has been a lingering concern within the online gambling industry. There’s a need for innovation, addressing the shortcomings of typical casino games, which have been a staple of online casinos over the past 20 years. Here is where casino crash games enter the picture, as they tick off the boxes for some criteria younger gamers seek. Modern online casinos that stay ahead of industry trends are adding more and more crash games to add depth and engagement for younger audiences. In doing so, they provide a better gaming experience, more choices, a better simulated impact of decisions and achievements, and social gaming.
Blast off with our latest game, Spaceman!
— Pragmatic Play (@PragmaticPlay) March 24, 2022
Venture into outer space & enjoy the intergalactic Crash game with real-time decision making to pre-empt the spaceman’s collision.
Read more: https://t.co/xpJSIfI5wH
18+ https://t.co/jIl6UrUvsP#Spaceman #PragmaticPlay pic.twitter.com/B3RQgyfXvi
Casino Crash Games Is a Potential Game Changer
Casino crash games have similar underlying game mechanics and come in different packages. The original type of crash game revolves around an aircraft, typically a rocket.
In the case of a rocket, the gameplay follows the launch, the rocket’s flight and eventual crash. Similar to a rocket launch, there is a countdown period in a game round before the rocket takes flight. During this countdown period, players can place their bets. When the rocket launches, a multiplier keeps increasing for as long as the rocket is in the air. The longer the flight, the longer the multiplier. The higher the multiplier, the higher the potential win of bets placed. However, as mentioned, the rocket will eventually crash.
The trick is for the player to abandon or eject from the rocket before it crashes. If the player ejects from the rocket early, they will win the bet but with a low multiplier, effectively a small win. If they stay on the rocket and successfully eject, they will get a larger win as the multiplier is more significant. The bet is lost if the player doesn’t eject before the rocket crashes.
This gameplay is different from other casino games with graphics, as a player typically only chooses how much they want to bet and then presses a button; the gameplay is then automatic with no input from the player. In casino crash games, the player has to actively pick how long they want to remain active in the game round. Additionally, in crash games, multiple players participate simultaneously. Each player can see the other player’s decisions, how much they are betting when they are ejecting, who lost, and who won.
Humble Beginnings
An exciting aspect of crash games is that they don’t originate from any of the existing major game developers in the sector. Instead, crash games first originated from skin betting sites, where players could bet skins from CS:GO or Dota 2. These websites offered skin betting and developed rudimentary games, relying on simple scripts and basic graphics. With increased heat from lawmakers and game developers, most skin betting has been removed. The most popular game stemming from skin betting sites was crash games, often a 2D object in the form of a projectile with a trajectory traveling over a chart. These games then became popular with the first gambling websites that accepted cryptocurrencies.
Today, the scripts for crash games have become more advanced, along with video graphics and different themes. Legacy types of online casinos and offshore operators need to adapt faster. Instead, it’s the legal US gaming operators leading the way and catering to younger audiences with brands and gaming content better suited for these players. Increasingly, crash games are taking up more space in their game library. Ideally, it’s a positive trend built upon to innovate further an online casino industry that’s been asleep for the last decade.
