Multinational internet corporation Yahoo has opted to shut down its online play-money poker offering in the US just one month after its launch.
The withdrawal of the service forms part of a wider move that will also see Yahoo eliminate all Classic Yahoo Parlor games – a range Yahoo Poker is part of – from the start of 2015.
Launched in late October, the Yahoo Poker free Texas Hold‘em service has been offered as a play-money venture, with no real-money games being made available.
The option to keep Yahoo Poker as play-money only allowed players from all over the US to access the service, rather than those located in states that have legalised real-money online poker.
However, should the US legalise online gaming on a wider scale, the idea was to convert certain games to real-money services.
Despite these wider plans, Yahoo has opted to withdraw the offering, with players visiting the Yahoo Games now being greeted with a message that reads: “As of December 31st, 2014, Yahoo Games will no longer offer the Yahoo Classic Games including Yahoo Poker, Yahoo Pool and Yahoo Bingo on web or mobile devices”.
Another statement on the Games Help page reads: “In January 2014, changes in supporting technologies and increased security requirements for our Yahoo web pages made it impossible to keep the games running.
“Following these technological advancements, the old parlor games were incompatible, insecure, and no longer functioning correctly.”
According to a report by Forbes, Yahoo Games PR manager Sean Hamel expanded on the statements and said the decision to withdraw Classic Yahoo Parlor games in an effort to “streamline our product offerings and focus our energy and resources on developing for Yahoo’s core experiences”.
The move comes after Yahoo earlier this year launched the Yahoo Games Network, a new social gaming network that serves as a platform for third-party game developers.
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
