A simple game model

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A simple game model

• www.slingo.com

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Slingo

• A combination of slot machines and Bingo was
  designed and implemented as an on-line game,
  under the name of Slingo. The game was modeled
  on an old Mexican five-wheel slot machine, but
  modified during development to build in features
  that were best done in software.

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• games are played with ten participants per game,
  and a chat feature was added so that during the
  game the players could tease or congratulate each
  other.

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• The chat feature was a big hit, so much so that
  players developed a distinctive vocabulary that
  became known as Slingo Lingo, thus presaging by
  years a similar phenomenon amongst cell phone
  instant messaging systems.

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• The game was refined and tested, and then offered
  to America On-Line for inclusion in the AOL
  gaming environment. It was meant to help fill
  out the AOL offerings by providing a little
  something for every possible demographic of their
  membership. The game officially rolled out in
  October of 1996, in a context where, according to
  the experts, in a best-case scenario, the game
  might account for perhaps 10,000 hours of AOL
  connect time per month.

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• A funny thing happened. The game quickly became
  one of the most popular activities on the AOL
  site. Within three months the game had reached a
  level ten times greater than the most ambitious
  of expectations, accounting for over 100,000
  hours per month. And it kept growing.

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Slingo Factoids

• As of 8/02, there have been over 2 billion Slingo
  games played. Slingo hosts almost 2 million
  unique players each month, with an average of
  approximately 140,000 total daily hours of game
  play.

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• Slingo stands as one of the top ten most
  downloaded games. Slingo ranks 4th amongst all
  game publishers based upon unique monthly users,
  and 7th (following Microsofts 6 online products)
  in total game plays.
• The world Slingo has been one of the top 5 most
  accessed keywords on America Online for three
  straight years.