Transcript A simple game model www.slingo.com

A simple game model
www.slingo.com
… Slingo …
A combination of slot machines and Bingo
was designed and implemented as an online game, under the name of Slingo. The
game was modeled on an old Mexican fivewheel slot machine, but modified during
development to build in features that were
best done in software.
games are played with ten participants per
game, and a “chat” feature was added so
that during the game the players could tease
or congratulate each other.
The chat feature was a big hit, so much so that
players developed a distinctive vocabulary
that became known as “Slingo Lingo”, thus
presaging by years a similar phenomenon
amongst cell phone instant messaging
systems.
The game was refined and tested, and then offered to
America On-Line for inclusion in the AOL gaming
environment. It was meant to help fill out the
AOL offerings by providing a little something for
every possible demographic of their membership.
The game officially “rolled out” in October of
1996, in a context where, according to the experts,
in a best-case scenario, the game might account for
perhaps 10,000 hours of AOL connect time per
month.
A funny thing happened. The game quickly
became one of the most popular activities
on the AOL site. Within three months the
game had reached a level ten times greater
than the most ambitious of expectations,
accounting for over 100,000 hours per
month. And it kept growing.
Slingo Factoids
As of 8/02, there have been over 2 billion
Slingo games played. Slingo hosts almost 2
million unique players each month, with an
average of approximately 140,000 total daily
hours of game play.
Slingo stands as one of the top ten most downloaded
games. Slingo ranks 4th amongst all game
publishers based upon unique monthly users, and
7th (following Microsoft’s 6 online products) in
total game plays.
The world “Slingo” has been one of the top 5 most
accessed keywords on America Online for three
straight years.