PokerStars Launch New VR Software

An exciting teaser video has been released about PokerStars’ new VR software for the Oculus Rift. Could this catch on with poker fans?

You can watch the aforementioned video below. It’s unlisted and it’s not on the official PokerStars channel.

The official announcement has been made at the EuroGamer festival, a gaming convention that took place between September 21st and 23rd in Birmingham this year. 

As for the reaction online so far - it has been mixed and lackluster. As of the time of writing this, the linked video has less than 5,000 views with 17 likes and 10 dislikes. Evidently, since only people with the direct URL to the video can watch it, it’s not surprising that it only gathered that many views. The 62% approval rating for a new product is still far from being great. On the Two Plus Two Forum, the topic devoted to PokerStars’ VR launch only drew one response from the online poker community. At this point, the buzz is not there for Stars’ new ambitious project - however, can that change?

First off, please note that this is not the first time VR poker has been introduced to the public. During last year’s Unibet Open in Copenhagen famous eSports players had a public display of VR poker gameplay; also, you can find videos of Parker “TonkaaaaP” Talbot playing with it from last year.

So virtual reality poker has been out there for a while yet it failed to gain significant traction upon its widescale release.

The whole situation is reminiscent of the what happened with HoldemX in my opinion. It was an exciting, new but unusual concept - combining No-Limit Hold’em poker with turn-based strategy card games like Hearthstone. It was available online, gained a small player base, PokerStars came in and tried to do their own version on the mega corporate level. They renamed it Power Up Poker, released it their large user base to a subdued response.

Visually, what I see in VR poker reminds me of the late poker room PKR. They tried to distinguish themselves with sophisticated 3D animation and unfortunately, they had to close down for financial reasons last May.