Once upon a time there was a games console producer who took the world by storm. The games console producer was the gamers’ champion and it was loved wherever it was sold. But the games console producer fell on hard times and saw a new breed of hardware developers charge past it in the race for players’ affections. That gave the games console producer a problem. What should it do in this strange new world where everybody knew its name but fewer and fewer people wanted to play its games?
Sega have surprised quite a few in the gaming world by their response to their changing place in the gaming marketplace. Instead of forging ahead with what they have become nostalgically known for they have announced that they are to branch out into the online territory occupied by the likes of poker at wild jack casino. In other words the real cash gambling experience supplied by the likes of Wild Jack online casino is where Sega see their future.
Sega have teamed up with Playtech to offer their own branded SegaCasino.com – the site is not yet up and running, but the wires are buzzing with the new even so. Playtech specialise in delivering off-the-shelf ‘turnkey’ software packages that allow third parties such as Sega to brand their own online casino offerings. If it were anyone other than Sega making this move it would be a non-story. Playtech software is available to anyone who can afford it; ordinarily all that happens is that a branded skin is rolled out as a shop-front exercise over the top of a pretty standard gaming package – End of story.
But this is Sega we’re talking about. We can see the attraction of moving with a demographic that has grown up with a certain affection for the Sega brand but who might now get more of a bang out of baccarat than they do from Sonic the Hedgehog. But surely there has to be more than this than simply selling the brand down the river?
All of a sudden all those casino games begin to make sense. What was sold as just a way to play was a way to bring us all up to speed with the grand plan. First we play for fun, and once we get the hang of it all and start to at home in a casino environment, we’re teased into playing for cold hard cash.
Forgive me for sounding just a little bit cynical but this is not where I thought Sonic was leading me all those years ago. At least all those online casinos stand up fair and square and tell it how it is. SuperCasino may or not be ‘super’, but at least you know what you’re getting.
There are those who insist that an organisation with the history and the design resources that Sega can call on is about to launch something ground-braking, exciting and exceptional. Let’s hope so. Anything less and it’s hard to see anything other than a very unhappy ending.
