Art of the flop: What Evolution’s failed games reveal about technology, simplicity, and knowing when to fold

Todd Haushalter, Evolution’s Chief Product Officer, has seen enough to be cheerful about the distinction. “No one has more live game flops than us,” he says. “And no one has more hits.”  The two go together. When you make a lot of games, especially new ones, you have more chances to make mistakes. What matters is what you do next.  

Not all that glitters

Take Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt. When Evolution launched it in 2021, the game aimed high in terms of technology. It mixed live play with slots, added an augmented-reality Gonzo, and even had a virtual-reality mode. Evolution called it the first online live game show with VR. The main feature was a large wall of 70 stones that hid the treasure.  

It looked futuristic. Players were less impressed. “I’d say Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt failed probably because the entire premise was too technologically advanced,” says Haushalter. Initially, the team suspected something more conventional: The game lacked a bonus round. So Evolution added one. 

Nothing much happened. “No one cared,” he says. “I think just having a form factor of a giant wall turned players off. You can get too technologically advanced. Think about good old-fashioned Coin Flip. It still works.”  

This is a tough lesson for anyone who makes games. Technology can fix hard problems for engineers but fail to entertain the player. New features are not always better. A game can be fun to build but not fun to play. You see this clearly in live casino games and online entertainment, where players decide quickly whether they like something.  

Lightning Blackjack and Gold Bar Roulette provided another version of the same lesson. Gold Bar Roulette, launched in 2022, gave players Gold Bars that acted as multipliers. They could store and retain them for later rounds, choose where to deploy them, and stack several on the same number. It offered rather more player control than traditional roulette.  

But giving players more control also meant they had to pay more attention. “We thought they were simple and quick,” Haushalter says of games such as Lightning Blackjack and Gold Bar Roulette. “Players begged to differ.”  

Now it is even harder to keep players’ attention. Haushalter used to say live casino games competed with Netflix, YouTube, and short videos. Now, players might use several screens at once. 

“People are watching something on Netflix while playing our games and flipping between TikTok and our games,” he says. “The player is distracted. If you make a game too complex, they’re just not going to give you the time of day.”  

The point is not that games should be too simple. Evolution has many complex games that work. The real lesson is that complexity must be worth the player’s attention. Players should not have to figure out how a game works before they can enjoy it.  

The house edge

Some games fail right away. Others take longer. A game might start strong because it looks good or has a nice bonus, but then players leave. Haushalter says sometimes the problem is not the theme or how it looks, but the math behind it.  

Over time, two games might pay out about the same. But the way they get there can feel very different. One game might give steady results. Another might have long losing streaks with a big win now and then.  

“The truth is that some players just don’t get to experience that win,” says Haushalter. The visuals and bonuses can sustain enthusiasm for a while. But eventually, he says, “the math is just chewing away the likability of the game as time ticks on.”  

In other words, an average payout is not the same as what a player experiences. Players play one round at a time. This matters because a game can look good at first. Many players might try it, the theme might test well, and the rules might be clear. But only when players stop coming back do you see that something is wrong. Even then, it is easier to spot the problem than to fix it.  

Fold or hold

“When do you fix, wait or walk away from a failing game?” Haushalter asks. Then he laughs at Evolution’s record. “Oh, it’s so hard. And we’re terrible at it.”  

Evolution changed Deal or No Deal without reviving it. It reworked Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt into Gonzo’s Treasure Map without the hoped-for result. Other attempts have gone considerably better: Haushalter points to changes to Red Door Roulette and the conversion of Gold Bar Roulette to Gold Vault Roulette as examples in which intervention worked.  

“There’s no magic bullet. There’s no formula,” he says. “It’s like writing a song. How do you know when it’s done?” This is where the tidy management theory of “learning from failure” starts to fray.  

When a game fails, you do not always know why. Players might reject it, but you do not know if it was the theme, the speed, the math, the interface, or how much effort it took to understand.  

Changing one thing can fix a game. Changing something else might just waste more time and show the problem is still there.  

Spending a lot of resources on a game makes it harder to give up. The more you invest, the more you want to save it. This is how sunk costs may lead you to keep going.  

Bad chemistry

Lightning Bac Bo is a clear example. Evolution launched it in 2020 after Lightning Roulette did well. Game developers took the Lightning idea, with its special look and multiplier, and added it to bac bo, one of the oldest casino games. At the time, it seemed like a logical mix.  

That was precisely the problem with the reasoning. “Bac bo does amazing. Lightning does amazing. We thought for sure once we do Lightning Bac Bo, it’s going to smash,” says Haushalter. “Well, it didn’t.”  

It turns out that combining two things players like does not always make a better game. Putting two strong ideas together does not guarantee success. The result also did not show why the mix failed. 

Not knowing the reason matters. If Evolution decided never to combine the Lightning feature with anything else, developers might learn the wrong lesson. Failure shows what did not work, but it does not always show why. Sometimes, though, the lesson is clear.  

Four of a kind

Mega Ball is not really a flop, Haushalter says. The game has plenty of players but only modest traction. Launched in 2020 as Evolution’s first bouncing-ball game, Mega Ball took ideas from bingo and lotteries. Players buy cards and watch as numbered balls fill them.  

At first, Evolution let players buy lots of cards. More cards seemed better, with more chances and more action. But it also made the game harder to follow. Haushalter says you could not really see what was happening on each card.  

When Evolution made MONOPOLY Big Baller, which also uses lines on cards, they did the opposite. Players could only have four cards. The main idea stayed, but the clutter was gone.  

The goal was to let players see how close they were to winning and feel the excitement of waiting for one more number. Haushalter calls this a small design change with a big lesson. More choice does not always mean more engagement. Sometimes it just means more things to ignore.  

Once burnt

There is one more risk in focusing too much on failures. Companies can get scared of repeating mistakes. “When you fail, you tend to want to steer clear of the things that were in the failed game,” says Haushalter. “And that can be a big problem.”  

Doing the opposite is not better. Sticking with an idea just because someone believes in it can be very risky for a company. Good game development is somewhere in between.  

At Evolution, the teams talk about what did not work. They check new ideas against old mistakes. Most ideas do not become games. Haushalter thinks maybe one in ten makes it.  

But what keeps failure from making people too cautious is not a process. It is enthusiasm for the next new game. “Excitement about the next new game pushes you through and protects you from caution,” he says. That buzz must then be tempered by what the company already knows.  

This might be the most useful thing about a failed game. It does not tell you how to make a hit. If it did, making games would be easy. It just shows that something you believed about players was not true.  

Sometimes technology is too advanced. Sometimes math overpowers fun. Sometimes the cards are just too many. Sometimes two good ideas do not fit. And then, once in a while, the next game smashes, and the failures start to make sense.

The MONOPOLY name and logo, the distinctive design of the game board, the four corner squares, the MR. MONOPOLY name and character, as well as each of the distinctive elements of the board, cards, and the playing pieces are trademarks of Hasbro for its property trading game and game equipment. © 1935, 2026 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.