Resurrection of Hoops Dynasty... Topic

zhawks
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ct, that is not exactly what I meant. I don't think the most efficent cost for WIS would be 5.50 either. It is prolly somewhere in the $ 7-10 range. I bet if they moved to $8, many of those that budget $11 would go to $16 for two teams. So on and so fourth. Cutting the price in half is absoultely not the answer, maybe from your consumer standpoint but not from the business standpoint.
11/4/2009 11:17 AM
dalter
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Quote: Originally Posted By Rails on 11/03/2009Moy mentioned $13/season. It's more like $11 because everyone receives a small credit just for playing. If $11 every 45 days is setting people back, then it's the game. $11? That's chump change. It's a lunch, a couple of Caribou Coffees. If it was important enough or there was enough interest, I'm sure the problem solvers of the world would figure out a way to save $11 a month. Heck you could use coupons for a few days and wouldn't even need to change buying habits if people are so strapped for $11. Do you know how many ways someone could come up with $11 a month? You can't even wipe your *** with $11. It ain't the money
11/4/2009 11:42 AM
cthomas22255
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Quote: Originally posted by zhawks on 11/04/2009ct, that is not exactly what I meant. I don't think the most efficent cost for WIS would be 5.50 either. It is prolly somewhere in the $ 7-10 range. I bet if they moved to $8, many of those that budget $11 would go to $16 for two teams. So on and so fourth. Cutting the price in half is absoultely not the answer, maybe from your consumer standpoint but not from the business standpoint.

I was just illustrating my situation personally to back up what we've both been saying-- dropping the price will increase quantity consumed. So long as their marginal cost is basically $0 they have a lot of room to drop the price.
11/4/2009 11:46 AM
zhawks
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dalt you really think that a slightly lower price would not increase the amount of coaches who play? Again, I am not saying they need to lower the price to 50% what it is now. In all honesty with the way the economy is right now $11 is not inexpensive.
11/4/2009 11:47 AM
dalter
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$11 for 45 days? Maybe I'm living the high life and didn't even know it, but I don't think that's a lot in any sense of the word.

And no, I don't think reducing it from $11 to $8 or $9 would make any sort of real difference. The problems are in the engine and w. rewards points (which was a main factor in clearing out DII/DIII). If those two were fixed (heck, one of those), you'd see a spike.
11/4/2009 11:52 AM
jskenner
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IMO, the lower user rates are related to (in rough order):

1) Design shortcomings - After playing for many seasons, lots of users recognize the severe lack of depth in the game. Some keep playing in spite of this. Some cut back. Some quit.

2) Engine issues - The game engine produces what are perceived as screwy results, regularly. Right or wrong, this causes users to lose faith that actual basketball principles will equate to HD principles.

3) Customer service issues - Fair or not, many users don't feel properly appreciated as customers.

4) Reward points - Vets of DII and DIII feel slighted, and rightfully so. Few keep playing in those divisions once reward points are reduced to a minimum.

5) Price - I'm not sure this is even as high as #5. Surely some customers quit or keep less teams because of the price. But IMO, HD participation is not highly correlated to price. Maybe a few are highly sensitive to it. But I bet it's a small percentage of customers. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't think so.
11/4/2009 12:05 PM
zhawks
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Yeah I agree with your points there daalt, I guess my point is with all the layoffs and unemployeement being so high, how can we say the economy isn't a factor? I was unemployeed for almost 4 months this summer and it almost ended some of my WIS teams. Dalt you have to remember the 2 a day worlds are only about 30 days long, which means those of us that play in those pay more per year.

I do agree that the cost isn't the only factor, I didn't mean to come off as saying that I felt it was the only factor, absolutely the engine and reward points are part of the problem.
11/4/2009 12:10 PM
jskenner
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zhawks, not to speak for daalter, but I think we all agree that the economy is a factor, but he contends (and I agree) that price is a small factor. In other words, there are less customers able/willing to pay $12 or so per season to play, but very few of them would return (or up the number of teams) if the price was dropped to $10, or $8, or $6. After all, if $12 is not warranted within a financial circumstance, half that is unlikely to be.
11/4/2009 12:16 PM
xoveru
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it's not a lot of money but it is factor. Who else raises prices when things aren't selling?

when I came back after a one year absence I was surprised to see the price increase. I think it was $8.95 or $9.95 when I and to jump $3.00 dollars is a lot.

this is WIS's goose, if I see my customer complaining but they keep playing then let's have this years Christmas party in the Bahamas

having so many SIMAI's is one thing but with such crappy players on them who would want to take over some of those teams?

maybe the crappier a team is the bigger the discount

11/4/2009 12:18 PM
zhawks
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Quote: Originally Posted By jskenner on 11/04/2009zhawks, not to speak for daalter, but I think we all agree that the economy is a factor, but he contends (and I agree) that price is a small factor. In other words, there are less customers able/willing to pay $12 or so per season to play, but very few of them would return (or up the number of teams) if the price was dropped to $10, or $8, or $6. After all, if $12 is not warranted within a financial circumstance, half that is unlikely to be
Again, jsk I didn't say it was the only factor. But I know personally that if the cost was closer to 8 dollars I would very likely have another team or two. And I feel that if I feel that way there are likely others that do too.

Yes I do think a much better engine would be a much better solution to 'fixing' the problem of worlds being depleated. But since (at least to this point) it appears we are months and months away from that (maybe by Spring?), the money issue comes up as the most logical and possibly quicker fix for increasing the number of customers.
11/4/2009 12:22 PM
jskenner
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I'm trying to remember my Econ 101 class back in 1986. There was a concept (I think it was price elasticity) where the quantity demanded of some goods/services was highly tied to price, and the quantity of others was not. The price of items considered more of a luxury (for instance, tickets to sports events) might see an 8% drop in quantity demanded in response to a 10% price increase (high elasticity), whereas items considered to be necessities would show much less drop in quantity demanded for a similar price increase. Even though HD seasons are seemingly a luxury, the fact that the price is relatively small within most of our overall budgets, produces low elasticity. If there are any economics guys out there, feel free to clean up my argument.
11/4/2009 12:24 PM
zhawks
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What? WIS isn't a necessity?!
11/4/2009 12:26 PM
jskenner
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I hear you, zhawks. And I agree where there's one, there's more. In this case, there are likely several HD customers who would return or up their number of teams if the price were lowered. I think you and I disagree as to how many, but we agree that it is a factor, and we also agree that engine/design issues are ultimately a better fix for customer retention than price, and that they are months away from those fixes (even if thoses fixes are actually what the doctor ordered).

Now that I think of it, if I'm WIS, my thinking might be: 1) we want to get customers back, and once they're back, we want to keep them; 2) let's get the design/engine fixed up to make most existing customers happy 3) if our current customer base reacts negatively to our fixes, we'll get the fixes right BEFORE we put forth other efforts to grow our customer base 4) once we have our current customer base relatively happy (our customers LIKE our product), we'll see what we need to do to increase customers further (price drops, reward points, etc.) 5) What we do NOT want to do is do #4 first, then alienate many of our customers with new and/or more teams with poorly-implemented fixes (as we've done in the past).

You think maybe they're approaching it like so?
11/4/2009 12:32 PM
jskenner
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Ok, to anyone with 8 or more teams, it's a necessity. ;)
11/4/2009 12:33 PM
zhawks
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Very likely jsk and that is a vaild point. My thought was "How can we retain our customers while we work on getting this fix out" but you are right, MOST of us have already said we are here until we see what the new engine brings.
11/4/2009 12:48 PM
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