So you think screwing over customers with updates that destroy what they've built for several seasons/years would somehow be a good thing?

FWIW, penalizing a C in RF(which I know you chose because I discovered it wasn't that bad) wouldn't be a big deal.  It's still a plus/minus game.   Turning the key ratings into secondary ratings would be.  

It's usually not a problem for me, at least as future payroll goes, but I will have roughly 82m committed to payroll in S36 of MG(we're in the pre-season of S34).   Take the 40m for medical/training and add the 6m minimum each for prospect/coaching and I have 134m of a possible 185m tied up for a team that won't play until May 2015.   Make that 82m worth of players semi-useless via updates and that team is doomed for the next 9 months.   Why would a user stick around for that when there are 40 worlds needing owners?

One only need to look at Gridiron Dynasty to see the alternative world of different versions. Not everything has been a negative, but it didn't help build the brand to create 3 different versions of the same game over a decade.

Didn't Clutch Dynasty do an overhaul and kill the game?

And, obviously, tuftt and I differ on opinions of the user base.   I don't think there are hundreds of thousands people out there looking for a game like this.  He believes, with proper marketing, that the user base would expand exponentially.     Of course, if marketing pulled in 100 people and they all took two teams, every world would be full.

Just to throw my two cents in, I think a lot of the reason the userbase hasn't expanded much is due to the time needed to properly enjoy the game (imo). In the past two seasons I've gotten four friends to try HBD for the first time. Two of them tried a season and said it was too much work and won't continue, another one enjoys it quite a bit and the fourth initially didn't want to play because he didn't have a lot of time, but now is also enjoying it in his first season. 

I don't think the userbase can expand that much with advertising but if it reached eyes that wouldn't normally see it, I think based off my experience alone there would be new owners willing to give it a shot.

My two cents... There is a lot of crappy worlds with a handful of super teams and 10+ crap teams that have a different owner each season..   A new person joining through an advertisement isusually going to  have their 1st experience in one of these crappy worlds and will walk away from the site before they even realize that the game can be enjoyable.. Why would somebody want to spend time and money on a product that looks like sh*t.. Which is what most of the open teams in open worlds look like.. 

I'm guessing most of the new customers that join this site and stay are referred by a buddy who needs to fill a world.. HBD is almost like a pyramid scam..

30 more worlds will roll in the next 2 weeks. I think we'll see a new all time high for both worlds waiting to fill and # of openings.

I know a pile of people who like sports and are sports fans.  I worked in an industry with ties to professional sports.  Just about every single person I know is tech savvy and internet literate.  Many of these people, in all subsets, enjoy gaming and even gambling.

And out of all the possible combinations of those people, I'm the only one who's enough of a whacko to take interest in this type of time wasting. 

The potential user base is not as big as you think it is, folks.  Even if you were to dumb it down, or make it more user friendly or speed up any learning curve or whatever.

I don't believe there is any one change that fixes all or most of what's ailing HBD. Definitely not randomly changing how the ratings work so good players become average and poor players become stars overnight.  I don't see a need to have that debate.

I don't recall ever posting that the user base can be expanded exponentially.  I do believe it can be increased, but only if changes are made to the game and the marketing.

I think most people who play now will ***** about any changes. I think that because it happens any time any software is changed. And in very little time, those who acted as if the sky was falling will be using the system. I'm not worried about HBD players like Mike and I. If they change the system, we'll figure it out. Might even add a new team, as there would be a new challenge.

I agree with frymaster and willsauve. The way the game is setup now it takes a lot of time to play to play well. New players are forced to start playing on a day they can't control,and they have to do things on needlessly regimented schedule they can't control.

The easy worlds to get into are kind of broken. There's no way to spend some time on a team, improve it a some, and take it to a world that's a better fit. So if a person isn't 100% thrilled with their world, their options are start over with a new team (in a world that probably has many of the same issues, and then wait around for that world to start playing) or quit HBD and play something else.

It seems like a lot of worlds have have 5-10 super teams / GMs and 20-25 who aren't that into it.  Other games are built to easily allow those who want to, and who are good enough to play at a higher level find each other and play together. And have ways for those who want to check in once or twice a week to also play together.

I see this gaming model working in lots of successful games.  Clearly HBD/WIS isn't ever going to have the customer base or budget of Madden Football or any console game, but they could follow their models. Give people more ways to play.

Posted by tufft on 10/28/2014 8:09:00 PM (view original):
There are business models that are proving online strategy games can be a very profitable business. WIF/HBD follows none of those models.

Clash of Clans if buying time of NFL and MLB broadcasts (from Fox). League of Legends just filled a stadium used to host World Cup matches. The company behind Candy Crush has a market value of about $4 billion.

Let's all agree those companies are fishing in a bigger lake of potential customers than HBD.  I suspect anyone who plays games like those and who plays fantasy baseball, football, etc is a strong candidate to play WIS games. And that's millions of people.

The current problem isn't the size of the pool of potential WIS customers. It's how WIS markets the games (not at all) and how game play is organized (expensive to start, no escalation model, no company engagement in forum / no community, no ads or other revenue models, outdated interface, no upgrades, etc.).

I remain hopefully someone reaches the same conclusions I have.  There is a proven market for both online strategy games and fantasy sports.  There is no chance Fox would fund improvements here if 3 guys in working out of their garage launched a sports simulation company (I'd bet Fox HQ would rather run ads on a booming site and/or app than deal with WIS.)  Fox would make more profit by cutting a deal with those 3 guys on some sort of revenue share and hand them this customer base than continuing to run HBD/WIS.

Until then, this is what we've got.

I thought this post implied that there were hundreds of thousands of people out there who would play this game if it was marketed better.

I used to advertise HBD to my baseball friends but have not done so since 2011.  Baseball fantasy junkies know that this game is frozen in the previous CBA and that the lack of a serious attempt to update the draft, the internationals, the free agent rules makes this basically a nostalgia SIM.  It's their game and their choice.  But having more and more worlds frozen in limbo can't be good for their bottom line unless your business plan is SQUEEZING THE LEMON DRY. 

Sometimes I wonder if they would just rather have the customers go away. Seriously, that's how they act.