BuzzerBeater Forums

They don't need anything spectacular just something that works and is easy to use. Obviously I have no idea but from what I've read in the suggestion forums it sounds like there is enough money available to create an app, it's just starting the development process that seems to be unclear at the moment. Often times the best apps are the simplest, so it's not like the BB's have to go out of their way to create the greatest app ever invented.

Also, this does not have to do with the idea of an app, but why hasn't buzzerbeater taken advantage of other forms of social media to get their brand out there lately? I am aware that there used to be a blog and twitter page, but recently I have not heard of any other attempts to advertise or rally the community through external sites. I know the blog and twitter pages were not huge successes, but I think they could be fun and beneficial if regularly updated. A few retweets on twitter could lead to hundreds of others seeing the site, and even if only 1 out of those 100 decide to join that's still 1 person that would not have joined the site otherwise. Twitter has definitely grown since 2011 when the official BuzzerBeater twitter was last updated, and although I don't think it would help grow the community exponentially it couldn't hurt.

Again, these are just ideas, and I much rather an app be created before any other idea is acted upon. If what Koperbox said is true, and the BB's plan on advertising as soon as they are completely satisfied with the product of this site, than why not take advantage of the free advertising social media can provide.

So there are many things that can be done, someone just has to do them.

I agree. In my opinion U21 can do a lot towards growing a community and keeping managers from massive falling out. I was U21 coach for 6 seasons and plan to be at least 6 more, so i've seen the effect firsthand. You reach to a lot of newcomers through U21 and teach them how to train, maintain GS etc.

I would pay for this app.

In Spain we already have a mentor thread. All kinds of managers offered to help new managers at the beginning.I think this has helped a few. I hope.

When I was a GM, I also held a "forum day" where I was online all day to anwser questions from the danish users. It worked well and we gave 3 months supporter to question of the day. That, with the "mentor" feature is something I was proud of as I think both made a difference.

So there are many things that can be done, someone just has to do them.

+1 another great idea

Personally, I think the greatest drawback to user retention is that this game can be very unforgiving to rookie mistakes at the onset. I've seen new managers buy guys with six figure salaries, fire great trainees, and blow all of their money on 40 year olds. And if you pull off one of those mistakes, I can only imagine the wind being taken out of the user enthusiasm sails. Especially when you have to wait seven weeks to start over.

I suggested a while back to have a master reset button that would be active for 30 days from the start of any new account and usable only once. It would fire your entire current roster, give you 18 brand new players, restore the $300,000 starting funds, give you new minimal staff, restore your arena back to the original starting capacity, but keep you in the same league with the same record. I think that would decrease the amount of users that leave after making a critical mistake.

Personally, I think the greatest drawback to user retention is that this game can be very unforgiving to rookie mistakes at the onset. I've seen new managers buy guys with six figure salaries, fire great trainees, and blow all of their money on 40 year olds. And if you pull off one of those mistakes, I can only imagine the wind being taken out of the user enthusiasm sails. Especially when you have to wait seven weeks to start over.

I suggested a while back to have a master reset button that would be active for 30 days from the start of any new account and usable only once. It would fire your entire current roster, give you 18 brand new players, restore the $300,000 starting funds, give you new minimal staff, restore your arena back to the original starting capacity, but keep you in the same league with the same record. I think that would decrease the amount of users that leave after making a critical mistake.

+1 for the idea. Have you asked the BBs? Have they commented? I guess it would be a nice option...although some established times would like that option too no doubt ;-) I like it though.

The problem for new managers is that the learning curve is steep, so you have to spend a lot of time to figure out how the game works. I needed like 5 seasons to understand most of it and not everyone is willing to do it. But this is something we don't want to change.
On the other hand, a lot of people nowdays have a smartphone or a tablet and don't use a PC. Let's say this game is not very friendly in that aspect.

We've all experienced the infamous "OOPS, something has gone wrong ...." message. Over the last season or two it seems to be happening more often and while doing more things on the site. Some time ago we were told this occurs when the server is under heavy load, so effectively a time out problem. Also training is now regularly running late, people complaining about long gaps in next cup games being generated, delays in purchased players joining teams, etc.

While an app may bring in more users, or at least help retain existing ones, surely getting the existing infrastructure upgraded to improve the user experience is of higher importance. Otherwise if you bring on more users, once they experience the above issue you will likely lose them, also the added load of the new users will likely increase the occurrence of these problems further frustrating existing users.

+1

I agree Trikster...there has to be a greater emphasis on sorting out the issues before bringing in new users...

...it would be handy if we could somehow know why users leave the game...specifically, what exactly lessens their experience and causes them to throw in the towel. We can speculate of course but perhaps BB (who would have the email addresses of all users upon signup) can send a standard email to those users who go MIA...

They could ask simple closed questions to try and discover what it is exactly that caused them to leave...

I'm new to the game and hope it doesn't die however I can make one observation that might help. While one of the things I like about BB is that I don't need to spend a lot of time on it due to the fact that there are scheduled events (updates, finance, transfer etc) it does seem like nothing happens for too long a period. The game is about growth, and earning money or training once a week doesn't help me to grow any faster. In fact it makes it frustrating when I can't improve my roster or arena.
Allowing new players a bonus of extra cash flow or an extra training session per week (i.e. for 2/weeks, a month) might get them to come back as they can feel like their team is getting better.
Also adding an extra training session per week would benefit everyone as there are soo many areas to upgrade.