NetEnt beta-launches affiliate business

[MissExposé]

Hi all,

Check out the latest news from NetEnt: They are beta-launching their own affiliate business!
NetEnt announced today that their fans will be able to try out all their games while at the same time receive great bonus offers from operators, such as Leo Vegas, Casumo, Cashmio and ComeOn.

What are your thoughts about this?

 

[bonustreak]

I think it is BS and I am not thrilled at all about this! They are double dipping in the business IMO, this should be a conflict of interest.

 

[Batman]

It's not great news for us but hardly the end of the World. In all honesty it's a smart move from them. Expect others to follow, microgaming springs to mind!

 

[CL-Ed]

Sure it is competition for affiliates but I don't see how it is a conflict of interest. They are a game developer that earns money from people playing their games at casinos. They are trying to drive more people to play their games for real money, which means more money for them. It is directly aligned with their interests.

Affiliate sites that BS players with faux reviews for dodgy casinos and that don't disclose that they earn money from referrals are a conflict of interest, not this.

 

[Casinoer Danmark]

I think its OK and should've been done earlier. Imagine if NetEnt purchased netentcasino.com at the time Catena did it and they would be... Yeah.. Well.. Ahead of the game for small monies.

Apart from that I find the site very appealing

 

[Biti]

It's their right to do so. The conflict of interest I do not see. Of course, they have an interest in players losing as much as possible, but that was already their interest before they launched their affiliate website. It also has a limit as there's sometimes law about RTPs and it has to be competitive.

I think others will follow suit.

Their statement is bullshit of course. Like statements of public listed companies usually are full of this kind of bullshit. They put affiliate links to make some money, not for anything else. They're getting now like 20% of a lost € and they want obvious more.

I got the feeling they also lose a bit of terrain to other providers. Most of their slots are low variance crap camouflaged with a nice design and some catchy features. Many players want just that opportunity to win insane amounts of money, not getting bothered by "wins" that aren't even higher than your stake.

Sure it will cost slot review portals traffic. Netent will outrank most of them on NetEnt slot reviews within a few months.

I doubt if their website is compliant. I think not. That makes it a bit hypocrite for "moral programs" like Casumo and Leo Vegas. In the end, it's about the $.

 

[CL-Ed]

Agree with most of your post Biti except this part:

Sure it will cost slot review portals traffic. Netent will outrank most of them on NetEnt slot reviews within a few months.

I don't think it will affect anything much unless NetEnt changes something from what they are already doing, assuming from your statement they don't rank well already? (I have no idea on that) The games have been on their site for 5+ years, and all they have done is add popups trying to get players to click through to a casino now. That isn't going to make their pages suddenly rank any better. It may even turn off some people who want to play free games without interruption.

Maybe there will be a small difference due to players clicking through on their ads, instead of exiting the page, searching for the game again, finding an affiliate site as opposed to a casino, then clicking through to a casino. But I think that convoluted process indicates how few people were probably doing that already. And of course free game traffic is notoriously low converting in the first place.

I also suspect that players are still probably going to prefer going to a site that has games from lots of different providers in one place rather than being limited to a single brand, whether that be a casino or an affiliate site. So I don't think there's any need for affiliates to panic.

 

[Joonas]

It will be interesting to see what they come up with! The biggest risk I see for them as a business with these types of side projects is that they are not fully focused on their core business - making games.

 

[baldidiot]

I don't think it will affect anything much unless NetEnt changes something from what they are already doing, assuming from your statement they don't rank well already? (I have no idea on that) The games have been on their site for 5+ years, and all they have done is add popups trying to get players to click through to a casino now.

They've never tried to monitise it before so probably didn't pay a huge amount of attention. I would imagine that would change now they're using it as a revenue source.

I'd also expect to see those game pages be developed further. Would be fairly naive to assume they'll stay as they are now.