Unlike traditional table games like Blackjack and roulette, online slots need to work hard to stand out -which has led to most 3D slots being modeled to have a unique gimmick. With the market booming, you can find a slot game based on just about anything. Thinly veiled satire of current world leaders? Rocket Men has you covered. Games based on the hottest new Blockbuster? Justice League is still going strong in the slots world. But one of the most common trends in these games is to be based on real world mythology and folklore which seems like an odd choice at first glance. So just why are so many of these games inspired by myth and legend? Well-

Familiarity

The biggest benefit to using the mythological characters is that most everyone in the western world is familiar with them. When you see a white bearded figure in a toga your first thoughts are nearly always going to be of Zeus, king of the Gods, and be immediately familiar with what that entails. This is also likely to make you interested in the slot as you are familiar with the content and this has been shown to have a positive effect on you psychologically. In what’s known as the mere-exposure effect (or familiarity principle), the more often you are exposed to something the more of a positive response you have to it. This applies to near everything, from looking at the same painting multiple times to seeing the same person, the exposure will make them seem more appealing. This is useful for the purposes of slot games as they stand out by merit of being familiar- anyone seeing a online slots game that features characters from Greek Myth is likely to have a decent understanding of what each bonus entails just from the context.

Legality

Mythology is an easy source for inspiration and topics that most gamblers will be immediately familiar with and is also, handily, not an established intellectual property. When Disney revoked the online slots license that allowed companies to make Marvel themed games, there was a hole in the market that was quickly filled by a game modeled on Norse Mythology. While it couldn’t look like Chris Hemsworth, they were still very able to have Thor presented as well as Loki and Odin- appealing to all the fans of the movies without having to obtain a legal license from Marvel as the characters in mythology are free use.

Range of Stories

And the biggest reason, the most profitable too, is that there are so many stories with iconic, easy to understand elements that the sky is the limit in terms of possibilities. Just focusing on Greek Mythology, you can have a Zig-Zag pay line modeled after Zeus’ lightning bolt, you can have a hold button modeled on Medusa with her stone-y gaze and maybe even Hercules to smash a reel into a better shape. With so much to draw from, it becomes easy to make a game that’s interesting and intuitive as the player will have a rough idea what the different icons effects will be.