Nine years on: Social casino specialist KamaGames on the evolution of Pokerist

It is often said that nothing is the end, "but the recent game industry is aware of this word.

After the release, we developed games without adjusting, customization, and modification, the era of public, and the new title requires constant running and updates to keep consumers' attention.

Here in PocketGamer. biz, I would like to introduce games that have been loved for a long time after the release.

In this "Live and Kicking" series, we interviewed CEO Andrey Kuznetsov of Kamagames to commemorate the 9th anniversary of Pokerist.

9 years have passed since PokketGamer. biz: Pokerist was released, but how do you look back on the launch to the current maturity title?

Andrey Kuznetsov: We always wished for success from the players, but we couldn't predict Pokerist to be the same as today.

Nine years after the launch, Pokerist has evolved from a simple and eas y-t o-understand single title title to one of the most variety of social mobile poker apps in the world. As a result, Pokerist is translated into 28 languages ​​and is played in 233 countries.

Initially, we offered stable poker games that both experienced players and beginners can enjoy. Since then, we have evolved as a mobile game and a whole company on its strong foundation.

With the same determination nine years ago when the pocalists were launched, we achieved a great goal every year and continued to reach a new milestone.

What is the number of teams currently in charge of Live Operation for Pokerist?

Currently, KAMAGAMES has more than 250 staff members. The headquarters is located in Dublin, Ireland, and has offices in China, London and Eastern Europe. In the future, we plan to enter other areas.

How important is customer support and update? How are you working?

Pocalist customer support and regular updates are an important factor in providing players with the best game experience. I can't neglect it.

As much as possible, we strive to access the necessary support 24 hours a day through the multilingual support team to solve the problem encountered in the game.

In terms of updates, in the first half of 2019 alone, Kamagames has updated a lot of great expansion and updates to Pokerist, such as enabling use on Facebook Games.

Developed by the Unity engine and using WebGL technology not only enables two titles of Pokerist and Blackjackist, but also for other popular titles such as Roulettist, Slots, OMAHA Poker, BACCARAT, TEEN PATTI Even This usage has expanded.

As a company, I am convinced that Facebook Games will be a good opportunity for pocalists, and I will continue to develop on this platform.

Last year, we have an exclusive partnership with Unity ADS, and through the Unity Ads platform, we can provide exclusive reward video ads in our game portfolio.

"As a company, I'm convinced that Facebook games will be a good opportunity for pocalists, and I'm going to continue developing on this platform."

Andrey Kuznetsof

Reward video advertisements are of course popular because they give players with the opportunity to play our games for free. The decision to conclude a partnership was based on the striking platform indicators and the overall quality of the content provided.

In addition, since Unity provides simple integration, the actual "weight" of the app in the App Store has been reduced.

What kind of means have you taken to maintain a sufficient number and active player base since Pokerist's launch?

The overall quality, look, feel, and design of Pokerist has been improving in recent years. From user interfaces to gameplay, graphics, and sociality in the game.

Speaking of Pokerist's actual play, as one of the methods that have been maintained and increasing the number of active players in Pokerist for many years, the popular game mechanics such as the mult i-table tournament (MTTS) are popular in the real world. You can find it into the app.

KAMAGAMES is the first company that introduced MTT to social casinos, and as a result, more players participating in the apps every day.

Seeing how the Standard MTT increased player loyalty and retention numbers throughout 2018, we decided to add Omaha MTT and Party Mode MTT to the Pokerist portfolio. These two original new tournaments available in the Pokerist app combine the successful game mechanics of MTT and Party Mode, and MTT and Omaha Poker.

By combining these key elements, KamaGames aims to make these tournaments more complex and exciting.

These are examples of the innovation players expect from Pokerist, and they are a big factor in retaining and growing our active player base.

We had low cost per install (CPI) and very high quality traffic, especially from 2010 to 2012. This led to our first really strong years of growth. This was also a key factor in increasing Pokerist's localization, which now reaches 28 languages.

Finally, our collaboration with various B2B partners has been a big contributor to audience growth and retention. To date, we have partnerships with Manchester United, Poker Night in America, Viber, Tango, YooZoo, Facebook Games, Apple TV, VK. com, Spil Games, and Samsung.

More high-profile partnership announcements are planned for later this year, which will give Pokerist an even bigger boost.

What is the reason behind Pokerist's consistently outstanding performance?

Pokerist is always striving to create innovative games.

It is definitely the driving force behind KamaGames as a company and the reason for its success. We are always asking ourselves what our players need and thinking about what is the most effective and engaging way to provide it.

It was the same when we introduced split bets and set poker to Pokerist. We wanted to provide a more intense challenge to experienced players who had become too accustomed to traditional Texas Hold'em poker.

"Players stay with us long term because they know there is always something new and different to keep them coming back."

Andrey Kuznetsof

The same innovation was applied when the party mode for players seeking a match between various pleasure and fast pace that leads to an interesting hand combination was applied.

What contributes to poker success is that such new games, functions, and original game mechanisms appear regularly. The players always know that they are new and different, so they use us for a long time.

Please tell me the KPI of downloads, downloads, retention, etc.

The number of dows in the Kamagames title grew 23 or 5 % from 510k in 2017 to 630k in 2018. We are excited about such a big growth in this field, and we will accumulate this data throughout 2019.

Poker retention and play time are also increasing by regularly introducing special event cycles, new mechanisms, and new games, attracting players every day. With this growth, last year we were able to achieve the number of players of 120 million people.

What did you learn from poker? If you think about it now, do you want to handle poker in a different way?

The main lesson for many years is that poker is definitely a lon g-term game game with a very long tail. Like many other games, it can even be said to be a game that can "generate infinite profits" without breaking the games of the game.

Also, from the uniqueness of the poker game, it is almost impossible to introduce new things in Texas Holdem, the main classic game. This is because most of the market is very closed, the number of companies that provide this kind of game is small, and this number is decreasing.

Only a handful of companies, including KAMAGAMES, are becoming more and more strong and steadily growing, while other companies are unable to compete in the market and are declining. This means that new entry companies have no possibility that they will take market share.

Even if the campaign or promotion didn't go, we learned a lot about the players and what they are looking for. < SPAN> The same innovation was applied when the party mode for players seeking a match between various fun and fast pace leading to an interesting hand combination was applied.

What contributes to poker success is that such new games, functions, and original game mechanisms appear regularly. The players always know that they are new and different, so they use us for a long time.

Please tell me the KPI of downloads, downloads, retention, etc.

The number of dows in the Kamagames title grew 23 or 5 % from 510k in 2017 to 630k in 2018. We are excited about such a big growth in this field, and we will accumulate this data throughout 2019.

Poker retention and play time are also increasing by regularly introducing special event cycles, new mechanisms, and new games, attracting players every day. With this growth, last year we were able to achieve the number of players of 120 million people.

What did you learn from poker? If you think about it now, do you want to handle poker in a different way?

Andrey Kuznetsof

Also, from the uniqueness of the poker game, it is almost impossible to introduce new things in Texas Holdem, the main classic game. This is because most of the market is very closed, the number of companies that provide this kind of game is small, and this number is decreasing.

Only a handful of companies, including KAMAGAMES, are becoming more and more strong and steadily growing, while other companies are unable to compete in the market and are declining. This means that new entry companies have no possibility that they will take market share.

Even if the campaign or promotion didn't go, we learned a lot about the players and what they are looking for. The same innovation was applied when the party mode for players seeking a match between various pleasure and fast pace that leads to an interesting hand combination was applied.

What contributes to poker success is that such new games, functions, and original game mechanisms appear regularly. The players always know that they are new and different, so they use us for a long time.

Please tell me the KPI of downloads, downloads, retention, etc.

The number of dows in the KAMAGAMES title grew 23 or 5 % from 510k in 2017 to 630k in 2018. We are excited about such a big growth in this field, and we will accumulate this data throughout 2019.

Poker retention and play time are also increasing by regularly introducing special event cycles, new mechanisms, and new games, attracting players every day. With this growth, last year we were able to achieve the number of players of 120 million people.

What did you learn from poker? If you think about it now, do you want to handle poker in a different way?

The main lesson for many years is that poker is definitely a lon g-term game game with a very long tail. Like many other games, it can even be said to be a game that can "generate infinite profits" without breaking the games.

Also, from the uniqueness of the poker game, it is almost impossible to introduce new things in Texas Holdem, the main classic game. This is because most of the market is very closed, the number of companies that provide this kind of game is small, and this number is decreasing.

Only a handful of companies, including KAMAGAMES, are getting stronger and steadily growing, while other companies are unable to compete in the market and are declining. This means that new entry companies have no possibility of a market share.

Even if the campaign and promotion didn't go, we learned a lot about the players and what they are looking for.

The information gleaned from such experiences continuously informs our future decisions and is a key factor in our main success in the casino social landscape.

A good example of this is when we held the KamaGames token sale last year to test the blockchain and introduce new promotional events for social casinos to our players.

Andrey Kuznetsof

The longer players hold onto their chips, the more valuable they will be when they finally exchange them. The in-game virtual token chip rate will increase by 25% every month, and players will receive additional daily bonuses during the first six months.

"Even if campaigns and promotions don't go as we hoped, we learned a lot about our players and what they want from us"

Andrey Kuznetsov

Last year saw a lot of excitement around this offer and the blockchain community as a whole, and we learned a lot as a company. Most importantly, we learned that this type of offer is not for us or our players, for various reasons.

However, I do not regret selling the KamaGames token. Because it's these forward-thinking, bold moves that make us different, and it's these differences that regularly draw players to Pokerist.

How has the casino social space changed over the last 9 years, and how do you respond to trends and Pokerist's competitors?

The market has definitely changed over the last few years, meaning there are a very limited number of companies because there are a limited number of players.

• We're all competing for the mindshare of the same players. This is exacerbated by the fact that the market is not growing as fast as it used to, so there is a lot of consolidation through M& A and so on.
• Also, the cost of CPI/UA has risen significantly in recent years, making it the case that only really well-funded products can afford to implement CPI/UA. The bar for product quality has also risen significantly all the time, with social features and content being added regularly to keep players interested.
• Over the past nine years, we have seen various trends sweeping the social casino and gaming industry. Advances in mobile technology and huge increases in internet speeds have been extremely beneficial for the entire gaming industry.