The landscape of slot machine games has changed so much over the years – first there were mechanical slots, then digital games and these days we’re treated to video slots like like 20p Roulette online! It raises the question, when did video slots first come around?
If you’ve ever wondered this, read on to find out more! We’re going to be taking a look at:
– The first digital slots
– The first online slots
– The first video slots
The Rise of Video Slots
In the beginning, the only types of slot games around were mechanical slots, with the first being invented all the way back in 1895 by the famous Charles Fey! The game was called The Liberty Bell, and it output an enormous total jackpot of… ten nickels. This started a huge trend in slots, but it was still a long time until the first digital slots arose. This first happened in 1975, with an electronic slot machine being created by Fortune Coin Company, commonly known to be the worlds first ‘video slot’. Whilst this was pretty revolutionary at the time, you should have seen the graphics – they really weren’t very good, and it seems insane to call them video slots. There was hardly any form of video involved, it was just a few moving pixels on the screen. So, when did video slots as we know them today arise? Let’s investigate.
The Golden Age of Video Slots
Whilst video slots first came around back in 1975, things didn’t get exciting until around 1995. This was the era when CGI was really thriving – we were beginning to see 3D video games and even CGI within movies and TV programs. Not only was exciting CGI technology rising in accessibility, but another fantastic revolution was happening – the internet! This meant that developers were quick to find ways to develop online slot games, and it wasn’t long until someone had the bright idea of combining this with CGI. This was the beginning of real online video slots – the previous video slots between 1975 and 1995 were very cool back in the day, but they hardly fit the description of video slots to today’s standards. However, video slots as we now know them started to rapidly hit the market, with the industry being led by the following developers throughout the end of the decade:
– WMS (Williams Gaming Slots)
– Microgaming
– Netent
Final Thoughts
Overall, it’s fair to say that video slots first came around in 1975 when the Fortune Coin Company first applied digital chip technology to slot machine games. However, these were very rudimentary – they got more and more complex over the next two decades, until fully 3D video slots finally started appearing around the mid ‘90s. We hope you’ve enjoyed this blast to the past, now get out there and appreciate the amazing video slot technology that we have available in 2021!
