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Raise your hand if you're playing less these days

• IvaThongon 933 Posts

  Wed, Jan 16 2013 11:11 PM

  Guess you can raise my hand, too. My reasons are a bit different from everyone else's, as I have never played for credits, nor do I care to.

  The past year has been a pretty busy year for me in my real life, and consequently, WGT suffered...and to tell the truth, I didn't really miss it. I've had many week long and month long breaks, and really what did I miss out on...aside from some interaction with good people here?

• craigswan 31,559 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 12:41 AM

  Maybe some of you guys achieved too much too early . Your all high flyers in a rush to get to the top .

  I have been playing here for over 2 years and never spent a penny . I have a few clubs friends gifted me and beginner balls but i am perfectly happy coming on here for 30 mins or so every day , hitting a few balls and having a laugh in my cc . i am still only a master but have ambitions of being a tour master which with my equipment will be good shooting for me .

  It,s the usual story of the world being in a rush but sometimes the tortoise beats the hare or at least enjoys the views better .

  c,mon guys - smell the coffee - it,s all good really .

  When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much."

• PUHOLINO 1,189 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 5:08 AM

  Fuzzygazz:

  MBaggese:

  PUHOLINO:

  So, to recap, if you stop playing, they will only lose the ammount of actual cash you payed in this year, which is usually ZERO with most net winners. Sad, but true.

   

  I'm not so sure...

   

  I'd think every credit is worth one penny (US)...so the more WGT get's back credits, it seems it would go to the plus side of assets...otherwise, what would be the point of taking a percentage of RG, Blitz, and MPC?

   

  Exactly..It's like ppl  losing money at a casino saying its was only house money. Once you won it its not house money.

   

   

   

  Well, it is if you can't change your chips for cash and leave like you can in a casino. And the term house money is wrong here. It's other people's money.

  Rakes are in place so that people who don't win consistantly need to buy more credits . The fact somebody has 100. 000 credits in his account doesn't mean he has 1000 $, since he can't cash them in at that rate (at any rate now). So thinking WGT receiveid 1000 $ from him if he spends them in the pro shop, is ludicrous. They already owned that 1000 $ from the day when all the people, who were losing matches to that much better player, bought all those credits (100.000 + the rake it took to accumulate those winnings) with their real money.

  Again. How much money does WGT get from you (and I don't mean anyone in particular), if you spend 100.000 credits in a year, but you didn't deposit any real dollars in their account. But I admit the role of good net winners is to beat the fish, so the fish need to buy more and more often. But saying you (again, not meaning you personally, I mean net winners) payed WGT 1000 $ if you spend 100 k in the pro shop? You didn't.

  The only time WGT gets actual money, is when people buy credits, not spend them. The credits that are circulating right now, have already been paid for, when they were bought and they add nothing to WGTs coffers when they're spent, cause they already received the money for them way back.

  Serial net winners are not an asset to WGT, they're a liability. First, they don't even put any money in again. Second, when they see they have credits (which have since the last change become even more worthless) in piles and really nothing to do with them, some will either gift around or start selling them to others at a black market price. By doing this, some people who would've otherwise bought credits from WGT now won't have, which means the great player actually took money away from WGT. That's why I said they become a liability.

  I wish things weren't like this.

  Edit: P.S.: WGT also doesn't get much out of people who find themselves on the losing end all the time, cause most of them eventually wise up and stop playing.

  The ones that are IMO the most lucrative for WGT are the people who win 50-60% of the time. That's where the rake kicks in. If you have a bank roll of 50$ and you win 50-60% of your matches, the rake and the cost of balls will eventually bleed you dry. But most will be happy to buy more credits. Why wouldn't they, after all, they think they're winning.

• 9,041 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 6:07 AM

  craigswan:

  When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much."

  Sorry, only Eric can get away with that sh*t....

• jakestanfill7 949 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 6:12 AM

  Puholino,

  I agree with you on a few fronts and appreciate your perspective.  Yes, the person who actually buys credits is an immediate asset and yes there has to be anglers to hook the fish and cause them to buy more credits.  Without the current top players being the anglers everything just shifts to the next tier.

  Here's the point.  You build business and net profit by growing transactions and users. If players like me start disappearing how can that not impact WGT financially?

  Look at it this way.  In the days when credits actually counted for something, you could really consider them liabilities on the balance sheet once they were in my pocket.  Those credits that were purchased by others but won by me don't actually become true profit until I give them back.  

  I gave those liabilities back at a rate of $18.60 a day or about $7500 a year.  I do understand that the $7500 I re-inserted into the machine is not on a true dollar to dollar exchange.  It would follow the same exchange rate that items in the Elite Collection, which you could view as the "Foreign Currency Exchange".

  Question, if 5,000 players who were self-funded from winnings, stop or diminish play, would that hurt WGT  financially?  Ummmmmmm, YES!

  Conclusion.  Correct I'm a not AS valuable as the poor sap who actually spends his own big money to play WGT, but I'm still an asset as is every player who purchases balls, plays many Ready Go, and MPC.

• 783 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 6:52 AM

  yep my problems started big time about 1 week ago aswell not going to keep repeating my self but yeh i used to buy all my credits i havent spent money on this crap for a while now nor will wgt ever get another dime out of me. i get to save 1 rank game in about 15 atempts due to the meeter doesent bother me no more but wgt must be reading this and realising them selves it sucks the best thing wgt could do is to at least atept to fix things or just pack up or get some1 in who knows what  2 do to fix things instead of writing  bs  clear flash cache news flash wgt were not as stupid as you are fix your game.

• PUHOLINO 1,189 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 7:25 AM

  jakestanfill7:

  Conclusion.  Correct I'm a not AS valuable as the poor sap who actually spends his own big money to play WGT, but I'm still an asset as is every player who purchases balls, plays many Ready Go, and MPC.

   

  Agreed. Guys like may not be as big an asset to WGT any more, but you certainly are, at least from my perspective, a huge asset to people like me (and I've been a net winner for a while now, just nowhere near your league). You all represent something for us to strive for and are the reason why a lot of people try to better their game all the time. Most of you serve as a great inspiration to others and your experience and input is greatly appreciated by most players (although some prefer to whine that to better themselves). I'm not sure what WGT wants to accomplish, but guys like me sure as hell don't want guys like you to quit.

  What I wrote before was never meant as my personal opinion of high rollers (far from it), just as a possible perspective into how the mind of WGT probably (regrettably) works.

• mohuyu 891 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 7:25 AM

  PUHOLINO:

  Edit: P.S.: WGT also doesn't get much out of people who find themselves on the losing end all the time, cause most of them eventually wise up and stop playing.

  The ones that are IMO the most lucrative for WGT are the people who win 50-60% of the time. That's where the rake kicks in. If you have a bank roll of 50$ and you win 50-60% of your matches, the rake and the cost of balls will eventually bleed you dry. But most will be happy to buy more credits. Why wouldn't they, after all, they think they're winning.

  Very accurate assessment PUHOLINO, IMO the players most likely to invest are those who barely breakeven in premium games. But the question is will WGT's bizarre decision to remove the only avenue to cash out dent such players' motivation? After all, it cannot be profitable for WGT if only the "self-sufficient" players constitute premium tournaments.

   

• drmoose 3,538 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 9:17 AM

  

  I purposely left my opening opening comments vague as these are just the type of responses I was hoping for. Not whines or rants, but an open across the board discussion of why people are playing less. So far we've had some excellent input describing the symptoms of this "illness", perhaps it's time to identify the illness itself, and by this I mean (of course) the last round of manipulation of the VEM/deviations that have sucked the enjoyment out of this game for what I believe is a majority of the players. I further believe that WGT has gone overboard in trying to correct the issue of scores being "unrealisticly low" which has brought us to this sad state of affairs. If the powers that be are listening at all, may we at least have some of what drew us to this game to begin with returned ? A compromise perhaps between what the game was and the pitiful excuse it's become? You might also consider telling the next person who complains about "low scores",  "It's like blood pressure, too low is no good, too high is no good, we're trying to keep it in an "acceptable" range so no-one strokes out"

  Doc ;)

• PeterHopper 1,315 Posts

  Thu, Jan 17 2013 12:33 PM

  craigswan:

  When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much."

   

  Oh my gawd, not a Man Utd fan.

   

  As for the thread topic, I am playing a lot less. A game a day typically. I got back into the swing of some hot Alt action a couple of weeks back, but the fire has gone out again. I often find myself setting up an Alt game and inviting a couple of friends, just to cancel it myself out of disinterest. Then I spend the time playing 8 ball pool on miniclip.

  I don't know why, is it WGT, is it me?

  I have no enthusiasm to spend loads on credits, and I feel the game has got a little tired. I think my game has got a little tired - not getting any better, not willing to play enough to make a meaningful dent on my average to get to TL. So, post a few scores on a weekly CC, every couple of weeks have a surge of ALT games, lower my average by 0.20 a month.

  I suspect a lot of regular players are playing fewer games. I noticed a few months back that the number of my friends onlinr at peak times (Friday evenings) was around the 16/17 mark. It used to be in the high 20's.

  WGT offers no giveaways (i.e. like the time you found a sleeve of balls in the rough), and they have upped the amount you have to spend to get a 'free' sleeve of Nikes (and this offer is not as regular as before). Everything seems honed toward squeezing more money out of it's customers - like the introduction of imaginary MAX products at inflated prices. It seems like a cycle of take, take, take without giving a little love occasionally.

  Perhaps they think a free rental weekend is giving something, but that is focused on people eventually parting with cash. People earn less from surveys and videos than in the past, and in some territories surveys soon don't work and sponsored free balls like Dove or the Champagne one are not valid.

  It's no wonder that some give up or reduce play.

  As for me, I am happy in the knowledge that this great game is still here. Even if I were to disappear for a couple of weeks, I know I can have a fun game. With that mindset I can spend just $20 a month to keep me and my CC in balls. But I should be playing a lot more, and perhaps spending double that.