Genres that work everywhere in entertainment

Scroll through the homepage of any streaming service long enough and the sense of repetition starts to creep in. Another crime series about a gruesome murder. Another large-scale fantasy hit. Another series that revives a favourite phenomenon from back in the day. Switch screens to a gaming site and the same patterns stare back from the slots. Different mediums, but the same obsessions. And these themes and genres deserve the praise, as they keep capturing large audiences. They know what we want and they keep feeding us.

What we circle back to

Crime is a clear example. For decades, the major streaming sites have filled their libraries with stories of disappearances, fraud and trials, and cliffhangers right before the credits. The same storytelling structure appears in the gaming world. Slot developers have created many cherished games with bank robberies and police chases. The symbols from pop culture keep appearing in different mediums and intertwine. The result is the feeling of stepping into a world where we are already familiar with the rules.

Fantasy follows a similar logic. On the TV side, the genre has grown hugely in popularity, with great productions and successes, for instance different fantasy series that lean into mythologies and folk tales. In the slot world, fantasy has long been a major source of many popular motifs. Greek gods, Norse mythology, Egyptian goddesses and vampire romance appear time and time again. Two of the most popular games,Gates of Olympus and Immortal Romance, build their entire identity around myths and dark love stories.

Nostalgia has also become something that makes TV and games feel familiar and safe. Reboots of old series, documentaries about past events, 80s-inspired opening vignettes all awaken memories in an audience that grew up with rental movies and even welcomes the generations that weren’t around. Several of the most-watched series every year feature titles that lean towards recognition or nostalgia.

Slots follow the same path. Things like cherries, classic sevens and shiny symbols from older slot machines are combined with digital graphics and bonus features. In other games images from old cartoons, arcades and films are many players' favourites. The point is similar to television. Getting the audience to feel as if they are stepping into something familiar, but with enough new things to make it exciting again.

That's why online casinos and streaming channels have their similarities. On sites like Videoslots Casino, thousands of titles coexist, where fantasy, crime and retro are just three of many more layers. For those who already love a genre on TV, the game library becomes a kind of extension or alternative, and vice versa.

Worlds tied across media

The fact that the same genres recur in both TV series and slots boils down to something quite human. We are drawn to stories that give structure to chaos. In crime, we get a world where clues lead to an explanation. In fantasy worlds, there are rules that may be magical but are still connected. In retro aesthetics, we get a reminder of a time when everything was perceived as simpler.

The overlap tells us as much about audiences as about industries. Studies of entertainment trends regularly point to a combination of comfort and intensity. We move between screens and formats, but remain in the same storytelling worlds. TV, streaming and slots may look different on the surface, when they in fact draw from the same colour palette.