How Much Does Branding Matter for Scratch Card Games?

Familiarity and brand recognition are important aspects of all forms of entertainment. It’s for that reason Hollywood producers are constantly looking for ready-made brands – ranging from Barbie to the Avengers – to base their films on.

It’s ready-made marketing, and it will tap into an audience that has a predisposition toward the brand.

The same goes for gaming, of course, and basically any form of entertainment. Sure, you can create a brand from scratch, but building on known intellectual property offers a good chance of success.

Can the same ideals be applied to scratchoff games? Well, they already have but that’s something we will talk about a little later.

However, we can say that, yes, branding is important to scratch-off games, and we are seeing more examples of it online today.

Pragmatic Play Has Built Its Scratchoff Brand

There are, effectively, three main routes you can go with for creating a scratchoff game.

First, you can base it on known IP, much in the same way as those Hollywood producers are snapping up the rights to your favourite Mattel toy.

An example of this would be Rocky Scratch by Playtech, an officially-branded game based on the iconic Sylvester Stallone boxing movies.

Stallone fans are naturally going to be attracted to the game, but it is the overall recognition – who hasn’t seen Rocky? That draws the eye and perhaps gives an advantage to the game over more generic alternatives.

The second – and something we have seen increasingly recently – is extending your own IP.

For example, the global iGaming giant Pragmatic Play, which supplies many of the online scratchoffs at Scratchful gaming platform, often creates scratch games based on its popular games in other formats.

For example, Wolf Gold was a hugely popular release (it’s considered a classic) on iGaming platforms, so it’s natural Pragmatic Play would launch a scratchoff version, Wolf Gold 1,000,000.

Thirdly, there are non-branded games which largely follow well-known scratchoff themes – Irish Luck, Egyptian Riches, Cute Animals, and so on.

While not specifically branded, games with well-known themes can be attractive to players. For instance, the moment you see a scratch game with shamrocks and pots o’ gold, there is an instant recognition from the player. That pull should not be underestimated.

Underlying Games Must Be Fun And Entertaining

By and large, there is no discernible benefit to playing a non-branded and branded game.

However, as mentioned, it can give the game developer a leg up in terms of ready-made marketing. And yet, it’s worth noting that branding is not a cure-all for popularity.

Moreover, simply sticking the branding on a game is insufficient to give it sustained popularity.

The games with the most longevity are exciting and fun, whether or not there is a character from a movie or a famous pop star emblazoned on the card.

Overall, then, branding can be important for marketing purposes. Fans of Wolf Gold and other Pragmatic Play games would jump at the chance to play sister games in scratchoff form.

Yet, the underlying product must be fun and innovative. Otherwise, it is just branding for branding’s sake.

We all have our favorite scratchoff games, and often it’s down to an unquantifiable reason, not what the game looks like aesthetically.