Separately, we want to give everyone a heads-up on an account policy update.
Beginning March 24 at 11:59 PM ET, purchases on WhatIfSports will be able to use credits for up to 50% of the purchase price, with the remaining amount paid using standard payment methods.

For most users this will not change anything - the vast majority of purchases already fall within that range. If you currently have a larger credit balance, you’ll have the next two weeks to use credits normally before the update takes effect.
Importantly, existing credits are not being removed and the credit earning structure will remain the same. This change simply updates how credits can be applied to purchases as we continue modernizing the platform and investing in new improvements like the SimLeague Baseball mobile app.

Since I can't reply in-thread to the critical news, just want to put out somewhere that Admin can see that this change makes it pretty much a coinflip whether I will continue to play HBD at all, and I have put a good chunk of money in over the years to boot.

If "the vast majority of purchases" are unaffected then that suggests a change actually isn't needed, or that this is targeting a specific cohort of player. Extremely curious to know what games/types of users this is targeting since it seems to be a ham-fisted solution.

I also am not a fan of this change as someone who on a many occasions has saved and used his credits to pay for more then 50% of the total purchase of additional seasons. Now I understand why they would implement this new policy in order to increase their immediate cash revenue but who do you think accumalates the most credits in HBD ? I'm not sure a new policy that forces their most loyal and accomplished users to pay more up front everytime they renew is the best strategy.

I also hope this thread is picked up and reviewed by the developers of the game before they start losing loyal owners for it, espically if doesn't effect "the vast majority of purchases" Its already an expensive game to play, even more so if you are Canadian and have to pay the exchange rate, limiting credit use is a bit of a low blow. Also Leagues are becoming harder and harder to fill increasing the wait times in between seasons and suddendly now an extra incentive to play and win is being removed.

I really hopes this new policy is short lived,

I’m not gonna lose sleep over it. It will probably cost me a little bit (with a little luck in my upcoming playoff runs I was hoping to have over $100 in credits by the time I’m ready to buy 10 more seasons). And the way they announced it - with that first sentence making it sound like they’re doing us a favor - was kinda ridiculous.

But cmon, it’s really not that big of a deal. $25 for a 3 month season is a pretty reasonable price to begin with. And if you buy the 10 season package it’s down to $20.

With 50% credits, I’ll have to pay $10 per season. Not exactly a budget breaker.

I really like this game, and I understand that the new owners have a shoestring budget. They’re not greedy billionaires. I don’t think they’re schemers or scammers. They’re just ordinary people trying to make the site work and not lose money.

Hat tip to gatesfanelli as a Canadian user myself... not sure what percentage of us owners is Canadian but YES the exchange rate factors into my spending here, as everywhere else.

The way this was announced was poor if not deceitful. Why not send a sitemail to everyone or post it in the league chat like they do so many other things? No, they decided to hide this in the forums that rarely get a post. Funny, how after all the promises of changes to HBD over the years (decades) they managed to post and implement this one so quickly.

Even a modicum of customer service would have made this apply only to credits earned after the announcement.

Agreed. I didn't see it until it was too late to redeem credits. I've already let a few Hoops Dynasty teams go and will probably do so with a couple more.

They should extend the deadline, or let credits earned from before the deadline maintain full value.

Agreed across the board. I give the new ownership credit, he/they appear to be very communicative in the discord community and appear to have the right intentions. Unfortunately so have the previous owners.

I'd like to believe if he looked at it from the prospective of when he was a player, I'm sure he'd be a bit miffed as well. It would be easier to understand if the change in policy was communicated properly, given a longer time horizon to adjust, and came with multiple examples of how the new funds would be appropriated to find new owners and/or reinvest back into the game. However, when I suggested these via a ticket, the response was a word salad of nothingness, and then the ticket was closed without response after I replied.

Not sure where this leaves me personally. When the offer came around last week, I typically would have bought a 10-pack and yes, I would have had some credit to apply against it, but with the changes, I wasn't allowed to and I held off, which cost them $100 or so. Multiply that across multiple people, not to mention, long term owners and stable worlds are what keeps the engine running, its a slippery slope.

I've been here 20 years which is crazy, I'm probably not going anywhere, but I am debating on the number of teams I'm going to keep, which regardless of credits, will cost this site money and I'd like to think I help make a world better, so when I leave or others drop worlds, thats painful.

Maybe it ends up being a blip and there are no unforeseen consequences, but they didn't even need to take that risk. It was a silly, unforced error of Communications 101.

As someone who has played HBD since the beginning, the credits system was a big part of my longevity in the game. It made success feel worth the price of admission. I'm pretty disappointed with the change and it likely will impact how many teams I run. I was already slightly cutting down before this news due to the stagnation of the game after promised updates (silly me for letting myself hope for that with the new crew). It just leaves a bad taste all around.

I wouldn't mind so much if they actually made a few REAL improvements to the game. They HAVE NOT. Remember the old story about "The Golden Goose". I've been here for 25 years playing one game or another. Now with this, on top of the current economy, I have only 1 team in HBD. That's it. I used to play multiple teams in multiple games. Sadly those days are gone. I also remember winning a really cool WiS T-shirt once. I'll stay just because I love the game, with all of it's faults, and I love the owners in FizWorld. The majority of us have been together in this world literally for years. Now though it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to fill TWO MEASLEY SPOTS and this BS has only made it worse. The future looks dim unless somebody wakes the hell up.

Here's a thing for me: I've actually been overextending my participation in this game in an effort to help prop up worlds and keep those worlds, and by extension this game and this site, afloat. I normally run 2-3 HBD worlds depending on how frisky I'm feeling, I'm currently running six (and certainly feeling it in my enthusiasm and investment across those worlds). Multiple of those were because I wanted to extend a hand in keeping things alive, i.e. taking on a world swap, even when it wasn't necessary to keep my non-swapped world afloat, just to be a helpful hand. One such world I had fully intended to just be a one-and-done swap, but I ended up building the team in the offseason in such a way that I was enthused to actually ride out a few seasons and see how things played out.

This credit change actually disincentivizes me from acting in this way, it encourages me to cut down on worlds at a time where I'm actually willing to lend a hand to the health of other worlds/the health of this game. I likely now will be one-and-done in the aforementioned world instead of riding things out for a while. I'm not on the other end of these things, I don't see their ledger, hopefully for WIS' sake this change is meaningful enough for them to keep things running, but from where I sit the biggest threat to the health of this site has been customer acquisition and retention, and doing something that encourages those customers who are retaining to actively disengage seems like it's going to be ruinous. I don't think there is anything for me, as a long-tenured player, that is more discouraging about this site/game than seeing a world sitting with 12+ openings begging for any action, begging for someone to merge with, and eventually dying, and I worry this is going to engender even more of that.

Posted by alleyviper on 4/28/2026 9:06:00 AM (view original):
Here's a thing for me: I've actually been overextending my participation in this game in an effort to help prop up worlds and keep those worlds, and by extension this game and this site, afloat. I normally run 2-3 HBD worlds depending on how frisky I'm feeling, I'm currently running six (and certainly feeling it in my enthusiasm and investment across those worlds). Multiple of those were because I wanted to extend a hand in keeping things alive, i.e. taking on a world swap, even when it wasn't necessary to keep my non-swapped world afloat, just to be a helpful hand. One such world I had fully intended to just be a one-and-done swap, but I ended up building the team in the offseason in such a way that I was enthused to actually ride out a few seasons and see how things played out.

This credit change actually disincentivizes me from acting in this way, it encourages me to cut down on worlds at a time where I'm actually willing to lend a hand to the health of other worlds/the health of this game. I likely now will be one-and-done in the aforementioned world instead of riding things out for a while. I'm not on the other end of these things, I don't see their ledger, hopefully for WIS' sake this change is meaningful enough for them to keep things running, but from where I sit the biggest threat to the health of this site has been customer acquisition and retention, and doing something that encourages those customers who are retaining to actively disengage seems like it's going to be ruinous. I don't think there is anything for me, as a long-tenured player, that is more discouraging about this site/game than seeing a world sitting with 12+ openings begging for any action, begging for someone to merge with, and eventually dying, and I worry this is going to engender even more of that.

100%

I am dropping down to one team now, tho I really like the game still and am a very engaged player the quality of updates is very lacking and the cost to play outside of the USA (espeically with the Canadian dollar) keeps going up. Take away our incentives to use credits to subsidize the cost and your left with an outdated game that has trouble to keeping its leagues filled. In every league recently I see more and more long time players leaving, its too bad.

Hopefully this thread stays at the top of the forum and continues to get bumps.

I have 2 seasons left to play before I make my choice to re-up or not.