[strags]

I am probably beating a dead horse here, but BBO's recent price increase from $1 to $2 for Robot Reward tourneys, on top of its increasing the rake per game from 20% to 30% about a year ago, is killing the game.

Maybe some hard numbers will help get BBO to reconsider this.

I ran a program on the Tournament Archive page that covered all robot games starting between 17:05 on January 14th, 2025 and 11:56 on January 18th. That's a period of 5,488 minutes. Robot Reward games run every 8 minutes, provided there are two players signed up, so in that period there were 687 scheduled games.

368 of them were cancelled due to lack of players. That's 54%.

Of the 319 that ran, a total of 1487 players participated, an average of 4.66/game. Counting the cancelled games, the average drops to 2.16/game. The largest game in that span was 15 players.

Now, the BBO deal archives only allow you to go back so far, so from here on you'll have to take my word on things. This is a huge drop in popularity. In 2023, with $1 games and a 20% rake, cancelled games were much less frequent. My guess, even counting the overnight hours in the US and Europe, is that at least 75% of scheduled games went off. The average per run game was probably 6 to 7 players, average counting cancelled games would be about 5, and the largest game over any given four-day span would be around 25/game.

Is BBO netting more money per RR game today than before? I'm sure they are. They doubled the price and took an extra 10% out of the prize pool. But, the cost in terms of goodwill (which is a tangible line item number in accounting) and lost customers is enormous. It's not just the RR games either -- the Daylongs have also seen large drops in daily play counts, as has the Zenith.

BBO, please -- you cannot keep doing this. Could someone from the company please respond to this post. If I'm wrong, okay, but please explain
why. If I'm right, please explain why you are doing this to us? Thank you.

[ASC87]

This needs to be heard and addressed!

strags, on 2025-January-19, 23:13, said:

I am probably beating a dead horse here, but BBO's recent price increase from $1 to $2 for Robot Reward tourneys, on top of its increasing the rake per game from 20% to 30% about a year ago, is killing the game.

Maybe some hard numbers will help get BBO to reconsider this.

I ran a program on the Tournament Archive page that covered all robot games starting between 17:05 on January 14th, 2025 and 11:56 on January 18th. That's a period of 5,488 minutes. Robot Reward games run every 8 minutes, provided there are two players signed up, so in that period there were 687 scheduled games.

368 of them were cancelled due to lack of players. That's 54%.

Of the 319 that ran, a total of 1487 players participated, an average of 4.66/game. Counting the cancelled games, the average drops to 2.16/game. The largest game in that span was 15 players.

Now, the BBO deal archives only allow you to go back so far, so from here on you'll have to take my word on things. This is a huge drop in popularity. In 2023, with $1 games and a 20% rake, cancelled games were much less frequent. My guess, even counting the overnight hours in the US and Europe, is that at least 75% of scheduled games went off. The average per run game was probably 6 to 7 players, average counting cancelled games would be about 5, and the largest game over any given four-day span would be around 25/game.

Is BBO netting more money per RR game today than before? I'm sure they are. They doubled the price and took an extra 10% out of the prize pool. But, the cost in terms of goodwill (which is a tangible line item number in accounting) and lost customers is enormous. It's not just the RR games either -- the Daylongs have also seen large drops in daily play counts, as has the Zenith.

BBO, please -- you cannot keep doing this. Could someone from the company please respond to this post. If I'm wrong, okay, but please explain
why. If I'm right, please explain why you are doing this to us? Thank you.

[Angel_6]

thank you - that's exactly what I feel

strags, on 2025-January-19, 23:13, said:

I am probably beating a dead horse here, but BBO's recent price increase from $1 to $2 for Robot Reward tourneys, on top of its increasing the rake per game from 20% to 30% about a year ago, is killing the game.
...

[shyams]

IMHO,

1. The probability of returning to a 20% rake appears negligible (almost zero?)
2. The probability of them reverting to a $1 entry fee is something worth fighting for.

I used to play Robot 55% often (esp. during peak hours often with 10+ participants). I think I have stopped playing these soon after they raised their cut to 30%.

I was also a frequent Zenith player. I would win some prize often enough to (almost) cover my entry fees. Once they changed to 30%, I realised that my skill levels were insufficient to prevent a rapid depletion of my BB$ wallet.

To me, these pricing actions felt (and still feel) unfair, especially given that there is no human BBO staff or Tournament Director needed to conduct these tournaments.

[benellis58]

While I agree that the whopping price increase (with the Zenith cost DOUBLING in one fell swoop) was not what one would call customer-friendly, I was even less impressed when BBO earlier increased its rake from 70% to 80%. It might not have been so bad if they had at the same time at least improved the abominable "skill" level of the GIB robots, but sadly those GIB robots to this day continue to be classic examples of ineptitude at bridge.

[johnu]

strags, on 2025-January-19, 23:13, said:

I am probably beating a dead horse here, but BBO's recent price increase from $1 to $2 for Robot Reward tourneys, on top of its increasing the rake per game from 20% to 30% about a year ago, is killing the game.

BBO hears you and is increasing the price to $3, and increasing the rake to 40% to make up for lower participation 😂🤣😂