Steve Wynn is an incredible man. He’s worth $2.9billion. He has yachts, is friends with a foray of superstars, and holds an art collection one could only dream of. What’s more impressive however is his collection of casinos.
The business magnate has reinvented the Las Vegas Strip and made it his own little playground. It’s the entertainment capital of the world, and he’s using it for his own entertainment; building wild, unique, and luxurious resorts right along the four mile
He’s made his own real life version of Sim City, just as Bugsy Siegel did almost 70 years ago. Who wouldn’t want to be him?
Well, us, obviously. Siegel got shot down shortly after opening and was a notorious mobster. But rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sinatra and building your own casino paradise in the heart of the desert? Who wouldn’t want to do that?
The thing is, now you can!
Whilst Ol’ Blue Eyes is long gone, you can certainly load up Come Fly With Me, and thanks to CasinoRPG, a new casino MMORPG, you can do it your way.
Based on Sin City itself, the massive multiplayer online role playing game allows users to create their own gambling haven, taking influence from The Linq, Vegas’ new promenade, you can clutter your Strip with greenery by adding squares for gamblers to take a break from the bustling tables.
Or you could become the new, online Steve Wynn and create a casino empire.
Brought to life through Kickstarter, over 200 backers pledged $20,371 to get the project started, and in April celebrated its first birthday. In this time, the community around it has grown tremendously.
Of course, that’s no surprise. The online gaming industry is huge. Brands such as PokerStars have millions upon millions of members and have contributed to an industry worth around $40 billion. Recent years have seen an expansion among the leader brands, shifting from simply poker to offering popular table variants played against the croupier.
CasinoRPG offer those too, but rather than cashing out your winnings, you pump them back into the game to help build your empire.
Although, that of course doesn’t mean simply building more casinos. You can explore them too. You can use your virtual coins to buy drinks, watch shows, and essentially live the Las Vegas lifestyle all from the comfort of your own home.
That’s not to mention playing the casino games you’re housing. Slots, poker, and blackjack are all playable, meaning every element of casino life can be enjoyed. Of course, with that there are plenty of activities to be getting on with to increase your notoriety and reputation; after all you can’t be as big as the Bellagio without knowing what you’re doing!
Starting at the very bottom, all players begin their CasinoRPG life as a janitor – although don’t worry, you won’t be spending the first few hours of the game mopping floors and changing toilet rolls; the mayor gets you started on some gambling, and the bankroll building starts there.
If you’re good, and manage keeping your bankroll in the black, you can find success pretty quickly. Maintaining an empire in Goldfire City will see you develop all the acumen of Wynn himself.
It’s certainly an incredibly unique game, and it’s actually remarkable nobody had partnered the incredibly successful worlds of online casino and MMORPG before.
MMORPGs have been around since the mid-1970s and with the introduction of the internet to the masses, it took on a whole new lease on life.
The likes of Star Trek Online in recent years have taken the multiplayer realms to the next level, launching in 2010 and having 3.2 million players by 2014, making it a worldwide phenomenon. And that isn’t likely to slow down, particularly with technology advancing continually.
We’re now in a world where virtual reality is good, not just an idea with an un-thought-out gaming performance and perhaps the worst thing to hit gaming like it was in the 90s, so expanding and advancing MMORPG will almost come naturally.
The popularity of CasinoRPG would certainly suggest that, not to mention the critical response for the game; it won First Place for the Indie Developer Award at the Heartland Gaming Expo in Tulsa.
The world is becoming larger and larger every day with new lots of items regularly added. The latest being new building designs, to remodel a range of casinos including the lavish 5-star establishments, not to mention a number of holiday items and other features to make it as close to Sin City as possible.
The popularity of MMORPGs in today’s society is no real surprise. Gaming is becoming more social than ever before, and the days when it was labelled an industry where overweight teenagers were sat in their rooms ignoring the world are long gone.
As mentioned, the Star Trek Online MMORPG has millions of players, whilst the likes of Xbox Live and PlayStation 4 on the next generation consoles have around 150 million users between them. And in fact, social is something high on the agenda for Sony. Their latest project, Project Morpheus, is aiming to be a social experience, making even virtual reality social.
Social is of course a key part in MMORPG. It’s why the likes of the Blizzcon Convention attracts over 20,000 people every year.
The CasinoRPG in-function chat window allows players to keep in touch with anyone roaming the world at the time. It also features forums and rooms to expand your knowledge of the game, and even casino games, which could help progress online casinos further.
Because of its fun, virtual money nature, it’s the perfect place to practice before trying real-money tables elsewhere. And it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility; it’s the hook into the industry that traditional online gaming rooms don’t have. As it gathers momentum, CasinoRPG could pick up gamers that neither play casino nor are really involved in MMORPG games. It’s a throwback to the days of Theme Park World and Theme Hospital, games when you don’t have to be experts in the field to play.
You don’t need to be a doctor to play Theme Hospital, just as you don’t need to be Daniel Negreanu to enjoy CasinoRPG.
Like Steve Wynn in the early 70s, games such as World of Warcraft started a real boom for the MMORPG industry, and like Wynn the empire has continued to expand, with CasinoRPG perhaps being the Wynn Las Vegas of the MMORPG Strip.
It’ll mark a new era for the genre as technology continues to improve our gaming experience. Of course we aren’t going to expect a CasinoRPG convention, nor will it ever be as big as WoW, but it’s diversifying the genre further, marking a step away from fantasy and moving closer to real-life situations, appealing to a different breed of gamer.
We have to say we’re a big fan of CasinoRPG. You only have to look at Las Vegas to be in awe of the place, so getting to build your own and live the life of a Sin City business magnate – well, that’s kind of exciting.