We asked some leading suppliers to the gaming and amusement industry their thoughts on the importance of strong cabinet design

InterGame asked: What areas need to be focused on in order to draw customers to a game?

Nick Hardy, Games Warehouse: “Cabinet aesthetics is a very subjective area. The general tendency, for this reason, is to avoid polarising opinion by being too radical. For me, the two main factors should be impact and differentation. Machine locations are hopefully busy places, with different tools competing for customer attention. In this context, cabinets should ideally stand out and offer a wow factor and in doing so, clearly differentiate themselves from other products and whatever went before. That would be my top line of brief.”

John Malin, iBrand Gaming/Scott Farley, Elite Casino Products: “There are many aspects to consider in attracting a customer to a game but ultimately it is a combination of these aspects including finishes, textures, lighting, style, sound and overall aesthetics of the cabinet. It is vital to have an attractive and stylish cabinet in order to attract that first coin.

IG: Does the target player and end location influence the design of the cabinet?

Marc-Antoine Pinard, Adrenaline Amusements: “From a marketing perspective, yes it should. However, in amusement the demographic is so mixed it is more difficult. As long as you make something that is fundamentally attractive to the human nature it should be appealing. When it comes to location influences, when you look at the international market, some very interesting requests as far as lighting and sound can be asked of the manufacturer. For instance, in China and Japan they like loud and over the top, where as in the US, some locations require something much less aggressive.” Nick Hardy: “Within the UK pub and bar sector the target audience is very diverse so there is a need to be fairly conservative. The product has to ‘fit’ within its surroundings and be more generic in styling than perhaps the amusement sector. The test for a designer’s creativity is to then add a distinctive appealing twist.”

Dubai Miklos, NovoParts: “Definitely and we have very different experiences within different markets. The quality and design of cabinets is extremely important and when an operator changes an older, wooden designed cabinet for a new metal casino cabinet, even if the game itself is the same, it instantly makes it more attractive and interesting to players.”

John Malin/Scott Farley: “Each market has different design elements that need to be considered. Every player has different wants in what attracts them to a game. At Elite Casino, marketing studies are used to assist in finding out what the majority of the players like and then a cabinet is tailored to that group.

This feature can be read in full in the May 2012 issue of InterGame magazine.