WMS Pokies
WMS Gaming, or Williams Interactive as it is often referred to, has quite a long history for a company that now primarily designs and develops pokies for online casinos. The Williams Manufacturing Company was set up in 1943 to make pinball machines, but the modern version of the business was established in 1974 as Williams Electronics, producing a number of classic video games such as Paddleball and Robotron 2084.
Now based in Las Vegas, Nevada, WMS Gaming began to build pokies in 1994 focusing on the land-based casino market, only moving to the online market in 2010. In 2012, the Williams Interactive division was set up to concentrate on the online side of the business and they merged with Scientific Games in 2013 in a deal worth $1.5 billion.
Now partnered with EveryMatrix, Williams Interactive may be a fairly recent online games provider, but with an extensive history and experience, they are catching up with more established companies thanks to a range of innovative games that often have unique features that are designed to attract and retain players.
Game Examples
Some of the biggest WMS Gaming hits are the ones themed around movies or celebrities.
The Wizard of Oz carries images from the film and comes complete with 4 bonus rounds culminating in the Road To Emerald City game where players collect wins as they travel along the Yellow Brick Road to meet the Wizard himself.
A series of pokies based on the original Star Trek TV shows includes the Red Alert game which has a free spins feature that carries on until players have lost 5 shields around their ship, while multipliers and the chance to re-charge the shields to maximum means this feature can run and run.
Spartacus Gladiator of Rome sees Colossal Reels come into play, where wild symbols move over to a set of 3 reels that have 12 symbols on each. There’s 100 paylines to wager on, while 20 free spins with big multipliers can bring in some significant prizes.
Colossal Reels are also a feature of KISS Shout It Out Loud which sees the iconic glam-rock band in full make up awarding players with free spins when 3 or more bonus symbols appear. Wilds transfer to the Colossal Reels during the free games, while clips from their concerts and snippets of songs will attract many of their fans.
Other famous names that appear on WMS pokies include Elvis, Michael Jackson and Bruce Lee, while there are games themed around pirates, wildlife, leprechauns, kittens and the Monopoly board game.
Other Details
With some 70% of its revenue coming from the USA, there’s room for WMS Gaming to extend their range across many more markets and in recent years they have opened offices and development centres in multiple locations including Australia, Canada, India, China, South Africa, Mexico, Spain, the Netherlands, Argentina, Austria, and the UK.
Currently, their range is limited exclusively to pokies, as this is their chosen area of expertise and allows them to capitalise on this to get a foothold in a very competitive marketplace although across parent company Scientific Games there’s a full range of table and card games, lotteries and more.
To achieve expansion, they have partnered with a number of online casinos and games distributors around the world, while having a major presence at the biggest gaming shows in various countries has helped to bring their range to potential clients.
For a company rooted in the land-based casino industry, WMS Gaming have come far in just a few years and look set to build on this success with frequent releases of new games. With more and more online casinos adding WMS titles to their ranges the company could soon be one of the major names in the business.