WMS Slot Studio Tour Revisited!

On April 10th, 2013 a group of us from the Player's Life Forum were invited to tour WMS Studios in Las Vegas! I was lucky enough to do this last year too and it was just as much fun to repeat it this year!

Terri drove Gwen, myself and Manette to WMS studios where we signed some paperwork and received a visitor badge with our photos on them. My photo was still in their computer system from last year but since I didn't like it I had them retake it.  I'm always after a good photo. :)

After we put our photo badges on we entered the WMS Slot Showroom and I immediately ran to the back of the room trying not to knock over anyone else so I could play the new Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Slot. !

Willie Wonka uses the new Gamefield xD technology which is already being seen on casino floors with the new Haunted Forest and Emerald City Wizard of Oz slots. Of course I was playing with fake money but the truth is I like winning, even if I can't take it with me! ;)

The sounds and graphics of Willie Wonka are fantastic and it was hard to drag myself away from playing. This slot is due out on the slot floors this summer and I can't wait to play it for real money!

As you can see from the photos I had some nice wins but I got my bonuses by using a feature on the showroom slots so I'm not sure how difficult it will be to get one when playing for real.

After being encouraged to give someone else a chance to play Willie Wonka, LOL, I made my way to Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. Great sound and graphics on this game too.

I'm not sure when The Return of the King will be out on a casino floor. I liked the Return of the King but for me personally Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is the slot that I'm looking forward the most to playing.

The new Spider Man Slot seems fun too. Since I got to spend some time with it last year at G2E, I didn't play it during this evening.

Brent is playing it above and seemed to be having some fun on it.

I believe there was a group of 30 of us at WMS for the focus study and studio tour. Above is Brent again with Dan looking on.

Some random shots of the WMS Studio Showroom.

Below is Jason with his fiancee Desiree. Jason has been on a lucky streak this year and later that night I got to see him solve the Clue puzzle at Binions and then he was lucky enough to get the 15 wilds on Clue at NYNY for a $3,000 hand pay. I'm thinking that Jason and Desiree love WMS slots!

Gwen tested out a WMS poker game.  Gwen has been on quite the streak of luck this year with big wins on Video Poker at Wynn and Palazzo! Gwen's friends are calling it the year of Gwen. :)

Before you enter the show room with the WMS slots there is a smaller room you pass through that had snacks, sodas and water for the group.

During our tour we were split up into two groups with one group interacting and enjoying the slots in the showroom and talking to some of the programmers and the other group doing the focus study in one of the conference rooms and then the two groups exchanged places. Basically the focus study was giving feedback about slots based on our personal opinions. Shocker! I always enjoy sharing my complaints, oops, I mean opinions on slots and would have been happy to continue to share them but time ran out. ;)

There was one slot that was on the side here that you can't see that was all covered up. This is WMS new secret slot. WMS had a contest to see if we could guess what the subject of this new to be announced in the future slot was. During the end of our focus study we  learned that one person from the other group had guessed what the slot was, and now it was our turn to write down one guess and then they would unveil it.

When they started to read out some of the guesses we had made I was impressed with some of the ideas suggested. I really liked Gwen's idea of doing a slot on the Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not sure that Disney will sell those rights to a slot manufacturer but I would really enjoy a slot from those movies.

I was really surprised when I turned out to be the 2nd person to guess this slot and my prize was a WMS pin. Unfortunately I can't share what my guess is with you as I signed a NDA. 

Above is a video of me playing Lord of the Rings, Return of the King.

Above and below are two bonuses on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!


If you are interested in participating someday in seeing WMS Studios and doing a Focus Study there I encourage you to join the player's life forum:
http://www.playerslife.com

It's really fun to talk to the programmers at WMS Studios and hear about the new slots coming out in the future!