Dragonfish - Too much of a good thing?

[onlinebingofinder]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to the forum. I'd like to to just clarify that what follows are just my own view i'm curious to see how others feel as i'm sure everyone will have a different view.

Lately i've been researching into Dragonfish who are the B2B online bingo brand that is owned by 888 holdings. There are over 120 bingo sites that license the Dragonfish (DF) software. The license agreement is based on your needs. I'm still not 100% sure, so correct me where i'm wrong but i think have the grasp over how it works...

1. Fully license the Dragonfish software and take care of everything from chat room hosts to prizes and promotions, more importantly get players through the doors from the word go for the instant liquidity. This would probably set you back £40k, not mentioning what would need to be a very big all round media campaign, but if you know how to manage this it should be fruitful. (it's worth noting that at this point to get a TV spot isn't as expensive as it use to be. Silver Lining?)

2. You get your own 'skin'. You or DF can design your website which acts as a gateway to an online bingo hall that there are over 100 other skins plugging into. You all pool the players together, this gives illusion that daisybingo.com for example is a very busy site, despite the landing page looking like a GCSE project. You don't have to worry about instant liquidity because you're part of the wider network. You do still however need to drive players by either your own properties - if you own any - or through the popular bingo review portals like bingoport.co.uk whichbingo.co.uk casinochoice.co.uk etc. Of which you have to negotiate a deal you are both happy with. This option is roughly around £7k if Dragonfish handle the design/development of the website. I believe the standard deal is 100% deposit bonus, here is one of the network sites - http://www.daisybingo.com/

3. Essentially option 2 with some enhancements to make the site stand out a little. If you've ever written 10 reviews 10 dragonfish skins in a row you'll realise its a skill to make each one stand out from the last when they're all essentially the same product. With this option you can increase the bonus amount, giveway exclusive prizes and create a strong brand - costa bingo (although this is a standalone site) This option is more flexible and probably provides the best solution of not having to worry about instant liquidity and having something that serves and adds value for the player and the overal market.

I'm more curious about what the 100+ network sites mean for the players, the affiliates, the owners and what dragonfish's responsibilities are, if any.

The players - Good and bad. Good because they are not short of finding new bonuses and offers. Bad; you could argue that these 100's of sites have contributed towards the bonus hunting culture. If there are 2 players in a room who came from 2 different 'skins' but one had a 200% welcome bonus and the other a 100% bonus, is it really fair that the person who had a 100% bonus is paying twice as much to be in the same room? Are the players aware of whats happening?

The affiliates - The affiliates (mostly speaking for myself) are caught between a rock and a hard place. From the users point of view we should be promoting all the bingo sites out there (both for seo purposes and for the user) - but with an honest conclusion of each i.e. it's just another dragonfish site but if you want to claim another bonus, give it a shot. On top of which you now have another additional site that is competing with you in the SERP's and could be detrimental to you. If you are a PPC affiliate then your equally worried if the new site has a healthy budget to spend which will no doubt inflate the already astronomical bingo PPC keywords, making your margins even tighter and your model even more scrutinised.

The owners (skins) - These guys can obviously earn a lot of money. The benefits are obvious; you can track all your media campaigns; you can put a conversion tag on your site - as an affiliate you can't put tracking tags on all the sites that you promote. You can mostly only track a user through to the point when they leave your site. You can earn up to 60% rev share - a mid range affiliate is lucky to get 45%. You can get other affiliates to promote your skin - although you'd need to be make a good offer if you're just another skin. You don't have any worry of instant liquidity.

Dragonfish - Do DF have some level of corporate responsibility to offer something new to the market instead of this tsunami of 100% welcome bonus sites? Should they be making sure that skin owner provide something different for the players or is it just about maximising the revenue stream? Could all these mirror site somehow, in the long run, have a negative impact?

The subject is new to me and there are other software providers working off the same model but DF is without a doubt the dominant player. I'm curious what other people feel. Personally i am a portal owner and it were going to launch a bingo site i would probably go with the 15network or go with dragonfish and launch a site with the best of both the skin world and the standalone....

[benji]

Nice post. I couldn't agree more. It seems as if these 'cookie cutter' bingo sites are popping up all the time under the dragonfish brand that offer nothing new to bingo players. These new brands which are just a white label only offer players a new bonus to claim and makes retention of players for affiliates very difficult.

I also find that the Dragonfish affiliate offering to be very poor and with all the brands they now have on their network, I'm sure they could afford to develop an affiliate portal that works 100% of the time and actually offers some useful tools. The affiliate managers of these brands aren't exactly the best in the industry either.