New Scaratings :: View topic - Hello fellow Buzztime players!

Clint,
Thanks for reaching out to the players. I suggest you take a close look at the player-run tournaments now going on in both the Showdown and Brainbuster categories. A new player on our team, who prefers the bar trivia, was astonished to find out we were enthusiastic about these tournaments--even though there are no cash or gift certificate prizes! We're taking part just for the fun, the "prestige," and the player-purchased trophies. (My astonished new player would be more surprised if she saw the treasured McCarthy Cup, which is homemade and according to legend named after a bartender who turned the TV off Showdown right in the middle of a game.)
If I were you, I would think about having Buzztime sponsor more tournaments. Smartest Bar is a good idea, but not held frequently enough.
XTrain
(Tom)

Clint, how about a combined Spotlight and Playback tournament?

Those 2 games have never had a tournament that I can recall. 1 month, 2 games a week, drop score allowed of course.

Should be easy and fun.

BUD wrote:

Playback did have a tournament once... it was a 4 week tournament... but it was a long time ago. I'm thinking it was around 2000.

But, yeah, Playback and Spotlight get left out when it comes to tournaments. Showdown and Six have gotten most of the tournaments.

More NASCAR questions!!! Really.
And maybe a NASCAR Topix.

RAY J.

Suggestion - The Pulse sucks, anybody whose sports knowledge consists solely of watching an hour of SportsCenter per day can lead a team to a top 5 finish. Sports IQ and Sports Trivia Challenge required sports knowledge over 100 years rather than 100 hours.

rayj1029 wrote:

More NASCAR questions!!! Really.
And maybe a NASCAR Topix.

RAY J.

Dude, this isn't about what you want. This is about what's best for the network as a whole. While sports as a whole is underrepresented thanks to no valid premium sports game, no one sport is affected more than another.

Suggestion - The Pulse sucks, anybody whose sports knowledge consists solely of watching an hour of SportsCenter per day can lead a team to a top 5 finish. Sports IQ and Sports Trivia Challenge required sports knowledge over 100 years rather than 100 hours.

poman wrote:

BUD wrote:

I'd definitely like to see a Spotlight tourney over the summer. Be a lot of fun.

Author:	c0braje7 [ Sun Apr 17, 2016 9:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Hello fellow Buzztime players!
I'd like to introduce myself to all of you. My name is Clint Worley and I've been with Buzztime for a little over a year now. I head up the game/entertainment team and work very closely with all aspects of the Buzztime organization. I've been actively involved with the Jackpot Trivia roll-out, various promotions (Smartest Bar, Gotta Play Tuesday, Lopez Show, Lyft and FanDuel), Buzztime Sports, Academy of Football and more recently Jackpot Trivia sponsored by the Washington Redskins. I come from a video game background having worked at Sony for the better part of 19 years through the life cycle of the Playstation platform. I've seen a ton of different types of games and met various people that enjoy games for a variety of reasons. I'm looking to have open discussions with our community on what we've been up to, future plans for Buzztime and finding ways to take players feedback and integrate it into the games/entertainment offering. Many of you have been with Buzztime for a long time, some of you are new to the family. Seeing this community as a self organized group is encouraging and I'd like to find ways to improve not only our games, but also the relationship between Buzztime and its most dedicated players. Look for me on various boards. I'll be dropping in to spark conversations, listen to feedback and throw out an idea from time to time for feedback. Nice to meet all of you and I look forward to the many discussions we will have!

Author:	teverett [ Sun Apr 17, 2016 10:51 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Nice to hear from you

Author:	ranger [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:00 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Good to meet you. You may have noticed that there is work to be done to make Buzztime's most loyal fans happy.

Author:	whales [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:53 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
You found us! Indeed, welcome. But bring your thickest skin if you join this community with those great intentions. This group has been in self-organized contact with each other for all of my time playing Buzztime, 20 years about - there was/is a BadBart group that dates back into the 1990's and Buzztime itself ran a forum in the 2000's then quit it for it giving them too much negative feedback. You are correct, most of the most dedicated players in Buzztime/NTN history have made a presence here and this is exactly where and how to reach them if the relationship of which you speak continues to interest you. Sincerely, good luck here! Whales / Chris California

Author:	xtrain [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:14 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Clint, Thanks for reaching out to the players. I suggest you take a close look at the player-run tournaments now going on in both the Showdown and Brainbuster categories. A new player on our team, who prefers the bar trivia, was astonished to find out we were enthusiastic about these tournaments--even though there are no cash or gift certificate prizes! We're taking part just for the fun, the "prestige," and the player-purchased trophies. (My astonished new player would be more surprised if she saw the treasured McCarthy Cup, which is homemade and according to legend named after a bartender who turned the TV off Showdown right in the middle of a game.) If I were you, I would think about having Buzztime sponsor more tournaments. Smartest Bar is a good idea, but not held frequently enough. XTrain (Tom)

New Scaratings https://scaratings.com/newScaratings/

Hello fellow Buzztime players! https://scaratings.com/newScaratings/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=3146	Page 1 of 3

Author:	-BO- [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:18 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
xtrain wrote: Clint, Thanks for reaching out to the players. I suggest you take a close look at the player-run tournaments now going on in both the Showdown and Brainbuster categories. A new player on our team, who prefers the bar trivia, was astonished to find out we were enthusiastic about these tournaments--even though there are no cash or gift certificate prizes! We're taking part just for the fun, the "prestige," and the player-purchased trophies. (My astonished new player would be more surprised if she saw the treasured McCarthy Cup, which is homemade and according to legend named after a bartender who turned the TV off Showdown right in the middle of a game.) If I were you, I would think about having Buzztime sponsor more tournaments. Smartest Bar is a good idea, but not held frequently enough. XTrain (Tom) Yep. And you wouldn't even have to fork over prizes. A nice congratulatory screen splashed across the network for a couple of weeks is much more important than t-shirts and hats. The casual player loves the occasional random drawing swag, the serious players/teams just want to win.

Author:	scar [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:48 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Clint, thanks for reaching out. If you'd like feedback, we would love to provide it. The denizens of this site are either heavy users of your product, or at least were at one time. But I find almost all have a good handle on how the occasional or new player views things, and give good all around advice when asked. Welcome to the boards. Scar

Author:	c0braje7 [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 3:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Supporting player driven tournaments is not that difficult from my perspective. It mainly comes down to having a good point of contact for me to work with and a clear understanding of the tournament structure. Once both of those are in place, we have all sorts of options to explore. TV network call-outs for teams that are winning, posting pictures of the winning team or even promoting the tournament in the local market to get more players interested are all possible. I'm open to ideas about what we could do with the current tournament and then find ways to wrap that into player driven tournaments moving forward.

Author:	BUD [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 3:58 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Clint, how about a combined Spotlight and Playback tournament? Those 2 games have never had a tournament that I can recall. 1 month, 2 games a week, drop score allowed of course. Should be easy and fun.

Author:	poman [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:09 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
BUD wrote: Clint, how about a combined Spotlight and Playback tournament? Those 2 games have never had a tournament that I can recall. 1 month, 2 games a week, drop score allowed of course. Should be easy and fun. Playback did have a tournament once... it was a 4 week tournament... but it was a long time ago. I'm thinking it was around 2000. But, yeah, Playback and Spotlight get left out when it comes to tournaments. Showdown and Six have gotten most of the tournaments.

Author:	tiefly [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Welcome from Hillbillyville--West "By God" Virginia! We are a persnickety lot here, but all with memories of NTN/BT decisions from the past...both good and completely baffling. From player run tournys & meet ups, the majority on this forum only want quality games with limited snafus. Possibly the return of some past games (Passport, BUD?). While there are some P+Ps whores, the majority here are about game score bragging rights, rather than phone app drive by blind P+P enhancement. (personal pet peeve--time in seat guy myself). Looking forward to how things go, since my personal playing is WAY down lately...EGADS!!!

Author:	CVAVRA [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
poman wrote: BUD wrote: Clint, how about a combined Spotlight and Playback tournament? Those 2 games have never had a tournament that I can recall. 1 month, 2 games a week, drop score allowed of course. Should be easy and fun. Playback did have a tournament once... it was a 4 week tournament... but it was a long time ago. I'm thinking it was around 2000. But, yeah, Playback and Spotlight get left out when it comes to tournaments. Showdown and Six have gotten most of the tournaments. I'd definitely like to see a Spotlight tourney over the summer. Be a lot of fun.

Author:	Akbar71 [ Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Welcome, Clint. I am a longtime player, and also longtime manager at a BT brewpub. The comments so far are spot-on, but I wanted to share more, from the perspective of someone actually paying for your product. The only reason we keep paying the (relatively large) fee for BT is for the customers it puts into our seats. That means only the customers who come to our restaurant specifically because we have BT, either to play while they're here or for a specific game, including "BT tourists," who visit BT sites when they travel (or even travel to visit BT sites). To amplify, I would group people who pay attention to BT trivia at all into three categories: passive, casual and destination players. Passive players are those who regularly watch the BT TV screen, often commenting on, answering or discussing the trivia. Casual players are those who come to our restaurant for the great beer and food (and, ahem, stellar service), and who sometimes grab a Playmaker to play BT while they're here. Destination players are those described above. While we believe those first two groups are important, they're not the reason we have BT. There are plenty of other distractions we can provide for these folks that are cheaper than BT, some of which actually make us more money, like bar-top coin-op games. The destination players are the only justification for continuing to subscribe to BT. Several factors drive destination players to continue playing BT: -Solid, well-edited trivia, covering a wide spectrum of topics and at varying levels of difficulty, arranged into satisfying games throughout the day. -Well-edited and well-thought out premium games. -The ability to play these games against the entire network and see how they compare with others throughout the continent. -A sense of community with other BT players around the continent. -The tournaments that have been discussed already in this thread. Historically, your company had done a decent job fulfilling these factors. Hell, you pretty much invented the nationwide trivia game and you're still the only people who do it. Unfortunately, in the last ten or fifteen years, your company has done a lot to erode what it had built up. Dumbing down the games was horrible. Switching to all-15-minute trivia all day was horrible. Splitting up the network was really, really horrible. Thankfully, these mistakes have all been (mostly) corrected. Unfortunately, each of them cost us customers. Judging by gameplay numbers, this is the case network-wide. The forum you used to have on your website, which I understand was taken down because of the staff time it took to regulate trolls, did so very much to build up a coast-to-coast player community. Since you took the forum down, that community continues, but it is dwindling. This forum and the competitions organized here are the last gasps of that community. You also took down site reviews, I presume because of complaints from sites about negative reviews. Since you took those down, BT tourism travel to our site has dried up. Finally, your core destination players are not the twenty-somethings that any industry researcher can tell you spend the most time and money in bars and restaurants. Those people will be at our restaurant no matter what. The players you need to court are generally middle-aged or senior. Many don't Facebook or Tweet or Snapchat or whatever social media outlet comes up hot next. Sure, social media are important, but not key for your core players. They also don't generally care about bells and whistles. Cool graphics and badges are not the reason we play. We play because we like good trivia and we like to compete continent-wide. If you want to build up your playership again, you should concentrate on these core, destination players. Your very presence here is encouraging, as is Jamie's. The corrections BT has made to past idiocies are encouraging. That said, (and I am switching myself into player mode here,) those of us here on Scaratings have seen a lot of BT history and are rather jaded. I hope that you do, therefore, have some thick skin and realize that even at our most vitriolic, we rant because we care. (Back to restaurant manger mode,) I hope that BT continues to remember those of us in the independent restaurant sector and understands what drives us to subscribe. Sorry for the length of this. I hope some of it is helpful. Sincerely, AKBAR/Shawn

Author:	ranger [ Tue Apr 19, 2016 2:26 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Lots of good points here. I once pointed out to a Buzztime representative that most corporations would kill for the passion your core players have. Its important for Buzztime leadership to realize that ramming their latest new idea down our throats is counterproductive.

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Author:	rayj1029 [ Tue Apr 19, 2016 12:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
More NASCAR questions!!! Really. And maybe a NASCAR Topix. RAY J.

Author:	-BO- [ Tue Apr 19, 2016 1:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
rayj1029 wrote: More NASCAR questions!!! Really. And maybe a NASCAR Topix. RAY J. Dude, this isn't about what you want. This is about what's best for the network as a whole. While sports as a whole is underrepresented thanks to no valid premium sports game, no one sport is affected more than another. Suggestion - The Pulse sucks, anybody whose sports knowledge consists solely of watching an hour of SportsCenter per day can lead a team to a top 5 finish. Sports IQ and Sports Trivia Challenge required sports knowledge over 100 years rather than 100 hours.

Author:	c0braje7 [ Tue Apr 19, 2016 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Great feedback and a few different angles for me to think about. One of the areas that I agree is sorely missing is the sense of community. Buzztime has a great community that covers a wide variety of player types. Some are active and outspoken and others are reserved and passively engage with our offering. There are plenty of ways that we can engage with the community and showcasing our most dedicated players is a great way to start. keep in mind that as a company we want to support our active players while creating an opportunity to add more people to the community. That is how the company grows and the product continues to evolve. We have player of the month but I don't see any reason why we couldn't do more. Highlight players from self organized tournaments, allow head to head rivalries that pit one player against another for a period of time with network call-outs on the rivalry status and I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas that would be great for the players. I'm sure players are jaded and I can understand why. The best way to move forward is constant communication, explanation of what we are doing and why and simply listening to feedback. There are tons of details in each one of those call-outs but they all roll up at the end of the day into those three areas to focus on.

Author:	spotes [ Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
-BO- wrote: Suggestion - The Pulse sucks, anybody whose sports knowledge consists solely of watching an hour of SportsCenter per day can lead a team to a top 5 finish. Sports IQ and Sports Trivia Challenge required sports knowledge over 100 years rather than 100 hours. Ding! Ding! Ding! I'm sure that there are folks out there that actually enjoy The Pulse but, let's face it, it's on the kiddie menu of sports games. Asking a serious sports trivia player to play The Pulse is like asking Michaelangelo to paint a park bench. Now, I imagine most people aren't wanting BT to reinvent the wheel here, but it would be nice if they kept it relatively round...

Author:	rayj1029 [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 8:34 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
-BO- wrote: rayj1029 wrote: More NASCAR questions!!! Really. And maybe a NASCAR Topix. RAY J. Dude, this isn't about what you want. This is about what's best for the network as a whole. While sports as a whole is underrepresented thanks to no valid premium sports game, no one sport is affected more than another. Suggestion - The Pulse sucks, anybody whose sports knowledge consists solely of watching an hour of SportsCenter per day can lead a team to a top 5 finish. Sports IQ and Sports Trivia Challenge required sports knowledge over 100 years rather than 100 hours. BO, thanks for straightening me out. After playing last night, I now think that we need more Esperanto questions. RAY J.

Author:	scar [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:13 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
I find this refreshing and encouraging.

Author:	whales [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:56 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
Clint, is your Jackpot game tweakable to allow for head-to-head matchups between specific players at different locations? Is that what you were getting at there? There you might have something. Whales / Chris California

Author:	Hammer [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 12:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
My 2 cents: I really enjoyed Speed Freaks and Ask It Already on Saturdays and now with the new playstations they are not available. Any way that can be fixed?

Author:	BUD [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
CVAVRA wrote: poman wrote: BUD wrote: Clint, how about a combined Spotlight and Playback tournament? Those 2 games have never had a tournament that I can recall. 1 month, 2 games a week, drop score allowed of course. Should be easy and fun. Playback did have a tournament once... it was a 4 week tournament... but it was a long time ago. I'm thinking it was around 2000. But, yeah, Playback and Spotlight get left out when it comes to tournaments. Showdown and Six have gotten most of the tournaments. I'd definitely like to see a Spotlight tourney over the summer. Be a lot of fun. Spotlight AND Playback combined would make it interesting. If it was just Spotlight you might as well just give the win to Rockin Crepes. Walsh's and a few others are close but they would get beat. If it's just Playback Kalamazoo would still be favored though they are not doing as well as before Fletcher's closed. Pittsburgh, Dayton and others are making it a battle most weeks. But with both Spotlight and Playback in the mix, there is no clear favorite. What do you think Clint? A network wide tournament this summer?

Author:	CVAVRA [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 5:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
We at Walsh's might lose if it were just a Spotlight tourney, but I think we'd put up a good fight. I like what you're saying, though, about a Friday/Saturday combo. Stretches you out and covers pretty much all the pop culture bases. And it would be something new and different.

Author:	whales [ Wed Apr 20, 2016 5:53 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Hello fellow Buzztime players!
For that matter, Trivia Tour 2006 combined all of the premium games + Countdown + Wipeout, and touched even more bases. Clint, track down and dust off that software in your archives if you're curious about rivalries and stretched-out league-type dedicated player action.