I played Quick Hit Casino Online Slots for iOS. Quick Hit Slots is a social casino game inspired by real slots from Las Vegas. It was created by the game company Appchi Media Ltd and is intended for an adult audience of ages 21+. Although I’ll never play Quick Hit Slots again, I have to give huge props to the developers and designers for making the game feel like Cocomelon for adults. The music, sound effects, colors, visuals, and unlock-able resources all contribute to a very hyper-stimulating and satisfying experience that makes Quick Hit Slots hard to put away.
From the get go, I was presented with many opportunities to make money. There’s a daily spin wheel in which you can earn a ton of coins just for opening the app that day. Unfortunately for the audience, the various daily goals and challenges available is a genius move by the designers to get people addicted.
A player might open the app with the initial intention of only spinning the daily bonus wheel, but then after they spin the wheel, they might look at one of the slots and be enticed to play a “few” times, then suddenly they’ve been playing slots for an hour because the constant upbeat music, sounds of coins jingling and people cheering whenever you win, vibrant colors, and affirming animations (like the “Lucky You!” text below) all pull you into the game.
“Near misses” also play a huge role in making the player want to keep playing. Below, my 600,000 bet on a spin made 0 winnings, but I was so close to getting 3 orange BAR symbols in a row! As mentioned by the reading, getting close makes you want to keep trying because it feels like the next spin will be the winner. I think that this perception that players have of “near misses” is closely related to the part of Randy’s lecture about how players perceive probability differently than how it actually works. For instance, if they have a 1/2 chance of winning, then they think that they must win by the 2nd game. Similarly, the more games of slots they play, the closer they think they are to winning because they feel closer to that probability threshold, further feeding into the addictiveness of slots.
Although slots are a different medium than card games of chance, “near misses” are still applicable to card games of chance. When my hand just barely goes over 21 in Blackjack, I’m extra motivated to keep playing because it feels like I’ll get that 21 very soon. And once I do reach that 21, the satisfaction feels so great that I want to keep playing to get that perfect 21 again. Quick Hit Slots is similar: it’s satisfying to finally get that big win after losing several times in a row. What distinguishes slots from card games of chance, though, are its visuals, music, and sound effects that stimulate the player’s senses and makes being a winner feel extra good (and extra addicting).
