Pennsylvania Lottery introduced the Secret Santa Interactive Game for the holidays. It is developed by Scientific Games.
“It is much different from last year’s game, which was a match 3-style game,” said Matthew Coulter, Products Manager, Terminal-Based Games, Pennsylvania Lottery. “In this game, there are 12 unique holiday scenes within a village. With each scene, there are hidden objects that must be found within a set amount of time. The quicker all the objects are found, the more points the player earns.”
While the lottery has used a hidden object game before, it only had three scenes. “The re-skinned version we’re using for Secret Santa has a total of 12 scenes which will provide a lot more play value for players who enter multiple tickets into the drawings,” he said.
Last year, the lottery’s Holiday Countdown Interactive Game was played just under 1 million times during the entry period.
“We absolutely expect the number of total plays to increase this year,” stated Coulter. “This is in large part due to the fact that, for the first time, we’re also allowing all of our terminal-based games to be entered into the Secret Santa Second-Chance Drawings. All of our terminal-based games (except our biannual Millionaire Raffle game), as well as all six of our 2016 holiday instant tickets, can be submitted.”
The 2016 holiday interactive game features two second-chance drawings (the Secret Santa Drawing and the Not So Secret Drawing). “With each ticket submitted, the player gets to choose whether to enter the Secret Santa Drawing (prizes not announced ahead of time) or the Not So Secret Drawing (prizes listed on the website). After submitting a ticket, the player gets a chance to play the Secret Santa Interactive Game,” explained Coulter.
The holiday interactive game increases the stickiness between the lottery and its players.
“Our goals with the Secret Santa Second-Chance Drawings and interactive game—and for interactive games in general—are to add value to our products. Also, interactive games significantly boost our VIP Players Club membership. More and more of our players are spending significant amounts of time online through their computers and mobile devices. We want to engage players by offering them value where they want it most, which is with mobile and web-based entertainment and promotional opportunities,” stressed Coulter.