Party's Marketing Tema - Can they Keep the fish ?

[WSOPWinner2005]

Interested in opinions... There are PLENTY of ways to do it. But do you think they can, and more importantly - and this is the million dollar question.

Do you think party will be willing to cut their profit margins from say 70% to 40-45% to keep market share? Or do things start to equalize?

[pavement]

I played the Party NL $25 tables for the first time tonight. People were busting almost every other hand. I also wonder if they can keep enough new players interested to keep the site the fish-fest it is reputed to be.

Are the Party games as soft as they seem to be?

[SackUp]

I think the best thing Party and all of poker has going for it is that other industries are taking advantage of its growth. There are poker shows on every channel now. We have tournaments and now even sitcoms with Tilt.

Just wait till the Poker reality shows hit the stage and poker is really going to boom. poker is going to be a way of life. It will last till our society crumbles.

[Shoe]

are there any poker reality shows planned?

[AncientPC]

Yes, just read this thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/favlinker.php?Cat=&Entry=64653&F_Board=exchange&Th read=1609655&partnumber=1&postmarker=#Post1610560) . /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[WSOPWinner2005]

[ QUOTE ]
are there any poker reality shows planned?

[/ QUOTE ]

You guys really don't think advertisement of poker has reached it's peak? I have been through this in a different indistry - Trust me there WILL be a downfall shortly... I know you have heard "The Sky is Falling" before.

I am not that dramatic, but SERIOUS pro players expect a drop in income next year ( I would say 1/2 - 3/4 way through this year) unless the WSOP has a prize pool AT LEAST double what it did and a SERIOUS name brand like "Harrah's" for example backed party and promoted them.

Than you have another 2-3 years befor ethings level out and pan down. Anyone calling me an idiot, ask someone with a degree in economics what their thoughts are and FULLY explain the ndustry to them. If you can't many others here can... Going back to when there were onl 2 or 3 poker sites on the web.

[playersare]

if you want to leave now, we won't try and stop you.

I've been running a B2C retail site ("dot-com") since 1995 and I'm still here. the macro majority can say whatever it wants to sell advertising and newspapers, but conscious individuals control their own destiny.

[Shoe]

I agree, poker won't continue to grow at the same pace forever -- that will have to come to and end someday. However, this isn't like the internet bubble of the 1990's that is just going to pop and there won't be anyone playing anymore.

The reason for the boom is the huge number of players. Players that think they are good, and have what it takes to win the WSOP, and will now be playing for the rest of their lives. It's not like party poker is claiming to have 60,000 people online when they really only have 5,000 (i.e., like the internet companies that were way over-valued).

I think eventually the growth will slow down, but there will not be a decrease in players for a long time yet, and if there ever is a decrease, it will probably be to a number of players that is greater than the number of players today.

[Shoe]

That doesn't mean the average "fish" won't get smarter though, so even if the number of players remained constant, eventually the games will get tougher.

[octop]

Current fish may get a little smarter as will most of us
Not to mention all of the 14 year olds playing online in a year

[WSOPWinner2005]

[ QUOTE ]
That doesn't mean the average "fish" won't get smarter though, so even if the number of players remained constant, eventually the games will get tougher.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was the whole point of the thread - Not so much that the business will die out more of a suggestion the game are going to get steadily more difficult and that the game has in fact already reached it's peak point as far as quality of games goes. I think there has been a SLIGHT decrease in the fishiness of the game simply because more and more people take it seriously for part time income AND those people are multi-tabling.

If Party (and their competition) do not find a way to tap new sectors (which it has to be getting MUCH more difficult annually) how do they keep the long term losing players there to keep the shark from entirely attacking eachother? Or do they just let sharks attack eachother and quit worrying about providing them with food?

First things first, like it or not people ... They are going to have to take a hit on their profit margins. Which will pry lead to what? Yep, more rake... And we will all bitch when someone comes on here and says "Holy [censored] Party just gave me $75 for NOTHING"

The fact is this will be just one of the many ways to get them to come back and deposit as a losing player, why would they care of the winning players coming back.

So again, let me restate the question :

"Do you feel Party Poker's marketing team has what it take to keep the games fairly juicy for the years to come, how long do you think they can handle it? When it gets to the point they haver to start comping out the ass to keep the horrible players there, will they do it out of their own overhead and run at a reduced profit margin or will they increase the rake and pass the cost on to us?"

If anyone cares to elaborate on that question, feel free....

[Rudbaeck]

Actually I think Party will lower their profit margins without raising the rake. They made a $500 million profit in 2004 according to eGaming Review. Their running costs can't even be $10 million yearly, the only major cost they have is advertising. And anyone can figure out that competition will target companies with a 5000% profit margin.

Unfortunately I don't think the 'Great Rake War' which will come shortly after the plateau will take the form we want it to, ie lowered rakes, but the form of bonuses. Many bonuses. Fish like bonuses. $200 in bonus is way, way better than $500 less in rake in the head of a fish.

[frank_iii]

[ QUOTE ]
Than you have another 2-3 years befor ethings level out and pan down. Anyone calling me an idiot, ask someone with a degree in economics what their thoughts are and FULLY explain the ndustry to them. If you can't many others here can... Going back to when there were onl 2 or 3 poker sites on the web.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I have a degree in economics and, while I agree that we are PROBABLY in for tighter games and a slight levelling off of profits, I don't believe that it's a foregone conclusion. High speed internet access is still growing and more people are playing games online every day. All it might take is to get a PartyPoker-backed XBox or PS2 internet-enabled game to keep the ball rolling.

Regulatory issues and bots probably concern me more than the economics of the situation.

[WSOPWinner2005]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Than you have another 2-3 years befor ethings level out and pan down. Anyone calling me an idiot, ask someone with a degree in economics what their thoughts are and FULLY explain the ndustry to them. If you can't many others here can... Going back to when there were onl 2 or 3 poker sites on the web.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I have a degree in economics and, while I agree that we are PROBABLY in for tighter games and a slight levelling off of profits, I don't believe that it's a foregone conclusion. High speed internet access is still growing and more people are playing games online every day. All it might take is to get a PartyPoker-backed XBox or PS2 internet-enabled game to keep the ball rolling.

Regulatory issues and bots probably concern me more than the economics of the situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree as posted below Frank

"I am not that dramatic, but SERIOUS pro players expect a drop in income next year ( I would say 1/2 - 3/4 way through this year) unless the WSOP has a prize pool AT LEAST double what it did and a SERIOUS name brand like "Harrah's" for example backed party and promoted them."

But there are legality issues here as well. Now if there is a law passed making playing poker on-line legal that would open the floodgates EVEN if people will do it now legal or not due to the fact many more strategic alliances can be made if nothing else.

Short of that though type of occurence, what are your thoughts ? What other sectors can they legally expand their marketing efforts towards? The field is narrowing.

[Jesse Kidd]

Don't forget other country markets that have not yet been tapped.

Jesse

[Instyle007]

Your posts make me laugh.

Combine all the poker sites and you don't have anything close to 200k online at the same time. What do you think the total number on Internet users in the world is at today? How many of those people play or are interested in poker?

The Internet poker market is just starting, there are tons and tons of players out there who still either haven't tried poker but are interested, online poker at all or online poker for real money.

Back when Paradise had 3k online people thought that was it, there couldn't be anymore. The US according to the head of PartyPoker is still untapped. What about the rest of the world?

You will see more and more poker players online as time goes on.

You can take that to the bank.

Instyle007

[morglum_s]

I personally have seen alot of folk around here in card-rooms and home games that caught the WPT bug, but have yet to put money into an online site. Mostly they are concerned about security. I don't know if they ever will take the plunge, but I know they want to play alot more than they have the chance.

[WSOPWinner2005]

Laugh it up, while you are doing so last month was a very tough month to many many professinal poker plays on-line. There are a couple threads about it, if you have read enough here I am sure you have run into them.

Fact is the games aren't as juicy as they were, everyone is admitting it and noone will argue that. Yet you think this is funny? If it is so funny, please answer my questions in a serious format rather than "Party says the US Market is untapped" as if this one person from Party knows everything.

If this is the case, why aren't they tapping it out gradually so we see a constant level of new fish and don't see the games getting tougher at party as they have been.

I played at Stars the other day for the first time in a long while and they now half about 1/2 the base party does with a site that to be honest in every way feels more like a real card room. I think we may see stars level off with party with very little marketing - if they have ANOTHER WSOP Champ this year, and they market it with as much as party spends I think the end of next year the two sites will be level. Most likely taking away more fish and making stars a little fishier.

There are so many variable here it is a much mroe complex subject than "Someone said the U.S. market isn't tapped" which by the way, I think the US Market is 80% 'tapped' at best, and NO MARKET will EVER be ENTIRELY tapped, period.

Do you have any idea how many Poker realted things were out there for X-Mas this year? Jesus christ at the GAS STATIONS they were selling poker sets - that in my opinion is definately a sign things are getting pretty much TAPPED lol.

P.S. Even a market that is 50% tapped out doesn't necessarily mean that things will become easier once that saturation level is higher and they work at gaining a higher percent of the market - in fact I believe the exact opposite. Alot of the people they will be fighting to get to play on-line are people that play home games and B & M - and alot of them may be good, and could bring a 50% increase in pros multi tabling 8 tables next year. That means they need to get 8 X as many total fish to even out the pros as most fish don't multi table nore would they ever think of it.