We can leave that up to our 'marketing department', that is, Players who start winning money.



STV

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2847

I think it was significant when the winner of this years' Big One-for-One poker drop posted to this forum to explain why he didn't want to talk to the camera, and explained on this forum his views on the darker side of the game.

I'm not a poker player, but he made some good points that I could relate to.

And frankly, I was hoping there would be more astute poker players who could appreciate the value of being given opportunity for positive EV and bet any way that they want including how much skill affects the outcome.

Giving control over the bet amount, the win amount, and the amount that skill affects the EV means full control over every single thing except the house edge. Then putting in a very fun game that generally anyone can enjoy and get better at should result in a very positive game that aims to be, let's say, the least evil possible.

It amount to a game that costs $1 per play ON AVERAGE while wagering $100 to someone smart enough to understand how casino math works (and knows how to disable skill effect). And folks who understand positive EV and can learn pinball, it PAYS. Everyone saying that we'll never get $100 per game is right! We'll get a fraction of a dollar a game, and the casino will get what is left over. In general we get nothing significant until the big bets are made.

All of these people who say $100 per game is too much are frankly not our target market. Surely they are thinking they don't want to lose $100. And what they are expressing is that they have absolutely no idea how to gamble and expect positive EV. And for those players, yes, please, go and play Ghostbusters or Wheel of Fortune and go for the "life changing jackpot."

If you check the Nevada State Gaming Revenue statistics, you'll see the average holds

http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdoc...ocumentid=9255

Penny slots in Nevada are 9.24% on AVERAGE for the last 12 months.
Megabucks (IGT life changing jackpots for example) are averaging 13.38%

I have personally seen IGT slot machines even in locals casinos like the Silverton set to 14% house edge (penny slots). These numbers are not disclosed to the patron at all.

While working at IGT, I have attended meetings personally with the CEO where she explains that 50 cents of every dollar made is operational revenue from machines that award these life changing jackpots. The machines that generally cost $3 per pull hold 13.38% in the last twelve months.

So half the money IGT was making was a portion of that $3 * .1338 = $0.40 per pull on the 55,000+ machines that IGT personally owns and leases out to casinos. That's the same revenue that fell 44% year-over-year right before IGT was sold off to GTECH.

This is part of the "dark secret" of gaming: penny slots and "life changing jackpots" are what kept IGT alive. And when the "life changing jackpot" revenue slipped (people have cell phones and can locate gaming statistics these days) we decided it would be smarter to market to smarter and more intelligent people who want to actually gamble instead of just playing the lottery.

So we decided that for our game we would let the casino make any "life changing jackpots" and keep the house edge the same no matter how much the player wants to win.

There is a lot more to this game than just putting gambling and pinball together. We are trying to share with the players like the winner of the Big One-for-One in a way that is legitimate and fair and honest and transparent. We are wanting to share with the casino and we are expecting to get paid ourselves as a reward for doing what is right for the world of gambling and the state of Nevada and the image of gambling world-wide.

This is a tall order. As a staff level executive research engineer, I worked for IGT for several years and I sat right up there with the executives, Investor relations, and IGT's top lawyers. In fact, one of the top lawyers I saw every day walking to my desk was the same top lawyer that denied me my severance package; yes IGT denied paying my severance package because they knew that they could get away with it. And let me tell you: it was big. They were gambling, not that they were right in denying it to me, but that it would cost more in legal fees to prove that they didn't have a legal leg to stand on.

This is the dishonesty that we are trying to overcome in this industry. The same dark side that the winner of the Big One-for-One is loosely referring to.

As a result, we are depending on our customers to be smart and intelligent and understand how casino math works. They have to understand that $100 bets are not "bad" if you're expecting positive EV because you don't suck. And if you do suck, you better figure out how to turn off the skill component or have someone that you just tipped explain it to you. There is a charge for being stupid on our game. Just like the guys I see every day betting black chips on the pass line after the point is marked up as a four or a ten. That bet has an EV of 66.66% on craps, and I see it nearly every time I go to the table.

On our game, Betting too much to win too little and then having a game with more positive EV than you need to have 100% chance to win is the only way to have the game under pay you. That's because you still will only be paid what you asked for instead of what your skill should have ensured to you if you had selected the larger win amount.

In every case you get less EV (even the case above), it's someone who can play the game better getting the extra EV. Not the casino. Not us the game creators. The case above merely ensures that there is always positive EV to go around to the next player (keeps the game balanced with EV it can give away).

But for every person who fails to understand what we are doing, I sincerely apologize. Yet this game was made for intelligent players who understand positive EV. All of the unintelligent players who play this game will very likely be the sheep led to slaughter not by us, but by those who are being fed positive EV from play. And it was in fact designed to be that way. It's not our job to prevent folks from being overconfident in their playing skills or to play the game before they realize that if they suck at pinball the EV might be reduced dramatically on their resolved wager.

It's still shown to them as it resolves in a very fair way that they should eventually understand if they aren't just totally brain-dead.

Those people should beware. But still we are only looking for the 1% edge, and are looking away when someone who sucks makes a big bet without realizing they might end up with a 80% EV because they have no skill at pinball. The other 19% is for the player, not for us or the casino.

It's going to be wild, folks. And I do hope more people begin to understand. I have to admit that it is possible that there just aren't enough players smart enough to know that a $100 minute-long-game is cheaper by the clock at 1% than a penny slot that is well known to anyone who knows how to "Google that fer ya" is 9.24%

not sure if that wall of text was necessary, except for letting us know that IGT sucks

the problem is - smart gamblers are an incredibly tiny subset of gamblers as a whole (since table games gambling is losing money on average what's so smart about it?)

imo, you're better off advertising $5 machine with 15% edge than this

I hope I'm wrong and you guys get rich just doesn't seem likely

Re: table games gambling is losing money on average what's so smart about it?

http://vegasmagazine.com/living/arti...ollar-revenues

There are casinos who are just as much out of touch with table game revenue as you are. Fortunately, we don't have to convince everyone that high limit play with small percent edges can generate big profits for the house.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014...n-fiscal-year/

My observations are that American and/or western players want positive EV. We intend to give it to them. If we're wrong, we know how to make slot machines too!

Vegas Sun, "Slot-machine revenue fell 0.4 percent to $6.7 billion but still accounted for 60 percent of the total win, the lowest since 1991."

I didn't say all of that stuff about IGT to say that they suck. I'm pointing out specific methods that they use to make money. They are known to use the methods of selling products that have the highest hold percentages of any slot manufacturer in the world. Internal video confirm this and they brag (internally at least) about their high hold percentages being the greatest of all manufacturers. And that doesn't even include megajackpots. That's the newest latest and greatest gee-wiz technology IGT slots with MLD and so on.

IGT is a tiny company compared to the successful casinos that are generating Baccarat revenue. There are at least 20 Baccarat tables in the Wynn, 20 in the Palazzo. Wynn is at 18.7B market cap as of today. LVS is at 50.5B. IGT and all of the slot manufacturers are tiny in comparison at 4.0B for IGT and lower for the others.

Total slot revenue may appear large, but there are a lot of machines out there to get that 6.7 billion revenue.

318 Baccarat tables generated $1,683,210,000 in Nevada according to this report:

http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdoc...ocumentid=9255

That's $5,293,113 average win per table. That's an average of $14,501 win rate per table per day.

If you go into the high limit rooms and know where to look you can find $30,000,000 in chips on a single Baccarat table here in Vegas.

These are facts. When you say table games are losing, were you already knowledgeable about these facts?

This information is pivotal to our approach. And someone who fails to understand the reality of win rates for the very few baccarat tables in Nevada (most of which are hidden, we have found some but not all of the 300 tables) can't comprehend what we're doing. This is very much a back-in-the-back of the high-limit table rooms where this is happening in a quiet secluded area.

The same area we intend these games to operate, frankly.

It is a radical idea. But maybe this information helps to explain.

"Wall of text" is a phrase that was new to me. Thanks for introducing me.

I guess I wasn't very clear when I wrote that out, I meant that playing table games is a losing proposition (shocker, right?), which basically makes a term "smart gambler" an oxymoron.

I like though how you immediately labeled me out of touch without bothering to figure out what I was trying to convey, I guess you didn't spend all those years at IGT in wain.

Sounds like a misunderstanding and I apologize for that. I think that with time things will be clearer, and it really sounds like just a misunderstanding.

I think that the ball is in my court to explain the math model better at this point. For now, please accept my apologies, though.

apologies accepted, good luck with the machine

There's an inside joke at NanoTech Gaming Labs where after describing what we're doing, we get (sometimes) a thumb up or a wink or a nod coupled with a "good luck with that."

IE: it's funny you say that. Anyway, thanks, and we'll keep the forum posted.

And just to be clear, gambling with a negative expectation is what sucks. Even those who are doing it deserve a HOPE that some day that they can be AP with more practice!

The game has settings to offer low denomination play for those who prefer high edge long-shots from pure luck.

Just a few quick updates. Wade Andrews and I spoke last Friday on Texas Hold 'Em Radio about the game.



http://www.texasholdemradio.com/podcasts/vegas2047.MP3

And CBS This Morning is doing a piece with David Schwartz where David was filmed playing our game during the filming of the piece at G2E.

It is airing at 8:20am Wednesday October 29th from what I understand on CBS on both coasts.



We are also planning some other announcements, but I just wanted to keep folks updated who might be interested further. I mentioned the 2+2 forums in the radio interview.

When I went to Spain 10 years ago they had a pinball like game with max payout of 250 euro. Anyone played these?

There's a brief view of Vegas 2047 in this piece at around 2:20.

CBS This Morning covers changing trends in Vegas

We are still working hard at the lab making progress!

Guys, you need to take a step back and try to be objective; the fact that you are having a hard time getting your point across to a message board of advantage players is a bad sign and you cant hand wave that away by saying your marketing department will handle it.

As proponents of +EV games, you should realize that your approach to product development is pure gambling; you have a concept you fell in love with, and then instead of trying to iteratively improve it through feedback you dont listen to feedback and just further stand by your original assumptions.

Be scientific about this by testing your assumptions instead of simply assuming you know what the market will do.

Or Keith Elwin

$100 for a game of pinball, thats crazy.

It is a different kind of game. What we are battling in the case of this and similar responses is the mindset of players who have been lied to and misled for years about the cost. If you walk up to a $25 crap table, what percentage of the people on that table have only $25 in action?

Our entire goal is to keep the costs down, offer advantage play. The whole goal is to increase the action. You can control everything from the bet amount, the win amount, the effect of skill.

If you play a penny slot, what percentage of people are wagering one penny at a time? How many penny slots require more than one unit to play?

Our game is a one-unit game. You have been lied to for so many years you cannot escape the lies that you have been told about the cost of the game.

Would it help to think of the game as a $20 game that requires 4 units? Maybe it would help to think of the fact that you can win $1 nearly 99% of the time you play without any pinball skill at all.

Don't stay thinking inside the box. Understand before you comment, and comment again.

Our game is fully transparent. You will have to get over the fact that we aren't lying to you when everyone else wants to misrepresent the cost, we don't.

At a 1.00% edge, it's a $1 game of pinball, and $99 in TOTAL gambling action. All action is the exact same house edge (no sucker bets).

There are currently no games that offer bet denominations up to table-house-max bet (EG: $5,000 to $50,000 on the strip) where the player can have an edge against the casino for that bet. This is the first. And those who can get the edge will want to bet BIG not SMALL.

For those who are smart and can't, they turn off the skill and bet small and enjoy a game of casual pinball with no stress.

People will judge. Once you play, once you get it, once you experience the possibility of turning pinball skill into cash without having to have another player physically present at the time, or see someone else do it, you will be hooked. No matter if you have the skill or not! It is still a very unique thing that attracts everyone.

For some it may be just too much control, and that's fine. But for those who want to bet big and put their skills behind it, it's a game like no other.

Here's a document that addresses this FAQ and many others.

http://ntekgl.com/vegas2047/Vegas2047.pdf

Im still amazed at how poorly you continue to explain this game or maybe its just the
condescending tone you will continue to use when people just dont get it, cuz you will be facing a lot of that.
ONe minute you say you can win $1 99 percent of the time, who in the world is going to be betting 1oo to win 1

Later you say you can turn the skill off and bet small, its still going to be a minimum of $100 to play a pinball game. Why would you want to play pinball when you are there to gamble, the novelty will wear off pretty quickly.

For the records I actually do understand what is going on for the most part BUT people are not going to go for this. I wish you luck and I can appreciate your out of the box thinking on this concept.
Sometimes ideas are just too far ahead of the curve.

Thanks for the response. I find it fascinating getting feedback like this. Confidence combined with lack of knowledge is a common combination in the casino for all games of chance. Join the club of critics, but those who understand how to defeat those who fail will prevail. I don't anticipate you to be an AP on our game when it arrives. But good luck to you! You can disable the skill component completely, and for some this is the best way to go: leave luck to heaven!

Those who grasp and execute with skill and knowledge will prevail in 2047. But chance is one of many options and we intend to transparently give you any path you wish to attempt to become a lifetime winner.

Please tell me you've risked your entire net worth on this venture.

Why? Would that make you happy?

This reminds me, has anyone ever met Jean Prince Gaspard?

The community of poker players includes some real works of art.

No, but just looked up his very impressive stats. Hopefully, the scam accusations that are online against him aren't true. I guess if they were true it would make him kinda like a much more successful Michael Borovetz.

It's actually a goal of ours to create an atmosphere of play that is (more) fun with our game. I have a long history on internet forums about gambling (like the Wizard of Vegas) where people take quite a bit of time to be rude to one another and kick each other in the gut over this, that, and the other. The reflection of the hardened high-limit negative-EV gambler who is a grouchy old man is not exactly what we're looking for.

Creating a culture of players that enjoy each other's company and who are not directly against one another with conflicting goals is part of what we are doing at NanoTech Gaming. We are drawing on some of the experience learned from creating engaging single-player skill-based gameplay in Rush 2049.



The number 2047 is a link back to 2049 as we have all the leads from 2049 (released by Atari Games coin-op in 1999) working at NanoTech Gaming.

Seeing a culture of gamblers that are constantly at each others' throats (or the casino's) and/or that spend more time arguing about inane details or just plain being rude for no good reason is part of what we see as a problem with gambling in general.

The other thing is that, in general, AP video players are sort of a nerdy sort of math type of player. Even the vulturable video products require some math knowledge for knowing when the game is in an AP state.

Our game is generally designed to reward timing and general hand-to-eye coordination. Similarly to sports. Once you find a bet you are comfy with, you just play pinball over and over! IE: for the pro, it's not about spending time on the gamble. You're improving your pinball game through repetitive play.



But just to be clear, and I do apologize if I rubbed anyone the wrong way (even the "Prince"), we are trying to create a community of professional players that aren't perceived as total jerks by the casino or less experienced players as a result of our game's design. I think it'll work. You have to have good hand-to-eye coordination to AP on 2047 the way that we designed it. And you have to have experience playing the game, not a knowledge-base coming in, or a PhD in combinatorial mathematics and the ability to count cards better than the "Rain Man."

I do appreciate everyone's interest here on the forum going forwards, and thanks very much for all of the comments.

10 J Q K A

You have come off as a bit pushy and with blinders on. Hopefully this can be a change in engagement going forward.

I think the people giving you feedback get what you're trying to do, but ultimately I think it's just difficult for some of us to see a $100-minimum game of pinball being anything but a tiny niche thing, at best.

By making it a rapid reaction, skill-based thing, you're skewing your target audience to the younger set, but the younger set is typically going to have less money to put down.

It's just tough to reconcile this, I think some think.

We really do appreciate all of your thoughtful feedback! Thank you!

Our approach with "Vegas 2047" was to design a new game from the standpoint of revenue generation and likelihood for success, rather than the standpoint of demographics.

We obviously are overlooking the 55+ female gambler who is well-served by large slot machine manufacturers. A $2.5B market of 55,000 games in the state of Nevada (for 2013) was an impossible nut to crack - we simply chose not to try that angle.

However, being that the $100 minimum bet game of baccarat earned just as much that year ($2.5B for 2013) with only 330 tables, and the perception that the Asian card game of luck is 'tiny' and 'niche' when you compare demographics, we thought we had a much better chance of being seen and heard in the high limit rooms over the lights and noise from slots.

We're not going to compromise or change the design of "Vegas 2047" until we get some data from a field trial. It's just a difference of perspective.

However, comments and suggestions about the $100 minimum, younger demographic, and prevalence of slot machines are absolutely taken to heart. We just haven't made any of our ideas public with regards to those suggestions!

We believe that when we get traction with "Vegas 2047", the smaller denomination bets, higher house edges, and wider appeal to casual gamblers will be an easier sell than it would be as an initial offering.

Be patient and understanding with us on our journey. What we're doing is really difficult! We're talking about nothing less than a revolution, and it won't happen overnight!

Thank you all again for your support!

STV

--
Creative Director
NanoTech Gaming