Microgaming vs Play'n GO: one grade against three figures

Size and format mix

This site carries 295 Microgaming slots (plus 58 live tables) and 469 Play'n GO slots; Play'n GO has no live tables here.

Play'n GO's families gather in three boxes: 344 fixed-payline, 92 ways and 33 standard. Microgaming is more scattered: 147 standard, 71 fixed-payline, 54 ways, 16 cluster pays, 4 Link & Merge, 2 Maxways and 1 cascading-reel slot.

The classification follows the recorded format text, though. Play'n GO's catalogue sometimes lists a grid slot with one payline, so Moon Princess (“Grid Slot · 5 reels · 1 paylines”) lands in fixed paylines. Not all of Play'n GO's 344 are line slots in the traditional sense.

Volatility: one grade versus grade, index and hit rate

Microgaming publishes a single word grade: 115 High, 74 Medium, 59 Very high, 20 Low, 7 Medium-high, 1 Low-medium and 19 unlisted.

Play'n GO publishes three things together. Its four-step grade (Low, Medium, High, Very high) gives 227 Medium, 182 High, 34 Very high, 16 Low and 10 unlisted; its 1–10 index appears on 459 titles with a median of 6; and its hit rate appears on 454 with a median of 3.19%.

Both studios have a word grade, which makes comparison look easy, but even the number of steps differs: seven for Microgaming, four for Play'n GO, and neither publishes its cut points. That Play'n GO's largest group is Medium (227) while Microgaming's is High may reflect the catalogues or the scales; the published data cannot separate the two.

RTP: the default-build difference

RTP is published for 240 Microgaming slots and 466 Play'n GO titles, with medians of 96.12% and 96.21%. Play'n GO ranges from 88.46% to 99.69%, but both ends are not slots: Money Wheel and GO CRAPS. Wheel and table games listed alongside the slots widen the range.

The bigger difference is what the value means. Play'n GO's published RTP is its default configuration, not its highest build; most games ship several lower builds, and 456 of the 469 Play'n GO entries here sit in the 96 band. Microgaming's value is the number its hub lists for each game.

So the gap between 96.12% and 96.21% should not be read as a difference in return between the catalogues. One is explicitly a default build; the other is the hub figure as listed. There is no guarantee they are the same kind of number, so the comparison stays approximate.

Win caps, release years, demos and themes

Play'n GO publishes a cap for 459 titles (97.9%), with a median of 6,000× and a top of 336,660× shared by a few titles including Gold Trophy 2. Microgaming has caps on only 37 (12.5%), median 10,000×. With samples this different in size, comparing medians says little.

Play'n GO's release years run from 2012 to 2026 and are fairly even: 138 before 2020 and 147 from 2024 to 2026. Microgaming's 235 dated slots run from 2004 to 2026, with 60 before 2020 and 92 from 2024 to 2026. Demos run for all 469 Play'n GO titles and 265 of Microgaming's 295. Both catalogues lead with Wealth and East Asia themes (78 and 31 for Play'n GO), and Play'n GO stands out with 22 Horror titles.

For examples, Play'n GO's Moon Princess is 96.5%, Medium, index 6, hit rate 3.15%, 5,000×, and Fire Joker is 96.15%, Medium, index 4, hit rate 4.05%, 800×. Microgaming's Luna Princess Link&Merge is 96.23%, Medium-high, 10,000×, and Thunderstruck II is 96.65%, High, with no cap listed.

The difference is shape and publishing, not quality

Play'n GO puts more numbers on each game; Microgaming's formats spread across more families. The first means more material for reading a spec sheet; the second means a wider range of mechanics in the catalogue.

Neither is a ranking. There is no basis for saying a studio that publishes more figures makes better games, and this piece compares only what the two studios record and how.