High 5 Casino has quickly become one of the most popular social gambling applications on Facebook and on the iTunes App Market. In the year since its launch, High 5 Casino has been downloaded by 4.3 million users – and the app is beginning to outdo its land-based counterparts. While High 5’s land-based games are still highly profitable, the company is seeing much more opportunity in social and online casino markets.

Previously, the company simply converted land-based games for use at High 5’s social casino. Now, exclusive Facebook titles are being launched, available only to players in the social gaming world. “We used to make land-based games and then convert them to social and mobile, but now we’ve reversed the model,” says Patrick Benson, High 5 Games’ Vice President of Integrated Marketing.

“By first creating games for social and mobile, we’re able to build up huge audiences for our titles and analyse what players truly want.” High 5’s exclusive Facebook games include Jazz, Legends of Troy, Pasion Y Fuego and The Swordsman. Ocean’s Glory is a game that was originally created for the Facebook platform; however, there was a very enthusiastic and positive response to the online pokie.

So, High 5 worked with Bally Technologies to launch a land-based poker machine version of the title. When starting out on High 5 Casino, you are only able to play 6 games. So, it will take some time before you can access the developer’s exclusive Facebook pokies. This could certainly be a new trend in the poker machine development market.

Instead of seeing more online pokies being based on land-based games, it is likely that designers will start creating games that premiere in the online world first. It is an effective strategy for appealing to a wide audience of players, and we could certainly see companies like Aristocrat, WMS and IGT adopting this tactic.

About the Author

George Anderson
Author George, has over 25+ years’ experience in the Pokies and Casinos industry throughout Australia and New Zealand. Loves to research new Pokies games on the block and follows announcements from top industry providers about their upcoming releases. As soon as a new interesting pokie game appears on his radar, George is there to check it out and give you the scoop before anyone else and tell you about all casino sites where can play the latest game. Before this gig, George worked as Pokie game tester, making him an ideal candidate for this genre of work. He is also an animal lover and a proud owner of three dogs.