New Scaratings

What troubles me most about BT's mucking with the network is that BT is still not seeing the central problem. It doesn't matter what game is playing, or in which time slot, if no one sees it because the location hasn't turned the system on. If BT wants to grow its player count, it needs to get the locations involved in engaging people in playing the games. This means having the games visible on at least (but preferably more) screens, the boxes easily accessible, and the wait staff educated in how to give a customer everything necessary to start playing, including not only the box itself but instructions on signing in, etc. And it means keeping the biggest draw of the game: playing against everyone at once.

Instead what do we see again and again? Locations that show up in the site finder as having the system, but when we go there, the system isn't even turned on. Or the system is turned on, but wait staff look blank when we ask for a trivia box. Or when the system actually is on, and we hear people answering the questions out loud, but no one from the wait staff offers a box.

Although it might be easier to get particular customers playing particular games with subject matter they enjoy, any game can be used to engage new players--I got hooked on Countdown long before I even knew Showdown existed. In fact, the one-format games like CD are probably a lot more new-player friendly than the premium games where each round is different. But the location has to show some initiative. I'm quite sure BT keeps selling its product as a turnkey system--"just have it, and the players will come to you"--when instead it takes commitment to educating staff, encouraging people to play, and maintaining the boxes.

I was lucky: 16 years ago when Catbirds got the system, it had been the one to contact NTN about it as owner Barbara (CAT) had played it at another Houston location. And she had a lot of good ideas about encouraging people to play, starting with the basic one of having the game always on right above the bar, handing people boxes and explaining what to do, offering promotions (free drinks for getting the location into the rankings), telling people about new games (I only started coming in on Wednesdays because she knew I loved playing Trivial Pursuit, and she made a point of telling me when the NTN version debuted), and encouraging us to put together a Showdown team. If every location were doing even some of that, there would be a lot fewer locations cancelling the system after a few months because the boxes are just sitting in the charger.

So, have you seen a location encouraging new people to play? What did it do? What works and what doesn't? As a player, with insight into the player's psyche, what are the hooks a location can use to get someone not just to play the first game, but keep coming back?

Brooke/AARDVK/KRIEM/LGLPRO

^I totally agree with that.

Where I live, we only have one buzztime location in about a 50 mile radius (give or take a few miles).

When the owner first got buzztime, for the first six months, he had the game on 1 out of every 3 tv screens.

In addition (even more importantly), he took every single playmaker out of the bins and scattered them in front of bar stools and put one on just about every table in the bar.

This strategy didn't last long long term once he realized it drained the battery on the playmakers.

But it certainly made everyone aware who frequents the place that they have buzztime. And it was quite common for this place to have 5-10 players playing at all times for those first six months after they got buzztime.

If the game is front & center for people to play, they will play it.

+2. Very good posts, both of them, and I agree with both of your great comments. Absolutely, the staff need to know how to bring the system to players, etc.

I would make another observation: the current hardware is intimidating to new players. It's hard to login, it's hard to know which game to pick, and it can be difficult to select answers, much less know you can change your answer. If BT is really redesigning hardware, I think it will go a long way to make a much-more newbie friendly interface. I'd also use all the new generation wireless networking chips to get a playmaker than can last a few weeks on a charge (not unlike e-readers). That way, you could leave playmakers out and on the tables. That single step would dramatically increase participation, no question. Single biggest step to grow the player base. Playmakers pre-positionned at tables at the locations.

New players are essential for the future of BT. We should be helping with ideas like this, and hopefully, the staff at BT take some notice. But I'd start with BT reps training location and their staff just like the OP said. Thanks again.

How about 2 levels of screen defaults, one between games and one current.

What if the default for a Playmaker simply said, "Select Answer Number Now" during the game so anyone seeing it for the first time would know what to do.

Could record it as BOX10 or whatever initially, then say at the first break "Wanna Log in or put in a name ?"

Once the player logs off or times out, it could revert to the current screen between games and during breaks.

That way you could leave a few playmakers laying around and increase play.

I bet a big turn-off for new players potentially interested in playing is an empty leaderboard. Even if boxes are scattered and the game is on every third TV, if nobody is playing, it is unlikely for a new person to log in and be excited to play. So, as a suggestion for something individual bars can do as opposed to something Buzztime can do, would be to have employees logged in on a couple of boards answering questions. If it is too busy to do that, hopefully people will be playing Buzztime anyway.

The home site, BWW Bridgeport, WV, is initiating a Thursday SIX giveaway to try and get more folks out on a usually slow night. They are going to giveaway gift cards that can be used for the total bill.

One of the manager's had been talking to me about some type of promotion and explained how the BWW in Winchester ran their promotion: same night prizes, only can win once every three months, team play encouraged.

The manager contacted our LOCAL BT rep (who happens to be in CALIFORNIA!) about setting something up. When I talked to him the other day, he told me that BT was sending some posters and swag to help with promoting the contests.

When you go to the B-port BWW page from the BT website, there is a screen promoting the SIX contest now.

I hope getting people who play during the run of the contest equates to getting more players other days of the week. Perhaps the incentive to WIN something will get them over the fears/hassles of logging on the Playmaker.
I told the manager I would help to set up accounts the first week and wait to win the gift certificate until the second or third week...EGADS!!!

I will not try to get new players to play. In fact, I am actively discouraging it. One of the inevitable consequences of the East/West split will be the slow but inexorable death of trivia here in the West, as players drop out and sites drop NTN due to the repeat premium games. It's kinder, imo, not to put newbies through this.

TFM

I went through a period post-split announcement when I felt the same, but as with many bad decisions that BT has made over the years, this one still could be reversed in time for the system to be saved. Unfortunately I don't think that's likely to happen until BT sees for itself that splitting the network and putting premium games on later in the West does not translate into an upsurge in new players sufficient even to offset the current players/locations they lose, much less to help them grow their player base. In BT's mind, the one thing they've never tried is putting the premiums on during "prime time" bar hours in the West, so they're hellbent to do it, and they don't understand that strategy can't possibly succeed unless it were combined with the locations doing the types of things being discussed in this thread to get more people playing. In fact, I would expect the average location "outreach" to potential players to be even less under this scenario than it is when a location gets the system for the first time as long-time locations won't even pay attention to the fact that the premium games are later (how can they?--the vast majority couldn't distinguish Showdown from Spotlight, much less tell what day or time a particular game appears).

So at some point BT's grand experiment will fail. And I think we've got a pretty good idea when that's going to happen. Here's how I see it going: BT ups attempts to communicate with its locations and current players about the upcoming split. BT receives more negative feedback, which it ignores because no one complaining represents the group of folks not currently playing in the West who will leaping onboard as soon as the split exists. Then February 28th rolls around, and suddenly all the players who didn't hear about the split show up at their regular time for Showdown or Spotlight or whatever only to discover the game is already in progress or already over. More negative feedback from players and from locations wanting to know why they're customers aren't coming in to play anymore. This goes on for a few weeks while BT watches for this huge upturn in West zone play they think they're going to get. Finally BT realizes it's engaged in a "waiting for Godot" exercise, reverses this decision (as they have so many before), and maybe this time starts listening to all of us who could help them realize their objective of growing their player base. It might not be for a few months, but eventually the numbers will show the experiment failed.

I'm going to continue to play because I'm betting that when that point is reached, the system will still be salvageable. But this will be true only if people like us who want it to survive start at that point to help it do so, with the most basic being helping locations get new people playing and coming back. I started this thread because I'm gathering ideas for a couple of projects that could eventually have a beneficial impact system-wide. One is a handbook for locations to let them know how to grow a player base. Whatever BT is telling locations now when the system is installed, it can't include that extremely critical information because BT itself doesn't understand what gets a person playing and keeps that person coming back (otherwise it would recognize how critical system-wide rankings are). The second project is to show BT how to use its current players to grow player bases at both established (but underperforming) locations and new ones, using as examples a location I've picked in Houston that's had the system for months but very little play, and what is now a potential location that I hope to persuade to get the system. But I am holding off some on at least the second project for the split network experiment to fail as it will be much easier to get new players when the "playing against everyone in North America" element of the system is reinstated.

Brooke/AARDVK

Here on the left coast, most of the top players will not be participating in the premium games. Some of them have said that they will play the other games. Nobody wishes to see BT fail, but are tired of being given the proverbial finger by BT management.

As one player texted me that it may be that BT is willing to write off the west coast and concentrate on the rest of the country.

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

Actually the problem is just the obvious: BT is looking at the West Coast as previously untapped resource for new premium game players. The vast majority of current premium game players are in the East/Central time zones, which BT attributes to our getting the premium games at more favorable times. Apparently BT believes that for every current West Coast Showdown player it loses because of the combination of network split and time shift, it will gain two or more people who want to play later in the evening and will be bowled over by Showdown (as opposed to the Countdown/BT Trivia mix currently offered). What BT is willing to do is risk alienating its current serious players (whether from the West, East, or in between) based on its speculation that there's a whole population of casual players who will jump on board once the system stops catering to the serious players and/or East/Central time zones.

But as we keep telling BT, this won't work. Alienating your current player and location bases just on the wild hope that you might be able to replace them with something bigger makes no business sense. Thinking that putting the premium games on the screens at time when the location has higher traffic will translate into new people signing up for Players' Plus ignores the fact potential new players need help in getting a box and logging in--help the wait staff might be even less capable of providing during high-traffic times than otherwise. (Of course people already playing could provide that assistance, but BT's whole scenario is premised on the idea those people don't currently exist.) And splitting the network compromises the essence of the the premium and all other games: playing everyone else at once across the continent. This automatically will make the product harder to sell.

What a pity BT doesn't test its assumptions in a less drastic way than playing upset-the-apple-cart with its whole current player/location infrastructure. We know it has the ability to direct particular games at particular locations because chains have games unique to them. Find a few locations on the West Coast that have a low (or better yet, nonexistent) player count at 7 p.m. Pacific time and give them Showdown them. (An new SD would be best, but one could construct what would seem like a new game by mixing questions from games from years ago). Do the same with any other premium game BT thinks is a player magnet. Keep this up for as many weeks as BT believes necessary for the game(s) to catch on. Then look at your player count again. Unless there's been a SIGNIFICANT increase, realize that moving premium games has never been the answer, and that you'd do better to retain your current players and enlist them in growing your player base based on national competition and rankings.

Brooke/AARDVK

You make good points and I basically agree that you have a great plan for how BT should address their product and how it should be presented. Unfortunately they're not listening to you or anyone else that probably knows their product better than their management does. I hope for the best.

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

This makes a lot a sense. I've seen it a few times. I'll go to the bar at my local BWW and start playing. Often being the only player. Once I would start playing another guy at the bar will all of a sudden show interest and pick up a Playmaker. I wonder if they could come up with some 'bot players like they do for poker. Although I sure would hate to lose to one of them.

Another idea I've been kicking around is an organized effort to use current players to get new players; in other words, take the informal practice that goes on when current players bring new players in, but create a system where the players who participate get recognition and perhaps some reward for their efforts. I was calling them "player deputies" for a while, but perhaps that has unfortunate connotations, so let's call them "designated players," or DPs. A designated player would be someone who could demonstrate through sheer longevity at playing BT or intensity of play over a shorter period of time that the person knows the system and has the interest and enthusiasm to be of help in growing the player base. A DP would select a location (preferably an underperforming or new one, but that choice wouldn't be restricted). The DP then tells BT that he/she is willing to spend X amount of time (either measured in duration, such as a month, or in time actually spent, such as hours or number of games) playing at the location for the direct purpose of getting more people signed up and playing and the indirect purpose of showing the location how growing a player base is done (as well as solving problems with the system as they may arise). At the end of that time, BT looks at whether the player count and the number of games played has increased, and if so, gives appropriate credit/reward to the DP. There could be competitions among DPs as to player count/player hours, DP challenges between or among their locations, a "DP of the Month," all sorts of things at the national level. At the local level, the DP could be recognized with a short bio appearing in one of the slots the location controls that gives info on what games and/or days the DP usually will be there fore so that folks would know when they'd be sure to have someone to play with.

Brooke/AARDVK

The other side is a lot of people quit playing or don't play when you have one or two dominate players at a site that win all the games. It's a difficult balance.

all they need to capitalize on wrong guesses on the veteran player just to boost confidence as well as learn to change answers when the first guess is wrong.

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Mitch (MTCHWF/WLFFLY)

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

While playing at Damon's back in 1998 I was having one of my patented hot streaks. A lady at another table called over a waitress and asked her if she and her husband had been playing against the computer for the last hour.
sniff... I've never been more proud...

All of the Damon's in town had what they called SPDs (sports programming directors) who controlled the big screens for sports and also ran the NTN system. Eventually, by about 1996, they were eliminated. I know bars/restaurants want to control costs, but that was a tremendous help for newbies.
This wouldn't work everywhere but, along the lines of your train of thought, eventually Damon's used me as an incentive for increased play by offering a $10 gift certificate to anyone who could beat me in a CD game during the afternoon. I remember seeing leaderboards at that bar some afternoons that had all twenty PMs in use. I'm pretty sure Damon's made a lot more in those afternoons than they would otherwise because those folks usually stayed longer to try to get a GC.
Rewards are the best incentive to get people involved in something. Especially if it's something that may result in them looking like an idiot.
About 1-5% of the people that I've played live trivia events against over the years play BT. Lack of reward is the number one reason with a bullet.
So few of us play just for the love of the game anymore...

[/quote]
The other side is a lot of people quit playing or don't play when you have one or two dominate players at a site that win all the games. It's a difficult balance.[/quote]

I have seen that happen. New players turn in their boards when older players show up. By older, I do not mean age, but time playing the game. I am talking about team bars where answers are shared. Many people will not play, if they think they can not win.

_________________
"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

I confess that COOGS and I are guilty of often dominating play, and there's definitely tension between being a player trying to do my best both individually and for the location and avoiding discouraging new players, particularly at large-sized locations such as SRO OT where we often can't even see where other players might be so it's not a matter of just turning to someone down a couple of seats at the bar and asking if they want to join us. I'd like to think that if someone was a designated player, that person could keep individual player goals separate from the larger goal of encouraging new players. The easiest way would just to separate the activities in time; I would be a whole lot more interested in growing a player base if I was somewhere other than my usual location on Showdown or Sci-Files night. I'd also be willing to encourage folks to play games I'm terrible at, such as Sports IQ, where any newbie player with a sports background could easily take me once that player understood the mechanics of running the box.

Of course another way would be to set up rewards for participating in the game regardless of who ends up with the highest point total, or allowing all participants to be rewarded if the location does well. I can remember sometimes at Catbirds when people would be at the end of the bar playing by themselves (and perhaps not being terribly fond of those of us playing as a team) until because of the team's success, a free shot got put in front of them. Sometimes they'd actually thank us and then start talking to us so that we could ask them if they wanted to keep playing by themselves or move over and join us.

It also occurred to me that to keep the goal foremost, perhaps when acting in the role of a designated player, all designated players would appear under an identical handle (such as BTPLAY, a handle not currently registered to anyone), as a separate account with different Usenames so it would be easy to track how many games they're playing at their target location for the purpose of developing the player base so efforts could be rewarded even if those efforts aren't yet translating into a bigger location player count.

Finally, perhaps designated players should be discouraged from multiboxing unless there's other folks playing and the DP taking on an extra box or so would give the location a chance to make the board. But this would be with the understanding that the multiboxes should be transferred as soon as possible to other players as they arrive or are recruited.

Brooke/AARDVK

You are a goldmine, Brooke. Thanks for fighting the good fight and for trying to come up with constructive and useful ideas ready-made for the people at BT if and when they come to their senses.

I know TomD used to read the posts here, but I don't know if anyone else does. Perhaps if anyone is friendly and corresponding with Krazikatt or one of the other Buzzies, maybe they can (in a spirit of helpfulness) refer them to this thread.

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

They have already been given this gold mine of information. I think I'll just leave it at that.

BO

It must be nice living in a state where they have more modern alcohol statutes. Offering a free drink for individual or bar rankings is always a great incentive. Unfortunately, here in VA the ABC forbids giving out alcohol as a reward. It's so wacky that if you buy a gift certificate on special (buy $25, get $5 free for example) the bonus certificate can only be used on food - no booze.

I realize various states have restrictions on alcohol freebies, but for those locations with food, they could offer a free appetizer or food tab. T-shirts (even specially made ones such as "[Location Name] Trivia Player of the Week" can be gotten inexpensively (I know because my ex-husband makes such things). Even simple recognition on the local screen might get someone bringing friends or family in to show off. (What do we play for most of the time?: our fifteen seconds of fame as the rankings flash by and the accompanying bragging rights).

Brooke/AARDVK

I know they can give out food and t-shirts. I just prefer a free drink now and then. But I'd take what I could get. It was nice visiting BUD in Maryland and getting the free shot when we placed #1.

Hey Rick how's it going, when are you coming back for a visit? That practice is still alive and well at Hardtimes. It's probably one of the best loved incentives we have.

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

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!