Yard Work
Well, gardening for some is different than gardening for others. Case in point is Bill Rini who watered and fertilized for Party Poker’s site. Being retired/burned-out/ExPated allows less cryptic posting of insider thought. His ongoing theme has been how to “keep/attract fish” and, like his counterparts, he does and doesn’t get it.
The problem is the same one that every business faces. That is maximizing and/or maintaining profits. That inserts their hand into the pocket of every client in one way or another. Every business has some kind of business plan to accomplish that.
In Vegas, business plans have morphed into various approaches over the years. The mobs business plan was $3.95 buffets and cheap shows. It built Vegas and contributed to the idea that Vegas is recession proof. Today’s Vegas is Steve Wynn’s business plan that was provided compliments of the junk bond craze. It went up scale. And that did away with recession proof and created the same kinds of pressure Bill is talking about.
Gambling is lucrative. The old business plan had a substantial start-up cost but could develop a cash cow business based on modest profits but very high turn over. The emphasis has always been one of maximizing turnover. That created a pecking order that emphasized keno, then slots, and so on. At the bottom of the list for profit/turns was the poker room.
When the poker boom hit the internet, that changed. The start up cost dropped dramatically. The market was on fire. Clients were lining up begging to be let in. Marketing didn’t have to attract or maximize. In fact, it was probably the opposite as skins and affiliates were brought in to water down profits with imperfect business planning. Long term outlooks did not exist.
The UIGEA redid the market in a dramatic fashion. I became a hired blogger just before it crept into the Ports Bill. The future unknown looked dire and bleak. That didn’t end up the case and even the recent tightening produced a minor blip. But, it did change the experience. My limited control was Netellered away. This created a captive market to no small degree. And the market was seen to be shrinking by the sites who had lost their registration lines and super easy cash movement.
So, we get to Bill Rini’s latest look at the market fumbling to understand the business in some new way. They are making it all revolve around their loyalty programs. The idea of FrequentPlayerPoints is no different than FrequentFlyerMiles. They are tilted toward the corporations goals and often lead to more antagonism than satisfaction. Vegas makes it look a bit better but it is hardly perfect.
Bill frames it all with the term fish. That’s a complete misnomer. Losing players aren’t any different about their approach than they are when they get the monthly cable or cell phone bill. They exchange their expendable income for creature enjoyment. When expendable income declines, such enjoyments are reaccessed and refined. Until the online sites start to understand this, they are doomed to attempts similar to the one Bill describes and in modified form supports.
The ideas is not and has never been one of cost to the majority of players. It is about enjoyment in the same way they pay and/or adjust their cable and cell bills. Online poker fails to address the reality/experience sought by their players with all their current ideas.
AT&T would be a poster child for reacting to declining expendable income. They are trying to show added value in the form of product that isn’t duplicated by their competition. With them it is I-phones and networked viewing of their cable product. A better experience for similar dollars is what they are attempting to show customers bent on spending less. Like poker they are a commodity business that has trouble being unique.
How does my experience translate to Bill’s managerial goals? Very poorly. If he reads back in my blog, he’ll see that I am “Banned for life!” on Stars. How it came about is simple to understand. His FPP ideas for my micro and mid-range play generated little. I’ve a shirt hanging in the closet unworn. I’ve a sweat shirt still in the wrapper. I’ve a coffee mug that broke. I’ve an unopened deck of plastic playing cards.Throw in a few t-shirts and that it. Nothing life changing or even that attractive.
I had no idea who I affiliated with on the site. I did know that my old employer (TonyG) would provide me with some added benefits like some freerolls based on those same points. So, I told the site I wanted to change my affiliate and they said no. I then said that I wanted the current account canceled and they threatened me instead of accommodating me. “If you cancel this account, you will be banned for life.” Not a smart move on their part and I’m gone and playing elsewhere.
I doubt there is a site out there that understands their typical players. They hype the FPPs used to get some guy a snazzy sports car. That just emphasizes the gap between the average Joe and what he sees available to him in the poker store. And, now they are redesign it all to make it worse or little changed for the average player. And, they are alienating those with different goals in the process.
Sorry Bill! But, you guys just don’t get it. Make the experience better or just forgetaboutit. There are no fish! It is all about recreation. And enhancing simple enjoyment seems counter intuitive to poker sites.
ADDENDUM:
In reading back to the links generated as similar, I read one of my old posts. That reminded me of what's wrong in the site world. Remember all-in protection? It supposedly was no longer necessary. Yet my ISP — Comcast — didn't cooperate. About once a day and occasionally a bit more often, I get the hang. Their change certainly was done to benefit the site. It created added overhead in programming, turnover, and support that they didn't like. As a result, my experience went from annoying to VERY annoying. That too was a part of my displeasure with P*.
No related posts.
I like your views. But I think you misread me. I’ve said over and over again that other than the grinders most people play for entertainment.
In this particular case I think they’re totally missing the mark because they’re giving back points to players who don’t care about points.
And I’ve always said that improving the player experience is waaaaaay more important than loyalty programs and how much rake is being paid.
That was one of my major criticisms of Ongame’s program. It did absolutely nothing to get recreational and fish players to keep playing despite that being the biggest selling point to winning players who were going to foot the bill for Ongame’s experiment.
Well, I agree that I missed a bit. But, your agreeing with the idea but not the implementation caused me to take that tack. The sites do seemingly offer a lot back in some respects. But, for the most part, they misdirect it. What surprises me or leaves me in the dark is that the sites should be able to mine their data and see just what benefits them and how. I can’t accept that what’s there now maximizes anything. It seems to repeat the past — mistakes and all.
Some of the sites that aren’t factors anymore, were inventive. Pokerroom comes to mind. They provided a mix of perks directed at their various types of players. They let their forums run pretty much unfettered. The lobby had chat which created a sense of community. They had big freerolls but required 4:1 player points to actually cash. They didn’t take the points away but used it effectively to generate interest as offering a langinappe that gave an impression and value. It seemed they knew the varied demographic and worked it hard and well. Today, all the majors are just alike. There is nothing that makes them special or different. If you hid the table look, you wouldn’t be able to tell which site you were playing on.
The part I agree with is that everybody is valuing players incorrectly. Winning grinders are overvalued and fish are undervalued at most sites. I appreciate that unlike iPoker, Ongame is at least willing to acknowledge that sharks have a place in the ecosystem.
I've been saying for years that if you can reduce your attrition rate or increase second deposits by even a small bit by putting spinning teacups or flaming cards on the table, you should. The vast majority of players play to be entertained. I think the industry could do a lot more to offer them value on their money if they simply accepted that fact rather than trying to be poker purists.
If I were looking to describe all the sites, I think the lawyer term of arbitrary and capricious would work. But then I come from a time where customer service wasn’t delegated to the bottom of the corporate food chain. Poker sites certainly aren’t alone in that criticism but are isolated even from our courts due to the way they must operate.
You talk the talk but U.S. facing sites don’t even give lip service to the walk. One instant that’d be an immediate improvement would be to have well trained support staff that knew English and had a reasonable path to conflict resolution. There isn’t a site out there that invests in that.
The marketing tool de jour is a seat at the WSOP. I gather the sites approach is they might get lucky in the same way of using and infinite number of monkey works. Is that the best they can come up with? The ideas in this industry are jaded and antiquated.
The best promotion I ever saw was the one I mentioned that ran at PokerRoom. Three times a day they had $2500 freerolls. Every donk/fish/whatever-negative-you-assign would show up. Most bust out fairly quickly — duh! But they are on the site and often move to raked events or play them while also in the tournament. Others pick up a bit of cash which they play to give rake. And to truly cash they had to have FPP. That was a path for moving a lot of play money folks to their raked tables. A play type would pick up $20 or so and had 90 days to make the FPP to clear it. FPP used in a novel way that added play. The money involved brought all levels of players to those events.
The other site that was inventive was the old TonyG site. I don’t know who came up with their promos but they were inventive. People had fun. They were chatty in a good way. The site had somehow fostered a sense of community. That’s a real contrast to the majors who actually foster antagonism. If you aren’t particularly happy with the site, you’ll extend that to the tables. And that is counter productive to enjoyable experiences.
Great reading for me this morning. Thanks!
I'm glad I saw there were some comments and came back here to re-read this post. The comments are great food for thought.