Did you ever search "sim basketball games"? If not, that's poor research on your part. Assuming you wanted to play a sim basketball game.

so you noticed the WIS guy with a signboard outside skyline chili? that's their primary marketing tool

To be clear, I'm not trying to start some new vs old user war. I have no idea why some of the veteran users hate the new version so much.

But, upon getting my team, the very first thread I opened began with something like this: "I've won 7 of the last 12 national championship. Now my team is gutted with 6 EE and no way to replace them." Huh? You've had a great team for practically ever and you're upset because you're losing some great players? What was expected?

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/18/2016 7:36:00 AM (view original):
Did you ever search "sim basketball games"? If not, that's poor research on your part. Assuming you wanted to play a sim basketball game.

But thats my point. Sure some people will outright search for it but some need to be told it exists. MOST need to be told it exists. Thats the whole point of advertising!

Im not gonna just randomly one day say "hmmm I wonder if they are ever going to make a new Star Wars movie" and then find out there is one coming out in December by searching google. Ads are everywhere for it.

Also this is not a product you just happen to see on the store shelves when out shopping. How can you have an impulse purchase if you literally need to go searching for it. Thats no longer impulsive.

edit- also its not like i was sitting around for years thinking to myself "boy I sure wish there was a great basketball simulator out there. But I havent heard of anything so it must not exist". There literally millions of games, apps, hobbies, sports, etc that can occupy my free time. Just like any other person. you need to persuade the consumer that your product is better than others.

1) looking to see if changing job works at D3. At D1, it needs fixing.
2) getting to a new job or reserving a team means you won't recruit any of your players for the first year. It's really a weakness. It means newcomers pay to lose on sim players one year before getting their own players. They will quit. What hook me to the game at first was recruiting. I remember spending 3k on a bad int center at Clarkson D3.
3) ees, fix this.
4) stop the roll the dice baby at d1 or make it happen less often so strat plays a bigger part

I think the ship has sailed all of these except maybe EEs zorzii.

I found SLB because I searched it. I actually think I was looking for fantasy baseball leagues, in February, and WifS was a few spots down on the list. FWIW, HBD and HD are different with regards to the "impulse buyer" you mentioned. They're terrible in HBD. Lose interest in pre-season, abandoned team. In HD, it's less problematic.

I don't think I'd use "Star Wars" and "WifS" in the same post again. That's sort of like comparing "Lamborghini" and "moped".

Anyway, the market is limited. There is always a +/- to marketing. It's costs this much. The return is this much. Is it worth it? They could run an ad during the Super Bowl. Maybe, in a thousand years, it pays for itself.

Nonetheless, I suggested a free, sans time required, marketing tool to them years ago. I heard Paul Bessiere on a local sports talk. He was giving CFB predictions for the weekend. He was doing a terrible job marketing WifS but, because I knew of the site, I knew what was going in. I thought it would be great if he/WifS rep had 10 minute segments throughout the nation predicting NFL/CFB/NBA/CBB(whatever the market dictated) games while pushing WifS. Sports talk radio needs content. If they could get 10m in Athens, GA or Birmingham, AL talking SEC football predictions, people would pay attention. While it wouldn't work in major markets, I think it would in the more rural areas. Hell, if they used trusted users, they could probably reach every corner of the US.

I got the ol' "Thanks for you input. We're currently exploring advertising ideas."

Posted by Benis on 11/18/2016 7:32:00 AM (view original):
"People who want to play sim games are familiar with search engines. They can find sim games. It's a limited market."

This is bad marketing 101 in my opinion. I really like this game a lot and have been hooked since day 1. But I had never heard of it until about 1.5 years ago. A coworker mentioned it to me randomly one day. If I had known about it 10 years ago, I would have been playing all this time. Basically you don't know what you don't know. I didn't know this awesome game existed.

Also, ironically, I've lived in Cincinnati for the past 8 years where WIS was created.

As I've said before, though, game players who are interested in sports management sims is a small, niche market. Show this to 100 game players, and 90 of them won't be interested, because where are the graphics? where are the dunks? Maybe 10 guys give it an honest shot, because they are part of this small cross-section of sports fans interested by management sims. You get 5 or 6 of those guys to stick, and it's a success.

FoxSports probably should start marketing during their basketball broadcasts again. But 2.0 was decidedly not mobile friendly, so I understand why they've rarely pushed it in the past.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/18/2016 7:39:00 AM (view original):
To be clear, I'm not trying to start some new vs old user war. I have no idea why some of the veteran users hate the new version so much.

But, upon getting my team, the very first thread I opened began with something like this: "I've won 7 of the last 12 national championship. Now my team is gutted with 6 EE and no way to replace them." Huh? You've had a great team for practically ever and you're upset because you're losing some great players? What was expected?

Both sides here can fall into an over-simplistic straw-man caricature of the guys on the other side. I think everyone should probably acknowledge that people simply have different preferences in how they like to play. I think there are 2 big, general archetypes for game players. Group A is a group that plays games because they love competition, and seek the experience that games offer. In the case of HD, it's the experience of feeling like you have a real life coaching career. Those players want to get immersed in the experience while they play, they can tolerate losing as long as the competition is realistic *and* the gameplay is fun.

Group B plays to win. If they can't win, they get frustrated and move on. They don't necessarily have to dominate, but they want to always feel like they have a chance to compete, down years aren't acceptable. These guys *tend to* prefer simulations that are deterministic, not probabilistic. They want formulas they can figure out. They don't have any problem feeling like they're gaming the system, because they get their enjoyment from figuring it all out, and care less about the experience.

Ideally, you want both groups to play together. The problem is when the extreme group B guys become a big block of gaming whales, they overtake the game. This is what happens to virtually all MMP games. And then it's the guys who were first in that get to the top and stay there until everyone gets bored and the game dies. To avoid this, game developers need to stay ahead of the curve. It's not a good idea to cater to the preferences of extreme group B guys who don't like ambiguity, and need to have a formula they can crack, know, and exploit. You can hope they stick around, but the extreme members of that group will always prefer to stick with what they know, rather than learn a new system, especially if that system is less "gameable".

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/18/2016 8:45:00 AM (view original):
I found SLB because I searched it. I actually think I was looking for fantasy baseball leagues, in February, and WifS was a few spots down on the list. FWIW, HBD and HD are different with regards to the "impulse buyer" you mentioned. They're terrible in HBD. Lose interest in pre-season, abandoned team. In HD, it's less problematic.

I don't think I'd use "Star Wars" and "WifS" in the same post again. That's sort of like comparing "Lamborghini" and "moped".

Anyway, the market is limited. There is always a +/- to marketing. It's costs this much. The return is this much. Is it worth it? They could run an ad during the Super Bowl. Maybe, in a thousand years, it pays for itself.

Nonetheless, I suggested a free, sans time required, marketing tool to them years ago. I heard Paul Bessiere on a local sports talk. He was giving CFB predictions for the weekend. He was doing a terrible job marketing WifS but, because I knew of the site, I knew what was going in. I thought it would be great if he/WifS rep had 10 minute segments throughout the nation predicting NFL/CFB/NBA/CBB(whatever the market dictated) games while pushing WifS. Sports talk radio needs content. If they could get 10m in Athens, GA or Birmingham, AL talking SEC football predictions, people would pay attention. While it wouldn't work in major markets, I think it would in the more rural areas. Hell, if they used trusted users, they could probably reach every corner of the US.

I got the ol' "Thanks for you input. We're currently exploring advertising ideas."

very similar to marketing ideas I have urged for years - WIS never seemed even to try

Posted by Benis on 11/18/2016 8:15:00 AM (view original):
I think the ship has sailed all of these except maybe EEs zorzii.

The fact that they took an already undesirable EE situation and only managed to make it worse, speaks to the astounding level of incompetency that currently exists among those people responsible for the current and future state of HD.

#4 will fix #3 because all the best players won't be grouped at the top 20 schools. No one should have 5-6 EE after a season or two of #4. It could happen but it will be far less commonplace.

My main issue is the lack of response in these threads from the WIS people. There's no clarity. Months have gone by now with no answers to our questions and concerns about Early Entries. More than 3.0, that's why I'm scaling back.

I'd send tickets. These threads are nightmares.

Posted by grantduck on 11/18/2016 1:23:00 PM (view original):
My main issue is the lack of response in these threads from the WIS people. There's no clarity. Months have gone by now with no answers to our questions and concerns about Early Entries. More than 3.0, that's why I'm scaling back.

there was an answer on EE's during the beta. The issue was identified. The answer was - we understand, we will watch what happens for a few seasons and see if any change is then warranted. The point about the transition was made. Numerous alternatives were proposed. And that was the answer.