'Wild Poker' Hits the Streets!

(Photo: Playtrex.com)

There is always someone looking to add a twist to our great old game of poker and Wild Poker is the latest in a long line of excellent social gaming ‘takes’ on Texas Hold’em.

Using aspects of the ever-popular turn-based strategy games such as Hearthstone, the Tel Aviv developers Playtrex have allowed players to take on ‘one of an array of colorful characters, each with their own particular strategic “power up”. In order to master the game players must harness their special “animal instincts”.

Playtrix CEO, Daniel Kashmir, said:

"Wild Poker is a new kind of social poker game offering a different experience. Wild Poker addresses a larger market by providing an added layer of strategy which is appealing to both strategy gamers and social poker players.”

With a huge crossover between gamers and poker players – the most prominent of which is Bertrand ‘ElKy’ Grospelier, who became the first person to be sponsored by both poker and gaming giants – the need for new and challenging games has seen many enter the market.

The fantasy role-playing game ‘Lord of Poker’ is one of the biggest attempts to join the skills of both together, and Zynga poker has already become a staple for those looking to enjoy the skills of the game with the thrills of social gaming.

With a mass of social gaming poker games and apps on the market, Kashmir explained that Wild Poker is the “killer app” which players have been screaming out for – and was designed partly to counteract the problems of ‘monetization and low levels of retention‘ which have plagued the industry.

"Social gaming is booming,” he explained, “so we think that the timing for a fresh new take on the genre is perfect. 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. In addition, the user acquisition market has become saturated, and the low retention rates fired back as monetization issues.”

With online mobile gaming worth $37billion and rising, $4billion of which is accounted for by social casino gaming, Playtrex were concerned that the market was “saturated” with similar options – and their year-long study has resulted in the beta version of Wild Poker which they released late last month.

Wild Poker, with its animal-based characters, hopes to make the game “fresh, exciting and with a twist never seen before,” according to its developers.

"We have added a layer of strategy that will result in enhanced engagement with the game. Less people are playing poker online for several reasons and we have tried to address that with our new game. We found that a lot of the games out there in the market are the same and that also makes acquiring the users that more difficult which has a knock on effect to the difficulty of keeping those users playing.”

As their website explains:

"One of the team’s main goals was to combine between the gaming industry and the gambling industry. Playtrex experienced team has investigated different casino games in order to better understand what the main problems of its players are. As a result,” they state, “it came up with a way to make games different but without changing their essence – it has succeeded on creating fresh and exciting games, with a twist never seen before. It’s simple, Playtrex has created social casino games that fit social gaming players.”

A welcome addition to the marketplace then - but as always it’s the readers and players who have to tell us if they are going wild over Wild Poker. Comments and answers below please!