With your permission... (From July 2005. Edit/MH.)

[Debaser]

[ QUOTE ]
Doug
CakePoker Game Designer

[/ QUOTE ]

Doug,

CakePoker? Cmon brother that's just silly.

[Grummin]

Hi DB,

You're absolutely right. It's a silly name.

To be more accurate, it's an evocative name that evokes the positioning of our company and the game itself.

We were very lucky to have an award winning marketing firm take interest in our poker product last year. After studying the poker space and the names that all 450+ poker sites were choosing, they were very excited, because just about every poker site was choosing their names based on the following:

Funtional: a name that describes what a company does (Poker Share, PokerStars, PokerRoom, MansionPoker)
Experiential: a name that describes a type of experience you'll have when you play there (PartyPoker, FullTiltPoker, ParadisePoker)
Invented Names: Ones that you have to figure out what they mean (Aspinalls, Bodog, PKR)

As a new site, one of our biggest challenges is staying in the minds of any player after they see the name in the flood of other names. But just having an evocative name doesn't mean anything if the branding doesn't back it up.

This is why anyone who visits the site will see our logo which matches the name very well, plus other promotions inside (ShareCake, Cake Slices, Own a Piece of Cake). There's others like Gold Card that are not Cake branded (don't want too much Cakey stuff), but for the evocative branding to work, it needs the full support of the game.

So, Cake was chosen after months of paring down idea after idea. Cake signifies what we're doing as a company, a site designed to be fun and rewarding. The name couldn't match our mentality more. Sure, against WSEX, no site could ever be able to say we reward more (can't beat free), but we're not a sportsbook trying to get traffic with a bought software.

As we get our legs underneath us and shake off the few remaining gremlins, we're also starting to ramp up our features. Gold Cards are starting to drop and players are chatting about them. Cake Slices are going out and players are waiting for their first chance to use them. And the Own a Piece of Cake tournaments are slowly starting to run, giving players a chance for just $5 bucks to win 1% of the common shares of Cake Gaming N.V. come Jan.

DB, the very fact that you commented on the name makes me happy. Love it or hate it is the best we can ask for, because the first thing it must do as a brand is create a response. A free hat is available for you DB for making my Father’s Day. PM me your details and it’s yours.

Doug
CakePoker Game Designer

[smartalecc5]

As they say, "There is no such thing as bad publicity"

[Grummin]

I'll go with silly. Bad, I would rather not have. Fluffy Bunny Feet Poker...THAT would have been bad. =)

[Debaser]

Ha fair enough. I just imagined you sat in front of the computer saying 'Polarbearpoker? Nope that's gone. JIZZpoker? Damn too late. Cakepoker! Yes that'll do!'

It actually makes more sense now you've explained it [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] best of luck to you.

[Grummin]

Hi folks,

We’re all over Rogers Sportsnet tonight at 7pm in each time zone. Come check us out.

In addition to the web-shareable hand history, Cake is also introducing a fun new reward program call Gold Cards.

We’ve created 260,000 Gold Cards when we launched and placed them into a secure Gold Card Vault. Each time a real money ring game hits a rake threshold, the table requests a Gold Card from the Vault. The table then takes that card and tries to see if any of the first two cards dealt to players during that hand match the Gold Card. If it does, that player is awarded the Gold Card. If not, the table continues to the next hand and tries again.

Players can view their Gold Cards in the Rewards section (along with Share Cake status and Cake Slices…more on those in another posting). They can also view the Gold Card Daily Lottery…and this is where the game gets fun.

Every day, Cake will announce a new Gold Card Daily Lottery prize. If you have the Gold Card(s) required for today’s lottery, you can redeem your Gold Cards for cash or tickets to an exclusive tournament. And if your Gold Cards aren’t announced today, they could be tomorrow, or the next day. Each Lottery only lasts for 24-48 hours, so your time is limited.

There are also fixed prizes available that range from $250 all the way up to $52,000 Guaranteed to the player who redeems an entire 52 card deck OR has the most unique Gold Cards in their collection 30 days after we give out the last Gold Card in the Vault, whichever comes first.

Soon, there will be different ways for you to redeem your Gold Cards and get even more for them, but I don’t want to give away all the secrets just yet. Check out the Rewards tab from inside the game to see more about Gold Cards.

More soon…
Doug
CakePoker Game Designer

[Gildwulf]

I haven't read through the whole thread, but here are the most important things to me as a poker player when evaluating a site. I know there isn't much you can do about some of these, but just so you can get a perspective about what semi-pros are looking for:

1. softness of games-not much you can do about this except spend millions of dollars on advertising and spamming

2. fast software that is easy on the eyes- NO 3D. Honestly, noone cares about life-like avatars and people saying 'bet' and 'raise' if it plays 20 hands/hr. If I wanted realistic I would go to a B&M; I am here to make money and the most money will be made at the fastest sites.

3. bonuses/rakeback/incentive scheme- You are entering the market at a very bad time. The competition is basically huge sites with 25-30% rakeback and lots of fish, 100% rakeback sites with a few fish, and a ton of sites in between. You are going to have to stand out in some way. The only way I can see a new site happening is doing something like WSEX or a LOT of hype and advertising. I would say minimum 30% rakeback for everyone to start off so you can attract people away from Party and Stars (Supernova is earning mid20s I think).

4. Fast and reliable customer service/cashouts- I may not have problems often, but when I do I want someone who a) can speak English, b) will respond to my question directly and not with a form letter, and c) perform cashouts reliably. If you are going to be skimming money off of players through the rake, at least make them feel at home like Stars.

Other thoughts:

Resizable tables- this is becoming the industry standard now and I think for people on laptops this is a necessity. If I am on the road and want to 4-table, I will play at the sites with resizable tables, no question.

Competition- Honestly, the only way I see a new company breaking in at this point is by bringing something new to the table (i.e. WSEX). If you can make software that is faster than UB with minimal glitz, I can see you breaking in to the market.

[Little_Luck]

Make sure to make smokin hot chicks as the avatars for us guys pretending to be women at the table. You know, the hot girl on party with the red dress and the great rack, not the old librarian looking woman.

Really, none of this matters, all that matters is how effective of a marketing job you do coupled with how good of a bonus program you offer to attract the whores. Party has awful software and are number one.

Although you could add a program in your player points store to sell gift certificates and then allow me to buy player points with my poker balance? I'm addicted to amazon gift cards.

[Grummin]

Thanks for the suggestions folks. Apologies if that came off as too spammy. I invented the GC promotion and really wanted to show it in the blazing glare that is the 2+2 community to see how it held up.

We'll get back to poker now. =)

Doug

[jar]

Before I go through the hassle of downloading the software, has anyone actually played here? What games are available? How many?