The start date on this comparison is way too recent. To really understand the mass exodus you have to compare to populations right before the announcement of 3.0. IIRC, the loss of human coaches since that point is probably more like 35-40%.

Lots of credits users will run out the string and be done....I am about at 2 seasons left and I have spoken to other old school guys who are within 5 seasons....ship is going down slowly but another jump is coming

If you don't enjoy the game, why play out credits? I don't get that. If someone gives me a hamburger and it tastes like ****, I don't eat it because it's free.

Nonsense.

Alright, since Gil's world population data thread from July 2015 (the last one before the announcement of 3.0), D3 has dropped from 1016 to 906 (11%). D2 went from 1142 to 826 (28%). D1 has dropped from 1337 to 987 (26%). So the overall dropoff was 22%. Not quite as ugly as I thought, largely buoyed by D3, but still pretty darn bad. Don't let Mike sweep it under the rug as "change." When you consider that there are still only a handful of sims making the tournament, those lost owners probably would be adding $8+ per season if they were still around.

We can do a little back of the envelope math on that revenue drop, too. If we assume all owners are long-term enough to buy 10-packs at ($10-rewards) per season, tournament rewards are worth about 61 free seasons handed out per level per season. Since a few sims do make the tournament, let's say it comes out closer to 55. That's fairly generous to the sims but helps account for the fact that some people pay more for teams. In any case, that means that with the current world populations WIS is effectively paid for about 105 teams per world per season (there are about 272 owners per world, and about 165 free teams are being given away per season). Less than 2 years ago there were 350 owners per world, so WIS was paid for about 185 teams per season.

That's a 43% drop in revenue in 2 years. Not profit. Revenue. That's an absolute financial disaster. Most companies which had a division tank like that would have cut it by now. It's amazing how much some people are understating the magnitude of the exodus.

Those are pretty sobering numbers. The current revenue from HD is probably about $75K plus maybe a little bit of ad revenue from the forums. It's easy for us to complain about lack of developer support, but under current world populations any time that a dev is working on this game it's bleeding money. The only way they can maintain a slim profit on this product is to leave it totally static at this point.

I've been saying that for awhile about profit. The $$$ the game makes doesn't warrant the constant attention so many here crave.

I'm sweeping the lack of D1 under the rug due to change. Let's say 30 guys left. Each had 5 teams(probably an understatement). That's 25% of the difference. Since D1 was probably hurt the most, I wouldn't be surprised if most of those 150 teams were at D1. If you know what you're doing, it's going to take 6-7 season to move from D3 to D1. New owners don't know what they're doing. The time to get up in arms over D1 is probably this time next year. Definitely not now.

You've repeatedly claimed to be a small business owners in the forums. If you experience a 43% drop in revenue over 7 quarters are you really sitting there saying, "well, let's just wait 4 more and see what happens?"

No, I probably close up shop. But there's no real point in them doing that because it's making money, they have much bigger fish to fry and, I assume, operating costs are minimal.. HD population was stagnant for years. Years and years. Let's not pretend that 43% is anything more than a drop in the bucket for FOX. They made a move to see if the game could be revitalized. They can wait it out. Small businesses can't.

So what does one do with credits? Cannot cash out....exchange them....sell to others?

Let 'em sit. Again, if I give you a **** sandwich, would you eat it because it's free? If you don't like the game, playing it is just stupid.

Perhaps WIS will see the errors of their ways and fix the disaster that is 3.0

maybe coaches looking for handouts to the top of the pile will realize they should have to earn it

maybe just maybe the sky opens up and Jesus H Christ himself shows up

worth sticking around and see what transpires

It's not a small business, dahsdebater. Whatever Whatif makes is pocket change to them. It's not fair to ding them for the guys leaving when they heard about the upgrade if they didn't stick around to try it. I attribute most of those to the same kids growing up who took their ball and went home if the game didn't go how they wanted. I think management has done a bad job of following up on their promises of the new guys staying active. At a minimum, there should be some sort of update given periodically. If I had to guess, their lack of activity is probably due to apathy. There isn't anything to report and they don't feel like being the shield taking all the crap when they most likely aren't compensated for it. I don't know what's going to happen, but I guarantee sitting around moaning and groaning about it will do nothing but bring newbies down who come into the game with energy.

Posted by MikeT23 on 4/24/2017 3:42:00 PM (view original):
No, I probably close up shop. But there's no real point in them doing that because it's making money, they have much bigger fish to fry and, I assume, operating costs are minimal.. HD population was stagnant for years. Years and years. Let's not pretend that 43% is anything more than a drop in the bucket for FOX. They made a move to see if the game could be revitalized. They can wait it out. Small businesses can't.

There is not much important about customers speculating about a vendors "revenue", but this is the most salient point that one should understand before even thinking about looking at things like "web traffic" or revenue. Population has been stagnant for years. The game under the former format was not growing, and was not going to grow. A lot of people played this game for little-to-no money. You see it still in this thread. People who weren't paying for the game, and thought it should cater to them anyway, as if their mere participation is valuable. Compounding this, many of those folks were stuck in upper division schools, making decent big 6 jobs very scarce for players who didn't already have 25+ seasons in a world.

I absolutely guarantee you that seble and his bosses all expected a good deal of attrition. About 25% was the figure I suggested a year and a half ago, and that seems to be holding true, probably a little lower at this point as it's stabilizing. In the business world, this force is a form of creative destruction. Every tech update is going to have people who hate it. Of course, they hope that consumers who leave will eventually miss it and give it another try (and hopefully monetize). But a lot of people are going to resent their cheese being moved. That's life as a business. Getting people who are willing to pay for the game into those positions (or at least positions where they can compete at the D1 level that 99% of them had in mind when they signed up in the first place) is ultimately their most sustainable long term plan.

Posted by worthy14sure on 4/24/2017 4:17:00 PM (view original):
Perhaps WIS will see the errors of their ways and fix the disaster that is 3.0

maybe coaches looking for handouts to the top of the pile will realize they should have to earn it

maybe just maybe the sky opens up and Jesus H Christ himself shows up

worth sticking around and see what transpires

If your credits don't expire, you can check back in a year and still have credits.

My belief is that those leaving when "I run out of credits" aren't really going to do that.