WMS
Logo © www.wms.com
Williams Interactive is a software giant and a subsidiary of Scientific Games. The company is best known by the abbreviation WMS. In fact, WMS Industries is the parent company, and WMS Gaming and Williams Interactive are its primary subsidiaries.
To gamers worldwide, it’s just WMS, and it’s a brand recognized for creating quality games for both traditional and online casinos. WMS has not only made hugely popular casino games but games that helped change the market.
Although the first games WMS made had mechanical rollers and standard fruit machine features, the company is very much a modern innovator who has introduced many great features to online and offline slots.
The company has also developed innovative payment solutions that make online casino transactions easier, faster and more secure.
Details
| Name | Williams Interactive / WMS |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Legal form | Ltd |
| Registered | Chicago, Illinois |
| Employees | 5000 |
| Sales | $689.7million / 2012 |
| Slots | 120 |
| Languages | |
| Website | www.sggaming.com |
The Story Behind WMS
Slot maschine © www.wms.com
The original slot machines were quite limited in scope. Most contained three mechanical rollers and provided a symbol set that included fruits, bells, bars, stars, horseshoes and playing cards. In the 1970s, electronic slot machines became prevalent, and this when WMS formed.
WMS was integral in innovating multi-coin inserts, bonus features and other aspects we now take for granted. The company also developed many partnerships over the years, and that allowed it access to develop licensed games that captured the attention of millions of gamers. Perhaps the best known of these releases was the first licensed Monopoly slot machine.
In the United States, WMS represent approximately 70 percent of total sales at both land-based and online casinos. Despite being headquartered in the U.S. and focused there, WMS has branched out and recently begun experiencing great success in Europe, particularly in Germany. Other areas of expansion include China, India, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa and Spain.
One area where WMS really excels is at targeting its audience. It responds quickly to market trends and isn’t afraid to develop different types of games for different audiences. Even with physical slot machines, the company develops new fruit machines regularly to cater to older generations even as it innovates new licensed machines in strong attempts to attract young gamblers. This willingness to diversify has resulted in a game portfolio that’s unrivaled in its sheer scope and size.
Innovation by WMS is taken place online but in brick-and-mortar casinos too. For land-based enterprises, Williams Interactive recently introduced the G+ series. These devices are interconnected and support a wide range of games, including slots, video poker and lotteries. These were developed specifically to target a younger crowd in the U.K., a market WMS deemed underrepresented.
An important G+ feature is social network integration, which allows gamers to play with friends and even share achievements.
Like most companies, WMS has of course faced its share of difficulties. As recent as 2012, the company was dealing with shrinking profits and loss of market share. Nevertheless, the brand reacted quickly and with agility. As a primary strategy, it released many of its games for mobile apps, and that increased profits and expanded its market share. This aggressiveness extended the reach of WMS considerably, and the brand now enjoys millions of users playing its games via mobile solutions.
WMS Games Feature Uniqueness
WMS has always had a unique voice when it comes to slot game development, and that uniqueness has helped considerably as the brand has worked to cement its place in online casinos. In terms of the sheer range of functions it offers, perhaps no other developer delivers anything close. Even on land, WMS offers, for instance, unique mechanical rollers that make passersby take notice and stop at their games. For online games, the brand does an impressive job of delivering lifelike experiences.
The graphics, sounds and overall experience is often very much just like you’d experience in an actual casino.
© www.wms.com
Milestones of WMS
Headquartered in Illinois, WMS still operates as an independent brand despite being owned by Scientific Games. The WMS brand established itself with reliable technology and engaging gameplay experiences, and it continues to do that. A similar approach to the one that made the brand an industry juggernaut in the 1970s is being applied to today in the mobile gaming space. WMS has fostered strong partnerships with online brands, and players enjoy the freedom to use their accounts wherever is most convenient at the moment: desktop PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets.
WMS can trace its roots online back to 1995, a time at which online gambling was just becoming a thing. Just a few years later, WMS introduced Reel ‘em In, its first major success online. This was the first time online gamblers could choose multiple bet lines and different coin levels. The game even had a bonus system, which was practically unheard of at the time. Within a short period after, WMS introduced several similarly constructed slots like Amazon Queen, Bruce Lee and Raging Rhino all of them were a success as well. Then in 2001, WMS introduced the licensed Monopoly Slot, which was one of the most successful online slots ever at that time, and the company followed it up with a number of other big name licenses. It continues to do that to this day as well.
Despite operating independently, WMS works alongside Scientific Games and is using its resources to expand even further into the online space. These companies promise many surprises ahead for gamers of all kinds, and if you love slots, keep your eye out for some truly amazing surprises.
