Power Up to Power Down as PokerStars Ditch eSports Poker Variant

PokerStars are reported to be pulling their Power Up game less than 3 years after launching it as Texas Hold’em ‘within a futuristic, immersive competition’ – the eSport variant of poker failing to live up to its huge hype.

Although PokerStars are yet to officially announce Power Up’s deathknell, PokerIndustryPRO reported that the game will soon be removed from the PS client.

A PokerStars rep apparently confirmed the rumours, stating:

“PokerStars has made the decision to remove [Power Up] game from the poker client.”

The launch of Power Up saw hysterical amounts of hype, Lee Davy writing on CalvinAyre:

‘Every single online poker operator in the world will create their version, call it something different, and soon people will laugh at anyone wanting to play No-Limit Hold’em in the same way my son does when I talk about Frogger.’

Despite launching a real money version in late 2017, Power Up failed to come close to these predictions, the hoped-for cross-over among egaming acolytes simply not materialising.

As with many of PokerStars more recent innovations, Power Up was left to its own devices after a while, the Canadian company moving on to new, and sometimes even less-appealing, offerings.

Novelty games based on poker are regularly thrown into the ring by developers and online poker operators – often claiming to be the ‘next big thing’.

Power Up, with its SNG Hold’em basis and Hearthstone-style ‘magical powers’, has a ‘strong and loyal following’ according to Stars, but that hasn’t saved it from going the way of other games.

For PokerStars it seems that if there isn’t enough profit in it, the players that actually like and play the game don’t matter.