Comparing load times of India’s top 10 slot providers

Blog originally posted at: https://www.testa.io/blog/comparing-the-speed-of-indias-top-slot-providers/

India, with a population of over 1.3 billion, presents an attractive iGaming business market. Although internet penetration rates in India are currently below 50%, as they rise and the customer base expands, new business opportunities will emerge.

Furthermore, the online betting industry is growing in India with 5 betting apps leading the way: Parimatch, 1xBet, Betway, 22bet, and 20Bet. However, for businesses looking to enter the India, app development requires an understanding of performance benchmarks for this emerging market.

TESTA, a leader in iGaming performance testing, can provide crowd-sourced market research as shown in this report on slots data from India on overall load time, download speed, game size and compression rate from the country's top 10 slot providers.

Background

Using SlotCatalogs’ list of?India’s top Game Providers?as a reference, TESTA loaded the top 10 slot games from major operators’ websites. The test case provided to the testers was to launch all 10 listed games by clicking. The timer started when a game was clicked and ended when the game was playable. All browser diagnostics were saved for analysis.

Playson’s Book of Gold has the shortest loading time at 4.1 seconds. But from there the range of load times varied widely with Hacksaw Gaming’s Wanted Dead or a Wild taking the longest at 14.8 seconds.

Read on to find out how the 10 providers stacked up for load time—and how download speed, game size and compression rate factored into the comparison.

Who are India’s top slot providers?

TESTA researched the Indian iGaming market using SlotCatalog's list of top slots.

Factors affecting slot load times

Understanding the factors that influence game load times is key to optimizing player experience. TESTA's performance testing reveals four things:

1. Network connection and proximity: The quality of the player's internet connection and their geographical distance from game servers can significantly impact load times.
2. CDN assets: The amount and optimization of content delivered from Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) play a crucial role in how quickly game assets load.
3. End-user device power: The performance capacity of the player's device determines how efficiently it can process and render game content.
4. Browser processing requirements: Games with complex graphics and scripts require more processing power, impacting load speeds on different browsers.

By employing crowdsourced performance testing, TESTA provides insights into how these factors affect real-world game performance using data gathered from real users on a wide range of devices.

Test case

The test case provided to the testers was to launch all ten games and measure their load speed. The timer started when a game was connected and ended when the game was playable. All browser diagnostics were saved for analysis.

Since not all games are equal, looking at a mix of load speed, game size, and overall load time was also considered in the comparison.

1. Game load time – less is better; aim for a waiting time of 5 seconds or playable within 15 seconds to retain players.
2. Load speed – larger being better; the rate at which a website or application loads data depends on the local network stability and resources.
3. Game size – normally smaller being preferable; the file size of the game that players need to download before playing. The size can vary based on the type, length, and graphics used. There's a difference between resources and transferred files: Resources – uncompressed size of all resources, the size in MB of a website’s content (e.g., 10 MB) including images, videos, and games. Transferred – compressed size of all resources, the files downloaded when opening the website (e.g., equal to or less than 10MB) including game assets like graphics, sound effects, background processes, and software updates for optimal gameplay.

Testers in India ran the three tests, on all 10 slots, screen recorded them, and then sent the results to TESTA for analysis as reported below.

Results

Playson’s Book of Gold wins game load time test

For the India slots testing the average load time?is the actual waiting time from when the tester clicks on the game icon until the game reaches a playable state. Under 10 seconds is a healthy loading speed.

Playson’s Book of Gold has the shortest loading time at 4.1 seconds.

Meanwhile, Hacksaw Gaming’s Wanted Dead or a Wild takes the longest at 14.8 seconds.

Load time benchmarks

Players have expectations. While they may or may not know they are loading media-rich software—they know their Netflix video launches in a few seconds—why wouldn’t their slot game?

Industry benchmarks:

• Anything above 10-15 seconds is a very long time to wait in the age of mobile phones and on-demand everything.
• Google famously found that the bounce rate increased by a whopping 32% when a page took 3 seconds to load vs 1 second.

Playson wins game load speed test

Next, we look at the throughput /game load speed. The game load speed indicates the rate at which data is sent from the server and CDN to the player’s browser.

Playson’s Book of Gold has the highest measurement at 14 MB/s, while B Gaming’s Gift Rush is the slowest at 1.08 MB/s.

As mentioned above, many factors can impact the load speed of a game, including:

• The network connection and proximity to the player.
• The amount of assets stored on a nearby CDN.
• The amount of processing power for complex rendering.

B Gaming has the smallest average game size and Reel Kingdom has the best compression rate

The average game size refers to the file size that players download before playing. Optimizing game size ensures smooth gameplay on different devices while minimizing the impact on users' devices.

The TESTA?India iGaming market analysis’ data shows that B Gaming’s Gift Rush takes just 8.74 MB of transferred (compressed) data to begin whereas the Playson's Book of Gold requires 61.2 MB. Compression, therefore, is another point of comparison, since games are not equally sized. For Indian slots, the Real Kingdom game, Big Bass Bonanza, has the best compression rate at 54%.

Again—as it is the case for load times—the variation for this metric is extreme.

Analysis

The performance data of India's top slot providers uncovers insights that highlight both challenges and growth opportunities in the iGaming industry.

Pain points

The wide variance in load times (4.1 to 14.8 seconds) indicates inconsistency in performance across providers. Slow load times can significantly impact player retention and overall satisfaction.

Areas of opportunity

There's a substantial opportunity for providers to optimize game size and load speed. Focusing on efficient asset delivery and compression can enhance user experience, especially in markets with varied network speeds and device capabilities.

Key takeaways

• Load time is crucial: Staying under 10 seconds is vital for player engagement.
• Impact of external factors: Providers need to consider network quality, CDN efficiency, and device capabilities in their optimization strategies.
• Value of real-world testing: TESTA's crowdsourced approach provides actionable insights into real-world performance, essential for providers aiming to excel in diverse markets.

How to get visibility on your iGaming performance

Running a successful slots business in today’s hyper-competitive iGaming industry requires being active in markets all over the globe. The challenge is that each market has its unique preferences and user behaviors.

Market to market variability

From variations in phone quality to network connectivity, no two markets are alike. Game studios and providers cannot be expected to be physically present in each market they serve, which means as they expand they lose visibility on the customer experience.

This is where TESTA India iGaming market analysis comes in to help. Using our team of testers in key gaming markets, providers can see real “on the ground” data and generate insights for their own games—and those of competitors.

The TESTA Qrowd

Known as TESTA Qrowd, our community of worldwide iGaming QA testers come from a wide range of backgrounds and skill levels, ensuring that the testing process represents real-world player usage and is not limited to a specific group of users.

The process begins by defining test cases and data outputs with your dedicated Service Delivery Manager. From there, the tests are assigned to our team. Results are posted to the TESTA Platform and summarized in reports. Data can include pictures, video, browser diagnostics, or any other output the client defines.

Conclusion

TESTA is the only crowdtesting platform built specifically by iGamers experts for iGaming experts. See how crowdtesting can help you with Quality Assurance testing and improve compliance, performance, integrations, and many other vital areas of the iGaming landscape.

Click through to learn more about TESTA’s market research and benchmarking solutions for iGaming providers and operators.