THE BACK PAGE: Technology, a love story
by Charles Anderer
May 11, 2011
Well, sort of.
On the occasion of this month’s Gaming Technology Summit,
which we will co-produce with our friends from WhiteSand Gaming May 23-25, it’s
worth pondering the remarkable power of the Digital Age and all the hope (and
fear) that it induces.
It’s a tribute to the inexorable growth of products and solutions
such as the Internet, smart phones, the
iPad, social media and wireless communications just to name a few that a
big chunk of the technology sector rip-roared through The Great Recession as if
it were a mere pebble on the Interstate. Nothing got in the way of people whose
incomes were cut and whose jobs, if they had them, hung by a thread signing on
for another $20 or $30 a month worth of connectivity charges designed to make
their desks almost permanently irrelevant. Unemployed college graduates, they
need their gear, too.
We love the freedom of technology, or, at
least, the illusion of freedom it produces. For as we untether ourselves from
old, hated routines, we become permanently accessible. No more disappearing in
Europe for a week (or even two). Portugal, July, 1986, you couldn’t reach me,
and I couldn’t reach you. And we were both happy.
But that’s the way life is set up. There is
no “Winning!” without a little loss, just ask Charlie. And we’ve obviously
concluded as a species that the balance sheet for personal digital devices
skews in our favor when it’s all said and done. Mobility, access, personal
megaphones, creative distraction. It’s all good.
Whether we’re right about that or not will be decided in the very
distant future. We do know there are sacrifices involved, and the
transformative change that comes with technology can be painful. But the loss
has an odd integrity to it because a certain truth is often revealed and huge
numbers of people get hurt at the same time. Not only are you expendable, your
entire way of life has become overvalued; watch out, a better mouse trap has
been built. So either get with the new program or fade away. But at least we
have company, a lot of company, and we can commiserate together on the same
technology platform that did us in, which also offers us the chance to start
over on something resembling our own terms.
If you grew up in the print advertising business, you need no
reminding of the vulnerabilities. There’s a wonderful anecdote in Ken Auletta’s
book, Googled, of a 2003 visit by Viacom president Mel Karmazin to the offices
of Google, where Sergey and Larry, wearing t-shirts and jeans to match Mel’s
power tie, proceed to tear apart Old Media. Their ad system would be automated,
no ad reps, no relationships, and, best of all, advertisers were charged only when the user clicked on an ad and they
could measure the effectiveness of the ad through analytical tools. No more
wondering how many people were
really watching the Super Bowl ad. If that page of advertising was actually seen by all those people who supposedly opened the publication, if that jingle on the radio built brand recognition. Finally, advertisers would have
answers.
To which Karmazin responded, “You’re effin’ with the
magic.”
We’ve all had our magic messed with. Slot machines sales aren’t
sluggish only because of the economy. It also has something to do with the
power of business intelligence solutions, which present a much clearer view of
game profitability, create new marketing opportunities for the installed base
and play a role in making slot managers and their bosses think harder about
replacing one paid-for game with another. Gaming revenue isn’t just stagnant
because of the soft economy. Casino resorts are a source of entertainment and
compete for mind share with everything under your roof (or on your person) that
also provides entertainment. And so on.
Technology asks us to make peace with the
present and embrace the future, however uncertain. In a regulated industry like
gaming, this can be especially hard to do, but that doesn’t make it less
necessary. There’s a legitimate concern that aging slot players will never be
completely replaced, and that Internet and mobile gaming are essential to the
land-based casino industry’s future. In America, we’ve had a lot of false
starts on that front, and it looks like we just might have to start over yet
again post-Grey Friday. But we will.
The Gaming Technology Summit will be a great place to catch up on
all that’s going on in the brick-and-mortar and virtual gaming worlds. I look
forward to seeing many of you there. If we miss each other, just ping me. It
won’t bother me. Really, it won’t.
Charles Anderer
is executive editor of BNP Media Gaming Group and also oversees content development, sales and marketing for the company’s trade shows and conferences, which include Bingo World, Southern Gaming Summit, Gaming Technology Summit, New York Gaming Summit and Casino Marketing. He can be contacted at andererc@bnpmedia.com.
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