Zynga launches a major overhaul to its flagship poker game

Zynga is leaving its cartoon roots behind with a big redesign of its flagship Zynga Poker, it’s top-grossing game, for mobile players today.

The design is more realistic, using player photos and a more “immersive” social gameplay. The redesign is a response to customer’s demands that makes the game appear to be more realistic and elegant, like a real casino. In doing this redesign on its No. 1 monetizing game, Zynga and its new chief executive Don Mattrick (see our interview) are taking a big risk. But it’s all in the name of refreshing a game for the multibillion-dollar mobile era and disrupting itself before somebody else does it — especially since Zynga’s has struggled to recapture the success it first found years ago on Facebook.