RPGs in iGaming: The Gamification of Ontario’s iGaming Industry

Role Play Gaming (RPG) has been a popular game style for many years across video games, table top games and more recently the concept of role playing has been introduced into iGaming. 

Within the iGaming industry, role play gaming boosts engagement, allowing players to select characters or avatars with storylines that guide players around different themes. With games like slots, gamification using RPGs can turn a simple spin game into an adventure, maintaining interest for longer.

Ontario’s iGaming industry has been growing at a fast pace since a new regulatory framework was established in 2022. With a large number of licensed iGaming platforms available for Ontario players, operators are leveraging new technology to help improve the iGaming experience to compete for a larger market share..

One of the key areas of focus has been gamification, including unlocking badges and achievements to add an extra level of motivation for players. While traditional slots can become a little repetitive, gamification and themed adventures based on role playing, gives  players a deeper level of involvement.

How Gamification Works in iGaming 

Gamification has become an integral element of iGaming platforms, helping to improve player retention by creating a more interactive iGaming experience. These are some of the common elements of gamification that are featured on many modern casino platforms:

Leaderboards

Once a player has chosen their avatar, they can compete with fellow iGamers to attain the social recognition of getting onto the leaderboard. Rather than simply playing slots individually, they can have friendly competition with players who share the same interests.

Missions and challenges

Operators can provide personalized challenges to players based on their playing preferences and habits to drive deeper engagement. Role play style missions using characters and avatars help players to develop a stronger sense of belonging within the games that they play, especially when missions and challenges have been honed to meet their favorite gaming experiences. 

AI can be incorporated to identify the types of missions and challenges that players will enjoy the most, helping to improve retention and give players an additional type of motivation to play, aside from winning money.

Loyalty programs with storylines

Rewarding loyal players is an important retention strategy and gamification helps to make loyalty rewarding more personalized. Using the player’s avatar, loyalty reward systems for casinos Ontario online will often involve a narrative developed around the playing history of types of games the player is most interested in.

For example, once a player has reached a certain milestone, a quest might be unlocked such as finding and opening hidden treasure to gain rewards such as free spins.

Badges and achievements

Another exciting element of gamification is unlocking badges and other types of achievements such as passing a level. This adds another goal for players to aim for, encouraging them to keep playing until they reach the next milestone. Then when they reach the next level they will have a sense of achievement from all their iGaming endeavors.

How RPGs Can Help Responsible Gambling

As well as driving engagement levels within iGaming, role play style games can be used to promote responsible gambling. Instead of sending a generic warning message if a player is displaying habits that could indicate irresponsible gambling, a message related to their avatar can have a stronger effect. 

For example, when AI-driven monitoring identifies a sign of a potential risk, an automated message like “Your hero is getting tired, is it time for a break?”. Involving the character that they are attached to feels more personalized and connected compared to a message that just states “Your session time is over X hours, is it time for a break?”.

What’s Coming Next in Gamification?

Ontario’s iGaming market is continually looking for ways to improve the playing experience and RPGs and gamification will be fundamental to player retention and engagement. With more online casinos becoming available, advancing the gamification elements of platform design will be key in competing against new casinos offering big welcome bonuses.

Rewarding player loyalty can be enhanced by making the rewards more specific to players’ iGaming habits, so we can expect operators to introduce some more exciting gamification features developed around AI analysis of playing history.

One of the next progressions in iGaming will be improving the experience through VR based adventures, providing players with a more immersive environment with storytelling and social interaction with other players and dealers. 

For both slot players and table game players, RPGs and gamification will see some significant improvements over the next few years to make playing their favorite games even more enjoyable, so it is a very exciting time for Ontario players.