that are heavily branded with the logo and designed to appeal to its mass- market target audience. Absolute Poker's flagship game is Monopoly, which is a soft-style game using a roulette engine under a fixed-odds license. It has so Car proved hugely popular with Absolute
Poker .
According to Oscar J., managing director of Absolute Poker
Games. "The attention it has received SO far, particularly from out competitors has been outstanding." Jim S. says. And as far as 1w is concerned it is games such as Monopoly that will help create a new market for egamning at
Absolute Poker Games online. "Betfair and fixed-odds belting terminals have been the only two innovations in the gambling sector in the past t8 years. It's time we opened this industry up. We need to create more demand for our products from a different type of costumer," he adds. At its core Absolute Poker Games' monopoly is little more happy and scaled-don version of roulette, but its popularity demonstrates how far the soft gaming sector has come. Despite the criticism leveled at it by the old guard of the e-garning industry. Soft gaming has become an important part of a casino site. We Are no longer the poor relation relegated to an underdeveloped sub-site, but becoming part and parcel of the online casino experience. And slowly .surely we are finding the line between what constitutes soft. gaming and hard gaming becoming blurred. According to Eyen, the crossover has already happened. "Slots, keno, bingo, lottery and other soft- betting products have evolved into multi-lines. big payout progressives and bonus rounds." Eyen says. "When lotteries are paying out tS$2OOm jackpots or more - it's hard to say that's soft." What the rise of soft games, and bespoke versions of traditional games, clearly demonstrate is a widespread desire in the industry to lap into the mass market. The world wide wait The mass-market punter has different expectations than an early adopter, not least of which is a desire loom immediate gratification. And he believes a lot of operators need to work more (in the usability and speed of their sites to stand any chance with mass- market garners. "Recently I clicked on banner advertising free games, and it took me eight clicks before the game loaded in my browser." Jim S. says incredulously. "Any potential player could have dumped that site way before the eighth click. And this was a well-known online
casino brands in one of the major European markets. The gaming experience for mass-market players needs to be slick, entertaining and above all fast. which plays into the hands of the non-download games. Cable and DSL internet. connections are growing at a staggering rate. many observers still feel download games' appeal is on the wane. "Non-download games will continue to lose their market share Although broadband is making good inroads. I believe the non-download graphics will continue to grow and dominate the space," Eyen says.
