As media has developed, we’ve seen finer and finer lines being drawn between different types. TV and movies are often interchangeable now, for instance, and within gaming, things like gambling mini-games have been popular as far back as the 1980s. Gaming and gambling have been closely linked for decades, and we’re looking at a few examples where the two can’t be separated.
Capcom
For those who don’t know, in Japan the pachinko parlor is an absolute mainstay of daily life, with the industry as a whole bringing in billions in revenue every single year. The game itself is functionally like a slot machine, and like the rows of slots on the floors of Las Vegas, it’s not uncommon to see hundreds of pachinko machines lined up.
Naturally, big brands have managed to get a piece of the pie, not least of which is Capcom. For decades now, we’ve seen huge Capcom properties such as Resident Evil and Devil May Cry being regularly trotted out for a new wave of pachinko machines. Even the latest releases like Resident Evil Village have been getting the pachinko treatment, and bizarrely, these machines form a core part of Capcom’s overall revenue.
Tetris
There aren’t many games out there with the global recognition that Tetris receives, and it feels like there isn’t a year that goes by that we don’t see a new version, a remake, a spin-off, or a knock off appear on the market. You can find it on t-shirts, in movies, and a million other places, but it may be surprising to know how much it appears in the online slot world.
Tetris has appeared not just once, but multiple times in the vast library of online slot games out there, coming in all different forms for more than a decade. The latest is Tetris Slingo, with fellow classic games such as Space Invaders available as part of the Slingo series. Each time, the visuals and soundtrack are carefully replicated under license, meaning they are always close matches to the source material.
Balatro
We’re sure you’ve seen some of the many examples of poker or poker-like games in any number of games, such as Red Dead Redemption, GTA, or any other title with a casino. For this section, however, we’re going completely the other direction and looking at a game that has all but taken over the world using poker as a base.
Unless you’ve been off the grid entirely for the last year, you will have heard of the sensation that is Balatro. The indie deckbuilding game has taken over the Internet and become a top seller across multiple platforms. Each round of the game scores points based on the classic poker hands, but there is endless replayability found in adding cards to the deck, special jokers that change how things are played, and even boss fights with unique game conditions.
As lines continue to blur and games based on gambling gain popularity, don’t be surprised if we see plenty more surprising examples coming out in the next few years!
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