Slots are by far the most popular casino games in online casinos around the world. This is because slots involve a certain degree of risk and mystery, and they offer exciting gameplay that many players love.
When online casino operators started offering mobile slot games, they quickly became extremely successful for various reasons. One of the reasons is that they offered everything that players needed to get the ultimate gambling experience.
As with many other things, technology has played an important role in the success of mobile slots. In this article, we’ll take a look at how technology has changed the mobile slots industry.
The rise of online casinos and mobile slots
Mobile phones have had games on them since 1997 when Nokia first introduced its prototype with the infamous Snakes game. This was the only type of mobile game available for the next eight years until the first mobile slot was introduced in 2005 – Pub Fruity by Java. This was a classic slot of 3×3 grid and featured one payline. Besides this slot, there were mini-games, like jackpots, available.
At that time, the screens of mobile devices were so small that extremely basic black and white pixels were all that could be used in these games. But they were played a bit, even for real money, and that showed that many people wanted to play even if the graphics and features of these games weren’t that great.
Flash enters the scene
The Java games didn’t become quite popular, but they showed that there was a demand for such games that could be met if the hardware and software caught up. This is the reason why flashed-based mobile slot games really took off in the mid-2000s.
Flash was meant to create apps in a web browser, but it was also used to run apps on mobile phones. Slots providers realized the potential of the Flash platform and decided to provide players with the opportunity to download and play Flash-based real money on their mobile devices.
Unlike Java, the use of Flash allowed developers to offer much more complex graphics. And when they added it to larger phone sizes, developers could actually start to have proper video slots with five reels while on the go.
The usage of Flash allowed developers to:
- Offer much more intricate graphics and animation.
- Create mobile versions of actually existing five-reels slots.
- Provide options for managing your account, such as making deposits and withdrawals and handling bonuses using a mobile device.
The advent of HTML5
Once Flash-based slot games built their solid presence, developers started exploring the idea that one version of a game could be played both on mobile devices and PCs. This would reduce the development time and allow for more titles to be released over the long run.
At the same time, HTML5 started creating waves of disruption in mobile gaming technology. While HTML5 games were larger than Flash-based titles, they had the advantage that they could do a lot more with less memory and processing power.
