There used to be a time when there were a few gaming studios that ruled the online landscape. They were the only ones releasing online slots, like shooting fish in a barrel. But like any business and any industry, newbies pop up all the time to take on the competition, largely thanks to mobile gaming. And like any business, the big guns can steamroll in and take them over. The real winners? Mobile slots and casino game fans, that’s who!

Slots Partners Assemble

Like creating a superhero team of slots studios, we’ve seen scores of indie slots houses partnering up with bigger studios. Take Microgaming’s partnership with Slingshot Studios to deliver its Cash of Kingdoms online slot, among others. Why? Well it seems to be that the smaller companies have certain niches that the big boys are missing out on. New and improved gaming mechanics, innovative new features, crazy characters – they prove popular with many players, but the only way to get them to a wider audience is for the bigger businesses to promote and distribute them. And that’s where the major studios come in.

Fortune Factory is a small, independent gaming studio, focusing on creating unique slots. It partnered with Microgaming to exclusively make new slots for them. In the end, we’re the real winners as we get slots like Romanov Riches, a classy tribute to the Romanov dynasty. But what about NetEnt?

The Swede One Out

So far, NetEnt is one of the few studios not to partner up with the smaller indies. Perhaps it’s too big for that? To be fair, the Swedish slots powerhouse has got a massive fan base, a huge range of slots and it keeps on delivering time after time, slot after slot. It would be interesting to see if and who it would partner up with one day, but at the moment we’re just happy to enjoy the slots they deliver. And as for all the others? The more, the merrier.