Here is a selection of top NextGen casinos reviewed and rated by our experts:
About NextGen
NextGen Gaming is one of the oldest and longest-operating developers of online casino gaming software. The company was founded back in 1999 in Australia, five years after the launch of the first fully operational online casino. Its core aim is to attract, entertain and retain. In other words, it hopes to attract players to its games, inspire them, and keep them coming back to play the games again and again.
Over its many years of operation, it’s had several owners; in 2012, it was purchased by Nyx Gaming Group and had its headquarters moved from Sydney to London. Then in 2018, Nyx Gaming Group was formally acquired by Scientific Games, despite this, NextGen Gaming has continued to operate and provide casino games under its own brand name.
The company specialises in video slots, though it’s also made quite a lot of progress in the social games field in NextGen Casinos over recent years. Doctor Love, Mad Mad Monkey and Merlin Millions Superbet are some of its most popular free-to-play social games that can be played on the likes of Facebook. As well as this, NextGen Gaming has moved into the mobile games market, releasing an ever-growing number of titles that are fully compatible with a range of handheld devices.
NextGen Casinos Strengths
One of the main advantages of NextGen Gaming is that its games are widely available at a substantial number of online NextGen Casinos. There’s also the fact that the developer has created a broad and diverse collection of over 600 games, many of which have been highly rated by players. As with many other developers, the focus is very much on slots.
One thing that makes NextGen Gaming’s Casino slots stand out is that some of them have unique, personalised elements to them that make the gameplay more interactive. Some have the Slide a Wild feature, which lets the player choose where to put the wild symbols instead of them being randomly placed on the reels; there’s also Select a Play, which enables the player to select from a low number of free spins with high multipliers or a high number of free spins with a low multiplier.
NextGen Casinos Weaknesses
NextGen Gaming has taken a somewhat different approach to most casino game developers. Most developers launch games under their own brand name; NextGen Gaming, conversely, has taken more of a B2B (business-to-business) approach. In other words, it’s chosen to licence a number of its games to other developers, with the games then being listed under that particular developer’s brand. Bally, Amaya Gaming, WGS Technology and Aristocrat are a few of the developers that have licensed games from NextGen Gaming. The problem with this is that the games don’t usually receive the full attention they deserve; the developers choose to focus on games they have created and keep licensed games by other developers as background titles that merely round off the collection.
Another fact to point out is that you could well end up playing NextGen Casinos games without realising it; this is because the games often appear to belong to the brand that’s licensed them from NextGen Gaming, and not NextGen Gaming itself. The developer isn’t therefore as well known as other more visible developers like Microgaming and NetEnt, despite its rather extensive library of games.
Key Information
NextGen Gaming’s parent company, Scientific Games, currently has an active gambling licence from the UK Gambling Commission
Throughout its many years of operation, NextGen Gaming has won quite a few awards for its casino gaming software. Some of these include the following:
The EGR award for Social Gaming Supplier of the Year 2012
Its parent company, Nyx Gaming Group, received the Special Achievement Award at the EGR B2B Awards 2014
An innovation the developer is well known for is its slot features (as mentioned in the Strengths section above). These help to make the slots even more appealing, since these extra features increase their playability and make the player’s experience more dynamic, engaging, and potentially more rewarding
The developer’s games are available on a broad range of mobile devices. Thanks to Nyx Gaming Group’s MOVE mobile platform, a lot of NextGen Gaming’s most popular games can be played on a variety of smartphones and tablets.
Final Verdict
NextGen Gaming is an online casino games developer that hasn’t entirely received as much praise and recognition as it deserves. This is because it’s more of a background developer, choosing to supply games to others, rather than releasing them under its own name. Still, its games have been very well received, despite many players potentially not realising they’re actually from NextGen Gaming.
The developer focuses on slots, though in recent years it’s branched out into the social gaming sector. They have developed around 600 slots that come in a broad range of themes, from the tropical 1 Can 2 Can and the adventurous Gold Ahoy, to the legendary Titan Storm and the somewhat quirky Codfather. While it’s created hundreds of imaginatively themed slots, it’s also launched a small number of titles themed after popular IPs, such as The Flash Velocity, Psycho, King Kong, Green Lantern, Batman and An Evening With Holly Madison.
Its slots are fun to play thanks to the high quality of their graphics, their well-designed characters and their exciting gameplay features. Its newer titles, in particular, are recommended, especially since many of them have extra features that make the game more personalised and interactive. The developer’s slots are also worth a mention, though you may have to do a bit of research to find them.