New Scaratings

Live trivia at the site that could be played on laptops? I thought live trivia meant no electronic devices so players couldn’t Google or Bing answers.

Was at Wallisville today and played with the new tablets. They said you will be able to order and pay with the tablet sometime soon.

Last night the manager at our B-Dubs pulled me aside between games. I have mentioned earlier that he has really great and accommodating with us, and to that end he wanted me to know that he received communication from somewhere in the upper echelons of management that there is a dispute between B-Dubs and Buzztime over the repair of boxes. His understanding is that either BT or a third party is now charging B-Dubs to fix boxes that get sent back for repair; and that B-Dubs insists that this is a breach of contract. If they can't get it resolved, he is afraid this means that BWW will be ending its relationship with BT. He had no idea about the timeline on this--"could be months, could be years"--but he said he would keep me in the loop and let us know as soon as he knows something for sure.

Having not seen the email, I can't say for sure whether this is true or not, but I thought people here might want to know.

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

Interesting, we just had a similar conversation.

Our bww has just sent in and quickly received back a bunch of our bad tablets. We were just told it was through a 3rd party contractor and our bww did have to pay for the service. Our GM didn't say how much but it was more than just a nominal fee. In fact saying he will wait till he actually has a lot of broken tablets (10 or more) and has to send them back. So I took that to mean each bww store is on their own in terms of returning tablets to be replaced or not. I'll try to get a cost estimate per tablet. I can see most stores not sending any back as most weren't sending them back when it was free.

We are a franchise store, corporate ones may be different.

8 of the new tablets that just arrived are in fact 4th Gen. the opening screen had the pay option but it didn't work yet. No ordering yet either.

Anon, what your manager said sounds the same as here. Only we've already gone with the 3rd party contractor. Let your manager know it's up to him to fix the tablets. (Unless you are corporate)

Also each bww store is on a separate contract with BT that all end at various times up to 5 years from now. Might be helpful to find out when that is up. I'd say that's when each store may or may not drop depending on their level of players.

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

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

Yeah, that is interesting. I'm wondering if that's the more to the story that the GM wouldn't tell me, regarding the repair cost.

Either way, we can add BWW - Sugarcreek, OH to the list that no longer has BT available. There were about 10 of us (albeit at different times) that played, at minimum, several hours a week that have moved on to other locations. Luckily, I have options but just have to go more than a mile now.

That's too bad about losing another site. When I started playing, I could walk to my BT site. Unfortunately, that's not the situation now as both BT and the site are gone. If it had not been for the convenience, I may not have gotten hooked.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

BT needs to figure out that pay-thru-tablet thing before the entire BWW chain drops 'em. I think that pay thing might be BT's last hope of survival.

I can't see any way BT would last for long if they lost that huge customer.

Finding myself with a rare Sunday afternoon on my own, I opted to play some daytime trivia for the first time in a long time--not just for fun, but to support playership at a location I did not usually frequent. I chose BWW-Medina, which was about a half-hour drive from my house. I had played there a couple of times before, and The Fellowship had actually considered moving there after Stringz and Wingz closed a few years ago. It's one of the nicer modern BWWs, and always had plenty of boxes.

When I walked in, though, there was no trivia on any screen, and the wait staff there said that they thought Buzztime had been removed. They still had a few boxes in a charger by the station, but none of them displayed trivia or connected with BT. I told them (very civilly) that this was disappointing considering the length of my drive there, and that the only reason I ever go to a BWW is to play Buzztime. I walked out and drove even farther to get to BWW-Kent, where the wi-fi was so spotty in the bar area where I was seated that the board I was playing dropped several questions that I should have gotten for 1,000. I guess I probably should have stayed home.

Anyway, I guess we can count the BWW-Medina location as Buzztime-defunct, even though it is still listed on the BT website.

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

Quality of product is important to sustain a business.Recently,I have visited Buffalo Wild Wings in Eagan and Edina Minnesota.The quality of the boards were poor.They kept charge for only short stretches.I was with 5 others at Eagan and their comment was I guess we will not becoming back here anytime soon.I hope buzztime has a plan if BWW decides to leave program.Buzztime trivia should not have to be played on boards in this condition.

A Veterans Home Center in North St Louis County, MO got Buzztime there...Only 5 calls the center home base

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Mitch (MTCHWF/WLFFLY)

Co-Home Bar: Buffalo Wild Wings Edwardsville, IL and Time Out in St Louis, MO

Was visiting another BWW in my area and mentioned to the bartender about the location closer to our house not having the tablets anymore. I was given a little more info but not sure of the validity although I don't think he would have any reason to lie. Apparently all of the BWW in this region will be getting brand new tablets in January 2019 when the contract renews. But until that time, BT won't fix any of the tablets that they currently have and are forcing them to pay a significant sum of money for a 3rd party repair which they are not going to do. Even the location I was at that still has them has very few boards that still hold a charge for longer than a couple hours and they are just hoping that they hold out for the rest of the year. I can't speak for every location that has lost BT but maybe just short-lived for the ones in this area. I will update if I hear more.

I would like to see that original contract. Back when the blue boxes were prevalent, BT was responsible for repairs. The only exception was if there was damage to the box or it went for a swim. Now, it takes about 2 weeks to get the blue boxes back, after repair.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

That is pretty much what we were told at our franchise BWW in Gaithersburg only our store DID pay the ransom for the 3rd party to refurbish or replace the broken 3rd gens. What our store received back was some 3rd Gens and 8 of the new 4th Gens with screens for Credit card pay, that aren't working yet. Maybe those tablets are what all stores will get in 2019.

This probably was a factor with the 30 BWW that dropped BT. That was just corporate Roark Capital cutting costs in corporate stores. Franchise BWW should be on their own to do what they like.

The tablets are much more expensive to fix than the blue boxes. The days of bars not having to pay to fix tablets are about done.
The question is how much longer will BT support the blue boxes at all?

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

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

BT owns the tablets, BWW merely rents them. Seems as though the owner should pay for repairs. But that's too obvious.

Boy do I miss the days when our team actually owned 20 of the 49MHz boxes. We just took them wherever we wanted, found empty high numbered addresses, and went to work.

Went to the Baytown store last week, and one of the bartenders said they were getting the tablets back sometime this month. I check the mobile app today, and Baytown is showing again, it's also showing on the sitefinder on the website.

That's encouraging, at least. Maybe BWW and BT have resolved some of their differences.

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

I see that Harry Buffalo in North Olmsted, Ohio, which deserted Buzztime for a different tablet system about 6 months ago, has returned to the flock. Meanwhile, the BWW in Fairview Park which got rid of their tablets at the same time, is still listed on the BT site. Still hope, I guess.

Dennis

Update: I just played a few Countdown games at Harry Buffalo. It was interesting to see they kept their nice Gen 2 tablets all this time. They did not get new ones. Not sure why BT let them keep the old tablets for 6 months. I Like the Gen 2 tablets anyway. They had a sturdy full width flap that does not fall off like the flimsy tabs on the Gen 3s.

I have posted this on the Showdown thread, but thought it ought to be cross-posted here for those who don't do Showdown:

I had considered waiting to make this announcement until I knew more, but as I know it touches on a topic that concerns many people here, I thought those people would like to know.

On Tuesday, the night manager at BWW-Kent informed one of my teammates that the location will be dropping Buzztime in November of 2019 (presumably when its contract with BT runs out). I was not there for the conversation, but I was told that the manager said BT is charging the location $200 to repair malfunctioning boxes, and that BWW insists that this is in breach of contract, and that they will not be paying anything to repair or replace them. He had alerted me to the possibility as early as last February, but the word apparently had just come down this past week.

While this is another data point for the seemingly tenuous relationship that BT has with BWW, it also means that the peripatetic Fellowship team will be wandering off once again at some point (TBD, but possibly at the start of the new year). We will likely be decamping to The Red Fox Grill in Cuyahoga Falls. For those keeping score at home, this will make the seventh official location at which The Fellowship will have played (RIP Bennigans-Cuyahoga Falls, Damon's-Stow, Damon's-Twinsburg, Damon's-Independence, Stringz & Wingz; and farewell, BWW-Kent).

What I don't know is whether this decision comes from the franchise group level or the corporate level. In the past, the manager at BWW-Kent has been uncertain about how high up this decision was being made. He was pretty sure that it was higher than the individual store level, because he said the management there loves having us.

Just FYI. I'll let you know more if I hear more.

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

Well it looks like this BWW "test" experiment with dropping BT has ended at 6 months in the DC area.

Exactly 6 months to the day of dropping BT at 6 BWW in VA and 1 in MD all in the same franchise, BT was back at all of them.

I don't know what was resolved or if BWW just gave in. Hopefully there was a resolution of the repair fees. Maybe not as high a fee??

This all seems to mirror the BWWs in Texas and elsewhere coming back online in early Oct.

Let's hope this is a trend. Also BT can now claim all these locations as new sign ups, great for the stock price.

Maybe BWW Kent will reconsider when they figure out something has changed for the better?

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

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

Well, the BWW on Tiedeman Rd in Brooklyn, OH (a Cleveland suburb) no longer has BT tablets. They were down to about a half dozen that were still working out of their original 30 tablets. I'm stranded as the leader in Lunch Time and Countdown although there hasn't been much competition there for the past 6 months.

Dennis

The Golden Horde, which aggregates its 1000+ gold medals at BWW-Mall of America, had all but stopped playing there owing to the unreliability of the ageing tablets. They now inform me that BWW-MOA has all new tablets, and so has been restored to grace as one of the several sites that group visits.

Have the other BWW in the area that dropped returned to Buzztime?
They were the 1st to start the "test".

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

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

Your question is well timed, BUD. I did a little digging around in New Scaratings and the Buzztime website just now, and here's what I found.

BWW-Eagan was the first to drop. It was reinstated in October, 2016. As of BUGG's report from June 12, 2018, the tablets wouldn't hold a charge. So whatever generation of tablet which BWW-Eagan received two years ago deserves low marks for durability.

According to HILTER, BWW-Roseville, BWW-Savage, and BWW-Elk River were all dropping Buzztime (March 28, 2018). All three sites have shown Buzztime activity this month (November, 2018, which is only three days along). Elk River was apparently the most recent reinstatement, showing activity only since mid-October.

Additionally, the Golden Horde informed me, and JOHNL the readers of New Scaratings respectively, that Wild Bill's-Apple Valley and Wild Bill's-Woodbury would be exiting Buzztime no later than the end of August (July 14, 2018). Both of those Wild Bill's (there are others) have retained Buzztime into November, but both sites (like BWW-Eagan) are reported to have frail equipment.

Fab Ferns went out of business. Dulono's Pizza in Minneapolis and Turtle's in Shakopee are new recent additions.

I'd say the local scene is generally healthy.

Good to hear all the Minn. BWW have returned.

That seems to be all of the stores mentioned, I guess we can put this thread to rest.....for now.

If anyone talks with a manager at any of these dropped then then reinstated BWW, I would love to know what brought them back?

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

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

From the Q3 Earnings call in Ram's own words:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ntn-buzz ... 00307.html

In spite of the success, we were disappointed to learn that new ownership of Buffalo Wild Wings will not be carrying forward many of their prior management initiatives, including pay-at-the-table technology. We understand management is faced with a number of capital expenses, and they simply do not want to invest in a hardware-driven order and pay solution. However, last year, Buffalo Wild Wings did purchase and prepay for 10,000 of our top-of-the-line payment tablets. They have deployed some, and we expect to deploy the remaining into the stores over the next few quarters. We are contacted and expect to continue entertainment services through the end of 2019 when the corporate master service agreement expires.