BuzzerBeater Forums

BB is indeed having a very slow death at this point. Owners have bought this IP but doesn't seem to prioritize. As a developer myself, I have my own reservations about timelines and project expectations. They must have thought this as well, that BB won't be on heavy decline for about a decade and will take their time with this one. The mindset probably is that users here has a tolerance for waiting so might as well take advantage of that. I have my speculations why it's taking so long though.

If the new management really cared about BB, the problem might be infrastructure cost. I don't know where the servers are located. I could only speculate the amount of data this game has built over decades of simulating games. They might be having a hard time with managing that.

But if I just glanced at this game, the first thought I would think if I want to improve is to implement cron jobs. Then alerts. Then performance optimizations. Then code leaks. Then the BBAPI. Certainly not the UI. That would be the last or the middle. If this game is monolithic from the start then I would start with decoupling API from UI.

The thing is were losing members. We should be making some noise to maintain that. But they're not. The goal should be to maintain then advertise. We're not and they're not doing that. I want to trust that they're competent enough to know the right architectural and business decisions with this game and I'm going to still wish that we won't have to jump ship or create another Buzzerbeater.

It's also summer and vacations, less users register. I wouldn't pay this number that much attention at the moment.

The real question is: will the "total BB recostruction" be completed first, or will the old, loyal users die of old age first?

:)

One more season to go from they are saying.

I came back to BB after a few years, and it seems to me that returning to this game as an old player isn’t much of a problem. What we could consider, though, is the current player demographics we have now, because in its present form the game probably won’t appeal much to the younger generation. So maybe the approach could be to target older players first and then gradually move towards younger ones.

Also, a user doesn’t really need a game they log into all the time, and that’s exactly what BB is – there are only a few periods of higher activity. But then again, that might work like a double-edged sword, since people can also forget about the game. Features like BBM increase the chances of keeping engagement. Of course, the game needs to remain financially sustainable, but I think something like offering a second team at a lower price could help – that way there would be more teams overall.

I also wonder how marketing for this game could be improved. Probably it’s not legal to just send an email to every address that was ever registered on BB. But maybe ads could help, or some sort of email campaign done in smaller batches so it doesn’t look like a sudden blast, but instead slowly generates some response.

More talk shows would help. It builds new community voices

I´ve been playing BB for almost 19 years. My first game was in October 2007. The game is a joke right now, very far from a basketball simulator. This will be my last season. Goodbye to all the friends that I made along this journey.