Tel Aviv-based social gaming start-up developer Playtrex is hoping to breathe new life into the social poker market with “Wild Poker”, a new freemium poker game with an exclusive strategic twist, first released on 25th August this year as an open-beta.
The product is based on the Texas Hold’em variant of poker but has an added level based on turn-based digital strategy games like Hearthstone. Users can play as one of an array of colourful characters, each with its own particular strategic “power up “and players must harness their special “animal instincts” to master the game.
Wild poker is the result of over 12 months of thorough research to better understand users’ needs and behaviour. After studying the current social poker sector, Playtrex found issues with monetisation and low levels of retention and has built a game designed to tackle these issues with a focus on high engagement.
Social casino gaming alone is currently worth $4 billion a year, but Playtrex believes that the social poker market has become stagnant due to a lack of differentiation and is in desperate need of a new “killer app”. It is hopeful that Wild Poker will fill that need.
“Social gaming is booming, so we think that the timing for a fresh new take on the genre is perfect,” says Daniel Kashmir, CEO at Playtrex in a press statement.
“Nowadays, social poker, once the jewel of social casino gaming, is being abandoned by players because there is too much of the same out there.
“Wild Poker is a new kind of social poker game offering a different experience. It addresses a larger market by providing an added layer of strategy which is appealing to both strategy gamers and social poker players.”