All niches in the gaming industry tend to offer various bonuses and promotions these days. The reasons are very simple – it is not that video games or mobile gaming app designers are so generous simply for the sake of making their players happy. The real reason is that players love promotions and offering a bonus means stimulating people to play more often or more intensively. The key here is to make them believe that they spend less and get more from the game compared to playing without the bonus.
There are different general bonus types and moreover, each gaming niche has its own subtypes. Video games offer skins, weapons, loot boxes, in-game cash, etc. Mobile apps offer gems, in-game features or assets, bonus games, or coins. Online casinos offer free spins and free chips, cash match bonuses and cashbacks, and so on.
And yet, just offering an evergreen bonus to gamers is not enough. Players are pretty pampered these days and some of them are actually educated about worthy and worthless promotions. So all these gaming platforms have to look for new ways of stimulating their players to play more and spend more money on the game. This is why they use the concepts of exclusivity and scarcity.
The Perceived Scarcity
This is an interesting phenomenon that the gaming industry utilizes to make people pay for playing. When offered an evergreen benefit that is available anytime, players act cautious and start thinking about whether the promotion is worth their money and their time. They have enough time to consider the offer, try the game out without it, and generally see no extra value in it until they want to claim it for fun.
However, everything changes when perceived scarcity is introduced. The very idea of scarcity in a game designed for fun is in fact funny because it is the game creators who decide what features or rewards to offer to players, and there is no objective reason for scarcity for this or that bunch of pixels on the screen. But players react completely differently.
When they are offered a bonus that is only available on weekends they start considering it every time Friday comes. If the bonus is only available once a season they start perceiving it as something they anticipate. An even more cunning option is to offer a bonus for free and let the players get used to it and enjoy it – like extra skins and weapons in a video game – and then announce that the bonus will be forfeited in a limited time unless the player pays. This is what perceived scarcity does to players’ decisions.
The Perceived Exclusivity
Perceived exclusivity is created the same way as scarcity but here, some objective reasons for exclusive offers may arise. For example, many 5 dollar deposit casinos offer Free Spins as a promotion to their new players and only to them. This is done because people may be reluctant to register an account with a new online casino and start gambling with real money immediately. However, if a casino site offers some extra Free Spins for a deposit as small as $5, many people will consider it a good reason to register, become a customer, and grab this attractive bonus.
In broader terms, created perceived exclusivity is what people love about gaming. Players love unlocking features or assets other players don’t have; many games are actually built on this idea of achieving something others couldn’t achieve, or take advantage of the game using assets others do not have.
When bonuses are exclusive to certain players – newbies, active users, high-rollers, etc. – and when bonuses are also limited in time, this is almost a certain way to trigger the player to get these bonuses even if they cost money and require action.
Investment VS Activity
Now it must be mentioned that not all promotions are only available upon investment. Most really are and they are called deposit-based bonuses; these bonuses are often seen in online casinos or mobile gaming apps that use in-game currencies.
Video games, on the other hand, often offer promotions and extra rewards to active players and these bonuses are activity-based. In other words, a bonus can be “bought” or “earned”, and one is not better than the other. Some players do enjoy earning rewards by increasing their activity, participating in tournaments, completing missions, etc. Other players, on the contrary, prefer to quickly activate the bonus they want by investing directly in the game.
Bonus Terms & Conditions
Bonus Terms is usually a long and boring document no player ever reads. However, reading it is a must because bonuses always come with a bunch of rules attached to them.
Some of the most important rules and limits to keep in mind include:
- the smallest acceptable investment that makes the player eligible for claiming the bonus
- wagering requirements for the bonus (there are always present in online casino bonus rules and sometimes mobile gaming apps utilize this concept, as well)
- the maximum possible win, reward, or the biggest possible asset that can be won using the promotion
All these things are crucial because they indicate what is needed initially to claim the promotion. Next, they indicate what the player will eventually get by using the promotion. If the end reward, win, or benefit is not really attractive for a particular player they can freely choose to proceed without any bonuses without wasting their time (and money). And of course, Bonus Terms indicate what burden of activities like wagering through the bonus will fall onto the player’s shoulders. This is why Bonus Terms are to be double-checked at all times.