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Price Adjustment coming

#1 User is offline   y66 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 10:53

BBO announced today that after 15 years of holding the line on prices, Daylongs, Instant Tournaments, and Robot Duplicates will cost slightly more as of Jan 7th (Monday).

Details here.

BBO also announced today that Bridge Master will be free starting Jan 7. Permanently. IMO, that is an incredible act of generosity and a huge boon to bridge players at all levels of the game. Thank you BBO.
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#2 User is offline   shyams 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 11:39

View Posty66, on 2019-January-05, 10:53, said:

BBO announced today that after 15 years of holding the line on prices, Daylongs, Instant Tournaments, and Robot Duplicates will cost slightly more as of Jan 7th (Monday).

Details here.

BBO also announced today that Bridge Master will be free starting Jan 7. Permanently. IMO, that is an incredible act of generosity and a huge boon to bridge players at all levels of the game. Thank you BBO.


I don't like the price hikes. Would it be possible for BBO to disclose the Return on Equity (RoE)?
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#3 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 12:30

View Postshyams, on 2019-January-05, 11:39, said:

I don't like the price hikes. Would it be possible for BBO to disclose the Return on Equity (RoE)?


This is one of the funniest posts that I have seen in years
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#4 User is offline   shyams 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 13:31

View Posthrothgar, on 2019-January-05, 12:30, said:

This is one of the funniest posts that I have seen in years

Why not? I'm not asking for their financial statements, their profitability, their dividend policies, their income or expense metrics -- just the RoE.

I know the stuff about competition and all, but after BBO recently announced its "merger" with FunBridge, BBO has become a dominant provider. If both companies were in the business of a widely used retail product, I'm sure the competition authorities would have reviewed the merger.

I suspect any such authorities would consider online bridge too trivial to bother reviewing.

So, let me ask again, any possibility of disclosing RoE?
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#5 User is online   smerriman 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 13:35

View Posty66, on 2019-January-05, 10:53, said:

BBO also announced today that Bridge Master will be free starting Jan 7. Permanently. IMO, that is an incredible act of generosity and a huge boon to bridge players at all levels of the game. Thank you BBO.

Agreed, that is simply incredible news.
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#6 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 13:46

View Postshyams, on 2019-January-05, 13:31, said:

Why not? I'm not asking for their financial statements, their profitability, their dividend policies, their income or expense metrics -- just the RoE.


Well lets see...

The main reason is that random end users don't have any right nor should they have any expectation that management is going to share financial information with you. The very notion seems farcical.

Coupled with this, it wouldn't surprise me at all to discover the BBO doesn't have a good formal notion regarding the RoE, their hurdle rate, or their discount rate. (I've worked in senior positions at a bunch of large public companies who have trouble measuring that sort of thing)

Quote

I know the stuff about competition and all, but after BBO recently announced its "merger" with FunBridge, BBO has become a dominant provider. If both companies were in the business of a widely used retail product, I'm sure the competition authorities would have reviewed the merger.


Anti trust ain't particularly popular in the US right now. Being a dominant provider is no longer sufficient to bring an anti trust case. You also need to demonstrate that consumers are actively being harmed by the market concentration.
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#7 User is offline   dave251164 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 13:47

Robot Duplicate 16% increase!
Instants 32% increase!!
Daylongs 56% increase!!!
Clearly more of a money grabbing exercise than an inflationary necessity!
With the huge % rise on Daylong Fees BBO are hitting the master point collectors hardest - taking a leaf out of the greedy EBU/ACBL handbook?!
A more modest 5 cent increase on each of the above would have been more acceptable.
I wonder if the numbers entering the tourneys above will drop as some players play in less of them or possibly boycott them altogether, so profits will not increase as hoped for and further rises would be needed and so on?!
Was the lack of a Comments Box after this News Feed item deliberate to avoid the likely outcry/anger/negative comments I wonder?
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#8 User is offline   johnu 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 17:06

View Postdave251164, on 2019-January-05, 13:47, said:

Robot Duplicate 16% increase!
Instants 32% increase!!
Daylongs 56% increase!!!
Clearly more of a money grabbing exercise than an inflationary necessity!
With the huge % rise on Daylong Fees BBO are hitting the master point collectors hardest - taking a leaf out of the greedy EBU/ACBL handbook?!
A more modest 5 cent increase on each of the above would have been more acceptable.
I wonder if the numbers entering the tourneys above will drop as some players play in less of them or possibly boycott them altogether, so profits will not increase as hoped for and further rises would be needed and so on?!
Was the lack of a Comments Box after this News Feed item deliberate to avoid the likely outcry/anger/negative comments I wonder?


ACBL robot games were also raised from $1.00 to $1.25 (25% increase) fairly recently. Percentage wise it wasn't the biggest increase, but the $.25 increase is equal to the original non-ACBL game fees.
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#9 User is offline   The_Badger 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 18:24

There's a tad too much negativity on this thread. BBO held prices for 15 years! I'd like my grocery bill to be what it was in 2004/5 and stay the same for 15 years. On the surface the prices look similar to playing a session in a club, and its a heck more convenient playing online than wading through snow to play bridge on a winter's night. Or driving on a round trip of 10-40 miles to play at a club.

I have to eat but I can choose if I want to pay for bridge on here.
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#10 User is offline   johnu 

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Posted 2019-January-05, 19:30

View PostThe_Badger, on 2019-January-05, 18:24, said:

There's a tad too much negativity on this thread. BBO held prices for 15 years! I'd like my grocery bill to be what it was in 2004/5 and stay the same for 15 years. On the surface the prices look similar to playing a session in a club, and its a heck more convenient playing online than wading through snow to play bridge on a winter's night. Or driving on a round trip of 10-40 miles to play at a club.

I have to eat but I can choose if I want to pay for bridge on here.


It's much more palatable to increase rates gradually than a giant jump. I don't know about ACBL sanction fees that are paid per table or whether they have increased recently (IIRC BBO was going to pay $500K to the ACBL as some kind of sponsor fee). The major programming costs have already been paid for the different robot tournaments so they basically cost nothing to run (or at least, basically the same cost as the main bridge room games). BBO does need additional servers to run the robots, and they may need to be replaced/repaired in the course of business.

I would have increased fees by something like 5-10% this year, with regular increases in subsequent years. Suppose Costco decided to raise the price of their $1.50 hot dog and drink to $2.25 overnight. Still a good value, but there would be a lot of negative responses from members over the large increase all at once.
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#11 User is offline   thepossum 

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Posted 2019-January-06, 00:23

It will be interesting to observe demand for tournaments. It does seem a big % increase but after 15 years its not a bad annual increase. The Bridge Master change is very welcome for people learning. Obviously companies need to invest as they grow and the merger with Fun Bridge is part of the trend to reducing costs and competition on prices. Are Fun Bridge's prices changing too. However without knowing details of elasticity of demand for bridge tournaments we dont know how it will change numbers. I would assume they have done their analysis and decided that the market can take a price hike like that. Without knowing details of the market and basing it on limited knowledge of people in the market, how many tournaments they play etc. I would assume that it will not affect demand too much. It will for me as I have a finite bridge budget. Therefore 30% increase means a reduction in tournaments. No change in overall revenue. But there will be many who can afford and are willing to pay so I assume it will bring in necessary additional revenue. The alternative is that they want to reduce demand on servers. This fits with the Daylongs being the biggest percentage increase. So I assume it is a multi pronged approach at both reducing server load and being able to invest. Who knows really but one of the competitors has been knocked out in the merger and I assume they are able to share many costs now.

DISCLAIMER. I know nothing about the running of either company but am a regular tournament player :) I will enjoy the Bridge Master since that was prohibitive. Oh, and I will probably play better bridge if the tournaments are more expensive. Win win :)
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#12 User is offline   shif6 

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Posted 2019-January-06, 10:31

BBO in the last year raised prices on the ACBL instant 12 board robot tournaments. It now says it hasn't raised prices for 15 years. Am I missing something? Is this product immune from the price increase? Please respond.
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#13 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2019-January-06, 11:49

View Postshif6, on 2019-January-06, 10:31, said:

BBO in the last year raised prices on the ACBL instant 12 board robot tournaments. It now says it hasn't raised prices for 15 years. Am I missing something? Is this product immune from the price increase? Please respond.


Apples

Oranges
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#14 User is offline   shif6 

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Posted 2019-January-06, 12:09

View Posthrothgar, on 2019-January-06, 11:49, said:

Apples

Oranges

The notice says the price of instant tournaments will go up. The price of those tournaments went from $1 to $1.25 in the last year which is well within the last 15 years. Are you saying the price of these tournaments are not slated for an increase.
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#15 User is online   smerriman 

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Posted 2019-January-06, 13:27

The news article is about BBO tournaments, not ACBL tournaments.
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#16 User is offline   kuhchung 

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Posted 2019-January-10, 13:55

View PostThe_Badger, on 2019-January-05, 18:24, said:

There's a tad too much negativity on this thread. BBO held prices for 15 years! I'd like my grocery bill to be what it was in 2004/5 and stay the same for 15 years. On the surface the prices look similar to playing a session in a club, and its a heck more convenient playing online than wading through snow to play bridge on a winter's night. Or driving on a round trip of 10-40 miles to play at a club.

I have to eat but I can choose if I want to pay for bridge on here.


man, you have some low card fees then!!!

one session here is something like $12, something like 22 to 27 boards

if you play 3 daylong MPs on BBO, that's $1.17 for 24 boards
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#17 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2019-January-10, 14:27

View Postthepossum, on 2019-January-06, 00:23, said:

Are Fun Bridge's prices changing too.


I suspect that one factor behind the price hikes is that their eyes opened at seeing how aggressively FunBridge seeks revenue compared to BBO.
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#18 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2019-January-11, 09:26

View Postkuhchung, on 2019-January-10, 13:55, said:

man, you have some low card fees then!!!

one session here is something like $12, something like 22 to 27 boards

The cheapest club around here is $5 -- it's the MIT/Draper club, and they don't have to pay to use a classroom at MIT, and don't serve refreshments. All the other clubs are about $10.

#19 User is offline   jimger 

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Posted 2021-November-22, 06:59

I think that robot tny's IMP used to be $.25 way less than 15 years ago before they raised the price to $.29. Now they cost $.39 per tournament.
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#20 User is offline   LGreenberg 

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Posted 2021-November-23, 09:33

Percentages are a silly way of measuring value and fairness. So if BBO charged $.02 for 18 boards and raised it to $.03 , would it be rational to object to a 50% price hike ? I pay my bills with real dollars and not percentages. My gas/energy and food price percentage increases might be less than some of the BBO percentages but I am way more concerned about the increase in dollars I MUST spend daily in these two areas than the smaller dollar non-essential amounts spent here. It is also irrational to go back 15 years to evaluate anything since it was a totally different era in technology and labor.
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