Global Games 2025
The world’s top slot manufacturers release games throughout the year, but all efforts point to one event on the gaming calendar staged every October—the Global Gaming Expo.
Welcome to the 24th edition of Global Games, our exclusive annual report on the state of the slot sector. Much of what you will find on the following pages is exclusive information, as the major suppliers give us a sneak peek at the games to be displayed every year, often before they’ve been shown to customers or the industry at large.
Global Games provides a snapshot of industry trends. This year, the big trend is the same as last year—pot-collection games and hold-and-spin bonuses. Players can’t get enough of these features, so each slot manufacturer offers them. The fun part is seeing how each manufacturer places its own spin on, and adds its own character to, a game mechanic that is practically ubiquitous.
The hold-and-spin feature, pioneered by Aristocrat with the Lightning Link and Dragon Link game families, is still a hit. More often than not, it is now linked with a pot-collection feature in which three pots of coins, or three pandas, or piggies, or trains—just about anything the theme requires—are fed coins continuously while certain reel symbols each provide an enhancement—wild symbols, multipliers, expanded reels, extra spins—to the hold-and-spin feature.
This year, game designers are getting even more creative with the hold-and-spin mechanic, adding special symbols that trigger a feature within the feature. Typically, a separate three-by-three grid will go through a mini hold-and-spin, with a special themed progressive for filling all nine spots with cash or jackpot symbols.
This is also another year of hardware innovations. Most of the major manufacturers are revealing new cabinets, with a few making them into something more, such as by adding LED backscreens and light shows to make each cabinet an immersive entertainment experience.
But most of all, G2E is about the games, as each manufacturer develops its product roadmap according to what is desired in each market. If there is another trend playing out at G2E this year, it is the increasingly widespread global networks of game development studios, as many companies seek to both broaden their reach and tailor different games to different markets.
Games for newer verticals also will be part of many supplier displays, as slot-makers branch out to historical horse racing, VLTs, VGTs, Class II games and, notably, online gaming.
Many slot manufacturers also are entering the business of electronic table games. IGT, Eclipse Gaming System and Light & Wonder are all displaying new ETG products at the show. (A preview of EGT leader Interblock’s G2E offering can be read here.)
G2E is the World Series, Super Bowl and Stanley Cup Playoffs for the slot manufacturers of the world. So, here, in alphabetical order by manufacturer, is the “new model year” in the slot sector.
Have a great show!
