BuzzerBeater Forums

Hi there,
Over the past two years or so, there have been a lot of discussion about the declining user base.
Curious to see what is actually going on, I decided to start tracking it, usually daily, to gain some understanding about the ebb and flow that goes on each week between the Monday morning botifications and the increases over the next seven days.

I began on Monday, August 17th, and tracked Total World, US, and Utopia. Utopia and US fell into my tracking plan merely because they are the two leagues I am in, and not because I am trying to make them seem more important by any means.
However, since I have them broken out, it does allow me to offer a little bit more granularity.

Let's start by looking at this last Monday's (Nov 23rd) compound weekly change rate from past mondays:

World
Last 12 weeks: -0.23%
Latest 4 weeks: -0.07%
Latest week: +0.01%

USA
Last 12 weeks: -0.37%
Latest 4 weeks: +0.29%
Latest week: +0.00%

Utopia
Last 12 weeks: +0.04%
Latest 4 weeks: +0.03%
Latest week: -0.52%

World excluding US & Utopia
Last 12 weeks: -0.23%
Latest 4 weeks: -0.10%
Latest week: +0.04%

As you can see, negative trends have slowed (and actually gone positive in the US) in the past 4 weeks. I remember a few managers predicting this with the start of the NBA season, and it seems to be the case. The low point was on Nov 2nd, when the world's index to the Aug 17th starting point was 95.47 (a drop of slightly more than 4.5% since I began tracking 13 weeks prior, or a compound weekly rate of -0.36%), but since then it has been rising, and the Monday drops have not brought it back down as low as that point.

Last edited by Iguanadon Joe at 11/29/2015 8:07:36 PM

I've been watching the numbers for a while, without taking notes of the numbers. What you've seen is something that I think is a recurring trend. The numbers drop for a while, then level off (some weeks up a little, some weeks down), and then drop again.

I've never noticed whether the levelling off coincides with the NBA season but its an interesting point. Oddly enough, for me, I'm much more interested in playing a sports sim when the real thing isn't around rather than the other way round, but I agree for most people its probably the opposite.

I did post some numbers for a while in another thread in an attempt to inject some facts into a hysterical debate, but generally people aren't interested in facts, only in spouting doom and gloom, so well done for your effort.

and tracked Total World, US, and Utopia. Utopia and US fell into my tracking plan merely because they are the two leagues I am in, and not because I am trying to make them seem more important by any means.

How dare you !

Interesting stats, useful for everyone. BBs do have similar datas, altough automatically and for each country, but showing the trend publically can be important too and since it's available to whoever wants to track it, might as well.

I did see a relative stagnation just above 20k users recently, so the next 2 or 3 months will be interesting to see if that's just a nice anomaly or if we are kind of stopping the hemorragy.

By doing a bit of digging into USA and Utopia trends, it is also interesting to see how they are different.
The US declined almost 10% by Nov 2nd, over double the rest of the world's rate, but has climbed up since.
Utopia has actually been higher than their Aug 17th starting point almost this entire time. It may be due to a different process with which Utopia teams go bot, but I'm not sure.

I would love to see some data from the last ~5 years, maybe we could draw better conclusions from them.

If BB has those stats, maybe you could ask to get them and do some diagrams and stuff.

Utopia bot process is confusing at best LOL. I have a hard time gauging how and wehn these guys go bot...there was a gone near gone last season that came back...wiht a bit of a vengence...but maybe he is on his way out again??? Or is it just a weird tankathon guy waiting to find a good prospect of his nationality and trying to save neough for an overpriced L7???

They go semi-inactive and then I Think many pull themself from the fire after probably email warning etc. For some 10 bucks is nothing..
This guy maybe almost lsot team, dropped 10 bucks, came back a little more active again...and now he has seem to forget about/too busy to care about his team(s) again.

In theory... while my "Team of the Scroll" has long since gone bot and taken over (16 months ago)
the utopia version "Team of the Scroll II" is still chilling with that same name, waiting for me to come back (if i ever do).

Utopia bot process is confusing at best LOL. I have a hard time gauging how and wehn these guys go bot...there was a gone near gone last season that came back...wiht a bit of a vengence...but maybe he is on his way out again??? Or is it just a weird tankathon guy waiting to find a good prospect of his nationality and trying to save neough for an overpriced L7???

They go semi-inactive and then I Think many pull themself from the fire after probably email warning etc. For some 10 bucks is nothing..
This guy maybe almost lsot team, dropped 10 bucks, came back a little more active again...and now he has seem to forget about/too busy to care about his team(s) again.

It is pretty funny. A friend of mine left BB near the end of Utopia season one, after he had already built up his Utopia team. His main team went bot as usual, but the Utopia team stuck around, and made it to the finals (and lost) with no one at the helm.

THEN, the following season, timing was such that it still existed, and it won the division! It finally was beaten in the first round of the playoffs. In the following offseason it went bot.

Last edited by Iguanadon Joe at 12/6/2015 5:32:16 PM

I would love to see some data from the last ~5 years, maybe we could draw better conclusions from them.

If BB has those stats, maybe you could ask to get them and do some diagrams and stuff.

That would be cool indeed. For instance, when we the drop the steepest, and when did it begin to level off, and with a robust data set, one could determine where the major declines took place.

Last Monday's (11/30) Update
World
Last 12 weeks: -0.24%
Latest 4 weeks: +0.07%
Latest week: -0.12%

USA
Last 12 weeks: -0.33%
Latest 4 weeks: +0.43%
Latest week: -0.15%

Utopia
Last 12 weeks: +0.00%
Latest 4 weeks: +0.05%
Latest week: -0.10%

World excluding US & Utopia
Last 12 weeks: -0.22%
Latest 4 weeks: +0.05%
Latest week: -0.12%

I blame Steph Curry for that.