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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 7:50 pm 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
Posts: 710
Or perhaps more appropriately, what have we learned over the past 25 years?

There are players who want to play alone, and get angry when they don't win. There are players who aren't very good, but don't care whether they win or lose, they're just interested in the challenge. There are players open to collaboration, but don't have anyone to collaborate with. There are sites where collaboration is discouraged. There are sites like my home bar, B-52, where the Tuesday night players google answers, and where all of the abovegoing descriptions are equally true.

B-52 is housed in what was originally a Damon's. It's a large place. But I can almost invariably find the players I've never met before (and certainly the players I have met) either to congratulate them for their fine play, or to thank them for stimulating my own performance. My opponents might be a troop of boy scouts. They receive my gratitude.

I'm very fortunate to live in a Buzztime-rich environment, but I don't take it for granted. Buzztime's customers are the bars who supply us with this entertainment, but it's up to the players, the end users, to sustain our population, by encouraging each other, by playing along side weaker players, for whom a single good guess might result in local victory; in sum, for building a community.

In the event we all die out, we high end sophisticates, and leave MR GREY alone on this bulletin board, he may find it difficult to persuade his local vendor to keep Buzztime. That would be a shame, but it need not happen if the very good and experienced players reach out to compliment, socialize with, and include newcomers and less informed players.

A bunch of the stuff I post on this bulletin board is stand-alone, but I am requesting input on this thread. I'm curious why SPOTES, who formerly played 500 Countdowns in 6 months, very seldom plays. ANON has done his bit, documenting by anecdote how he created a Showdown powerhouse. I'm pleased to report that I have two groups of 5-10 players, more or less built from scratch. Yeah, I won Showdown a month ago, big deal. The previous time I won it (2014), there were only 3 of us at the table. Nowadays we run out of playmakers, and three of us play on our Apps. NCYCLO held form for a 60 in Showdown this past week, playing on a smartphone which struggles for speed.

Both stories and opinions are welcome here. I just don't want to leave MR GREY alone, at the end of the day, when the conversation at Mad Jack's, this Monday afternoon, was so witty, so well informed, and so fun.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 9:09 am 
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King or Queen Postsalot
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I had been hesitant to respond at first because I pretty much only play on Tuesdays, and I could not speak to the larger question you posed about changes (or lack thereof) over the past two years. I used to play a lot more 15 years ago, but my dramatic drop in play has everything to do with my getting married and having a child at home and nothing to do with Buzztime or the general playing community.

If you are asking about the last 25 years or so, though, I think I can offer a few observations. The most concerning to me is the dramatic drop in playership. Showdown, for example, used to draw more than 10,000 players routinely about ten years ago, and now it rarely cracks 4,000. The same is true to a greater or lesser extent for all of the premium games.

There are many things that have contributed to the changes in overall playership over the past couple of decades. In a classic case of unintended consequences, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake effectively killed QB1, which used to be one of the anchor games of the network. The rise of live bar trivia with real prizes and other competing trivia platforms no doubt has peeled some people away, as has the death of franchises like Bennigan's and Damon's which used to have the game as a matter of course and gave it greater exposure as a result. Other chains, like TGIFridays, used to have the game in many of its locations, but no longer do. Were it not for BWW, I think BT would cease to exist entirely.

But if there has been one thing that I think has negatively affected Buzztime playership more than anything else, I think it must be mismanagement at the highest levels of Buzztime, especially from about 2008-2013. For years, they seemed to actively spurn their core base of dedicated players in various disastrous changes, many of which were part of a Quixotic quest for younger players. They created new games aimed at that younger players that their core demographic disliked. They changed Countdown into a 15 minute game. They upped the pop-culture content in Countdown. They foisted the network split on their subscribers. For a while, they even dumbed-down Showdown for a couple of months in 2008. If you were on the old Buzztime forum at the time, you would have seen the widespread revolt among the most dedicated players, who kept telling Buzztime why their strategies would not work and what the ultimate results of these strategies would be. Buzztime ignored this feedback to their detriment. In part because the blowback became so great that it was embarrassing to the company (but probably mostly because declining revenues from their disastrous decisions forced cost-cutting), they got rid of the BT forum entirely. For all of its problems (and it had many), the BT forum had acted to foster a continent-wide sense of player community that has never returned.

(Here I would like to pause and make it clear that I am criticizing BT upper management, and not the Buzzies that used to interact with the player community regularly--Wheelie, TomD, and the rest. I honestly believe that most of them tried to pass these concerns on to upper management to no avail).

At every turn, long-time players threatened and then followed through with their threats to wash their hands of BT entirely. This almost happened to our team. When BT dumbed-down Showdown in 2008, the game was no longer as challenging or fun for us, and we generally agreed if it continued in this way we would stop playing. Buzztime never picked up the younger demographic, and lost a good chunk of the playership that had been its core demographic.

So to the original question: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others? If this is a "problem," then it is one that has existed since the beginning of the game, and can't be blamed for the recent slide. Whatever discouragement such better players may engender is small potatoes compared to the ill-advised decisions of BT itself.

IMO, of course. :)

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"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:33 pm 
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Lord of Scaratings
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I agree with what Anon says pretty much across the board.

The different management teams have missed opportunities; those of us who really care anguish over the just dumb things that have been done.

It's certainly not good players bringing BT down. Their numbers are dropping as well.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:35 am 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
Posts: 710
SCAR and ANON have done plenty to foster the Buzztime community, and I thank them for that, as well as for their responses on this thread. Let me shift this again.

What's the difference between the Passenger Pigeon and the Buzztime Player? In a word, Flight. Any one of us (T. Ignoramus) can hop on an airplane on a whim, while the Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes Migratorius) has abandoned flight altogether.

I've only been reading the Buzztime players' portal for a very few years, but as recently as two years years ago, there were more than 500,000 accounts which had logged into Countdown for at least one game, sometime in the previous six months. That figure has dropped by nearly half, and now sits at 292K. At what point does our species collapse, and go the way of E. Migratorius?

Local populations, on anecdotal evidence, seem to foster our species. I play once weekly at two sites which register only 20M points in the six month spectrum by which Buzztime stacks its statistics. I suspect that neither of these sites is making money off the quiz. But once a week a large party (7-11) drops in and unobtrusively but quite obviously has more fun than all the other patrons in the place combined. Managers observe this. It counts.

Bartenders go out of their way to make us happy. My old friend, Chris Craig, who might still be sifting Latin and Greek at UT in Knoxville, once saw an entry in a hotelier's guide to the hosting of conventions, where Classicists received a 5 star rating: "Heavy drinkers, little breakage." Down here in Mouse Hollow, we tend to tip 20% for every glass poured (including soda refills) and toss in an extra buck for every hour we rent our barstools. This seems sufficient to keep the attention of our bartender. Management doesn't need to make a ton of money off you if the employee you're doing business with is happy to see you.

Live trivia with prizes bores the hell out me. For starters, it really is trivia. Buzztime isn't trivia, per se. At its best, it's a general knowledge quiz, stuffed with facts that might help you form a coherent Weltanshauung, or at least keep you in the conversation. Plus, the time allotted for answering live trivia really does foster the illusion that sneaking a peak at your smartphone doesn't actually count as cheating.

There are any number of things I wish to add, but I fear I'm beginning to ramble.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:04 pm 
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Posts: 264
This is making me note that Clint Worley (nor anyone else from Buzztime?) has not interacted with us here in 9 months now. I would hardly know where to start my list of disappointments, but that would be one.
There was a point recently where Buzztime's Happenings page was literally blank, as in literally nothing happening.
I'm about to (again) become one of your Countdown non-players as my 180 day history will fall completely off the table this month, being that long since Smartest Bar and boy what an inferior version of that concept that was. I'll stop with those three.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:10 pm 
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Buzztime needs to be taken for what it is.It is not jeopardy.The answer is right in front of you.The non premium games are loaded with repeat questions.That being said the premium games delineate the real trivia players.Those that play by themselves stand out more.These are the real elite players.Do the great players and teams ruin buzztime.At large no.Overall most people have pride and fear so they do not want to be seen in a negative way.I have seen restaurants bend over backwards to get people to play .You cannot force people to play.Certain markets are better than others.There simply is not a market in many places.


Last edited by Bugg on Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:22 pm 
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Buzztime did eliminate alot of popular games.I remember many Friday nights people wanted to play a 15 question TV trivia game.There was abused news,trivioki,and many sports games eliminated.In business you develop brand loyalty.People continually buy or do business with the same product or company.So when it's gone you lose customers.The non premium games are the true seperators of talent if played fairly since there are few repeat questions.Some of the lunch questions besides being repeats are ridiculously easy.So now to answer the question the better players overall is not a big factor in others not playing.It would be more that they fear they would appear not up to standards if they played by themselves or competitively.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 10:42 pm 
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Lord or Lady Postsalot

Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:27 am
Posts: 630
I agree with most of what has been said. Another issue is cost. I think for the actual value of the service, BT is overpriced. Much of the problem relates to their failed chasing of twentysomethings.

The only cost-cutting measure immediately obvious to me would be to eliminate the sports trivia game being offered as an option on the poker feed. Almost no one plays it, so the money is wasted. They could increase sports content in general trivia games, and add a couple of well-designed sports premium games to replace their insipid Monday offerings and anchor Sunday night.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:48 am 
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Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:42 pm
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Really when you think about it alot of it is insipid.Games with repeat questions over and over is quite insipid.They do need a premium game on Sunday nights.The problem with the sports questions on countdown and lunch are they are often too easy.Use the type of challenging questions that the sports trivia game offer in the lunch and countdown games.There are very good reasons few play sports trivia channel.First it is only available in a few states. Second ,in those states it is often not on one of the TV screens.Third,like most people they want to do well at a game.Most know few of the answers.How many people will play a game that reflects poorly on their knowledge.The games themselves are very challenging something buzztime should do to their non premium games on channel A.It is kind of ironic.We are a sports crazed nation yet few of these sports crazed people will play sports trivia.When they do play they are often humbled.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 10:33 am 
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Lord of Scaratings
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whales wrote:
This is making me note that Clint Worley (nor anyone else from Buzztime?) has not interacted with us here in 9 months now. I would hardly know where to start my list of disappointments, but that would be one.
There was a point recently where Buzztime's Happenings page was literally blank, as in literally nothing happening.
I'm about to (again) become one of your Countdown non-players as my 180 day history will fall completely off the table this month, being that long since Smartest Bar and boy what an inferior version of that concept that was. I'll stop with those three.


I'm not too different from you. I show 52 games played in the last 6 months.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 8:25 pm 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
Posts: 710
LILJOL's original question, "Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??" seems to have morphed into the question, "What could Buzztime do better?"

Sure, it's easy to bitch up Buzztime, a by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation which has somehow managed to survive 30 years. That has nothing to do with why I restarted this thread. The answer to LILJOL's question is "Yes."

The question then becomes, "What can 'we' do about that?" And who are 'we'? Everyone who has read this thread has, at one time or another, discouraged another player from pursuing Buzztime. Perhaps the discouragement was inadvertent. Being a superior player, you didn't feel the ill effect yourself. If you wish to complain about Buzztime's presentations, there are multiple threads on NewScaratings which would accommodate you more comfortably than this one. If you'd like to make a confession, this would be the place to do it.

In fact, this would be precisely the place to confess how your superior play discouraged someone less informed. Out of native modesty, I'll let someone else go first.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 11:39 pm 
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:57 pm
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Using my milestone 200th post to register complete disagreement with that premise. My answer to the original question is no. Only Buzztime can ruin Buzztime, and that is how the thread morphed. Can LeBron James ruin basketball or Serena Williams ruin women's tennis? No, but potentially the NBA could ruin basketball or the WTA could ruin women's tennis.

There used to be enough of a variety of site venues to accommodate all the styles of play - organized cutthroat, de facto cutthroat, informal teamups, couples, lone wolves & kingpins and so forth up to the competition organized teams. I used to be able to circulate among examples of all of them. Just like the variety of venues where basketball or tennis could be watched or played. Chances were, the first time someone played or saw Buzztime (NTN as known in better days), it would not have been at a venue where they were soundly trounced or humbled. This might even still be true in this era where most (I dare say) venues have zero players in most time slots.

If someone were to stop playing a game because they encountered equal to better opposition, that would be at their own decision and it would be illegitimate to place that blood on the hands of that opposition (unless, perhaps, that opposition were truly cheating or abusive in some way). I suppose I have my own example, that I have not attended TCONA in Las Vegas the last couple years, once I started somewhat falling into the lower half of the standings. But that is entirely on me. I would still enjoy the concept of trivia and games of knowledge at other venues, admittedly selfishly that they would be venues where I would place better. You settle into what you enjoy. As to Buzztime, there could have been a venue for everybody, just from sheer numbers of venues. But the numbers and variety are gone. That's on the commissionership.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Fri Mar 17, 2017 12:06 am 
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King or Queen Postsalot
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GONE D wrote:
I'm curious why SPOTES, who formerly played 500 Countdowns in 6 months, very seldom plays.


This time it's work related stuff.
But I have previously taken sabbaticals for years at a time simply on a whim because trivia, prepare to be shocked, just isn't something that I always feel the need to do.
I've never really considered it a requirement in my life or even a serious hobby.
Simply put, it's always just been something that I'm really good at doing. So I do it.
Honestly, the thing I miss most when I'm away from playing trivia is hanging out with my buddies at the bar. The trivia is practically a macGuffin.

The real question should be why was I reduced to playing only LT and CD on Saturday afternoons.
The lack of Showdown players in the Indy area got me away from Tuesday nights. The guys at my bar don't do premium games in general anymore, certainly not SD. I suppose I could still go solo. But the thought of playing a night of trivia alone has a certain tragic Shakespearean quality to it. And I'm not just referring to my resultant scores...

While I cannot blame BT for that, a few other of their decisions definitely pushed me out:

the eradication of not one but two real premium sports games. There goes trivia on Sunday and Monday.

the change in structure of Six, along with it's inexcusable editing and content errors that were so prevalent that they drove me away from playing a game that was in my wheelhouse. There goes trivia on Wednesday or Thursday.

I've only ever played Friday or Saturday premium trivia on special occasions; bashes and the like.

Thus, I am left playing only Saturday afternoon CD with the boys.
I'll happily plug along one day a week, but I'd wager my pub would prefer my previous habit of four or five days/nights a week.
They can thank BT for that.

As to your general question about driving out lesser players:

I have two jobs at trivia: try to be agreeably sociable; come up with correct answers.
I've found that most folks join in because of the former and come back because of the latter.
Even if I fail miserably at the former, more often than not they will still come back because of the latter.
I have zero problems with folks that go it on their own at the pub. Have fun doing your thing.
I've been cordial at every instance.
But any person who would allow me to dictate their level of enjoyment based simply on my success at something as
pointless as trivia, has issues beyond my ability to salve with word or deed.
People will play or not play by their own motivations.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Fri Mar 17, 2017 6:39 am 
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It's like when they ask an athlete a question often they get off the subject.That does not really bother me if they actually answer the question.Usually when a subject is brought up other ideas also enter one's mind.So a couple thoughts.Let's be thankful for what we have.Most nations don't have this.It is no longer in Europe.Also remember trivial pursuit.When it first came out it was the social thing to do.Well that fad faded away. Buzztime is still here.
Another factor to think about is the time commitment to play the game.How many people really want to set time aside for this.And if you're a true competitor what about the time required outside the venue to maintain your excellence.
Overall the fear of failure or even the fear of stepping out of one's comfort zone contributes more to lack of participation than the better players excelling.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:39 pm 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
Posts: 710
Thanks, SPOTES. That was illuminating.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:24 am 
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Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2015 3:58 pm
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Location: Dayton, OH
I am a newer player than a lot, especially on here...really only been playing on a weekly (for the most part) basis for the last 2-3 years.

I played a little before that but never really knew there were serious players or places where people shared answers as I just never went to a bar that had both Buzztime and a regular group of players.

For me personally, I know I don't know as much as others that play but I know I can compete well too. I was never really scared off playing with better players. Personally, I enjoy the challenge if I am somewhere that everyone competes individually.

Generally speaking, I go to 2 places. At one, I go there to challenge myself and try to get a Top 10 board score or win against the few others that might happen to be there. At the other, I go to play as a group, contribute where I can and be more social. It depends on my mood and how much time I have.

Buzztime is declining in numbers for several reason IMO...Just from what I've seen, obviously, a lot of the main core players are older and they really haven't added enough younger players to account for the players that don't or can't get out anymore for whatever reason. Price has likely driven many smaller bars that don't get ample players to do away with the game. And exposure, as has been discussed in other places, has dwindled. I've noticed that trivia is one of the first TVs that gets turned off if someone requests something else be put on TV. We had a group of 8 playing Friday and at 2pm, one person complained and they turned the 1 TV that was on trivia to a basketball game that was on at least 4 other TVS. That place watched all 8 of us cash out and take our business elsewhere.

I'll keep playing once or twice a week as long as it's around but I also play live trivia and devote some of my time to other interests as well.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Sat Mar 25, 2017 6:50 pm 
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King or Queen Postsalot
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Location: Illinois side of the St Louis Metro Area
I've slowed due to work, lack of suitable places to play close to me, live trivia and karaoke ... pretty soon it will include a bonding relationship with someone I love dearly in my heart

If B-Dubs is the big s***, why most didn't upgrade the tablets to the latest version.... c'mon.... i am disappointed with them ...plus there's places that should drop Buzztime if they don't have a steady amount of players..... til things change on getting fresher venues, I won't be able to play Buzztime til then

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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:58 pm 
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Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:33 am
Posts: 710
MitchWolf wrote:
... pretty soon it will include a bonding relationship with someone I love dearly in my heart...


Best of luck to the both of you, MITCHWOLF. Based on your posts, you're a big-hearted guy, and if she is your match, you're in for a long and prosperous relationship.


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 Post subject: Re: Are better players ruining Buzztime for others??
PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2017 10:30 am 
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We have a friend we used to play with on a very regular basis. We'd play Playback. When it got to the last question, if she wasn't in first or second place, she would always wager 10%. It usually screwed up the bar score.

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