G2E trots out server-based games (yawn), and little new content

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Nov. 27, 2009 | 3 a.m.

How appropriate it was for this year’s Global Gaming Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center to be parked next door to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

Everybody knows what a roller-coaster ride gaming has been on in the last year. It may as well get a look at the new rides that will either delight or churn the stomach.

The buzz at this show — again! — was the arrival of server-based gaming. I think it was at the 2006 show that the public was told slot games generated from a central computer server would be the wave of the future on casino floors.

In 2007 and 2008 vendors showed us what they looked like. We learned that what the public sees isn’t much different from what they see on the floor today. Behind the scenes are computer monitors that don’t look much different from a standard computer screen running a program.

Regulators and labs spent a lot of time testing the new sophisticated equipment while slot players fretted over whether casinos would change odds in the middle of a hot streak. One of the benefits of server-based games for casinos is that a floor manager could make changes to a game — such as the theme, the amount you can wager and, yes, the hold — with a few keystrokes.

Last year regulators finished piecing together the rules for server-based games and included some safeguards for players. Whenever programmers modify on the fly, a screen must be displayed telling the player that changes are being made and they can only occur after a machine has been dormant for four minutes.

This year, server-based games were again the hot topic at G2E as more hit the market.

But then, the economy got in the way.

Changing an entire slot floor is an expensive proposition and none of the major casino companies rushed to redo their floors. But the first floor to be dominated by server-based games arrives next month at CityCenter’s Aria. MGM Mirage officials like the leadership limelight of CityCenter, and industry watchers will eagerly view the acceptance and results of server-based slot machines.

I overheard one conventiongoer telling a colleague that he will be glad when all the hype on server-based games ends because then slot manufacturers can get back to developing creative content for games.

Although I took low expectations with me on my walk of the trade-show floor, it didn’t seem as if there were very many new things on the content front this year. Maybe that, too, is a product of the recession. There’s no sense putting anything new out if casinos aren’t ready to buy them.

International Game Technology, as usual, had the most visible display, stretching the width of the convention hall on a platform overlooking the rest of the floor.

IGT’s big displays were dedicated to some of its licensed theme machines (“Wheel of Fortune” Experience, “The Amazing Race,” “American Idol”). One of its new entries was its “Sex and the City” machines, featuring the likenesses of the cast of the television show and movie.

Chris Noth, Mr. Big in the show, cut the ribbon opening the event and I was actually surprised to see that the Mr. Big jackpot was bigger than that of Carrie, Sara Jessica Parker’s character.

IGT also promoted machines that used knock-off art of a more popular theme. For example, the company offered “Blood Lite,” which looks suspiciously like the “Twilight” vampire, and “Hot Pursuit,” a salute to NASCAR.

IGT also is capitalizing on the social acceptance of older women dating younger men with its “Cougar-Licious” machines.

One of my colleagues questioned whether any of these themes really matter since the way the games are played are virtually the same. But the mind of the slot player can be a scary place, and I’m sure IGT has researched that there are people who will play “Blood Lite” because they like the new vampire-genre movies and books or “Hot Pursuit” because they’re NASCAR fans. It’s all part of the enticement.

New table games always get my attention because I know how hard it is for them to gain traction on casino floors. One new game that caught my eye was “Three Card 21,” developed by Jim Sullivan of Score Gaming.

Sullivan, of Henderson, said the game is in play in tribal casinos in California and he hopes to get a field trial in Nevada next year.

The game is a little more complicated than time-honored blackjack. Players get three cards to start and plays it like 21 unless the cards total more than 21. If that happens you can split the three cards into one- and two-card hands, but you have to buy in for the new hand.

Players also can win with a 32 (two aces and any 10 card), which pays 4 to 1 (and if it’s suited, it pays 10 to 1). A three-card 21 pays 3 to 2 (suited, 3 to 1).

There are a number of other rules on splits that players will learn if the game makes it to Nevada casinos.

Volcanic anniversary

While locals and visitors gear up for one of the most significant casino openings in recent history, MGM Mirage paid tribute to the property most agree opened a new era of themed resorts in Las Vegas: the Mirage.

The Mirage opened its doors Nov. 22, 1989, and all the buzz was about whether this crazy Strip hotel with a volcano erupting every 15 minutes would be profitable enough to pay its bills.

Just as CityCenter critics say MGM Mirage executives are nuts to think the $8.5 billion property opening next month will be sustainable, late-1980s wags were counting on Steve Wynn making a trip to Bankruptcy Court shortly after the Mirage opened.

But Wynn proved the critics wrong. The Mirage opened the door to more creativity up and down the Strip, and although not every project since then has been a home run, the Mirage showed the way of the future.

When MGM acquired most of Wynn’s assets in 2000’s $6.4 billion takeover — then the largest in the industry — the company took on the property’s name, becoming MGM Mirage.

Last week, Mirage guests got 20 percent off their room charges and other souvenirs and anniversary specials were throughout the property.

Gold Rush

Landry’s Restaurants upped the ante in downtown Las Vegas last week with the opening of the $150 million Rush Tower at the Golden Nugget.

The 500-room tower is part of a $300 million renovation and expansion and includes a steak-and-seafood-rich Chart House restaurant, a floating reservation desk for private check-ins and a 75,000-gallon tropical aquarium fish tank, which is in addition to the 200,000-gallon live shark aquarium known as The Tank. The new rooms are larger than rooms in other Golden Nugget towers and the Rush Tower includes four penthouse suites and 70 junior suites on the building’s corners.

The new rooms have 42-inch plasma televisions, upgraded pillow-top mattresses and feather down comforters.

Guests will be able to access the Rush Tower through its own porte cochere on First Street and Carson Avenue.

Chamber honors

The Urban Chamber of Commerce honored businesses and individuals at an event this month at the Monte Carlo.

Honorees included Hamilton Anderson Associates, large business of the year; Acelero Learning Head Start of Clark County, small business of the year; Large Vision Business Network Mixer, micro business of the year; and 62030 Media, new member of the year. The chamber also recognized Aubrey Branch and Joe Hernandez, founders of Branch-Hernandez & Associates, the state’s largest completely minority-owned insurance agency with its pioneer award, and Las Vegas Councilman Ricki Barlow for his service to Ward 5.

Hamilton Anderson was the architect of record for the interiors of CityCenter’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold-certified Vdara, which opens Dec. 1.

Large Vision offers event production, management and promotional services on large-event mixers. Acelero provides preschool education and child development services to more than 2,000 children in low-income households in Southern Nevada.

62030 Media was established in 2008 as an Internet marketing operation and much of its work has helped nonprofit organizations including the Community Little League in West Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Black Historical Society and the Feed the Homeless Drive in Ward 5.

Richard N. Velotta covers tourism, technology and small business for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at 259-4061 or at [email protected].