With the exciting announcement of Money Train 4 (MT4) incoming this september (unless there'll be delays), the immediate thought that came to my mind was that once again, a MT-game will be Game of the Year (GotY), especially if it gets close to MT3 or even better. By doing so, MT and Relax Gaming (RG) will continue its history by being the only provider that manages to nail the GotY-award with the same series 3 times in a row. That'd also mean that every of the main MT-games have gotten either 1st or 2nd places for GotY! That alone states RG's position in the world of online slots.
What we will also (most likely) get to see are changes within the top positions in Provider of the Year-category (PotY). That is an equal, if not a more, competitive category now than ever before and also a category that Nolimit City (NLC) has dominated the past 2-3 years, and rightfully so, despite being in a tight and rightful competition with RG and Hacksaw, with others lurking just behind as well. A change that is undoubtedly great for a community that's growing rapidly.
What on earth makes me say all of this? Well, let's dive into it! Note: For the sake of fairness, I am diving into this as objectively as possible, even though I am a slot player with a vast variety of slots and providers as my favourites to choose from.
Game consistency
RG is by far one of the top contenders within the world of online slots, that we all know already. What they have done over the past years as a slot provider is that they have released slot after slot that provides both a fair dose of entertainment, frequent good wins and nice game features, which quickly rises the popularity of their slots within us slot players. Although RG isn't the most innovative slot provider out there, the amount of big wins players have gotten, which is arguably the most important factor when playing an online slot (at least to the majority of us), are more frequent on RG slots than on NLC slots so far in 2023, it seems. I have no numbers to back me up on this, but upon searching for big wins from 2022 and 2023 slots, you easily get way more RG and Hacksaw (HS) wins rather than NLC wins, simply because RG and HS slots are just that more popular. So far, NLC's 2023 slots hasn't given much in terms big wins and value for the money. Yes, they are still a great provider that dares to go a different direction than the 2 other mentioned providers, but that's not all that matters. NLC is too much all over the place these days, while RG, HS and even the other hot providers are keeping things more balanced and consistent, which are some underrated factors for video slots.
NLC + Evolution Gaming = Not good for us the players?
Let's be honest here. What NLC did back in 2021 (and partially also in 2022) was a proper game changer that made the other providers step up their online slots game(s), which many of them certainly did. 2021 will go into the history books as the year when NLC conquered the whole online slots community and world with their big, fun and x-factor releases that provided us with immense big wins that are still popular as of today! Add to the fact that their soundtracks were versatile and fitting to the games + the brilliance of adding "secrets" into their games was also a big contributor to why NLC was that good. However, their 2023 releases are a different story. Their "exploring" and hugging the x-rated-style of themes have taken too much attention and focus rather than the games itself and the win values of them. Obviously, it's nothing wrong of them doing that, but by doing so, you're basically giving a "f-all" to the casino society and its consumers. By doing so, it's given NLC a lot of income and popularity (which matters the most to NLC, of course), but that's also gotten them less visibility. What I mean by that is that this year, they have released too many slots that have crossed the red line of tolerance for many casino sites, particularly the big cannons out there, but also the minor sites, meaning that a lot of users doesn't even know about their releases, and those who knows about their releases, must find a new place to play in order to play those games, which can something many won't bother doing, because those slots are only on selected sites. Again, it's nothing wrong doing so, but the slots doesn't get enjoyed by as many as they could've been done with their x-rated releases.
We also know that NLC was acquired by Evolution Gaming (EG) in 2022, and by doing so, it seems as if NLC's 2023 releases have had a direct impact from that. Well, that part we can only wonder on, but by the looks of it, it doesn't seem to be that far off, plus it definitely have not done NLC much, if anything, good, at least so far. NLC also seems to have had a lot of rushed releases this year. A lot of "gray", no artistic, enjoyable feel and thoroughly bland releases that are quite non-memorable.
I also want to point out that NLC's 2022 and 23-releases have some rather "cheeky" and unfair additions that goes against the player vs. for example their 2021-releases. I'll use "Dead Canary" (DC, released in 2022) vs. "Fire in the Hole" (FitH, released in 2021) as examples on this one. The winning ways on DC makes no sense, as they are all over the place. Very often when you do a buy-in, the birds are often placed adjacent to each other, which makes the green bomb hit more/all of the birds more easily. However, if you get a vanilla bonus, you often get non-adjacent birds, actually. Another thing is that if you get 6x similar symbols forming an "X" on the board, you only get 1 wild, not 2, which is a cheeky way of "robbing" us for another wild. Another factor is that during the bonus, only 1 symbol grants a reset, resulting in a lot of early game over bonus rounds, often with a low x. Add these 2 facts as well: 1: The Golden Canary bonus costs you 500x, but the fact is that you can get the golden canary bonus often during vanilla spins! It happens way more frequently than what the buy-in costs. 2: Even with a Golden Canary bonus, you get more often crappy wins than good ones, which is unfair for a bonus that is that expensive to buy-in. On FitH, if you get 6x similar symbols adjacent in a row that's not a winning combination, you'll get 2 wilds, not only 1, which makes sense. During the bonus, every symbol grants a reset, not just 1 particular symbol. Add also the fact that NLC included a "money back guarantee" to all their bonuses, which is also nice, as that amount can often contribute to do additional spins/buy-ins. Also, the winning ways makes more sense in FitH as it's both understanding and straight-forward. Oh, and on FitH, it doesn't matter how your scatter symbols are lined up either. It doesn't have any effect to the bonus round itself. The amount of scatters does, however. The more scatters = the bigger board you have. One could say that on DC, you get the full board every single bonus round, but even so, the big wins and/or even the return pay isn't as great as the full board on FitH + the fact that the full board on FitH is both bigger than the full board on DC + way more rewarding than on DC. There you have some cheeky and unfair differences that NLC have added to their newer slots that doesn't benefit the player, and thus makes it way tougher to win much from them.
Despite me, like many others, being a big fan of NLC and their slots, I can only remember 1 or maybe 2 games they released this year. So, with those things mentioned, one cannot help but to look at the scenario that EG buying NLC doesn't seem like a very good thing. For us the players that is, obviously.
"New" challengers in place = Tougher competition
There are also other old school and also rather new providers who've upped their game some more these days, which in return will end up them breathing the 3 big ones in the neck. That they will manage to do with their innovative, fun, interactive, entertaining, "cheap" and frequent big win slots, even though it'll be a big challenge to wipe them off of the throne. Still, as it looks now, it'll be a very interesting 2023 awards, for sure!
Who am I talking about, you might wonder? Well, I am talking about providers like Print Studios (PS), Push Gaming (PG), Slotmill (SM) and Pragmatic (PM), to name some of those who've had a great 2023 so far, in terms of interesting slots and big wins. Especially both PS and PG seems to have gotten a lot of positive attention and good reviews with their releases, and judging by their upcoming releases, it seems like they are keeping a steady and an interesting pace towards the end 2nd half of 2023 as well. And honestly, by looking at the overall approach that PG's done so far, they are definitely heading towards the right direction. Oh, and let's not forget that PG too are "reviving" other classics that's been a big hit among us slot players, which definitely will rise up some interest within many of us slot players. Keep also in mind that PG is also one of those providers who offers "limitless" max wins on their slots, which is quite unique, even if the amount of those slots aren't that many, but still worthy enough to mention it.
MT4 = MT3 = Win
Again, let's be realistic here. MT3 was an immediate candidate for a GotY-award upon its release, and while one can say many things about MT-series and "hold & win"-slots in general, a fan or no fan who've done a fair amount of bot vanilla spins + buy-ins will easily agree that MT3 was worthy of its glory. It is kind of like video games: It doesn't matter much if a video game got superb cinematic cuts and stunning visuals, but the gameplay is as crap as a fake money casino streamer. Gameplay oh so often wins over visuals and aesthetics. Easily too. Even though most won't admit it, in the end, gameplay is what matters the most for the majority of us. The same with video slots. Yes, it's important that the slot is fun and enjoyable to play, and it's a nice bonus if the slot is nicely designed + it looks and sounds good too, but in the end, all that doesn't matter if the overall experience is crap and the win frequencies are trash. That was definitely not the case with MT3. When MT3 came out, it was not only an improvement of MT2, but instead it was a big improvement of MT2! MT3 took away many of the not so good things about MT2, particularly the payer/persistent payer and reset+1 modifiers, and also added even more and better modifiers to the game. More persistent symbols, which alone meant that you can get more persistent symbols than only 1 more frequently than on MT2 + the absorber was another good and a useful addition to MT3 vs. reset+1 on MT2 (which was only good when you had a great persistent-session going on).
Even though the RTP says lower %, there are already more MT3 big wins than there are MT2 wins out there, greatly helped with that 100kx max win limit, which in return gave more 50kx+ wins. Our own Bigwinboard gave MT3 a whopping 10/10 score, which is both fair and understandable. However, that doesn't mean the slot is perfect, like with all other slots. Take the base game as an example. It's not great one with big gaps between bonuses + the base game isn't particularly entertaining nor exciting either. It's just the regular bonus + multiplier + persistent symbols and that's it. As for the bonus round itself, although it makes sense, it was still a bummer to see that that they'd removed the vanilla golden symbol, which could hold between 20-200x. It makes sense that they removed that symbol because of the additional modifiers they put into MT3. But, that's also it when it comes to the bad things about the game. That's also why I understand those who give the slot 8~9/10 instead. But yeah, in all honesty, MT3 doesn't deserve less than 8~10/10, that's for sure, even if one dislikes the game. MT3's definitely a game that's all about buy-ins, as it was for MT2. The big deal why so many do buy-ins on MT3 is the cost of a buy-in vs. return + those big wins combined. Add the fact that unlike with HS slots, which are notorious for giving many 0~1x wins from their bonuses, even from costly buy-ins, you often get a fair portion of your buy-in amount in return than you get a crappy return x on MT3. And of course, another great thing is that the minimum buy-in cost of 0.10 and still an equal chance to get the 100kx max win is a great option for many players who want to a non-costly buy-in. Oh, and let's not forget the simplicity of MT3. It's a game that can be enjoyed in a both slow and turbo pace, which is a great addition. I am not only talking about the turbo mode within the game, but the fact that besides the intro, there are no useless cutscenes or win animations that wastes a bunch of time, especially on those low wins, which results in that the game can be enjoyed both by slow and fast paced players.
So, it's quite obvious why MT3 is as popular as it is. But, MT3 is also about as balanced and thorough as a MT-game can be, by the looks of it. Now the risk of going either overboard or stepping wrong comes in play for RG. If they go for an entire new direction, it can quickly fail, despite the big max win potential, and thus fail to win over those who love both the concept and style of MT-series. However, if RG manages to make MT4 balanced, thrilling, exciting, easy-going and thorough with their up to 20 game modifiers (MT3 has 12 modifiers) + upping the max win to 150kx, which definitely helps the games potential, MT4 will surely become one of the hottest candidates for the GotY-award of 2023, unless something very unexpected and/or a total game changer appears. And I must admit that with the experience, knowledge and expertise of RG in the field, one cannot help but to do as BWB said: Join the hype train for Money Train 4!
That's why I reckon that the online slot awards for 2023 will be way more open and more of a close race than the previous editions.
Tl;dr: What do you lot reckon about this and who do YOU hold as the best online slot and slot provider of 2023 so far? Share your thoughts and comments below!
I wouldnt praise Relax Gaming all That Much. You do write a lot of good stuff and you got a great knowledge of slots and i agree That No limit isnt That good anymore, in fact i am very dissapointed in them and feel They have changed to the worse, quite significantly.
i think Push Gaming are the most true provider of them all. They also have things going on That makes ut exciting, even when you are losing. Thats hard to entertain while the player are losing. I am content with Pragmatic as well.
i think Relax and Print studios has done really well, very entertaining slots and well made.
i think money train 3 stands out for being Relax, i feel the potential of winning is boosted there. My thought is That it is their flagship, more money is invested into it also for marketing purposes and also more players play it. So more money Rolling around i guess, but Thats just my thought, i can be wrong.
The reason i dont hold Relax all That high as you do, is their way of milking. And i am quite allergic to the whole dreamdrop idea, because i feel the slots have even more Deadspins Than before and less Bonuses, or even good Bonuses. I actually fell asleep playing santas stacks dreamdrop version on Christmas. Thats how plain dead the slot was. And rapid jackpot is not gonna cut it for me, after losing 400 euro watching Deadspins to eternity (milking), then a 1,7 euro win rapid is more irritating Than 0.
Relax Gaming is way to Much milking. And the bad stretches are way way too long. I feel They wanna Secure the money first before an initial win, and i feel its the same with all their slots pretty Much. Now with Hacksaw, Pragmatic and Push Gaming i feel That They take bigger risks, as far as giving you a big win aftee release, instead of securing the money first, in a controlling manner. They can get crazy on payouts pretty Much since day 1. I like that, it makes me want to give them credit back.
i am sure money train 4 Will be a hit. But i also think Razor Return is bad ass.
As far as money train 3 goes, its a great slot, but i am a big fan of big bamboo as well, its a tight one.
i just dont like their way of milking it. Just my opinion. I feel push is more true
Money train always on top!
The Money Train is one of best slots for all time