The world of rock and roll has changed in the age of the internet. Your favourite guitarists are no longer making the millions they once did from record sales, and many of them have begun to look at other ways to earn money. One avenue is licensing their brand or image to slot machines. You may be surprised to find out that some quite niche bands have their own gambling titles.
Why Do Bands and Guitarists License Their Image?
Licensing is a legal agreement in which one party can use the imagery, likeness, designs, and logos of one brand and combine them with their product. Aside from an increased revenue stream for artists, there are several major benefits to this. Firstly, licensing a product opens up the artist to a wider market. If they let their logo get used on a slot machine, there is a large chance a player may go out and listen to the artist's music, buy a t-shirt, or visit a concert.
It also allows artists to create a product without the initial outlay of design, development, and manufacture. For example, when Hello Kitty was licensed by Fender for a Strat and Fuzz Pedal, the owners of Hello Kitty, Sanrio, didn’t have to go to the expense of making and designing a guitar or fuzz pedal. Fender already had years of experience doing that for them. Thus, Sanrio could come to market having very little outlay.
A great example of product licensing many guitarists will be familiar with was the plan put into place by Marshall Amplifiers, starting around 2015. As amplifiers tend to have a very long shelf life, Marshall does not get repeat, regular customers. To solve this, they began to branch out, licensing the Marshall brand to other products to increase their revenue. This saw the release of a phone, refrigerator, and sunglasses, amongst other products, all bearing the Marshall logo.
However, this was more of a lesson in how not to do brand licensing. Marshall moved so quickly and with such a scattergun approach that they alienated their target audience. Recently, they have spent time, effort, and a new CEO in a bid to win back guitarists, not those looking to buy lifestyle products.
Bands That Have Their Own Slot Titles
As a result of this, quite a few bands have licensed their products to slot games, both in physical machines and in online digital games. Over the last few years, the casino industry has become huge. To put it in perspective, in one quarter of 2024, the UK made £1.32 billion in gross gambling yield from slots alone. There are plenty of online casinos on the market, each vying to attract people with the best slot games. You can navigate to this website to see the best ones ranked and reviewed. It will also show you how much actual competition there is. This makes any familiar license a huge advantage.
Never one to shy away from a licensing agreement is Kiss. This is a band that has had some of the weirdest and most wonderful licensed merch items in history, from colognes to condoms. A slot machine is nothing to them, and with their past of Vegas residencies, it makes sense. They also have such a striking look it is one developer's clamor to use. Luckily, the game was not that bad either, with plenty of ways to win and fairly high payouts.
One of the most beautiful slot games themed with a band was Guns ‘N’ Roses. This was because it used all the real nineties visuals, including the logo and fonts from album covers. All of this made it really stand out. Symbols included pictures of Axel and Slash, and with classics like Sweet Child O Mine belting out in the background, it created a perfect atmosphere.
Motörhead, Def Leppard, and the Rolling Stones have all had slot titles too. However, what is really interesting are some of the more obscure cult bands. Very often they are linked to Scandinavian metal artists. Swedish power metal band Hammerfall, along with Sabaton and Eurovision winner Lordi, also have slot titles. Even British eighties metal group Saxon managed to whip one up. Someone, somewhere at the head of the slot game development table must love a riff.
Guitarists That Have Their Own Slot Titles
Of course, there are solo artists that have their own slot, and the king of them all, Jimi Hendrix, also has a slot title. It has a real sixties, summer-of-love vibe with peace symbols, flowers, and psychedelic iconography. The slot game itself is not bad, putting out small wins quite frequently. It puts Jimi alongside Ozzy Osbourne and Elvis himself as rock legends who have their own slot games.
There will be plenty more of them as music develops and slots become more popular. If you are interested in slot games, you may get lucky and find your favorite band or artist releases one over the next few years.
