In 1989, Steve Wynn built The Mirage on the Las Vegas Strip for $630 million dollars, the most expensive casino/resort ever built — and it changed the face, the focus and the fortunes of the city. Twenty years later, Alex Czajkowski and the team at eGaming 2.0 are set to make online gaming history with the launch of Buzzluck.com, the world’s first online supercasino, and probably the most expensive online casino website built to date.
“We challenged the team to create an online casino experience different — more engaging, more entertaining — than anything you’ve ever seen before, all in one place,” says Czajkowski. “It’s still just the beginning of the Buzzluck story, but we’re pleased to take the wraps off today and open it to the public on this ‘luckiest’ of days: Friday the 13th of March.”
A visitor to Buzzluck is first greeted by the beautiful Zoe, an interactive hostess. “Of course, we’ve been doing ‘video hostess welcomes’ since being the first back in 2004 on what was then Sportingbet PLC’s Sportbook.com with Brooke Burke,” Czajkowski explains. “But unlike that and all those who followed, Zoe is truly interactive. Click her and she’ll answer your questions about the site.” Zoe is the first of many casino hosts planned for Buzzluck.com, and their repertoire, as well as sex, race, age, creed and colour, will constantly be expanding.
From the homepage itself, a player can click “Quick Launch” and instantly play over two dozen casino games. No waiting. No downloads. “It was vital that we didn’t change the actual game experience; online games have a feel and a pace different from real life – players will tell you ‘better’ than real life,” Czajkowski, an avowed online blackjack player himself, claims. “Players play at the pace they prefer: blindingly fast or more thoughtfully slow. It’s got to be up to the player, not the software, or other players. That’s core to the online game experience and one of the reason many people prefer online to land-based casinos.”
When you explore Buzzluck.com, start with the Lobby. Buzzluck.com’s innovative 3D lobby is the first of its kind in an online casino, navigable in a first-person shooter game style (e.g., like Doom or Quake). As in any busy lobby, you never know who you’ll bump into. Buzzluck’s lobby is populated with a variety of ever-changing characters, from guests to staff to surprise celebrities. Click on them to see what they have to say — and then click on them again, and again, and again.
You don’t live in the lobby, but it makes a fun, occasional diversion and is a great place to find surprises and bonuses to turn your luck around. “Like the Mirage’s Volcano, Treasure Island’s pirate battle, Bellagio’s fountains… the Lobby’s a bit of fun.” Czajkowski laughs, “but you’ll never know who, or what, you may find there. The possibilities are endless, let’s explore them.”
The Live Lounge, on the other hand, is very sticky. The only online casino in the world with live streaming video entertainment that you can interact with, the beta test shows have been packing them in from around the world. Currently live from 8pm till 11pm GMT on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (repeats of the three hour shows follow their live presentations), beta testers were directing the host on content, competing for bonuses, and generally laughing it up with Ian and his strangely compelling web-clip driven show. Clips from the Buzzluck Live Lounge are, ironically, already starting to find a life for themselves on YouTube. Longer hours and more days are planned as this historic industry first carries on and continues to grow in popularity.
Wynn’s Mirage needed to generate a million dollars a day just to pay the eight year construction loan. They came for the Volcano, Siegfried & Roy and the casino–the total brand experience–and Wynn paid the construction loan off in 18 months. Buzzluck’s Lobby and Live Lounge are likewise key differentiators in a world of boring me-too online casino sites, but the Buzzluck experience extends beyond the website. Zoe is your virtual host, but every Buzzluck player is assigned a personal real-life casino host as well, dedicated to making sure that their online experience is remarkably better than the impersonal, passive “customer service” everyone is too familiar with.
“The job of the casino is to entertain,” Czajkowski summarizes. “In these economic times, people are sitting at home looking for something fun, affordable and engaging, even immersive, to get their minds off the dire headlines. Buzzluck.com offers a real entertainment alternative — that’s what makes it a ‘supercasino.’ With everything going on, it’s never the same place twice.” And it lives up to its tagline: Never bored.
The first 130 players on Buzzluck.com on Friday the 13thof March are eligible for a free 13.00 euro chip to test the casino out; enter FRIDAY13 in the Redeem Coupon code in the cashier after registering.
