BuzzerBeater Forums

Improvement in the play by play will be a big help in maintaining the new players..

As in more of a visual view of actual players during a game???

yup

ill chime in here for a bit - i haven't read all the posts, so sorry if im repeating something.

It also seems the thread has gone into 'solution' mode already so my comments might be detracting from that.

So. Numbers of BB users do seem to have decreased quite spectacularly in the past 12-24 months. I think 2 years ago it was nearly twice the current number of users.....r ( I used wayback-machine to check this. 31st July 2012 there were 45656 active teams - today - 26904 active teams)

There is some more data which i think is important from the community page. Particularly in the last 7 days section. Ive listed below this data, and the difference between now and 2 years ago.

BB-mails Sent ( -17% )
Messages post on forums ( -3% )
Number of new users sign up ( -71% )
Number of simultaneous online users ( -29% )
Number of users banned ( -23%)
Also interesting is that number of active countries has increased by 1.

I think these numbers are interesting - So whilst the number of active users is down 41%, that difference is not reflected in other stats.
- Forum posts have remained the same/similar
- Number of simultaneous users hasn't changed as much.
- Number of BB-mails sent has not changed as much as the number of active users.
However
- Number of new users sign up is down significantly.

So what does this tell us?
- That people who, 2 years ago, were using forums and BB-mail, are still using BB.
- That the majority of users have left, not from small nations (the number of active countries has gone up!) but from established countries.

There is also the fact that, the number of BB users probably did peak at about 50k. This was probably its height of popularity. Lots of sites/things in life do a peak and then a drop to a more sustainable level.

Without knowing much more info about the types of users that are leaving, or why they are leaving, its hard to say that there is something wrong with the game. Perhaps all it was, when there was 50k users, was that there wa sa constant churn of new users lasting less than 6 months. This churn may have stopped/slowed.

the fact that it was around 50k users for 2010, 2011, 2012 and then suddenly died off - not sure what this suggests. The above data suggests that the number of new users is simply not happening anywhere near as much as before, (in 2009, it was over 4k users in that 7 day period).

That does suggest that the ratio of incoming new user to user retention is more imbalanced, so yer.

essentially, im summary, i dont tihnk there is anything particularly wrong with the game which is causing long time users to leave. Just not as many new users coming through.

That is all and i just lost a massive bidding war and now im annoyed! haha.

I hate to reduce such a long, and good post down to one thing, but I believe there's a tiny error in your post, which doesn't really effect the whole. When you say there's an extra active country, that can only be utopia. So really, that's irrelevant.

Other than that, excellent post which I think hits the nail on the head. Fewer sign ups equals decreasing numbers.

I think there are a variety of reasons for leaving. I think for many, its simply that they feel they've reached a point where they simply can't move on, and don't have the time or heart to fix whatever problems their own team has. I've seen a few teams in leagues I've been in where a failure has been followed by a lack of interest, and then the seemingly inevitable slide into botland.

I'm sure there's a plethora of other reasons people leave. Real life getting in the way would be a major thing I'm sure. I doubt for very many its the actual state of the game itself.

that is true! Utopia! (Unless they don't count it)

The point i was trying to make though with that country count was that its not like it had gone from 98 down to 80 or something like that.

I joined because the buzzerbeater banner ad kept showing up
many came, signed up and never looked a second time
I think many of the numbers were inflated by that at the time.
I have tried all the basketball games, none compare,
but it does take some brainpower to succeed and it takes time.
How better to keep the ones that do come, there's the rub.

How better to keep the ones that do come, there's the rub.

Yep thats it.

Lets say, BB has a 30% retention rate over 6 months. that is, new users who sign up, are still playing 6 months later.

If 2 years ago, they were getting 1000 new users every week, thats 300 retained users.

If this year, they only got 200 in the last week, then thats only 60 retained users.

Thats a massive difference. And then proportionally, number of supporters.

However, Im under the assumption that, the reason why they implemented Utopia, was because the number of long-term users dropping off was massive. But im only guessing. BB would have these numbers, we can only speculate really.

As long as BB can maintain a steady flow of new users, and a steady retention %, then the game should be ok. I dont think they are going to be able to change the game in order to increase the 'new user retention %'. They can however try to increase the number of new users, which proportionally increases the number of users retained.

anyways, i think ive blabbed enough :)

You haven't babbled, Coach, but have, as is your way, given us some great statistical evidence/possibilities. +1 for that.

It's good to see so many peeps having their say here...and it no doubt reinforces that there has been, is now and always will be a sizable core group of committed BB users who will ensure this great game never truly dies...

...I do hope we can somehow return to 50k users at some point in the future.

I think there are also peaks and troughs that are associated with other things

eg: I reckon when NBA2k14 came out, the number of active users posting things on forums just died off dramatically!

so yer, even things like that might have an effect.