Outside of offering "incentives" (aka, "We'll give you a gift card if you come join our world!")... which are probably 1-season bandaids a solid 50% of the time... this game is pretty much dead, right?

Existing owners are not adding new team.
FOX/WIS is not promoting the game to pull in new owners.
And in general, these types of "online games" don't fill a niche that they did when first introduced 10 years ago.

I've been the commissioner of Mordecai for 39 seasons. We've never taken more than maybe 3 days to fill. EVER. This season, with just 3 openings, I'm already at 2+ weeks. We had one former owner rejoin the game, which effectively negates another owner who left because we are taking too long.

I honestly, sincerely, believe that we have one of the most solid worlds in HBD. The vast majority of our owners have been with our world more than half of its lifetime. We have no traderaping. No drama. Everyone stays competitive. And its an overall really good group of guys.

No, I'm not one of the "cool kids" who run the message boards and has something to say about EVERYTHING. I chime in when appropriate. Maybe that hurts my ability to recruit, I dunno. But that doesn't change the fact that the game is contracting.

Recruiting new owners has become incredibly frustrating. I wonder how much longer this game will last.

Having been around for a while in a variety of businesses, perhaps a smaller number of worlds with more of a core group of owners would ensure the quicker rollovers that everybody wants? It does not necessarily make sense to roll out so many worlds that time to rollover grow exponentially.

WIS will never contract worlds that have people in them who have paid. It would just alienate the people who are still paying.

I think the problem boils down to 2 very-related issues... (a) the market for online games like this has deteriorated significantly.. There are lots of other options that fill the "online fantasy game niche"... and (b) because that market is disappearing, WIS doesn't know where to go with it. and isn't pulling in new customers.

I dont have the solution. I'm just venting my frustrations.