As a linear, narrative-based builder meta a la Gardenscapes or Love & Pies, Monopoly Slots offered a unique and brand-loyal take on the social casino genre. But the fully 3D rendered scenes with multiple states of construction/animations were costly to build, and each block released to fewer and fewer players who happened to be at the end of the track, while providing no value for the vast majority of players still chewing through existing content. It was an ROI negative endeavor to continue supporting the metagame as we were, and I joined the team to help chart a new, more sustainable path forward.

After much brainstorming with the team, we landed on a seasonal card collection feature to anchor the new meta going forward. They are proven revenue drivers with strong ability to be utilized by live ops both in other casino titles and in the mobile space in general. 2D cards also prove to be significantly lighter on the team to generate than full 3D scenes, particularly when seasons can be spaced out to quarterly or longer events. To maintain the connection to and celebrate the old 3D content that would be deprecated, we leaned into a scrapbook theme where individual cards combine to form photos/memorabilia related to those scenes/characters/storylines until players have sufficiently transitioned to the new system.

Unfortunately, as we were set to start development on the system, Hasbro licensing rights were being renegotiated and ultimately the decision was made to transition the game to the maintenance mode studio instead of investing in rebuilding the entire meta.