When taking a casino online it’s absolutely paramount to have the best games going. Casino game development is now a major – and highly competitive – industry, with the best in the business being highly sought after by all the leading operators. This is primarily because the casinos are aware that their customers are becoming ever more picky and knowledgeable about who is behind the games they enjoy playing. While still in it’s infancy there’s a clear trend that players are becoming ever more brand loyal when it comes to choosing their games.

Casino games developers invest huge amounts of money, effort and expertise in developing their products. After all when it’s a major franchise tie-in there’s little room for cutting corners. This is why the majority of the major companies we’ll look at in this article tend to license their games to casinos. It’s very rare for development companies to tie in exclusive deals with a single casino, which is why many of the most popular games are found on a number of the larger operators sites. All this is good news for the player!

1) Microgaming

With over twenty years experience developing online casino games, Microgaming still sets the benchmark of what a quality game should be. In their early years they realized that they didn’t have the capital or exposure to take their own online casino further, yet they did have one key advantage. Superb games. So they took the decision to remodel themselves as game developers and then license their products to other operators. This brought the quality of their product to a much wider audience, and since then they’ve never looked back.

Microgaming have close to a thousand stand-alone games in their portfolio as well as having assisted in the development of another half that number. They have pioneered the development of new styles of Blackjack as well as been behind the likes of Mega Moohlah, Avalon and the especially popular Game of Thrones tie-in. Without question the biggest players in the industry at time of writing, and rumored to be well on their way to developing the next generation of virtual reality slots games.

2) Net Ent

Comparatively much smaller than the likes of Microgaming, but they have established a reputation of delivering superb games. Famed for the quality of their graphics and the sheer sleekness of their games, they have been behind some of the most popular releases in recent years. It’s no surprise that some of their games are also among the most popular with causal and free-play gamers. Key releases include Gonzo’s Quest, Jackhammer and Aliens.

3) BetSoft

Even smaller than Net Ent – but these guys are serious experts at one key feature which is becoming a major factor in top-quality crowd pleasing games. 3D. Releases from BetSoft may not come around as often as we’d like but when they do there’s never a dud. Their games are presented in gloriously high quality 3D and often feature innovative play features. Expect BetSoft to become major players in the future providing they can deliver the quality of their slots games onto a table game format.

4) Playtech

Second only to Microgaming in terms of size these guys deliver consistently high quality games that are extremely user friendly. Many of their most successful games have been tie-ins to major movies, and they’ve had some blockbuster success with it too. They have exclusive rights for all of the Marvel games – all of which are excellent – ranging from The Incredible Hulk through to Iron Man. Being a major company they’re not shy of purchasing up and coming young companies to add to their expertise, ensuring they are constantly at the fore of the latest developments within the industry.

5) Everymatrix

This company isn’t so much about developing games but much more about engineering the software to run them. They’re at the cutting edge of utilizing new technology to it’s utmost potential and with the impending arrival of truly 3D slots gaming they’re going to be very busy indeed! Already well known within the industry but not so much by the casual player, expect big waves in the coming few years.