UK-based social gaming outfit Plumbee has added a new slot game based on the classic Nordic legend of Beowulf. The game was developed by Plumbee’s Stockholm-based partner Quickspin and is the fifth Quickspin title added to Plumbee’s Mirrorball Slots app. Mirrorball Slots now has 220k daily average users and 900k monthly active users, good enough for 30th spot on Facebook’s top-grossing app chart. The Beowulf video slot features the Nordic hero battling his nemesis Grendel before moving on to battle the dragon at Earnaness.
Speaking of dragons, International Game Technology’s social gaming offshoot DoubleDown Casino has inked a licensing deal with Dungeons & Dragons, the fantasy role-playing game enjoyed by nerds/virgins/nerd-virgins since the 1980’s. Dungeons & Dragons: Crystal Caverns is a warriors- and wizards-themed slot title that touts its ‘tumbling reels’ feature, in which the symbols descend from above rather than spin, which allows for the possibility of winning twice on the same ‘spin’ as matching symbols are cleared and new ones tumble into place to fill the gaps. Unlike, say, the gaps in D&D players’ social lives… (Rimshot.)
Nowadays, social casino games are as commonplace as Norbert Teufelberger’s run-ins with the police, as are social poker and sports betting products, but finally someone’s branching out. US developers Vivo Interactive have launched the first social casino live dealer offering on Facebook. The live-streamed Beta application offers Live Baccarat, Live Blackjack Early Payout and both Live American and Live European Roulette games. In keeping with the social rules, players will have the ability to interact with their friends as well as with Vivo’s dealers. Vivo co-founder Martin Reiner said the casino’s social features were left rudimentary for the time being in order to guarantee their first-to-market advantage, but also to allow Vivo to focus on building the infrastructure necessary to handle the expected volume of players. Reiner says the system currently supports 15k concurrent users and will be ready to add more capacity as needed, which will enable Vivo to offer use of the system to other operators via B2B deals.
