The online gambling industry has evolved rapidly over the last couple of decades. Much like other forms of tech-driven entertainment, the incredible rate of development has spurred the industry to new heights, wider audiences, and encouraged creatives to explore much zanier ideas.
With this, online slot players have enjoyed a bounty of new games almost weekly. The sector is now worth £5 billion of the UK’s total £7.8 billion in remote gambling gross gambling yield, per the Gambling Commission, powered by the regularity of releases and all of the new ways to play that are infused into new and hit games.
Even with this as the backdrop, games made six or more years ago – a very long time in online slot terms – continue to hold their own in the popularity charts.
As new themes get piled into and headline mechanics earn intrigue, it’s still what would now be termed as ‘classics’ that command the greatest player bases.
Setting the Standard for Years to Come
The most seasoned of the veteran slots that continue to hold their own against the tide of new releases is Rainbow Riches.
Released way back in 2009 by Barcrest, the medium-volatility slot certainly looks like a game of its age, lacking the overly refined graphics and animations of new slots.
Even so, players continue to come to the Rainbow Riches bingo slot. Clearly, it’s proven itself beyond the aesthetics – as all great, long-lasting games do.
The 20 paylines, clear-cut reel set, and medium volatility help to spur on the base game. From there, the collection of features continues to be popular even now.
With a top prize of 500x available in each, the three core features stand shoulder-to-shoulder as key selling points. The Wishing Well Bonus transforms the activating scatters into picks to reveal a prize multiplier. Road to Riches spins a wheel to move the leprechaun along the golden road to try to reach bigger prizes.
Finally, there’s Pots of Gold. In this feature, there are 12 pots spinning around the screen, each holding a different multiplier. Once they stop, a random multiplier of at least 50x will be revealed.
Being a medium-volatility game, on average, these features trigger more often than in high-volatility games – which dominate newer releases.
Joining Rainbow Riches at the Top
Like the luck of the Irish themes running through Rainbow Riches to help its window shopper appeal, Temple of Iris continues to rank highly. Of course, Ancient Egypt has long been very popular as a point of intrigue in the real world, but also as a theme in slots.
Temple of Iris, released in 2016, also leverages the appeal of medium volatility. Its central feature is a free spins bonus that can not only be reactivated up to 15 times, but also triples wins.
Released in the same year, Shaman’s Dream is of a similar volatility level but, uniquely, doesn’t have a feature. Instead, wilds double wins.
Finally, while it was released in 2020, the theme and feature it launched into the limelight have evolved so much in six years that the original is now, very much, a classic.
Big Bass Bonanza refined the fishing feature previously seen in Fishin’ Frenzy, and even though there’s now a huge collection of fishing games, it’s the original that ranks the highest.
The longevity of games like these is proof that, while new releases will get a fair bit of attention, nailing the fundamental mechanics in a way that players enjoy is the key to creating a true hit in the fast-moving space of online slots.
