Interesting thread and I think looking to make positive changes will help to drive more customers, more money, more positive changes. I don't use my phone much either for the same reasons offered, but I think having an app couldn't be a bad thing.
I also don't think there is another product out there right now that is as good as HD, but that doesn't really mean anything. I think most of us would agree that our democracy is the best of available option and that still allowed the baby-boomers to blow 200 years worth of accumulated wealth in 3 decades for shiny objects and a false sense of security.
I am a bit surpised by your response Zags, in that I would think the philosophy department at Gonzaga would not agree with your logic or argument. It if takes months for you to learn changes, imagine newbies trying to learn the game. I compare it to playing a game with a single child-- the rules are always changing and always favor someone else.
To me, the only two choices are a) keep it the same (the way you like it) and wait for it to eventually die off or b) find out why newbies don't last and fix that. There is a reason they choose to give away free seasons to get people enrolled and it isn't because of some great marketing/advertising idea. It's because if you pay for it, you quickly realize the deck is stacked against you and the rules are at best foggy and at worst, terribly lopsided to existing players. Either way, you demand a refund and WIS obliges and thus, the reason that this product is not advertised, especially by FOX.
If you like the sim itself, I would think you would either fall into group b or be forced to dismiss a entirely and consider the sim solid and stable. The fact that while most sports sims/games have experienced an explosion over the last decade, WIS has... leads me to believe that no one educated at GU (at least prior to the priest cleanout) would think the sim to be healthy and viable over the long term. If you understand this, it means we will all be doing something else at some point.
If there is any veteran who believes it is their own intellect that has allowed for them to become and remain successful, I would love for them to start out at DIV 3 D prestige and work their way back up to the top. I can't find many examples of that and even when I find someone "starting over" at a low prestige (no matter what Division), after 3-4 seasons, I see they switch to an abandoned higher-prestige school.
We can all argue about the little points but the big point from my perspective is that a business needs new customers to continue to be in business and it needs to make those new customers happy. A veteran saying this game is great means very little if for every one of those, we have 25 newbies telling their friends this is scam and a joke.
It shouldn't take a business consultant to understand Fox's plans for the future around WIS and to see people state that "it is fine the way it is" shows not only a lack of business understanding but also a lack of common sense. Thank God there is government and social work for those people.