Golden Nugget Vegas Casino Places a Bet on Facebook

Casinos are increasingly interested in Facebook. Following last month's partnership between Harrah's Interactive and Playdom to launch WSOP Poker on the social network, the Las Vegas-based Golden Nugget brand of casinos and hotels has brought on Last Legion Games for a branded Facebook title, Golden Nugget Vegas Casino. Gold Nugget is certainly a game that’s more visually pleasing then many virtual spaces, with its display of lights, character, and overall atmosphere. More than that, however, its social interaction is a step above the rest -- even if reminiscent of a prior title from RockYou, My Casino. All the same, Golden Nugget does suffer from some usability problems and holds an art style that many may not care for. Like most virtual space oriented applications, the objective of Golden Nugget Vegas Casino is more or less whatever the player makes of it. If one had to give it a label, however, it would be to build up a successful casino. Doing so is easy enough, as the players can make income from a very wide variety of casino games. First and foremost, this is where the game stands out most. Unlike others of its ilk, there is just about every Vegas game one can think of, including Red Sushi Bonsai Express Slots, Golden 21 Blackjack, and Spin Cycle Roulette. Moreover, as the player levels up, others unlock including dice at the bar, video poker, craps, and a boat load more. Each game has three elements as well: Operation Cost, Run Time, and Revenue. It isn’t enough to merely purchase a game, but players must actually pay money to keep it up and running, with the higher revenue machines costing more. Of course, the higher cost also means that the machine will run for longer. For example, the Red Sushi slots will only run for 30 seconds, while Calamity Jane Poker runs for 24 hours. Once the time is expired, the profits must be collected right away or they will decrease, and the game will earn no further income until reactivated. Another interesting aspect to the games is a feature called “Luck.” The more one operates their machines and tables, the more this statistic goes up, and the higher it is, the more coins one earns from their various games. Luck can also be increased by visiting friends’ casinos. In fact, this is where the social elements take a step above the rest, creating a whole other level to game play. Like in My Casino, players can actually play the different games their friends have set up, betting the money they have on hand. However, whereas the RockYou app only had one game to play, Golden Nugget has a trove of them. They’re not all active yet (though likely, they will be at some point), but currently players can participate in roulette, dice, blackjack, poker, video poker, slots, and probably a few more we haven’t found yet. This is, however, where some of the usability issues come into play. When one clicks on the machine or table, the mini-game does not immediately pop up -- the player’s avatar has to walk over to it, which one might not realize in a busy casino. A bigger problem comes from in-game purchases. Bigger and better décor and games are gated by level, but players can’t even see what will be available in the future. Unfortunately, players might think the game just doesn’t have much to buy (we did), without which there's no obvious reason to play more and earn specific rewards. As for visuals, the environment looks great with all the style, flashing lights, and moving objects. The characters themselves have a bobble-headed, stretched face isn’t particularly appealing. Thankfully, there’s at least a wide variety of them walking in and out of the casino, although all have just three basic animations: stand, walk, and cheer. All in all, Golden Nugget Vegas Casino is a pretty amusing game, and a welcome change from the constant stream of farming clones. Granted, it does have some rough edges still, but the core concept and the Golden Nugget brand really do help to differentiate it quite a bit. Whether that will resonate with players remains to be seen; it has about 48,000 monthly active users, but only 1,522 that return on a daily basis.

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Golden Nugget Vegas Casino Places a Bet on Facebook

Christopher Mack

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Christopher Mack