New Scaratings

I noticed a new player regularly playing at my 'home' location in TX with a home 'location' of 'Fertilemind Capital' in NY. Why does this raise a flag with me?

'Fertilemind Capital' does not appear to be a 'normal location'

https://www.buzztime.com/site/41834/games

It has no listed 'players' despite 'LUCHO' showing up as a player there who plays regularly outside of that location (in TX or Canada)

https://www.buzztime.com/players/profile/rt/8810594

Fertilemind Capital is a hedge fund that owns 'egames.com'

https://trademark.trademarkia.com/egames-76521976.html

It also has very limited game play since June. In fact, most of the play there was with 'EGAMES' Handle

https://www.buzztime.com/players/profile/rt/22313979

I wonder if this egames.com is 'kicking the tires' and trying to scope out how to integrate BT with their webiste and apps and possible purchase after biotech merger?

Very interesting, and nice detective work.

What is “Buzztime Mini,” the game they played on Sept.1?

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

Buzztime Mini is available at the virtual sites. It’s a five question game that runs every 7 1/2 minutes. Some games are the five answer format like Countdown, some are the four answer format like Late Shift, some are a mix. No national rankings or even a local leaderboard. You get the results at the end of the game. The questions run a little faster than the regular game, so it takes about four minutes, then about three minutes of waiting for the next one. If you’ve done the math, you’ve calculated there are eight of these games every hour.

When they started the virtual sites, all the usual games were available, but it looks like this is now the only game available, except possibly for California. So, this may be the future for Buzztime, if they even still have the game.

As far as Fertilemind Capital, this site was available to players in the NYC area for a couple of weeks, I’m guessing around April or May, but I haven’t seen it since.

This site is what is know as a “Basic site”. No tablets or boxes just a very small Computer box that runs with the app. It can be connected to a tv. These are the sites all over San Diego and a few others elsewhere. There is thread on them.

I wouldn’t call it a virtual site unless it’s only getting Buzztime mini. The basic sites do get Buzztime mini and all games on the app as this one was and hopefully still is.

Good to know someone saw all the bogus scores coming out of Common Interest and is checking out the situation. I hope they weren’t turned off by the worthless game play. They obviously know about spoofing the app as a E gamer would. If they do buy the assets they need to realize it won’t work with only Buzztime mini.

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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!!!!

MegaMillions is worth 108 million tonight. Do you think that's enough for me to buy Buzztime?

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Yes. And with $107.5 Million left over for drinks.

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

Drinks are on me! I'm firing any question writers under the age of 40, I'm bringing back a once a month "Classic Playback" and I will allow locations to charge up to $2 for a board if they wish to offset costs.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Is charging for boards 'not allowed' by BT now? When I first started playing in 1990 in Miami, the location charged $5 for one of the old gray boxes with a 'pop up antenna' which would get checked out where the pool table balls were rented with license kept for collateral like the pool balls and rack. It was a 'one time per visit fee of $5 (unlike the hourly rate of pool table rental).

The kicker was that as long as 3 people were playing each game, a free pitcher of beer was awarded for each local game winner. The $5 investment was worth it as long as you could win one game with profit made after 2 wins. At the time there were often 2 screens of rankings (probably 12 or more players per game?), so I would imagine they offset the cost of a free pitcher each hour to help pay the subscription(at the time it would take an hour to play a countdown-style game and compile scores on an ancient MS-DOS PC nationally over a dial-in modem).

It is the only place I ever saw charging for boards in 30 years of playing all over the country and was always curious if they were just creatively breaking the rules and charging for boards is technically not allowed?

The first place we played at years ago charged 2 bucks for those same boards. It was a billiards place. All of the ads I've seen at places during the "commercials" between sets of questions talked about the game being free. So my guess was that places were told not to charge.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

I played at a ton of locations that charged although many of those were for QB1 on Monday night when 20k played.

One charging location was a bit miffed when I showed up with my own box!

Yeah. I wasn't counting the several MNF locations that I've seen 'charge' since that seemed to be more of an obvious illegal gambling contest with cash paid out to winners. I remember playing at one place in NC in the 90's that charged $25 for MNF QB1 per board with all 30 boards in use and cash paid out to weekly winners. On top of that, they had a poster board on the wall tracking weekly winners with the season winner getting a trip to Vegas for the Super Bowl. It was like a paid fantasy football league before anyone knew what fantasy football was. Packed house every MNF game with every bookie in town on site to take any additional action.

Don't meant to 'toot my own horn', but egames.com it is:

CARLSBAD, Calif., Sept. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NTN Buzztime, Inc. (NYSE American: NTN) signed a definitive asset purchase agreement to sell its social entertainment, customer engagement, and advertising technology assets to eGames.com Holdings LLC (eGames.com) for $2.0 million in cash. The proposed transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020 subject to the satisfaction or waiver of closing conditions in the purchase agreement.

eGames.com is a game publishing business. Founder Aram Fuchs said, "Close to 30 years ago, I saw Buzztime for the first time. As a hedge fund analyst and gaming aficionado, I was excited by Buzztime's prospects. Since, Buzztime has built a formidable, loyal player network with its engaging entertainment offerings, including trivia, sports, card and arcade games. I am ecstatic to join the team now and intend to leverage the talents of eGames.com's network of independent game developers to help realize Buzztime's full potential. Further, we expect to generate synergies to grow Buzztime's out-of-home advertising network organically and with eGames.com's assets."

"For over 35 years, Buzztime has amassed a loyal player and customer base and more recently expanded its offering with effective out-of-home advertising," said Allen Wolff, CEO of NTN Buzztime. "We believe that this asset sale will generate benefits for various stakeholders. By selling our game network, we will preserve our compelling in-venue experience that engages patrons for Buzztime customer venues. The cash purchase price we will receive will strengthen our balance sheet and improve our stockholders' position with respect to the previously announced proposed reverse merger with Brooklyn Immunotherapeutics LLC."

Transaction Details
In consideration for the purchase of the assets, at the closing of the proposed transaction, eGames.com will pay $2.0 million in cash to Buzztime and will assume certain of Buzztime's other liabilities necessary to operate the business. On the date the parties entered into the asset purchase agreement, an affiliate of eGames.com loaned $1,000,000 to Buzztime, which will be applied toward the purchase price at the closing of the asset sale.

The closing of the asset sale is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain customary closing conditions, including Buzztime obtaining, as required by Delaware law, stockholder approval of the asset sale. As Buzztime previously announced, on August 12, 2020, Buzztime signed an agreement and plan of merger and reorganization with Brooklyn Immunotherapeutics LLC (Brooklyn) regarding a proposed reverse merger transaction (merger). At that time, Buzztime also announced that it was continuing to explore the sale of substantially all of the assets relating to its current business to provide additional capital and allow the company following the closing of the merger, if it closes, to be in a position to focus exclusively on Brooklyn's business. The proposed asset sale transaction with eGames.com is the result of that process.

Upon completion of the proposed asset sale, Buzztime's Chief Executive Officer Allen Wolff will be appointed as Chief Executive Officer of eGames.com.

A more complete description of the terms of and conditions of the proposed asset sale transaction will be included in a current report on Form 8-K to be filed by Buzztime with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on or about September 21, 2020. A copy of the asset purchase agreement will be an exhibit to that Form 8-K. All parties desiring details regarding the terms and conditions of the proposed asset sale transaction are urged to review that Form 8-K, and the exhibits attached thereto, which will be available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

At best it's not Ram, but is this a good thing?

Wow, I didn’t think a buyer would take the whole system.
This is great news. Yes, Allen is good news for the reformed Egames company, I have spoken with him in the past and he is dedicated to buzztime. He does listen and should be able to pull off the transformation over to Egames.

Thanks so much to Egames and Arum Fuchs.
We are alive again!

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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!!!!

Great pre-call, BEJOE!

To be honest, I was entirely prepared for BT trivia to die by Q4 of 2020. It certainly seemed like it would be an supremely fitting end to a dreadful year. I know that this is hardly a done deal and a lot could still go wrong, but I am getting a really strange, unfamiliar feeling right now.

Could this be what I have heard some people call "hope"?

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

Promising indeed.

This is great news!

However, once bars are reopened post-COVID, I’m sure the two-mile limitation on the app will rear its ugly head.

For me, that’ll mean playing just once a week at Cameron’s, a 60-mile drive away. There are two places closer (but not much), but one is a bar only (no food menu) and the other has no Tuesday team (or any other day, that I know of).

Unless... the new staff can find a way to get a few sites on board around here.

The SF Bay Area has less than half a dozen BT sites in an area of some 8-9 million people.

Hopefully, the new guys have some good ideas.

Danny K's is attempting to contact BT to remove the restrictions for its regular players that aren't ready to go out. As of yesterday, BT hasn't called back.

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

I sent them a letter (they still owe me $100 from Smartest Bar last year and I figured I'd give it one last try) and it came back Return to Sender. Bud apparently was able to get in touch with them last week after last Tuesday's tech problems. Maybe he can give you some guidance.

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Merkin

The only way to get the 20 mile radius put back on a bar is by emailing BT at email@buzztime.com The email request must come from the business email that BT has on file for the bar. Personal emails are not accepted for the purpose of changing the radius.

The HQ and all its Physical addresses and phn numbers are no good. They have been abandoned. Everyone is working from home. The published BT number just goes to an answering service that I don’t think knows where to properly send any messages.

That email above works.

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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!!!!

This is promising!

_________________
Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

If I could make a suggestion to the new owners, it would be to reach out to former locations (including chains) and let them know of the new ownership. Offer them a lower price to come back, especially the independent locations.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.