[dave251164]

With the tourney price increases (Robot Duplicate 16% increase! Instants 32% increase!! Daylongs 56% increase!!!), I wondered if the numbers entering the tourneys above would drop as some players play in less of them or possibly boycott them altogether, so profits would not increase as hoped for and further rises would be needed and so on?!
Comparing the average table numbers for day-longs for 4/5/6 January with those for the 7th we have:
MP A down 11%
MP B down 15%
MP C down 15%
Just Dec down 12%
IMP down 13%
Because of the huge 56% increase in fees, profits from day-longs have still gone up even with reduced table numbers, so BBO will have no reason to return to the old price structure for day-longs unless table numbers fall even further....
I wonder if the same applies to Robot Duplicate and Instants with their lower price increases to start with though?!

[hrothgar]

dave251164, on 2019-January-08, 04:18, said:

With the tourney price increases (Robot Duplicate 16% increase! Instants 32% increase!! Daylongs 56% increase!!!), I wondered if the numbers entering the tourneys above would drop as some players play in less of them or possibly boycott them altogether, so profits would not increase as hoped for and further rises would be needed and so on?!
Comparing the average table numbers for day-longs for 4/5/6 January with those for the 7th we have:
MP A down 11%
MP B down 15%
MP C down 15%
Just Dec down 12%
IMP down 13%
Because of the huge 56% increase in fees, profits from day-longs have still gone up even with reduced table numbers, so BBO will have no reason to return to the old price structure for day-longs unless table numbers fall even further....
I wonder if the same applies to Robot Duplicate and Instants with their lower price increases to start with though?!

Its cute that you are trying to add some actually numbers to your rant, however, you might want to consider whether weekend tournaments are the same size as weekday tournament....
Also, whether looking at a single day's worth of data is adding signal or noise to the discussion.

A more serious discussion of this topic would involve plotting a time series and seeing whether there is an observable change point on January 7th.

[johnu]

dave251164, on 2019-January-08, 04:18, said:

With the tourney price increases (Robot Duplicate 16% increase! Instants 32% increase!! Daylongs 56% increase!!!), I wondered if the numbers entering the tourneys above would drop as some players play in less of them or possibly boycott them altogether, so profits would not increase as hoped for and further rises would be needed and so on?!
Comparing the average table numbers for day-longs for 4/5/6 January with those for the 7th we have:
MP A down 11%
MP B down 15%
MP C down 15%
Just Dec down 12%
IMP down 13%
Because of the huge 56% increase in fees, profits from day-longs have still gone up even with reduced table numbers, so BBO will have no reason to return to the old price structure for day-longs unless table numbers fall even further....
I wonder if the same applies to Robot Duplicate and Instants with their lower price increases to start with though?!

I have no idea what the table count is broken down by day, but I think the 7th which was a Monday should be compared to previous Mondays, and not to weekend numbers. My guess is that weekends have higher table counts than Mon-Thurs/Fri.

LOL, hrothgar had a similar take on the numbers

[hrothgar]

johnu, on 2019-January-08, 05:36, said:

I have no idea what the table count is broken down by day, but I think the 7th which was a Monday should be compared to previous Mondays, and not to weekend numbers. My guess is that weekends have higher table counts than Mon-Thurs/Fri.

LOL, hrothgar had a similar take on the numbers

Worth noting that the previous Monday was New Years Eve and the one before that XMAS eve, both of which would be expected to bias the analysis

[661_Pete]

Like many on BBO, I guess, I'm not really interested in the tourneys apart from the Acol@BBO ones now and again.

Nevertheless, I've been using the 'Instant Tourney' method merely to:
a) stop the adverts, and
b) offer BBO some monetary support, because I think they deserve it!
All I do is register for an Instant Tourney and then immediately withdraw (I don't want to play against robots). Keeping the ads at bay for another week.

I don't have a problem with this. However, is the 32% price hike really justified? Certainly I got a shock last time I 'renewed'.

[smerriman]

Wow, 32%, that's huge.

Oh wait, it's only 8 cents.

Really, BBO has every right to increase the prices, and I'm sure they put a lot of thought into it.

[johnu]

smerriman, on 2019-January-08, 13:25, said:

Wow, 32%, that's huge.

Oh wait, it's only 8 cents.

Really, BBO has every right to increase the prices, and I'm sure they put a lot of thought into it.

If you only played 1 tournament a year, then it would be $.08 per year. My off the wall guess is that some people may upwards of 10 tournaments a day, nearly every day. For someone playing 10 tournaments a day, $.80 per day, or $292 a year. Wait, that's less than $300 a year. WTP?

BTW, that's common advertising shtick you commonly see for bad insurance policies and various personal and home products that usually aren't any good. "It's only $.?? per day, see how cheap that is? How can you afford not to buy our product."

I do agree that BBO has every right to increase the prices. Nobody has to play robot tournaments. They probably made some rough calculations in determining the price increase. I disagree that they put much thought into how they implemented the increase in one large step.

[661_Pete]

I think it would be better if BBO had an optional subscription service with extra options - a sort of "BBO Pro" so to speak.

In other words, playing on the 'basic' BBO would still be free, but you'd get more goodies if you paid up. I'd certainly subscribe if I thought it was worth my while.

I use the Instant-Tourney-Withdraw system because there's no other way (besides AdBlock which I'd rather not use) of banishing the ads, not because I like it.

What sort of extra options might be restricted to those playing the "Pro" version? Unlimited hands per day, perhaps? Ability to view past boards? Ability to chat whilst kibitzing? Ability to host a table? Maintaining of IMPs/MPs average?

Just my thoughts. How do other sites, like BCL, handle this sort of thing?

[nudnikbp]

This is an elasticity of demand issue. Demand for daylongs at a price of .25 apparently was inelastic, so BBO gained by raising prices 56% if the number of players only dropped by 15%, i.e., total revenue received by BBO increased (with no increase in expenses since fewer people are now playing the daylong tournaments). In relative terms, demand was relatively unresponsive to the price change from .25 to .39. Alternatively, if BBO raised the daylong price 56% and the number of players decreased by 75%, then BBO would receive less total revenue after the price increase. In this alternative example, demand is elastic (relatively responsive to a price change), so BBO would lose revenue by raising the price from .25 to .39.
You can go back an multiply .25 times the number of players under the old pricing to get BBO's total revenue; then multiply .39 times the number of p;ayers to see the total revenue effect for BBO using the new pricing.

[A2003]

Is the price increase to allow advance Robot to play?

[DCal]

When I started playing duplicate at the local club in 1968, the entry fee was $1.25. It has increased quite a bit over the years, but I have never really felt like I was being gouged. A friend of mine at the time asked, "Where else can you find three hours of enjoyable entertainment with interesting and talented (for the most part) people for only $1.25? I have similar feelings here. It's a bargain for what you receive. I love the game, enjoy the tournaments, play regularly, and continue to do so. The price is still fair and equitable.

[johnu]

A2003, on 2019-January-09, 10:46, said:

Is the price increase to allow advance Robot to play?

IIRC from previous posts from BBO accounts, if you pay to play robot tournaments, you get advance robots. Free tournaments are basic robots. Exceptions would be specials where you get to play for free in a normal paid tournament, or if you are specifically renting a basic robot for general play.

[msjennifer]

SIRS.I,personally ,think that three day statistics is too low a sample and so the results have to be based on the Standard Error.A lager sample over say two months period may show a different picture as it then will be based upon the Standard Deviation..When price of any commodity is increased the sales go down but gradually become normal again as people get used to the new prices.The sample ,therefore, has to be much larger ,let us say 3 months and then one may notice that there is not much change when it will be calculated based on the Standard Deviation and not the Standard Error.

[super69]

This hurts the players with low or fixed incomes who have enjoyed these products. Juniors come to mind in particular (a segment that we desperately need to encourage, not discourage), but there is zero chance for a roll-back of the price increase.

[thepossum]

Note. Edited to include 5 days of data

Dear all

I know it is extremely early days with only 5 days of data so far but demand for daylongs is extremely stable day by day and having looked at all days (from 10 Dec to pre-change) and the 5 days (post change) there is extremely strong evidence that so far that average total daily demand for paid daylongs has dropped by between 10.7 and 14.7% (95% CI), p < .001 and average daily revenue has risen by between 33.5% and 38.7 % (95 % CI), p < .001.

Thats just using a t-test on daily data which as I said pre-changes is extremely stable day by day and only on 5 days post change its obviously hard to get a good standard error

regards the P

EDIT PS And obviously the above is ignoring any trends etc. they take much longer to show. it is a crude analysis of means



EDIT Note after updating the analysis to include January there is no real change in the above estimates although they are abit more precise with 95% CI for demand dropping between 11.1% to 14.8%

[barmar]

super69, on 2019-January-10, 15:27, said:

This hurts the players with low or fixed incomes who have enjoyed these products. Juniors come to mind in particular (a segment that we desperately need to encourage, not discourage), but there is zero chance for a roll-back of the price increase.

We give other benefits to juniors, such as free robot play.

[svengolly]

One can only hope they put the extra money towards improving or replacing GIB. Maybe that's why BBO bought FunBridge?

[Strangway]

I switched my bot play to Funbridge in response to the massive price increase of the daylong tournaments.

There are pros and cons. Argine's cardplay makes GIB look like a beginner but, probably due to its European roots, it does not have a good understanding of the bidding methods familiar to North Americans.

Funbridge has an interesting ladder-league (both individual and teams) that I would love to see BBO adopt.

[donvanv]

Strangway, on 2019-January-27, 16:50, said:

I switched my bot play to Funbridge in response to the massive price increase of the daylong tournaments.

There are pros and cons. Argine's cardplay makes GIB look like a beginner but, probably due to its European roots, it does not have a good understanding of the bidding methods familiar to North Americans.

Funbridge has an interesting ladder-league (both individual and teams) that I would love to see BBO adopt.

The problem with funbridge is that it does not have a good understanding of any bidding system. This from someone who plays ACOL. It's flaws are fundemental.Using a 12-14 NT opening it has NT re-bids as forcing and a wide range of HCP, when they should be 15-16 AND 18-19 depending on the level. I use the free profile and have the option of 1S/1H - 3NT as 12-15 HCP no fit, so when a hand came up that fit this definition exactly, the explanation showed 11-14 HCP with a fit. I wasn't using the bidding tips so the game engine took me out of NT into a 4-2 fit.
Customer service is poor, here is a reply I received from them regarding bidding errors
we receive several hundreds of complaints per day.

Therefore we simply cannot respond to bridge matters. It does not mean that we do not take them into account.


Regards,
Funbridge Customer Service