New Scaratings

The way I see it, the immediate result of the new schedule will inevitably be a decline in the number of players. There will either be those who find the new times inconvenient, or those who never heard about the new times and are bewildered when they show up at the "regular" times for their favorite games. I assume Buzztime is ready to ride out this decline long enough to see if the new times attract new players. In the meantime, their real customers are not the players but the bars/restaurants. Buzztime's bigwigs are gambling they can hold on to the bars long enough for the new times to attract a raft of new players. How likely is this? You see how the business-school mentality works? It has virtually destroyed the publishing industry, and I'm sorry to say that I think it will destroy Buzztime as well.
XT

Your analysis is spot on.

Brooke/AARDVK

To those wondering - I have deactivated my FB account for a short while. It's a time-suck and I have no self-control so when I have a lot of "real life" things going on - it's easier for me to just turn it off. It was not BT related.

As for the (lack of) success of a shareholder's suit -- no one ever said you have to WIN a suit for a suit to be effective. In this case, you have to win to get lawyer's fees paid. But, as previously noted- fees have to come from somewhere and BT doesn't have the cash.

I am no expert in Shareholder suits or the Business Judgment Rule but from what I recall -the previous statement about it was correct. To win, a shareholder with have to show a breach of one of the following: duty of good faith, duty of loyalty, duty of due care. The BJR assumes the officers are acting in good faith, as a prudent/reasonable person would under the circumstances, and in the best interests of the corporation. I am sure state law plays a large part (and in this case that would be the corporate-friendly state of DE where NTN BT is incorporated)... but, it appears a reasonable/prudent person would NOT do the same thing under these circumstances. And, I think that's enough to at least raise an interesting and expensive question.

Again --it doesn't have to WIN to work. Just has to scare them to back down.

If the conspiracy theories are correct, though, and the point is to take down the company (plummet the stock to essentially force a buy back) then a derivative suit would accomplish that pretty darn easily.

See... now I am wasting time of Scaratings! My FB will be back up in a few weeks when my schedule simmers down.

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RABBIT

I'm not bad -- I'm just drawn that way.

Been reading though this thread. Some intrresting points.

I have been reading this about the BT East/West split. I do not like it.

But what I am wondering is that for those that want some sort of legal action you first have to show some sort of lost financial in this case.

I see maybe the share holders but like mentioned with a suit on this in Delaware with its laws good luck. Also then I am sure they will counter sue for attorney fee that they occur themselves. So it is a double negative on this type of action. People are talking about .50 cent vs. .20 cent or so now. Back a long time ago shares were a lot higher for NTN BT.
Historical Quote Lookup
Symbol:NTN (Common Stock)
Enter a Date:03/14/00
(Historical data is adjusted to reflect stock splits.)
Closing Price
6.50
Volume (000)
1,828,700
Day's High
7.75
Currency US Dollar
Day's Low
6.31
Exchange AMEX
Open
6.63
Date
03/14/00
You would of thought some sort of legal action would be brought then or way before this. Over this split games there is no chance what's so ever for a win against NTN-BT.

As for a bankruptcy. How many times have I heard NTN-BT is going into it or will have to shut down if this happens or if they do that in at least the last 15 years. Over a hundred. So wishful thinking. And you have to show that they owe you something for you to be involved in it to collect other than a shareholder.

As other companies go that got into this mess and share holders try and litigate a reward judgment it is not the shareholder than wins and get the cash it is the lawyers that do.

As for site owners back when two sister bars had NTN BT in the mid 90's the two of them own the system and boxes. But from what I saw in the contracts is that NTN had the option of changing schedule, games, content or what ever else at NTN own discretion. As far as legal action it had to happen in California and either in court or by arbitrator. Loser had to once again pay the other legal cost. So good luck once again just trying to get NTN to bow to pressure. I am pretty sure the contracts are pretty much set up the same way as now as then.

Players by themselves have no legal recourse that make a difference. What did they do to get hurt ... feelings? Or unconvinced?

I see more of a legal problem for the people calling for legal action as they are setting themselves up as hurting NTN name and content mostly by not filing from anyone.

Not playing the game is about the only redress and if any that players could do.

Sites could take BT out but what do the players get from it? What about the sites that really just do TexasH or some other thing.
I know one site that mostly the time they are busy is during Raceday of
all things besides TexasH.

Are these sites only in business because of NTN? Not the food or drinks or anything else. Be silly to screw the site by not going in to eat and drink it will only hurt them. You need to eat and drink some place why not your site and just not play?

I think that for at least six months that this silly moronic idea of NTN
will stay around. About the shortest that they have switch things the way the were saying the work they had to do to the system to change it to this crap. But also it could be two years as most things seem to go with NTN trials on these head banging theories go.

Who are you and what did you do with Harry? Seriously, that might be the most cogent post I've ever seen from you. Are you secretly into finance?

Sorry on the holiday I messed up.
I think I wrote something almost as well put at least from some others on facebook about NTN getting younger players.

Anyway I will try and not let it happen again.

A look at buzztime's decision making process

Bad news for the nay-sayers (including myself). I've visited a half dozen sites looking to chat with other players about the schedule changes.

Here are my unscientific anecdotal findings based on the people I spoke to:

1. Predict little or no impact to the number of players in the afternoon or after work crowd: The average late afternoon and early evening players doesn't care what happens to the schedule at all..they'll just play what is on the system. The longer time players are actually happier with the new schedule as there is more Countdown.
2. There will be a loss of players at my Showdown bar on Tuesdays as 2-3 of the regulars will have trouble getting there for 8pm...and I've quit playing. They will be out half their regular crew. Since Tuesday is the only night that Three Monkeys has any players, this may result in eventual loss of this site.
3. At the other sites including my former home site, Fossil & Haggis and the Owl & Firkin, there will be MORE premium game play. They seem to find an earlier completion time more attractive
4. Unable to obtain comments regarding the late night schedule as there were no current players after 10:00 pm at any of the sites visited..
5. As for the split schedule..this appears to be a non-issue for the majority or even an improvement: The following comments were nearly universal: People like to see how their score and their bar is ranked against the other bars listed. They like to see their name and their bar's name up on the screen..they DON"T give a rats ass how many bars they are playing against nor do they check their placements on the website later. The majority greeted my concern about this issue with a giant yawn.
I suspect that this finding may be different in the States: in Canada we're already accustomed to paying time-zone dependent games against at most 30-40 other sites...in fact people many make a point of playing these games against a limited field

In summary, one site out of six will be negatatively impacted by the changes, perhaps critically. Two other sites will see more premium game play. The other three sites will be a wash..they simply play whatever is put on the screen between 4pm and 8pm without a care.

One last point: The only people who agreed with me that the changes were an issue at all were the players who used to visit the old Buzztime forum.

Stevej, of course it doesn't affect them, they aren't getting repeats. Now ask them how long they would continue to play if they knew every time they see the rankings it would be full of people who got the answers 3 hours before? Would they continue to play if I sat down next to them and already knew the answers and kicked the crap out of them all night? Nothing against you, but those idiots that don't care and will play anything is the main reason we are in this mess-they only care about their little world (which is understandable to an extent).

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Agree with you, the light just isn't clicking on for some people..Time will tell, but if the West gets the same premium games as the East, you will see more bogus scores, period... Especially on games where one or two questions in final rounds are worth as much as 12K or half your score, it's just a phone call (or drive) away...

I think there would be a correlation: the more obviously bogus scores you see, the quicker people see the light.

TFM

I tend to agree, and I'm not a fan of a boycott. The numbers will drop tremendously without any help from a contrived effort. Instead of those in the east boycotting, we play and send all answers to a centralized access point such as a yahoogroups site, not any social media. With our decent network, over a hundred players in the west could be holding all the answers. Combine that with sharing and playing multiple non-registered handles and see what response that draws.

BO

I like the idea, BO! Although wouldn't it be easier to post the answers as a comment on the Buzztime Players Blog about East vs. West? They'd probably reply, "Thank you for your input. All of your comments are valued and taken into consideration." #AutoReply.

bacho

Is there a lot of cheating with the Canadian-based games? I've noticed that Canada, Eh? and CA Showdown are split between East and West, and haven't heard any widespread complaining.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Canadians are not cheaters. It is not in their national character.

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"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

What about hockey players?

No, I think some Canadians will cheat if given the chance. And I think, as a general rule, whenever there is a chance someone will cheat, well, somebody will cheat. But it doesn't appear to be a problem with the Canada-based trivia games; why not?

Oh, and I must correct my prior post. Only Canada, Eh? is currently split; after 2;28, CA Showdown will be. My apologies.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

I'm curious--did these players know about the impending schedule change before you told them? Among my many problems with BT over the split, they've done a lousy job of reaching out to the group of people who do play particular games regularly, but don't follow BT's blog or FB page or read the endless emails. They're the ones who were blithely playing Showdown last night, watching screens go by during the game itself advertising SD at its current time, and never suspecting that the other screen with its vague reference to "more fun" and "convenient times" meant that if they don't get there 30 minutes earlier next Tuesday, they'll miss the first half of the game. And of course people who don't play every week probably haven't even seen the screen hinting that changes are afoot.

Why didn't BT make an effort to at least reach last night's players? How hard would it be to take out the screens with the wrong start time for SD and replace them with "Next week: come early for Showdown, which is moving to 7 p.m. in [insert time zone]." Did BT not think that was necessary (ineptness)? Or was it just too much bother (laziness)? Or was BT afraid that there would be even more people objecting to the move--people from the very group BT ostensibly is pleasing with it--and at some point someone above the level of those imposing the change would start listening to that opposition and perhaps reverse the decision to split the network? Perhaps the only way out now for whoever came up with this crazy approach to getting new players is for the split to happen, no matter what the cost, and for those players to appear, thus justifying the strategy. Perhaps there is no difference in outcome to those decision makers between the split being implemented and failing and the split not being done at all, because in both cases their decision will have been shown to have been wrong. So they've determined their best survival strategy is to minimize the level of pre-split objections by not giving all players clear information on what is happening, disregard the objections from the dedicated players, and go forward praying that the new players will come and prove this was a good strategy all along.

Brooke/AARDVK

I can certainly see how a lot of casual players would fit into these responses.

The changes were not well-known before i mentioned it to them. A couple had read their Playmaker Post or the blog

Because it's an awful lot of effort to put forth for what is essentially cheating at solitaire

At Rembrandt, ETEACH (or whatever handle Eric's playing this lunar month) programs it out. I'm the only one who likes playing it, and that's more for patriotic reasons than actual game content

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

I was only reporting my own area and my time zone. If many of the the Eastern time zone people have similar feelings, this schedule change may not bring armageddon raining down on Buzztime as feared.

For serious players especially those who care about rankings, I agree with you that Buzztime has thrown the Pacific time zone under the bus.

I fear that the majority don't care and they are the ones who make this system viable

FYI, I brought up the subject of a boycott and was completely rebuffed. No one wants to hurt their bar - I don't blame them

Well, it's not so bad in the East/Central because we're still playing with 80% of the deck or so, give or take a few points either way. (Obviously that's still very bad, just not as bad as it could be).

But it makes Spotlight a waste since playing without Mr B's is like playing with a deck without the ace of spades. That one card makes all the difference.

Playback isn't so bad since 9 of the top 11 teams this week were all East/Central, and the ace of spades card is still in that deck.

I don't play the other premium games very often so I'll have to let someone else comment on them.

But I still think it's comical [ridiculous] that buzztime plans to divide the networks, yet still plans to merge the scores of the two networks anyway. I guess buzztime figures the scores in the West/Mountain zones are going to be worthless so they might as well dump them in the East/Central zone at the end of the night to make them completely worthless too.

Remember that opinion question that buzztime floated around before the 2008 fiasco, something like "how would you feel if we did away with the network rankings?" Their plan is finally launching. Sure, they'll still air the rankings, but every serious player knows they'll be rendered meaningless.

Guess what? Everybody in the East/Central time zones will continue to play like nothing happened meaning BT has no repercussions for the stupid decision. If the National rankings were really important, well, nevermind....

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Lots of people in the Mountain/Pacific time zones will continue to play because now they have a better chance at making the top 20 for individual and bar scores as do many in the East/Central time zones. This split time zone ploy is an attempt at a quick fix for declining numbers. Having a reliable playmaker and paying more attention to content would do the same thing.

As an aside, many people here think the quality of the game content has deteriorated; where is the library of questions from the past twenty years and why don't they take better advantage of it.

Actually, I think the quality of game content has been very good for Showdown--certainly much better than it was a few years ago when they dumbed it down for a couple of months. The Countdown Round last night, for example, was especially challenging for us, and that is the way we prefer the game to be. BrainBuster is also usually pretty challenging, too.

I can't speak to the other games, though.

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