For this week’s critical play, I decided to play on some of the virtual slot machines at https://www.freeslots.com – these didn’t utilize any real money, but I definitely still felt the addictive pull. The slot machines on the website all featured the same rolling mechanic, you would bet a certain amount of money to roll the slot machine, and win money if you were able to align, with more money bet allowing the player to bet on additional lines to win with, ranging from 4 lines to 26 lines.
Even in a simplified web format, the slots featured many different mechanisms and design choices that enhanced the feeling of the “near miss”, while also making it feel like I had far more control over the outcome than I actually had. The most influential of these was the ability to choose how many lines you could bet on – initially I chose to stay with the minimum number of lines, 4, but after yielding a number of near misses, I felt like I needed to bet on more lines, with the rationale that “well, those misses could have been wins if I had just made the correct bet”. The number of near misses also appeared to be far higher, as there were a very large number of different combinations that would yield a win, even if those wins were incredibly small. This was compounded by the fact that betting on only 4 lines meant that any wins I did get didn’t move the needle much, causing me to become bored and seek out more of a thrill with a higher bet amount. In truth though, the decisions that the game provides you with are never meaningful – the EV of the game itself is (most likely, anyway) always negative, and these decisions only affect the drip rate at which I would be losing credits. The small wins and near misses are also enhanced by admittedly really satisfying audiovisual feedback on every win. Especially on multi-line bets, the game will produce a small ‘ping’ sound that builds up with each consecutive win, while collaging together each winning line. I found myself feeling like a ‘winner’ even when clearly, I had just lost credits.
(satisfying, yes, but still a loss)
The design decisions of these slots stand in stark contrast to other games that I’ve played which heavily focus on RNG mechanics, even if they might seem to share similar mechanics. TFT, another RNG-centric game, centers around purchasing and placing units onto a player board which then battle the boards’ of other players, with the goal to assemble the strongest possible board (think Mahjong). Each turn the player is provided a random assortment of 5 units that they can purchase, with the caveat that they can spend a small amount to re-roll if the assorted units shown aren’t what the player desires. While this is functionally similar to the multi-line bet in that it gives the player a way to increase the odds of a ‘win’, the rules of each game means that these two mechanics end up creating wildly different dynamics. In TFT, ‘wins’ aren’t instantly made through a lucky roll, and an unlucky roll is not an immediate loss – players can find clever ways to piece together less desirable units on ‘losing rolls’, saving the money that another player might have used to reroll, creating future opportunities where they can then reroll for something better.
(dollars can be spent to immediately reroll, but can also be used to ‘buy xp’, increasing the odds for higher cost/more powerful units, creating a balance act of current vs. future power)
In contrast, the slot machine represents an all-or-nothing proposition – there is no actual skill involved in the loss mitigation process, just the illusion of it. Each roll of the slot machine is independent, so there are no mechanisms to build upon or learn from previous losses that can affect the state of the game. And as a result of this, attempts to devise strategies or tactics, doing things like alternating or attempting to strategize bet amounts, ultimately only serve to prolong the gambling experience without ever fundamentally altering the outcomes.
I can’t even imagine how bad things could’ve been if I had to place real money on the line.
