If gone-with-the-blink pre-orders for Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S and Sony’s PlayStation 5 tell us anything, it is that there is no lull for the gaming industry. With
a 53% surge in revenues as of May 2020 for online gaming, a pandemic-induced global lockdown has worked handsomely. The esports arena - lorded over by the likes of Player Unknown’s Battleground (PuBG), Call of Duty, and Fortnite - is now deemed
more popular than the NBA.
To sustain momentum, gaming companies are working on the decentralized edge concept to bring seamless gaming to users across the globe. As 5G will boost the overall experience beyond exclusive titles, they should focus on new features like voice commands, motion gestures, and high-quality content to keep gamers engaged. More so, they must leverage digital to differentiate.
Here’s how to answer the call of duty.
Have an Ace Up Your Sleeve
Catering to digitally-empowered customers requires a relook at business models, engagement strategies, and regulatory compliance. The scales have to be delicately balanced between adopting technologies such as augmented reality and cloud against ensuring data sovereignty and user privacy. Here’s a strategy outline aimed at digitally transforming online gaming and betting.
- Drive Personalized Customer Experience: As users seek online gaming and betting arenas to escape from the quarantine boredom, operators need to focus on upping the ante on delivering a life-like, immersive experience. Emphasize user experience and design, compatibility across devices (from high-end consoles to hand-held mobiles), and engaging content with highly responsive graphics. Embedding analytics, big data, and business intelligence tools can help operators gain insights into customer behavior, drive higher personalization, and better customer service. Establishing regional data centers would also help address latency, boost performance, and improve security.
- Let Technology be the Ammunition: With online gaming becoming breeding grounds for digital communities – given the evolution of multiplayer battle arenas and gambling cohorts – operators need to ensure application ecosystems support technologies and payment gateways for a seamless multi-user experience. There is a proliferation of digital currencies (bitcoin, legion coin), digital vaults, and blockchain, along with cloud capabilities to support a higher user load and spot computing. Advancements in facial recognition technologies and on-demand streaming services come into play for higher levels of personalization. Operators that can tap into a growing technology landscape would stand out in a market teeming with competition.
- Heed Regulatory Compliance: Regulatory nitty-gritty can make or break the online betting and gaming business. Experts believe that many players will not return to physical casinos but continue to gamble online even after restrictions lift. This can arguably force authorities to review gambling licenses and make necessary amendments. Case in point: states like Michigan have started accepting gaming supplier licensing forms. Many countries in Europe, like the UK and Slovakia, have also indicated relaxation in legal rules for online gaming. Operators need to watch out for licensing requirements and regional mandates to ensure that user data is safe and not privy to malicious elements.
- Back it all up with End-to-End QA: The above stack of must-haves stands firmly on a quality assurance (QA) foundation that ensures nothing topples over. Operators need to approach QA with an end-to-end view – keeping hardware, software, and technology plug-ins as an integrated whole. Operators can partner with service providers that offer extensive QA capabilities across field testing, accessibility testing, and responsive web design testing to ensure application performance, security, and adaptability remain consistently high for a seamless customer experience.
Deliver Impact Across the Technology Continuum
Harman Connected Services is a trusted vendor with over 20 years of experience in innovatively re-engineering the traditional value chain for online gaming and betting operators. Our services portfolio spans concept creation, development, testing, porting, and delivery of solutions. We help drive differentiation by enhancing the customer experience with cutting-edge accessories, user-focused designs, and industry best practices.
We are leaders in product designing and offer platform-agnostic application testing services across 200+ variants of mobile devices. Specializing in digital audio experience, we have strategic partnerships with critical online gaming and hardware console companies to design and deliver differentiated and compliant products on various ecosystems, including Android and iOS.
Our focus on user-led design thinking, agile delivery models for taking new features to customers in radically reduced release cycles, and analytics-based business intelligence helps operators stay ahead of the curve. We ensure zero-defect delivery of gaming and betting services with a holistic view toward testing, delivering 99.9% uptime and 99.2% faster defect detection. Our multichannel approach to solutions ensures compatibility, accessibility, and adaptability across the web, mobile, tablet, and retail.
We are heavily invested in unified endpoint management, FPGA, ASIC, SoC, CPLDs, and ADCs research to ensure a seamless digital experience.
Next Task: Crush the Candy!
Going forward, gaming companies should focus on embedded applications, device certification, and firmware/over-the-air (OTA) upgrades to deliver value to customers. HARMAN can help you reimagine business models with self-learning algorithms, analytics, and edge technologies to maintain the winning streak.
The ground is ripe for scaling up unchartered use cases for big data and cloud to transform next-gen gaming and betting panoramas. Investments in 3D mapping, facial recognition, and VR GPUs enable robust processing for intuitive betting and gaming. In the end, the focus should be on secure end-to-end engagement and entertainment.
To explore how HARMAN Connected Services is making a difference in different industries and business processes,
get in touch with us.
Download HARMAN Betting and Gaming brochure.
