New Scaratings

How important is it for you to earn PlayersPlus points? Is that your main objective or just a side perk of playing Buzztime? What would you love to be able to redeem them for? Do you find yourself upset if something causes you to lose them? What would you like to see Buzztime do next with PlayersPlus points? Please share you feedback because it is very important to us!
Please post your feedback here or send an email to playerfeedback@buzztime.com
Thank you!!

In my opinion the P+ points should be left alone. If Buzztime wants to make something redeemable, do it with the badges. Which means LILJOL would have one of everything on the list.

_________________
http://www.buzztime.com/profile?pid=4095712
http://www.sixchallenge.com

_________________
liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!

From the playership standpoint, Buzztime needs to reduce subscribership churn at the mom-and-pop-type independent locations, which are where most of us on this forum would prefer to play.

For me the P+ points are just a curiosity of marginal interest. Someday they might become more interesting and it sounds like you are considering making them more interesting. I'd suggest aligning the concept to your churn situation.

Since the points have no redemption value at present, you have nothing to lose by making larger pools of points available as incentives to put trivia players into the specific seats where they would be most welcomed as trivia-playing customers. You have two categories of locations that would specifically want to see more Buzztime players:

1) Brand New Subscribers to whom you have just sold the system. You probably gave them a sales pitch that went as far as guaranteeing new people will come in and fill seats. Owners, managers, and staff are probably specifically hoping for that to come true on their slowest nights Tuesday and Wednesday. They are watching for that immediate impact.

2) Locations That Are On The Verge Of Dumping You for lack of Buzztime players to justify their keeping the subscription. Your sales staff probably needs to be more proactive at tracking those by personal contact, but you can spot them in the game scores database at your fingertips.

So make significant pools of P+ points available as incentives during highly-publicized promotional periods geared toward those locations. Literally millions. Some of it could be automated through your database and some of it could be given over to the discretion of the location management. Examples:

A) Promote that six million points will be distributed to active players over a three month promotional period. Newest signup players would be ineligible for these particular points...say you have to accumulate 100,000 or so the conventional way before you can start earning these. So if sixty active experienced players come in and play during the period, they would get 100,000 each at the conclusion. If only six have come in, they stand to get a million each which might raise the interest of others to get in there for that larger piece of that pie (the status of this in progress would be discernible through the scores database)

B) Make points directly available to location management and staff as handouts via tokens with redemption codes on them, either just for playing or as competition prizes. It would have to be significant not piddling, say a million points worth of 20,000 point participation tokens and one or two quarter-millions for tournaments. Management could specifically direct those awards toward the nights when they specifically need to fill more seats...my guess is they would choose Tuesday and Wednesday and specifically not choose (koff, koff, ahem) Sundays during football.

As to redemption of points for tangibles: I know your company doesn't have a lot of money and you are probably not considering much more than trinkets and swag. You won't find much interest in such on this forum, and I wouldn't decrease my P+ points for probably anything that you could afford to do at present. So it would just continue to be as it always has been, of some bragging rights and some passing interest. But in a Polyanna future where Buzztime has more capability, Buzztime needs to catch up to the culture of live trivia events, which has completely lapped you and left you behind. Buzztime needs to be more active in conducting or facilitating competitive head-to-head gatherings whether at existing subscriber locations or at rented spaces. In this kind of organized structure, you could make P+ points redeemable for byes to pass deeper into elimination rounds and also make even more points available as the prizes. In the live trivia culture, you could be the only ones using attractive advanced technology and be perceived as a generation ahead of the pencil-and-paper gamers. Hard as it may be to believe, your product competes directly with pencil and paper and is losing.

"TL;DR" - P+ points are widely considered meaningless, you won't find many people willing to give them up for anything you have, might as well double down on them and hand out even more, think outside the box.

P+P have become meaningless due to "drive by' players, who use cell phones to play blindly. To me, they were a point of pride for butt in the seat hours and loyalty. Now, check some game play history of certain players and all you see are hours of 1 question games. Not even a complete game in their last 50.

Fuck rewarding those pricks!

I agree with tiefly on this. The mobile app is spotty at best anyway. Just doing away with it all together would be fine too.

_________________
http://www.buzztime.com/profile?pid=4095712
http://www.sixchallenge.com

The mobile app is very important at times at our BWW when all the tablets left in the chargers are broken. It does happen often enough. Also when we can't get a 5th tablet the phn app is again quite important. That happened many times over the last few days down here in OC.

Do not get rid of the app, just fix it so you must be within a quarter mile of the location to account for the maps being off.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Caps and Os!!!!

Now for the question at hand.

P+ are important in terms of a status of how long we've been playing. Except for the hacks like PJSHU at the Horseshu in Edmonton Canada and the blind phn fools the system works.
(Buzztime really does need to cancel PJSHU's account for blatant combining of multiple large accounts and manipulation of the P+ system)

Players will not want to lose points for a tshirt. Prizes, however, should be given out for large amounts of points but there would be no loss of points, just a designation that those points were used for a prize already. Redeeming and losing points like air miles won't work for most players.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Caps and Os!!!!

This is the post that started this thread:

"How important is it for you to earn PlayersPlus points? Is that your main objective or just a side perk of playing Buzztime? What would you love to be able to redeem them for? Do you find yourself upset if something causes you to lose them? What would you like to see Buzztime do next with PlayersPlus points? Please share you feedback because it is very important to us!
Please post your feedback here or send an email to playerfeedback@buzztime.com
Thank you!!"

I have heard that in the early days of NTN they DID have some kind of a deal, where people could redeem their Players Plus points for merchandise. That was before I started playing, and if I had to guess, the merchandise you could choose from probably wasn't anything very expensive.

I don't know exactly how this deal worked, or why NTN dropped it back then.

(If anyone else knows more about this, please tell us. I would like to know.)

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Whales has some good suggestions about the new and/or failing locations. At the same time, there are many locations out there that have management that could care less about Buzztime. Back in may a several of us stopped by Doc & Eddy's to play a few games, and they only had 2 functioning playmakers. Since our team is looking for a new home location, I stopped in there this week, same thing, STILL only 2 working.

_________________
http://www.buzztime.com/profile?pid=4095712
http://www.sixchallenge.com

MUDEE, somewhere on the "ScaRatings" there is a lengthy tread, that discusses why so many small local bars drop "Buzztime" trivia. It has been dormant for many years, but I will try to find it for you.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

MUDEE, somewhere on the "ScaRatings" there is a lengthy tread, that discusses why so many small local bars drop "Buzztime" trivia. It has been dormant for many years, but I will try to find it for you.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

To eliminate the "drive by" and other anomalies, P+P should only be awarded for qualifying games!!

This. My site has had two broken playmakers for at least 2+ years now, and a third broken for at least a year. Now we have a fourth broken playmaker. The owner has the bad ones locked in his office and just keeps saying, "Oh I need to send those back." Can't figure out why he won't take the few minutes to do it.

This is nuts...

As I understand it, NTN provides their trivia sites with postage-paid return packages for Playmaker boxes that need to be repaired. They fix or replace them for free, and send them back very quickly.

Perhaps, you and your trivia buddies might talk to the owner about this, and offer to do it for him if he can't find the time to take care of it himself. If he declines to accept your offer, I would suggest finding another bar to play trivia, because it sounds like he really doesn't care about keeping Buzztime in his bar, and will probably be dropping it after his contract runs out.

Another thing I might suggest is contacting NTN directly, and telling them about the situation. There's a good possibility that NTN will do something to resolve the problem.

Are you still using the old blue Playmakers that NTN is replacing with the new tablets?

p.s. I have a few more questions for you. How many trivia players show up on a regular basis? Do you think the trivia players spend enough money to cover the owner's cost of paying NTN for keeping trivia there? How many new people, who didn't come there before, have started coming into the bar to play trivia? Do you think that the owner thinks you guys will still keep coming in, if he stopped paying for Buzztime, and dropped it? Does your bar have enough non-trivia regulars, who come in, to keep his revenues up, if all of the Buzztime players left?

I could go on, but I think you know what I'm driving at. The owner views Buzztime trivia as an expense that he can only justify, if it increases revenues. If it doesn't, he is going to drop it, and spend none of his time to try to keep it going.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

I have the catalog in my hands - here is the cover
Note the word "discount". The catalog consisted of an assortment of stuff. (many had been given away as premium game prizes) to be ordered by phone. 15000 to 35000 points would get you the discount. IMO, the discounts were insignificant and it looked like one could do better by shopping around a little. I never bought anything from the catalog and still haven't heard of anyone else doing it. The only thing I thought that could have been of interest to anyone was the few NTN/QB1 items. As far as I know, they weren't readily available anywhere else at the time.

QBB, that catalog you have has to be very rare, and very valuable to some people. Assuming that it isn't one of your sacred possessions, I think you might be able to get a pretty penny for it from a number of NTN fanatics. If you might be willing to part with the catalog, don't sell it too cheaply. You may have the only one that still exists.

p.s. I know of one person, who might be interested in it, and there are probably others.

p.p.s. How did you get this catalog, and do you remember the year?

_________________
"The game is afoot."

It was sent to my bar and I believe they were mailed to members as well. 1995.

The items in the catalog weren't anything special and the prices, even factoring in player plus points, were
still above market price. It reminded me of the early days of Wheel of Fortune where the contestants would pick
their prizes from the showcase room of ridiculously priced gift items. Who wouldn't want a $800 ashtray that resembles
a brass marabou...?

I am in favor of any ideas that increase Buzztime participation, but I am not sure that redeeming points is the answer. Rather than redeem points, prizes could be awarded for achieving certain milestones or winning designated games etc. Some prizes could be awarded retroactively to reward the loyal core of players that have kept the game going over the years. I know that would blow up the marketing budget, but maybe some of the money being spent on trinkets could be reassigned. Something as simple as a coupon redeemable for food and drink at your Buzztime location would satisfy many players. We play for free beer during our Thursday afternoon bar to bar competition here in New Smyrna Beach. For most of us, it is the closest we will come to being considered professional trivia players.
I know there are players that manipulate the system, but I believe they are few and can be weeded out. There may even be a few old timers that benefited from the 21 million point glitch back in the mid-nineties. As for me, Players Plus points are little more than in informal tally of the number of beers consumed and I am still waiting for my free Schick razor.

Good ideas Sikofl01. Buzztime could also take some ideas from live trivia events. Team Trivia in the Phoenix area has a yearly tournament of the top 20 teams that compete for $1000 first place prize, and $500 for second. If buzztime were to implement something like this it may draw some people away from live events.

_________________
http://www.buzztime.com/profile?pid=4095712
http://www.sixchallenge.com

Good ideas, Sikofl01...

Free beers sounds great. However in many states it would be against the law for bars to hand out free brewskis. (Kentucky is one of them. Ohio is not.)

_________________
"The game is afoot."

MUDEE, I'm thinking that offering big cash prizes for doing well playing Buzztime trivia is probably going to be illegal in a lot of states. Additionally, from what I have read on the "ScaRatings", we already have more than enough cheaters, and they are only cheating for Players Plus points. If big bucks were involved, I fear that more than just a few of the new players that Buzztime drew in would be cheating their asses off to take the money.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

No no no. When NTN was giving away trucks and trips to fabulous places almost everybody was eligible to win. And it wasn't possible to cheat.

The reason it's possible to cheat P+ points is because they are worthless so why try to curb the practice? That's what makes it so incredibly laughable. Plenty of players, including those here on scaratings, won't even attempt to win a huge prize. But they'll cheat their asses off every time they play just to gain a few thousand additional P+ points.

It's not super important, but I like hitting milestones and think the final P+P symbol is pretty fun. As it is, I am nearing my first million points!

Definitely a side perk. What truly matters are averages and medals.

As for what I'd like to redeem them for? Honestly, some sort of free food or discount off the food at the places I play. Maybe 50k P+P = 50% off your bill (up to $10 value). That's probably something like buy 10 meals (perhaps more), get the 11th half off. Perhaps put in a limit of 10 times every 180 days to stave off the older accounts.

If not victuals, then classy brainy smart guy stuff like books.

Janie, first of all, thank you for asking.

For me, the P+ represent several different things

1) A way to look at another player and see how "much" they have played.
2) A way for a (relative to their venue) long time player to get their name in lights at the local board by the sheer dint of hours of playing without regard to how well (I don't really give much credit for beating the threshold to get a thousand points versus 500 as a measure of much skill, over time), as well as giving people who see that list a target to get on it.
3) Since you display the top 1,000 it also provides a target for people to make that list.
4) Since I am on that list, for me it also provides a measure for whether I am "gaining or losing ground " compared to the other long time participants. For example, the highest I have been is # 560 so I have been losing ground since then to my current #583:
583 SCAR Highlands Grill Kennesaw, GA 22,525,200

Observations:

Some people are Very Attached to their P+. I wouldn't take them away.

I agree with others comments about people combining accounts or using the cell phones to inflate their total. It cheapens thing for those that are Very Attached to their P+, who don't do that.

If you wanted to give me something that would be OK, but I wouldn't want my points to go away or be reduced. Took a bunch of years to get to this point and I'm kinda used to how it works.