Governor of Poker 3 is currently by far the most popular Poker Game on Steam. It recently hit an all-time peak of over 25.000 Steam players and seems to still be climbing upwards. 7 years after release that is pretty surprising. Is the game however worth its hype? We are about to find out.
As the name suggests, Governor of Poker 3 is the third game in its franchise. Governor of Poker 1 and 2 were primarily singleplayer games against Bots. The first game is apparently no longer available and Governor of Poker 2 is a buy-to-play game on Steam. Governor of Poker 3 on the other hand is an online Poker Game. The developers of these games Playtika have also published many other Poker and gambling game spinoffs.
A unique feature of Governor of Poker 3 and probably the element, that stood out to me the most, is the World Map in the game. The map is split into different areas, which feature a couple of locations each. Every location has its own rules and money limits. Leveling up your account unlocks new locations to play at. This is a great motivation to keep playing the game.
The most featured Poker variant at the locations are classic 'Cash Games', where players can come and go as they please, rebuy their way into matches, once they run out of money and where matches can theoretically go on indefinitely. 'Sit and Go' matches on the other hand are small tournaments, where players have to pay an entrance fee to participate at a table and only one player can win a noticeable price money. 'Push or Fold' matches are closer to Cash Games, just with higher blinds and having to either raise or fold every round. The last variant 'Spin and Play' is a quicker version of Sit and Go, just with 3 players and faster raising Blinds.
Apart from the world map locations, there are also some side modes. There are for example Black Jack matches, Tournaments, Party Games and limited time events. Black Jack explains itself. Tournaments consist of short 1v1 matches. If you win 12 duels, you can get a big prize. You do not need to win 12 in a row, but can only afford to strike out 3 times. Party games are essentially just private lobbies for Cash Games. LTMs can consist of different modes, like 'All-In or Fold'. So Governor of Poker definitely has a lot of variety in their Poker modes.
Let's now talk a bit about the negative aspects of Governor of Poker 3. Most of them can probably be attributed to the mobile origins of the game. Governor of Poker 3 was simply ported to the PC. This is not a remaster or a real PC version. You can for example see this very clearly at the Mobile UI. There are around more than a dozen different blinking icons present at all times. If you are not unlocking something, which happens a lot, than most of them are supposed to lure you into purchasing some stuff. Players can purchase ingame money with real money, but there are also ridiculously expensive scratchcards, breakable piggy banks and spinning wheels, which are supposed to push addicts into investing more money into the game with the promise of potential astronomical wins. Every person can spend their money how they see fit, but giving people the option to gamble real money to potentially win virtual money, sounds pretty disgusting to me. This game is clearly targeting people with gambling addictions. Admittedly, that's probably what all F2P Poker games are doing, but its still worth pointing out.
Oh, and we haven't even talked about the various subscription models of the game. There are 5 (!) different tiers of subscription. They vary in length and benefits. The most expensive one costs 100 Euro and lasts only 3 months. This means a full year subscription with the highest benefits would cost around 400 Euro. This is beyond madness and simply deplorable. Governor of Poker is without a doubt heavily over-monetized.
Another mobile aspect are the visuals of the game. I criticized Texas Hold'em Pokerist in my review a couple of months ago for not having anything else than static profile pictures. Governor of Poker admittedly does have real character models, but unfortunately they are god awful. Some mobile gamers might be used to this graphics, but for a PC game it's insulting. Even the world map actually just looks like some Windows 95 construction simulation game. I was also personally not a fan of the obscurity of some of the skins in the game. One guy I played against for example had a giant moving squirrel as a hat. Stuff like this can be a bit distracting, if you are looking for an authentic poker experience. That being said, I guess stuff, like crazy skins, have for better or worse just become a part of modern gaming.
Two other complaints, I have heard people criticize about pretty much every free Poker Game in existence, are some players going all-in every time and bad RNG. I can't really say anything about whether the game is rigged or not. Every Poker Game I know is getting accused of it and despite a supposed RNG-Certificate non of us know which algorithms are really being used ingame. I can only advice people to not take virtual Poker games to seriously and just play casually. I am certainly not a gambling person in real life, but even if I wore, I would certainly not trust any videogame with my money.
Something annoying is also the fact, that there are no limits for beginners tables and tournaments. Everybody can participate at every location. Experienced players can therefore afford to pretty much always go all-in and taking high risks all the time, since a loss doesn't really mean anything to them. Particularly popular is the All-In strategy at the beginning of Sit and Go Tournaments, where the winning player immediately gets a huge advantage by collecting all the coins of 2-3 other players at the table. The losing players just immediately requeue till they win a first round, since the entrance fees mean much less to them than to new players. You can definitely still win those matches, but it is certainly annoying.
Result:
Governor of Poker 3 is a significantly better game than the disappointing Texas Hold'em Poker Pokerist. I like the world map with its different locations and Poker modes. The game pace is very fast and quicker than most of the Poker Games with a better presentation. That being said, the mobile UI and underwhelming player models however are pretty off-putting and I can't blame anybody for rage quitting the game after taking a look at them. The heavy over-monetization of the game is what really annoyed and in some ways even shocked me. You can certainly play Governor of Poker 3 in a casual way and have some fun, but I would urge approaching with caution.
5/10
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