New Scaratings

The following message was sent to all registered players at Mad River:
"Buzztime is taking over the Mad River Bar & Grille on Tuesday, April 16th. We're putting a twist on the traditional pub quiz to bring you a unique, fun, and digital live trivia event, minus the pen and paper. An exciting night that you won't want to miss! So be there at 7pm for your chance to score 2 Broadway tickets! And, be sure to stick around afterwards to check out Mad River Bar & Grille's regularly scheduled live trivia game."

We've been hearing rumors about this from the bar manager, who seems to think it will put us on the map. He has been heard to say that this is so important that the "CEO" of Buzztime will be here for the event. I'll believe it when I see it, but our chief fear is that this will somehow cut into the regular Showdown and other games. Has anybody else encountered this. The bar already has a live trivia game, which some of our players take part in along with the Buzztime games, although in my opinion it detracts from our performance in Showdown, Brainbuster, etc. Could this be the future of Buzztime? Or just another bright idea from people who clearly know nothing about what the players want? If we have to, the regular team will try to move to another location for the McCarthy Cup.
XT

It may very well be the future of Buzztime. They have been unsuccessfully trying for about 5 years now to appeal to the 20-something year old bar patrons by altering their games and subject matter. A small amount of research would show them that live trivia games (in particular, ones in which free drinks are regularly handed out) are extremely popular among that age group around college campuses and the like. So this is presumably another effort by them to appear to this crowd, and honestly one with a much higher probability of succeeding than simply dumbing down their feature games with current events and gossip. Of course, I strongly hope that it would be in addition to, not in place of, their current style and format.

Buzztime has tried this Hosted Trivia for a couple of years now. It hasn't worked anywhere that I have heard of.
Hooters of Rockville MD had it every week for about 3 or 4 months and it died off. No one liked having a multiple choice live trivia game.

They had it on a Wed. and programmed out an hour of premium games before SIX. The timing of the game is up to the host so often it was delayed and SIX was joined in progress.

That Hooters dropped the BT system last month.

Having a normal live trivia game right after the BT Hosted trivia will show how terrible the BT game is.

Good luck on moving to a new site for the McCarthy Cup. I wouldn't count on the BT Hosted game being done on time for SD.

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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!!

Zero chance of it being over before Showdown, like BUD said. This is just another idea from whatever Hipster was running Buzztime a couple of years ago. I know multiple choice in any 'write-in' game is just stupid, but don't expect any hipster to listen since they are so smart and know much more than anyone else. This company is full of hipsters that can't stand to be told they are wrong.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

I've managed to find a video clip of the last time that Buzztime ran live trivia...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia02fGpUQfU

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

When I first heard about this "Hosted Trivia" option, my immediate thought was that it was kind of nifty. We have a banquet area at Stewart's and I thought this would be a great option to offer for parties and/or business gatherings. Then I realized that you could only run the Hosted Trivia at the expense of the reularly scheduled games and said, "That's too bad. Let us know when it can be done separately."

My one experience wasn't the greatest.

The BT employee that read the questions obviously didn't understand them all. This resulted in mispronunciations that changed the nature of the questions.

There were prizes for 1st, second and third

I was second the whole game, and someone tied me for second on the last question. Of course, now I was listed on the third row of scores.

The BT employee came over and gave me the third place prize, and congratulated me on finishing third.

I said "Actually, I tied for second".

She said "What ? " and I explained how if there is a tie the computer lists them in row 2 and row 3, with the same score.

She said "Oh, then we were supposed to have a playoff".

I said "That is what the rules said at the beginning".

She said "We didn't notice, and we already gave the other guy the second place prize"

I said "Alright, don't worry about it" and accepted my size Medium T-shirt, which I ultimately gave to a grandchild.

You should've squeezed into that smedium shirt.

From what I could understand, they were going to have the Buzztime Live Trivia on one channel, and the regular Buzztime trivia games on the other channel, so people who didn't want to play the live version could still play as normal.

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^..^

Too bad that isn't what they do now.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

I'll send the AE this feedback so he can chat with the owner about it.

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^..^

Would not be a pretty sight.

Just confirmed. Players will have access to both regular Buzztime (Showdown, etc) and the live events. So they can play whatever they want while they're there.

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^..^

Thank you. I hope you're right.
XT

Good grief, is that what it is? The only reason that on occasion COOGS and I have played live trivia is that we like the challenge of having to come up with the right answer without any prompts (that and the fact live trivia can ask much more challenging and thoughtful questions, such as "Name all of the people who have played Doctor Who in order". And how awful that NTN/BT would schedule this experiment during a time when if nothing else it will be distracting for people trying to focus on Showdown and Brainbuster.

Brooke/AARDVK

The live trivia I go to had a similar question "Name 4 of the 11 actors who played Doctor Who"

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Mitch (MTCHWF/WLFFLY)

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

I took my question from a live trivia game I overheard while playing Sci-Files at The Think Tank in Cambridge, MA. Obviously management there had no clue whatsoever that at the same time they were hosting a live science fiction-oriented trivia game (in the middle of a very s.f.-oriented community), they were keeping away from Sci-Files the very people who would want to play it.

As I was the only one playing pretty much all evening, it was no surprise when I learned The Think Tank dropped NTN/BT a few months after my visit. And about a year later it closed its doors. So another opportunity to build a synergy between a trivia-loving community (there was a whole room filled with people doing the live trivia) and a bar needing customers was lost, simply because the location didn't understand the game schedule.

Brooke/AARDVK

The places I go to in Atlanta the sites aren't even aware there is a game schedule, or that games vary. Really.

That's why I keep saying that NTN/BT should utilize its player base to support locations and help them learn what the games are and how to promote them. The difference between the "quality" sites that they seem to now want to pursue and sites with low activity (that generally then become former sites in a few months) is whether there is anyone at the site who understands how to get and keep people playing. Someone needs to tell the site to put the game on the screen, make playmakers easily accessible (and maintain those playmakers/chargers), provide information about the variety of games, identify problems as they arise and show the site how to solve them, and encourage newbies to sign on. But the type of players who could fulfill these functions are exactly the type NTN/BT discounts and continues to drive away: the experienced ones who don't fill the Millenium newbie player profile, but who are actually the people consuming the product.

In the subject of this thread, had NTN/BT consulted the many experienced players at Mad River, they would have learned that putting a live trivia game on the same night as Showdown was more likely to drive away players than attract them, whereas at least some of the Tuesday night regular BT players might have welcomed and made a special effort to attend a live trivia game on a night when it didn't compete with a major game. But whether any benefit would have been obtained would of course only accrue if NTN/BT actually accepted the advice. I'm reminded that about four years ago, when Mezzanine had an extremely competitive Showdown team, a staff member mentioned to me that they were going to start a live trivia game on Tuesday nights--and run it during Showdown. My suggestion that they find a different night, or at least run it so it didn't conflict with Showdown, was ignored. So we lost half our players to the live trivia, where they could win money, and eventually what was left of the team dispersed to other locations not holding live trivia during Showdown.

Brooke/AARDVK

The prize in new york is a pair of broadway tickits which is pretty special. The host has the answers in advance. BT Live: My experience with a big prize is a team close to the host wins. So Sorry. Make the prize too valuable and it becomes the problem.

A pair of Broadway tickets is a big prize?

It beats a warm beer.

Offer 100k P+ points and you'll see everybody cheating like crazy in order to win!

Well, to report on what happened, it wasn't too bad. The Buzztime Live Trivia game consists of 30 questions, in six rounds, with ten points for each correct answer. Each "team" has one box on which to enter the answers. The host reads the questions and answers aloud, but if you can see the screens, you can read them for yourself, so the host is essentially superfluous. Mad River did attract some local superstars, in that MEGUMI and his friend DGRIL showed up to form their own team. The regular team (us) was a little short-handed tonight, but we recruited a player whose handle is RICKTV, who had arrived because he saw the promotion on Facebook. There were also the three guys and some girl who always play at the bar in our regular sessions, as well as a few other teams from the bunch who usually come for bar trivia and ignore Buzztime.
The first 15 questions gave none of the good teams any problems. We slipped up on one in the next round that involved an obscure sports award, but in the last two rounds the difficulty increased, and we won by about 30 points as I recall. Kudos to RICKTV, DAR, and HPYNDG, all of whom contributed important answers. I would say that of the 30 questions, about half were what I would call current pop culture.
There were several Buzztime honchos there, including Vladimir, the chief content officer, who impressed me because he had to have flown in from California. When he stopped by our table to say congratulations, I said I would incur the wrath of all long time players if I failed to ask him to end the split between east and west. He started nodding before I finished, because he knew what I was going to say, but he made no promises.
So that was it. The game ended in time for us to turn our attention to Showdown, and the local bar trivia host started his own game, for which you write answers on paper. DAR and I won two tickets to a local off-Broadway show, and all in all pleasant enough, but nowhere near as fun or challenging as Showdown and Brainbuster. But I fear that challenging the players is not #1 on Buzztime's list of things they want to do.
XT

Glad to hear things went off without a hitch.

In dealing with BT over the last couple of years Vlad has been more than fair and pleasant, we just don't agree on some of the recent decisions. Nice that he made the trip.