 So for the next talk we have Tim Stoddard from Litchfield Presenting on developing games for the gaming and casino industry So, please all give him a very warm mid-afternoon. Welcome, please Go ahead Tim Yeah, thank you very much God see a nice nice size of a crown there. So a Little bit more info about who I am Let's get back to us There we go so a Little bit more specific about myself. So I'm a see I'm a my official job title is as a C++ games programmer I've been enjoying. I've loved been loving to make a Computer games and a whole lot of games and riding co-op for games Since I was around there 16 or so I even went to university to study it and then I'm getting like a fast first-class degree in it and then I And then I enjoyed joining a company which I currently work for Cyclone games back in 2015 and started off as a junior and in late 20 and as of late 2016 I moved up to a the general C++ games programmer So the game kind of gets I work on Well The game to games on the left and right white king 4 to 5 other games I specifically worked on in the middle Isn't is a game that not I worked on specifically. It was a One of my colleagues, but it's kind of but it's the kind of game that my cut that I can gain works on and so fuck So five so five real video saw games on massive machines at either besting shops or casinos So apologies for the crude video recording. This wasn't mine I haven't I haven't to find this on YouTube or some recording from within a lot of books, but as They've seen as an example of What's called a B2 category game? I'll go I'll do like a basic rundown of like I could the legal regulation like a regulatory size but essentially B2 games are the Big paying games which are like 20 to 50 pounds per game you get you get a longer game with more chance of a reward And you can find these in the UK, although if you follow the reason you say there's probably gonna be moved moving out soon, but That's politics for you. So I'm gonna have to say to you soon that a lot of you do work and like this soft like software industries by just a Even if you're not just is seeing interesting rundown a basic rundown of how these games work So it's essentially just it so an individual game is like a kind of like four different people So you have people like me a programmer who writes all the codes for the games and such You are the artist who would provide you all the graphics and the animations you have the mathematician which that's the person who provides all the The logics the chances is of What symbols get appeared what features get picked and they they work where they work at that they work it out And then finally get the tester who is the one who like I Look through a kind of game builds and finds bugs and distributes amounts to the correct people to fix Usually it is the programmer who gets on most of the bugs, but Which is not surprising But then once the all the bugs get sorted out that game gets sent over to distributor who then finds more bugs Eggs eggs for us to fix and then once we fix that we get a finished game simple enough So the kind of unique thing about the gambling games that I work on is a is that so you get different ass You get different as any industry Well, you get different sub areas of the gambling industry so so you get But the free mate for the free main ones that My that my parent that the parent company play tech work on Well, that I work get involved in is like online Mobile and retail retail being the primary one that was like against us So retail specifically means working on big machines like these so these are So these are specifically video about ones which you'll find in like I Betting shops and casinos either in the UK or around you or I'm most Around most of the markets we work on in Europe they have They have a They they have at least two screens, but they can go up to four. Well, you have two different kinds You have the standard definition, which is like 1024 or by 768 and then you have the high definition, which is 1920 by 1080 he and Built that they're built basically like when those when those like machines with their own GDK's inside and We've done a bill games to be like this where you have a We had to account for multiple different Screen sizes so for example So on the very left, you'll see what a standard definition game would look like But and then on the right you could have a and then the rights are high-definition high-definition game, but it's because but more Because they're different kinds of machines means the bot the very bottom and a very top screens are vastly different resolutions and we have to account for that and The UK specifically eat eat those the very bottom screens mainly for input But for if it's first your screen in that gets relegated to the main screen where you see the reels are the other System that we work on is could true serve so true serve is it's a True service almost entirely excluded towards Italy and Norway Italy and Norway and the main difference between video bet and true serve is that Video bet is mostly client-based. There's a platform that handles like multiple scenes at once, but sir with true serve you have Every game aim has an underlying server program that it communicates with the client and Specific and they are almost primarily dual-screen in and And with the same hate with the same different kind of resolutions over but Norway has it's kind of interesting in which it has a Resolution of like 1680 by 1050 which isn't standard, but It's it's a fairly easy one to handle with so So so what's the difference between like working on a video bet and a true so system? So what is there with packaging so with a true so game you have to you have to provide a separate program for the client so and a separate program for the server Which can get which can get pretty awkward when you're trying to build like create like new builds It's also particularly awkward if you want to it also with it Also with true serve games. They had to be uploaded to a server which is a Which is often in a completely different country, which means that you You tend to have the fun experience of Building a game then having it uploaded waiting an hour for it to go live and then realize you have you have a Never mind a bill which require another additional fix Yeah, not fun compare that to say video bet, which is a which Because you only need to build build specifically for the client you only have to really build one package and That package is also simple enough that you can just up that the qa team can just upload directly to the cab without having to do of a deal of a of a service But however Server client does have its advantages one specifically is that Because the server and client are separate that also means that you're that your game logic which would be on the server Has to be separate from what you're more typically on the client, which is your visual presentation because of the so that you can also And the client side this can be mixed unless you build your build your your architecture correctly But if you don't that could lead to risks at risk such as If you're if a certain part of your logic has to be delayed because your presentation takes a while to complete that can be that could lead to some potential risks that a A server cut that having a separate can avoid because the logic is meant because then the logic would happen instantly The presentation can happen as long as it wants Another one is if in the events that you and that you have a player who's playing a game He's doing they're doing a really good run really good run They're gonna look like gonna get high-paid and then suddenly there's a power failure or a network failure and the game shuts off Understandably that player would be very very angry if you turn if he goes to the staff who tell them side There's nothing we can do it. We can't replay the game Both side both systems and have a way of handling this fortunately But for video for video bet there's a flag that gets raised if a system if the system goes down Unexpectedly he said that when the system restart it'll say that flag will basically say hey this game this game failed unexpectedly he He restart exactly on this game. However, the developer is responsible for replaying Basically the game up to that point There's also the there's also the disadvantage in which for the client it's own it's only specific to one machine Alternatively when it goes to true serve The replay system is handled through is handled through the server Basically, all the developer needs to do is just to tell the server. Hey, I'm pressing this button I'm saying this mess. I'm sending this button. I'm sending this message at this point All right, so which the server will collect those and then in the event of a failure it'll When it gets to replaying the server will basically send those messages back to the client and then the client will handle it accordingly also because it's not also because It's being handled on a SERP handle on a central server If you if you're if one machine fails, you can just basically go take your light Take your card and play and replay the game on a separate machine and it will work just as just as you expect so What do you developers need to know and I tend to find this when I when I go out Whenever I talk to people who aren't part of the industry. They always seem to ask us like And how do you make the game? How do you make the game fair? How do you make the game? How do you make the game fair? Are they completely random? and you and you How do you make sure that? People aren't just going to be losing all their money simple answer is we have to we have we have to and because Because a lot of the country because all the countries we work on have quite strict regulations and thanks to our QA team both the QA team and also The testing process is through our distributors. We have to abide by those rules And this can be stuff on the like how long a game has to play a Minimum in time and which for the UK I think it's three seconds for a single spin game and then for the high stakes B2 games like 20 seconds Another but the most important one is a call the RTP or return to player Essentially the most basic way to put this is that it's the ratio between how much gets paid in and how much gets paid out Now if you pay in It's on pays it. It's on pays in over the lifetime Over the lifetime of a game like a hundred pounds It's expected on average that they and the RTP is set to 90% and then it's expected to return You're expected to pay back at least 90 pounds. Although Although with the regulations is a kind of this this value is expected over much much longer periods of times It's usually up to like a million or a billion games games and It's pretty important that we actually meet the We that we try to meet exactly as close to the RTP as possible. We use you to like put Use you to like a hundredth of a percentage because if you go too hot because if you go too high the The best in Charleston casinos aren't gonna be too happy E with you over paying games, but if you go too low, it's potentially breaking the law and you'll get the camp and you'll get the gambling commission coming out to you We also had to also both as a developer when you're dealing with multiple regions you have to deal with a multiple different regions because on unlike the online and web gaming market at Retail market has pretty strict rules when it comes those which differ between countries of country along with It's not as simple as just changing the text to a different language Sometimes some games will have a completely different Some games will have a completely different user interfaces So as you can see in this example the top one is the is fortunate five for the UK game market But below it is what the is what the same game would look like for the Denmark for Denmark and You can also notice with Denmark is that there's complete. There's also an additional features which are which are Which aren't specifically regular He's specific to regulation required for regulations, but it's usually preferred for the market You also have a but he also you also have a regular We're also regulations specifically with what I said before like like minimum game time I How much gets paid out? How how much you get to pay it out over spend a period of time what the RTPs are and sometimes even completely different into Betting amounts which will also require like completely different masks as well So that's what So this is what it's like now for the retail market But it's caused a kind of a question of what's happening in for the future and a lot of this and for play tech This is specifically what's called g-pass or gameplay as a service so Essentially the idea of it is the idea of g-pass is to basically take a game from one system And have it be played almost entirely the same on a come on another system So you can play your game on a retail machine, and then you can play the exact Play play continue playing on your exact same account on a on a website or on a mobile device this is usually done through a HTML 5 which being a C++ developer is kind is kind of Get kind of gets a fun at some times Just trying to deal with a completely different compilers and different errors and In how things work Although it does have an additional benefit in which you do get on Excuse me online developers who mostly work on online and mobile games How to understand how the retail market works and seeing how completely different it is and vice versa Because Because It's particularly what you get. It's particularly fun seeing a online developer a great And working on a working on a retail game for For a market that's non-uk and then getting a whole load of bugs back saying wait you have what we need to do All this is what do you do? What do you need to do when you have to? What do you do as a retail developer when you had to deal with these many regulations and the honest answer is most of the time we usually have a Well, we usually had to build a completely separate bill Because there's too many changes to handle in just one specific bill So That's kind of mostly what I've Had to speak about so Thank you for listening Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to I don't think I would be allowed to say that on camera I Think I mean although I kind of will say is that a lot of the random inputs is kind of out of my control with my oh Particularly for both video about intrusive. It's mostly handled by Internal machines API in which we don't in which we just get given the random note We just get given the numbers. We don't actually have as we just got a all we had to focus on is there How we actually actually process those random numbers. I Think he comes primarily from audience questions. That's where it comes from random numbers. All right I think that's all the time we have if you have any questions for Tim, please I'm sure he'd be happy to answer them outside. So we we have a pretty tight time frame for our next talk So we'll get started on that one. Thank you very much for your attention. Let's give him another round of applause