SEGA Networks opted to enter the lucrative social casino games market at the start of 2018, launching its exciting new SEGA Slots app on iOS and Android. The app was designed to leverage some of the brand’s iconic video gaming characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe and Shinobi and transforming them into engaging Las Vegas-style video slots. However, it would appear that SEGA Networks hasn’t decided to give the app much time to bed in, closing its doors just 12 months after its launch in early 2018.
According to www.pocketgamer.biz, SEGA Slots launched with eight unlockable slot machine-style games, each offering a host of in-game features and bonuses. Plans were afoot to release additional video slot titles on a regular basis after launch, as it sought to compete with the likes of Big Fish Games and Zynga in the mobile casino space.
An abrupt ending for SEGA Slots
However, faithful players of SEGA Slots will have then found out via www.megavisionsmag.com that SEGA Networks was planning on shutting the service down at the end of February. An in-app notification was also released to users, stating that the app would be shutting down from 26th February and that all in-app purchases would be disabled from 27th January. The message stated that SEGA Networks would “like to express [its] most sincere thanks to all of [its] players for their patronage and support”.
The news was certainly something of a head-scratcher given that SEGA’s most popular characters had caused something of a stir, increasing SEGA Slots’ popularity in recent months. It’s possible that some users may have begun to complain about the infrastructure of this social casino platform; one which allows users to make real-money deposits to enhance their gameplay whilst still not allowing them to win real money.
Did SEGA miss the iGaming bus?
It’s not the first time that SEGA opted to dabble in the world of gambling. It developed its own unique lever-pull slot machines back in the 1950s, before taking the arcade gaming industry by storm. Nevertheless, one can’t help but think that the launch of SEGA Slots may have been a few years too late. Did they miss the online gambling bus? Possibly. When you consider how well-regulated real money online casino games are today, with quite literally hundreds of variations available from many of the iGaming operators listed on www.bestcanadacasino.ca, it begs the question as to why SEGA would ever attempt to compete with an iGaming industry that’s already well-established.
If someone is prepared to invest their hard-earned cash on buying extra ‘coins’ in SEGA Slots to try and win play-money prizes, there are others that aren’t, someone who’s playing Online Solitaire, surely their funds would be better served trying to use their cash to win more real money? It seems someone high up in SEGA’s hierarchy thought so, too, with the app recently removed from both iTunes and Google Play and its social media pages promptly deleted. Hopefully for SEGA, they have bigger fish to fry than social casino gaming, focusing on video gaming, whilst letting the iGaming industry continue to do what it does best.
