The Stars Group to Launch PokerStars Power Up
The Stars Group announced the launch of a PokerStars Power Up this week, the latest innovation from this world renowned member of the gaming industry. The
The power up was created and developed in-house and represents the combination of traditional poker and video games.
Back in August, during the PokerStars Championship Barcelona Series, the company held a presentation and explained the need for this project.
Besides the company’s vision of poker moving forward, an internal survey conducted by PokerStars showed that 42 percent of lapsed players found the game of poker boring and not engaging. Thus, they decided to make the game fun, complex and innovative but keep the competitiveness and strategy of traditional poker.
PokerStars even brought the most skilled poker players and professional gamers to offer their own changes and input after testing the game for 6 months, 40 hours a week.
The game has specially designed graphics, immersive visual and audio effects and multiple avatars that bring the game to life.
Power up is, at its core, No Limit Texas Hold’em Poker tournament, with three players facing off across an agreed upon buy-in stake of $1, $3, $7 or $15. Players start the game with the same amount of 2,500 chips and two cards as usual but also have two randomly selected powers “Clone”, “Intel”, “Disintegrate”, “X-Ray”, “Upgrade”, “EMP”, “Reload”, “Engineer” and “Scanner”.
Powers use energy and regenerate during the game and can be used to rapidly change the flow of the match. Players receive a copy of the last power used, peek at a deck, eliminate a card and force an opponent to reveal one of his cards. Players keep track of their energy level and use their power when it matters the most. The special powers are fantastic but PokerStars was careful not to make them too powerful.
The special power cards add additional layers of complexity to Power Up and make it an incredibly skillful form of poker.
Therefore, PokerStars provides a tutorial all new players must watch before playing at the tournament. The game is definitely an intriguing and polished modern twist on traditional poker and we’ll see how it would stimulate current players and help reconnect with players that are less active or their former players.
