Slow response from CS won't affect A.   I'm not even sure how it would.
Possible for B as people get frustrated and decide getting frustrated on a simsports site isn't healthy.
C is a multitude of reasons.    We like to blame someone else but it isn't always true.

HBD was about a year old when I predicted that there would be four types of worlds in the near future.  HBD was starting to take shape and tanking/aliases/abandonments were becoming part of the process.
 
1.  You have the elite private worlds.  People should want to play in them because it's HBD at it's best.  But you might not like the structure required to stay there.

2.  You have the 2nd level worlds.   A few openings, slower roll, less competitive, more likely to take an "iffy" owner just to get going.  But they have a strong core that wants to improve their situation.   They just can't get it done.

3.  You have the lower level private worlds.  Tanking, trade rape, abandoned teams, etc, etc.  Basically everything that's bad about HBD is here.   And you have a core group who've been there forever and they're fine with it.   They wonder what WifS is gonna do to get them rolling.  Unwilling to accept they made the world undesirable.

4.  Public worlds.   You get what you get.  Some are good, some are not.  And it might change from season to season.  I'm not a fan but it's certainly better than #3 in most cases.

Dying is the wrong word because leagues are filling pretty quick in public worlds even those that go public with 10+ openings.  Over time we have to hope and expect that some of the new public owners will stick around and join multiple private leagues even though in the short term there will be pain with some new owners bailing in the middle of the season.  So I would use the word transitioning. 

A contributing factor to the current bailing that we see is with the update rebuilding is far more involved than it was previously.  Before you could get a top 5 pick and top Intl and after four years have a loaded roster full of 8 to 10 young inexpensive studs.  Rebuilding now is far less automatic and therefore it could be that owners just aren't willing to put the time in and have a decent chance of failing.  Let me be clear.  All of the avenues to rebuild all still exist it is just that they easiest way (tanking) has been made less effective.  Which in turn makes the pool of people willing to take on bad teams smaller because fewer are up to the task.

Also Mike I agree with one caveat.  #3 these days really are like, or should be, public worlds because they have 8+ spots every season and always need to go public to fill anyway.

You've never really needed to wait 4 seasons worth of top 5 picks and 23m IFA to "rebuild".    HBD is designed to be competitive immediately as everyone has the same resources.    I know my "reboot" projects lasts about 2 seasons.   And that's only because I've dealt out some FA bad deals that have to come off the books.

slow response I think was a factor in 1 long-term owner abandoning Bench last season - combined with his stated reason (as you mentioned) that he didn't like tanking and wanted to do only worlds with minimum win rules. he abandoned so that we could get somebody in with a free season who would hopefully stay the next season, and he did. would he have still left without the other guy wrecking his team and admin's slow response? maybe, but I think those were at least contributing factors.

Meh, this will sound dickish but it sounds like #3.  Maybe the guy left because you had a 46 and 48 win team.   Must have been quite the battle down the stretch.  And he took 7 others with him. 

I don't think HBD is dying at all. I do think private leagues get a little too comfortable with themselves and stop making it interesting to be in their World and/or become too limiting when it comes to adding new blood. If private leagues with a strong base would go Public from time to time and add some 'new blood' they wouldn't go stale and have such a difficult time filling. The Big Hurt just filled 8 spots in 3 days. It is a merger league with a solid, solid owner base of about 20 guys who will not quit on their teams. When things are slow and our waiting list is empty we go public to fill while being upfront about our rules and intention to return to Private at season start. You can also get too wrapped up in offering incentives and/or restrictions. Some league rules are too complicated or not strong enough. 'Private' should not be synonymous with exclusive but should be with respectful, competitive and fair. Incentives to join are simply not going to happen in TBH either. You either want to try it or you don't. Those that are willing to join without incentives are more likely just interested in playing the game. My 2 cents, thanks.

Obviously my current world's are longer-running, but what's wrong with merging 10-season or younger (or 5-season or younger) worlds? Or public worlds with spotty track records or reputations? It's hard for players in those worlds to claim attachment or significant investment. And to ease any ********, offer incentives. Anyone in a world that agrees to be merged into another/others, gets a free four pack or something of that nature. 

A free 4-pack would for everyone would put WIS on the hook for $3,200 worth of incentives. You might say it doesn't cost them anything but it would cost the $100 x 32 owners or $3,200.  That's $3,200 WIS won't get from those owners while they are using up those credits.

But if you modify it perhaps WIS could offer 1 free season and 3 $10 GCs to 4 randomly picked owners if everyone agreed to merge. That would cost WIS just $55. Might be a way to go. 

But WIS would have to see the value of contracting worlds to offer an incentive like this. I'm not sure they are sufficiently motivated.

Half a dozen long-term owners have given/are giving up HBD in my worlds.    Dying might be too strong but it's not well.    Too many guys with 20-30 seasons in one world are done with the game.  It would be one thing if they were just done with the world but that's not the case.   They're done.   That's problematic.

Posted by sermonauthor on 1/18/2016 5:09:00 PM (view original):


A free 4-pack would for everyone would put WIS on the hook for $3,200 worth of incentives. You might say it doesn't cost them anything but it would cost the $100 x 32 owners or $3,200.  That's $3,200 WIS won't get from those owners while they are using up those credits.

But if you modify it perhaps WIS could offer 1 free season and 3 $10 GCs to 4 randomly picked owners if everyone agreed to merge. That would cost WIS just $55. Might be a way to go. 

But WIS would have to see the value of contracting worlds to offer an incentive like this. I'm not sure they are sufficiently motivated.

Short term pain for long term gain.

If owners sit around waiting a month (or more) for half-filled worlds to get going, how much is WIS really making? If they give away a ton of incentives to merge worlds, then the remaining worlds stay full, roll faster, play more seasons, and WIS sees a bigger return.