What's Changed In 5-0 Poker's Recent Update?

Surprisingly, it's as if the developers have heeded my words! (If you remember my article about it. If not - you know what to do). They have fixed a lot of things in the game lately, and the first thing that catches my eye is the improved game store - which is especially nice, because I'm particularly attentive to game stores.

So I decided to do another review of this game. But let’s talk about everything in order.

All localized texts are clean and good now. Hurray! No complains!

At the very beginning of the tutorial, the information appears as a very fast slideshow. It seems like you should have followed it, but it was too fast. In fact, it was just an introductory animation. The tutorial itself appears later, by clicking the Start Tutorial button.

After the tutorial, the player is taken to the main screen, where the Las Vegas game mode is highlighted, the very first PvP mode available.

In the very center of the screen is the Private Game mode, to play with friends using an invitation code. It's not clear if this game mode is the main game mode if they put it in the very center?

The other modes are locked by player level - this is natural and understandable. I want to play a tournament, but for it you need not only to get level 2, but also an entrance ticket.

It's very unusual to see the toolbar with avatar, level, chips and rating counters, and the store button at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top. This is the only game that does this. It's weird, against tradition, and not very convenient because the top feels empty and the bottom feels too busy. Also, the bottom buttons end up overlapping with the system bar to exit the app (at least on iOS).

The Leaderboard hint always shows up above the leaderboard button. It's unclear why. It doesn't show up on the other buttons. It's like I have to click there without fail. But after clicking it still doesn't disappear.

The game identified me as American again, even though I'm from Cyprus. It feels like there are only 2 countries in the game, USA and Israel. Much later, when I was customizing my profile, I discovered that the flag can be manually selected. It's not automatic detection by IP at all. And the US flag is simply the default. I later encountered other flags, but most of all Israeli flags. The developers are probably from Israel.

The suggestion to enable notifications is framed oddly. It asks a question that implies a Yes or No answer, but there's only one button to answer - Got It. And it's not clear what happens when I press it. The dialog just closes.

Inside Las Vegas mode, it says "Win 5-0 to get rewarded!" - So if I just win (3-2, 4-1) I don't get rewarded? Actually, the game rewards any win. And this text is just misleading.

Deck Assist is shown inside the match. It's not clear why it's needed, or how to use it. The tutorial didn't explain it. This panel shows me my stats for number of games, number of wins, win rate, number of wins 5-0. It's not clear why I need to look at it during the game. What use is it to me during a match?

There are 475 chips between the players. I didn't realize what it was the first time I saw it. After a few matches, it became clear that this is a pre-shown reward for winning. And there are not only chips, but also tickets for the tournament.

In the end, I was rewarded for winning not only with chips, but also with experience, rating, and a gold card that came into my hand during the game. I didn't realize what the card was.

The formula for winning chips is: 2 x - 5%. The game dishes out 5% of the bet amount. Experience is given for the number of hands won, ranking is given for hand power, and what the chance of getting a ticket to a tournament depends on is unclear. Tickets are not always given.

After exiting the first match, I am immediately shown a Welcome Offer. For just 2.99 I can get:

• 150K chips (enough to lose 600 matches. Taking into account 50% win rate - 1200 matches). If I spend 5 minutes on 1 match, that's 100 hours of play. If you play half an hour every day (normal for a mobile game), that's 200 days of play on the cheapest table just for fun for only 2.99.
• Access to all rooms. Rooms are locked by player level. So for 2.99, I will break my motivation to progress for this goal of gaining access. However, if I can play every room at least once, I'll spend the minimum bet everywhere. And in some of them, the stakes are very high. So 150K chips can run out much faster.
• Unlock all avatars. Called Profiles for some reason, but they are just avatars. After 1 match played, I don't care about customization at all, so it doesn't affect my decision making in any way.

The offerer doesn't have any time limit, and I don't understand whether I lose it immediately if I close the window or find it somewhere else. FOMO may help convert me, but since I haven't played enough yet to know if I want to pay, I'm definitely not buying now.

I got my gold card, and in the lobby I'm immediately pointed to the new buttons at the top of the screen.

There's Guts Poker. It's a guessing game to collect 3 random cards to win a prize. That's what collecting gold cards is for - the moves in this game. Now I have a goal of collecting 11 more cards to try this game mode. Good motivation for a few more matches. At the same time I get them for myself even in case of defeat - that's good.

Also from the new features there is a roulette with free scrolling, where I won 2 tickets to the tournament, free chips once an hour - a good motivator to come back, as well as a button with a picture of fire, which is not explained in any way.

It turns out to be an event with progression on Win streak, counts only for 5-0 wins. If at least once a day there will be such a victory, I will have the counter grow, and I will get a reward from it once a day. That's a good idea. I'd like to see how it would work. I don't know how hard it is to win 5-0 yet. I also suspect there will be win streak loss protection on sale - it's common if such mechanics are in place.

Bet sizes within the mode don't seem to be limited in any way, you just need enough money.

Looking at the store. It's completely redesigned! And it has become noticeably better.

But there are a few comments:

• It's still weird to see vertical listings when the whole game is horizontally oriented. It would be better to make the store full screen and use the same horizontal list. The screen will fit 2 times more information, and scrolling will be more convenient and logical.
• Only one badge is used - Most Popular on the 22.99 slot (this is for an audience that values social support). You could put at least one more - Best Value, for an audience with a different motivation (who value economic benefit).
• The maximum check is 299.99 - for 5bn chips. That scale just doesn't hold up in my mind. It is unclear what stakes should be operated in such a case, and why. How the game will be radically different on such a scale. After all, the rules are generally the same. It's good that sorting goes by price increase, and I don't see it right away.

• Bundles now fit 3 pieces at a time. However, the size of the bandleys is such that it looks like there are only 3 of them. But in fact there are more, and you have to scroll. Here is a basic UI design rule for mobile applications - you need to show partially also the next item in the list to make it clear that there are actually more of them than you see. Here, it would be enough to reduce each bar by a few pixels, so that the next one would show up from below. This is done for packs of chips, but for some reason not for bundles.

• Offers are also shown 3 at a time, and there's really only 3 of them. Although the list looks the same as for the bundles, with no hint of quantity. This is a UX problem.
• Of the offers, only the first one is clear - about the very Win Streak freeze.
• The second offer offers to get rewards for all bets, and it's not clear at all. There is no additional information there, you don't want to buy blindly. Only after the extra rewards disappeared from the cheap tables, the meaning of the offer became clear. For 34.99 I can progress in different directions even on the cheap tables.
• And the third offer offered to unlock Deck Assist. But it was already visible in the match. What else can I do with it? The offerer is also unclear, and I don't want to buy to check it out. Offers are different from bundles in that there are some unique UX things in there, not just resources. That said, offerers don't have an expiration date.

When the level 2 levelup happened, the game didn't reward me for it in any way. Not with chips, not with anything else. Tournaments were unlocked though. Unlocking modes is one of the main rewards for leveling up, and the strongest motivation to gain experience, and yet it wasn't shown as a reward. This is about as weird and unconventional as possible. It's mandatory to reward levelups and show those rewards as you level up, in some sort of window.

Even when you click on a level there is no additional information about future rewards, the window is as useless as possible.

The tournament though is unlocked, but I'm short on tickets. I won 2 randomly in roulette, but I need 3. Again, they could have given tickets when leveling and unlocking the mode, just so I could try playing right away. On the other hand, now I want to accumulate those tickets, though I don't know where else to get them from besides roulette.

You can just buy them with money. But if the roulette gives them out, they might still be in some other rewards. So I'm not going to buy any for now. The 5 cheapest tournaments for 1.99. I don't know how interesting a tournament is at all to buy and check out right away.

I won 1 ticket in the next match. That was a surprise. I don't know what chance they drop in the reward, but it was faster than I expected. So I go straight to spend them in the tournament.

The tournament is on the Olympic system - play 2 people each, losers are out, winners play each other. There is a grid for 4, 8 and 16 people (2-3-4 rounds).

The tournament has a prize pool, but nowhere does it show the entry fee, other than spending a ticket. There is no wager here. The prize pool goes to the finalist. There are no rewards for other places. Essentially, the game gives one contestant chips each time without taking anything from the others. It's unclear how the economics add up in this case. Whether the 5% chip washout in regular matches is enough to fund prizes in tournaments.

Trying other game modes, now X2 FACEDOWN. Here you play two cards in private instead of one. More randomness, less reliable combinations. More risky mode, less thinking. In it I was immediately shown a possible reward +1 ticket to the tournament. It's not a chance, it's a guarantee, but only if I win. It turns out that now I will always be promised a ticket as a reward for winning. In any mode, at any bet. The UI doesn't reflect this in any way until the match starts - then the ticket is visible on the table.

The other modes in the list unlocked in a weird order. One is at the very end of the list. And I wasn't even shown that it was now available. I found it by accident when I was scrolling through the list in the lobby. The stakes there are huge, I won't play it, probably never.

A one-time offerer with more than 40% off, again no timer, and I realize from the text on the "buy now" button that this offer will go away if I decline. There's a lot of pressure through FOMO. As a player, I like to think, evaluate options, compare, and then make a decision. I don't make impulse buys. Here it's like the game is demanding me to "be impulsive" and I refuse. I really hope the game takes my signals into account and doesn't continue to offer such offers.

Taking into account that the store offers have no expiration date at all, it turns out that the usual limited-time offers in the game are absent as a class. This polarizes the audience: you either choose from eternal offers, where 2 out of 3 are incomprehensible, or you have to decide here and now, otherwise you will lose forever. The Welcome Offer has appeared twice already, but between these appearances it doesn't stay anywhere on the screen. The classic approach, where the Welcome Offer has an expiration date of a few hours/days, and is visible in the lobby at all times, with a ticking timer, is not used at all in this game. It's unfamiliar and breaks the behavioral pattern in the player.

The win window shows how much rating I got for winning hands. But in the losing window the rating for hands is not shown, even if I had winning combinations. Only the name of the combinations is shown. I would make double information always - both the name of the combination and the number of rating for it.

At some point, the rating for winning hands stopped being given even if I won. Without any explanation. Only experience remained. And only after a few more matches (and one tournament) inside the mode on the betting buttons began to show possible awards. It turns out that over time the tables run out of additional rewards - tickets, gold cards, rating points. You can always get experience (which is a good thing). This incentivizes me to play on more expensive tables if I want to progress not only in experience but also in ranking, as well as play tournaments and Guts Poker. The question remains - will this limit be restored every day, or is it permanent? If forever, the game will leave me with the cheapest table to play on for fun, and I can't do anything else unless I'm betting big. This approach is quite popular with all modern table and betting games. However, it's done a bit oddly here, because the extra rewards have disappeared from the cheap tables even in modes I've never played. If they were still there, it would incentivize me to go check out the cheap tables of the new modes. As it is, I just don't care what mode I play if I've stopped being rewarded on principle anyway.

The accumulated gold cards finally allowed me to play Guts Poker. The rules are clear. Memorized what doubles I had so I could make a decision about retake. I used it when I got a bad combination. The next one was stronger and I won 10 times more.

Next, you can either buy the full set of 12 cards for 1.99 if you don't want to spend a long time collecting in matches, or poke around the game on social media to get 1 card. A good run for viral-social mechanics. It's just unclear how actively players are fumbling around with this sort of thing right now. I haven't seen posts like this in my feeds in 10+ years. Also, the point of Private Game mode is becoming clear - you'll be able to play directly with invited friends. However, the game would benefit from first showing on random people how the social mechanics work. Maybe there are gift chips or something. But I won't know until I invite someone I know. You could force add some random player or bot as a friend.

After getting level 5, the lobby has changed. Practice mode was moved to the bottom of the list. Betting mode was unlocked, and within each mode there was a mention of No Ads. And I haven't seen any No Ads in the game yet. That's a strange place to sell No Ads. Why not in the store?

They've also started advertising the sale of an offerer that returns rewards to all tables in each mode. This is a good solution - a contextual offerer is obtained, which is visible exactly in the place where the player had a "problem".

After level 5, some tables disappeared. The 250 and 1000 tables are nowhere to be found anymore, and it's unclear whether it's a function of how many chips I have on hand right now, or whether the game just wants me to make bigger bets. I don't like it when the structure of the game changes without warning, and I don't fully understand the meaning of what happened.

Overall, I'd say the game has started to look a lot better, although many places can and should still be further improved.

And yes, beware - the game is still highly addictive!

Michael Khripin has spent 25+ years in online games: LiveOps, monetization and production, including Wargaming R&D and LiveOps on Hero Wars Mobile at Nexters. Author of Game Shops: Ultimate Guidelines. Runs New Perk, a game shop and LiveOps consultancy.