BBO Discussion Forums: game price increase - BBO Discussion Forums

If you buy BBO dollars and pay to play you will have recently noticed the increase in tournament costs.
I really like the increase in the instant tournament costs. Especially the 49 cents to 59 cent increase,
and the Daylong 42 cent game increase. You can feel that someone deep down really thought long and hard
about those decisions. Were they too much? were they not enough? Would they drive people away in anger?
Does it follow the mindset,'hey, everything is rising in price ' so we should too? Picture it? 10-15
people at most running a computer based game. 2-3 hard core people actually correcting the code and trouble
shooting errors and the rest doing the books,record keeping, the in's and out's with the ACBL. I wonder
if 'Warren' was involved? You need to keep you pencil sharp? right? What an uncomfortable number. 59 cents?

opaque, on 2023-January-18, 07:15, said:

ACBL raised their table fees for f2f clubs effective January 1. Maybe that's what brought it on here.

The price for robots used to be one buck per week, now it is suddenly 3 bucks.

helene_t, on 2023-January-18, 11:08, said:

Certainly well worth the money considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars in development that has gone into improving the robots.

opaque, on 2023-January-18, 07:15, said:

Surely, you jest. You “like” the price increase? 🥴

I will be playing less, much less. Can I afford it? Yes. But it is the feeling I get that we are being gouged and poked into submission…..kind of like the government….all powerful…..all knowing. I would predict that most of the people who support this venue are elderly and/or infirm….on a fixed income. It was a rather large price increase….36%. It feels like a “gotcha”.

I find it very annoying.😣

supply chain shortage with masterpoints brought this on ...barf

I used to play 3 or 4 Daylongs each day, but now I mostly just play one - the MP1 one.
I get my 'fix' from the Free Acol Daylong and the free MP/IMP one.
I'm also unlikely to buy more BBO $$ when the ones that I have run out, as I don't like feeling like I'm being ripped off!
If it's true that the owners of BBO are trying to increase the value of the site before selling it off, as claimed in another post about price increases, then the new owners may well increae the prices again to try to make a quick profit on their purchase!?

Certainly not a popular move. I get the feeling that this is an attempt, however misguided, to get people to play face-to-face again.

The cost for robot rental strikes me as unwarranted given the level of play they return. I use them with prior Vu-graphs to test my play and bidding instead of solitaire. Perhaps some weeks I will skip the robo-terror now

dave251164, on 2023-January-19, 13:31, said:

The person who wrote that probably knows what he is talking about, although it's hard for me to conceive why a competent hedge fund should rush in to purchase a group of overlapping companies that another hedge fund has been unable to set in order.

helene_t, on 2023-January-18, 11:08, said:

Unlike the tournaments, I don't think the price of robot rentals has changed since they were added decades ago.

barmar, on 2023-January-19, 18:29, said:

You would think wrong. For many years it used to be $1/week for basic robots, and $1/day for advanced robots. Still says that on some help pages on the site.

It increased to $2 and $1.50 about 6 months ago, and now it's $3 and $2 as helene_t said. A 200% increase on basic robot rental in that timeframe.

I'm now playing fewer ACBL tourneys. Maybe the value of their points will now increase too

Best value is the reward. Both in terms of hands per BB$ and occasional returns

Also with the added advantage of not being best hand so you get to explore more of the bidding system

The price of the Zenith daylong and the Robot reward daylong also increased by 50% as they now pay out 70% instead of 80% of the entry money through the price pool.

smerriman, on 2023-January-19, 18:57, said:

is it still the same price in April 2024 ? $3 per week of Robot rental , unlimited week rental ?
thanks in advanced