- The new socially-focused poker product is in the final weeks of testing.
- The new software was first announced in August 2012 and slated for a Q1 2013 launch, but pushed back for unspecified reasons.
- There will be a “unique set of social benefits to players,” with greater focus on social aspects of the game, featuring “missions and achievements.”
bwin.party’s major overhaul of its poker product is now in testing and will get a full rollout next month, the group announced Wednesday.
The new product was first revealed to be in development in August 2012 and was initially slated for a Q1 2013 launch, but it was pushed back for unspecified reasons. It is seen as a major part of the group’s refocus on “value over volume”—focusing on recreational players over high-volume grinders.
As exclusively revealed by pokerfuse PRO earlier this month, the software product is coupled with a complete rebranding, a new logo that signifies “new beginnings” and a “clean break from the past.”
Few details on the new product are known, but there will be a focus on social aspects of the game, and it will include certain gamification features more common in free-play sites.
As also reported in PRO, it will include a “unique set of social benefits to players,” with greater focus on social aspects of the game, featuring “missions and achievements.” Though no further details are known, it appears to be the most aggressive attempt from an online poker provider yet to marry the social gaming experience with real-money gaming.
On Wednesday, it was reported that Zynga would demo its Facebook and mobile clients for online poker and casino this week, which operate with bwin.party’s software. Zynga Plus Poker debuted in April 2013 as a skin on the PartyPoker network.
The new software is one more in at least half a dozen changes over the last twelve months intended to reduce the incentives for high volume players and encourage more recreational action. Just this year, rakeback was reduced, skill-based player segregation was introduced tournament leaderboards were killed and reward bonuses were axed.
The changes were coupled with declining poker traffic that outstripped the industry’s seasonal drop. Despite the merger of PartyPoker and bwin’s traffic in late 2012, the network is down 20% year on year. Analysts will be expecting a return to growth in the second half of 2013 following the new software launch.