Sega’s new slot app brings Sonic to social casino

Sega Networks, the mobile publishing division of Japanese multinational video game developer and publisher Sega Games Co., Ltd, is now part of the lucrative social casino games market with the launch of its new free-to-play social slot app Sega Slots. Available via the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, Sega Slots allows players a chance to relive their favorite SEGA games on classic Vegas-style slots fashioned after characters from some of the company’s most iconic games. The app features Sega classics including Sonic the Hedgehog, Shinobi, Super Monkey Ball, Golden Axe, Sonic Casino Nights, Super Monkey Ball Pirates and Samba De Amigo which just like casino slots feature fast-paced gameplay and vibrant graphics. Each of the unlockable slot machines offers bonus rounds that are reminiscent of the gameplay of the original title such as Super Monkey Ball’s multiplayer mode that pays out big banana bonuses and the Sonic slot where players help the feisty hedgehog save his friends and earn huge payouts. Sega reportedly has plans to update the app regularly and add more unlockable machines fashioned after Sega classics now that the app has launched. This isn’t the first time Sega has dipped its proverbial toe into the waters of the fiercely competitive casino market, having produced a range of standalone slot machines in the 1950’s, after which time it entered the arcade sector and finally the home console industry. Sega Slots has its work cut out for it as titles from companies like Zynga, Playtika and Big Fish Games have staked a claim in the App Store top grossing charts where all three reside and many more grapple for success. The latter, owned by casino operator Churchill Downs Incorporated since 2014, was recently acquired by Aristocrat Technologies Incorporated. The $990 million all-cash deal by the subsidiary of Australian gaming machine innovator Aristocrat Leisure Limited, makes the Las Vegas-based Aristocrat Technologies Incorporated the world’s second largest provider of social online games behind Playtika.