- Spades Plus is Zynga’s pitch into tabletop card adaptations
- And its new advert features none other than NBA All-Star Anthony Edwards
- Spades Plus features a popular format of card game most prevalent in the US
While it’s easy to point to gaming and its ludicrous number of genres, on the tabletop we’ve seen a deck of cards played in almost as many ways. And one of the more popular subgenres on mobile has been translating the card game to mobile. Now, Zynga’s popular Spades Plus is set to highlight its success with a new ad spot.
The advert features none other than Anthony Edwards, an NBA All-Star and Minnesota Timberwolves player. He features in the advert, playing a round of Spades Plus with friends and demonstrating some of the multiplayer features in Zynga’s adaptation of the popular card game.
Call a spade a spade
Now, if you’re like me, then you’ve never heard of Spades before. But this is a popular type of card game in the US, and one that Zynga have clearly found some success with, having millions of estimated players worldwide.
The collaboration featuring Anthony Edwards is also notable as, aside from being an accomplished professional athlete, Edwards is also something of a social media influencer with his own ongoing YouTube series. While we often think of modern mobile players as all very young and tech-savvy, there’s still a huge audience of more traditional players looking for a more conventional tabletop translation. And it’s that kind of audience that’ll warm well to Anthony’s appearance promoting Spades Plus.
All that being said, am I going to end up having a go at Spades Plus? Probably not; I have a hard enough time keeping track of the rules of 21, let alone any more. But I’m sure plenty of you might give it a go for yourself off the back of this collab.
But in the meantime, if you fancy something that plays a little more fast and loose with the rules of tabletop card games, we’ve got you covered. Check out our list of the best card battlers on iOS for some of our suggestions!
Iwan is a Cardiff-based freelance writer, who joined the Pocket Gamer Biz site fresh-faced from University before moving to the Pocketgamer.com editorial team in November of 2023.
