About
PokerCity, a Shanghai-based leader in mobile social casino games with $300M in annual recurring revenue in 2017 in China, was attempting to expand their suite of games to the West.
While PokerCity was very successful in China, the attempted launch of the game in the West with game mechanics and UX that Chinese consumers loved, significantly underperformed in both engagement and revenue.
They came to BoldBetLab for help on how to drive increased engagement and revenue to make their games stand out in the social mobile casino market.
The challenge
We discussed with PokerCity which metrics they wished to improve for their games. Specifically, PokerCity wanted to improve Day 7 & Day 30 retention of players.
Our proposal to PokerCity was that BoldBetLab would help as an independent, unbiased product strategy team providing rich competitive intelligence along with product roadmap suggestions for adapting their games to the West.
The work
Competitive Intelligence
We evaluated the social casino games competition so that we could understand what is working well and not working well in the market. We digested competitor reviews and played the various games extensively so that we could compare the hero features & user experiences of successful games in the West to PokerCity’s Chinese market game.
The in-depth evaluation process was similar to the breakdowns top product teams perform at highly successful companies and it allowed us to uncover various unmet needs as well as key user journeys that PokerCity’s apps would need to address to better appeal to Western users.
Roadmap recommendations
After understanding these unmet needs we presented specific product roadmap suggestions with low fidelity designs that could boost day 7 & day 30 retention. In addition, we discovered an underserved niche that could be targeted with a new game that the company was equipped to target and shared that concept with PokerCity.
Outcome
After we delivered these recommendations, PokerCity was satisfied with the output of the work as unique user needs were uncovered as well as important roadmap suggestions.
The ability to get this type of expert product strategy work on-demand without the difficulties of hiring full-time staff in the USA was an accelerant for PokerCity’s ambitions.
Key Impact
Competitive intelligence & roadmap suggestions added meaningful impact and accelerated expansion efforts to the West.
“
The competitive intelligence report along with growth suggestions was impactful to our product teams who were struggling with expanding to the West. The ability to get this type of expert strategic advice on-demand was game changing for us.
Reinier Dyjfus
X-VP PokerCity
