We're pondering trying something - a new feature. (And some marketing talk.)

[Kevin]

Hi all,

I have a couple of items to discuss with you.

Item 1 is a new initiative we're looking into.

As you can probably guess, we need more players to fund the site and the annual costs of acquiring data.

Our marketing challenge is that this game is not a casual football game. As you all know, it's a game for knowledgeable and discerning football fans. You all are the type of knowledgeable people who enjoy the game, and you're a small subset of the general population of football fans who, like Brett Favre in the early 1990s, don't know what a nickel or dime coverage is. As a result, our general mass marketing on social media (mostly Facebook and Instagram) has produced some customers, but also a negative return on investment for us, because most football fans aren't interested in the intricacies of building and maintaining a 53-man roster. We've also tried working with influencers on a commission basis to promote Sandbox, but most influencers have a relatively small following and face the same problem that most of their followers aren't our market.

So this is a conundrum for us from a business perspective. We're not going to get rich off of this game, and we don't even really need to get paid for it since it's a hobby. But we do need to cover our expenses, and for that we need more players.
We also think that if we get the right type of players (like you), they'll enjoy the game and renew and we'll build momentum to cover costs.

Therefore, we want to try an experiment. I think it'll benefit both our current members and also hopefully bring some new members aboard.

cdcox is looking into the programming, but we'd like to repeat last season as a "special exhibition". Think of it as the 2022A season. It would keep the rosters from last year and would run in a parallel universe. We'd just replay the season in a parallel universe from our current teams.

Our marketing goal would be to fill up some of the bot teams by giving away temporary memberships to new players, via some ads on social media. It wouldn't be a full experience for them because they'd just take over the existing bot-team rosters, but they could get into the game and build depth charts and game plans and play the season. Our hope is that some/many of them would renew as paying members to keep their teams once they saw how awesome the game is.

This exhibition season would be free for them. If they don't renew, they go away. If they do renew, that's great.

We want to be sensitive about giving anything away for free when you're our paying customers, but you would also get to play in the parallel universe system at no additional cost, so we think it's a win for you and for the site. It'll also give you something new to do while your main-universe team is bidding in free agency.

As I mentioned, cdcox is still looking into the programming for this. It's possible that he'll identify some fatal roadblock, but our initial thinking is that it won't be hard to implement. I wanted to share it with you so we don't catch anyone by surprise with the new feature, and also not to confuse or anger anyone if you see ads that we're giving away free temporary memberships.

Item 2 is short-term marketing, and I'll ask your help on this.

We'd like to ramp up marketing efforts again, but trying something new. I'll ask your help on a couple of things.


First, I'd like to make some promoted posts on Facebook, and I need content. I'll start an "Annual Review" thread where we can summarize last season for our teams. I'll provide an initial example. You can make it as cursory or detailed as you want, but I'd like to put these in some promoted Facebook posts. I won't use your real name or username, just your team name, but it'll give readers a feel for how the league works. So if you can check out that thread and add to it, I'd appreciate it.

Second, word of mouth is very valuable marketing for us. If you like the game, it would be awesome if you would let others know about it, by posting stuff on social media or telling other football-knowledgeable friends about it.

Third, if you happen to know influencers in your football circles who would be interested in interviewing us (or you) about the game, we would appreciate referrals. We need to get the word out.



Like I said, we're not expecting to get rich off of the game, or even to get paid for it. That would certainly be nice, but realistically our goal for the foreseeable future is just to cover our costs. So ... a little help?

Thanks, all! I hope this season was fun for you, and good luck in free agency!

[JackCarsten]

Thanks Kevin. I think a flyer or PDF image with details about the game and explain it could help us so we can post it on our social network accounts. My biggest issue with word of mouth has been the other person thinking its going to be time consuming. So something that can help sell sandbox better that I can send them would help me.

[Wind From West]

Biggest issue I see is some of those bot teams have traded away their future picks plus some leagues are barely active.

Freebie memberships would be sporadic. People would be like, "f this, my team has no future, I have no $$ invested, I'm outta here?". This is a hard core NFL sim, not for everyone.

[PaperLions]

Would it be possible, to take the rosters of every bot team in each league, pool all of those players into one big draft pool? Once you have all the bot teams filled with a human, those new owners participate in an initial draft just like we did when we started our team. There’s a lot of details and options that could be worked out still. But this could be appealing to a new team owner. Instead of inheriting a mess of a team that you’d have to play a season with, before you could make big changes with free agency and a rookie trade. New owners would instead use that draft pool to start to building a team from scratch. A new owner might feel more invested in the new team if they picked the players. You could give the the initial $1200 salary cap money to sign the new players. This should allow current teams to not lose all of thier team building plans and rosters to not be changed or interrupted. I just wanted to post the idea, and I’m sure there are quite a few ideas others can add more details or maybe this suggestion leads to a new a better option? There are something’s that I’m not sure how address like draft picks that may have been traded between a bot team (when it was human owned) and a current existing team. And maybe some leagues don’t want to add this idea to thier league, and just leave your current bot teams as vacant and wait to find a new member(s) to fill the vacant team. I think you’ll be more vested if you don’t have to take over a team that needs a major overhaul, and can draft players they prefer from the bot team draft pool, instead of having to play Sandbox games for a season before you can really make the right rebuild moves. Maybe it doesn’t change the rebuild timeline of the quality of the players you picked from the draft pool, but at least you’ve picked your roster and it’s yours.

[Kevin]

Thanks for the input, guys.

JackCarsten, are you thinking a standalone document that you can print or forward? Or would a link to a simple summary flyer on our site work?

Wind From West, yeah, that's a concern of mine. Some bot teams are going to be stronger than others, but most will be weak. Our biggest problem with retention (I think) is that people tend to leave when they have a losing season, and by definition about half of the teams will have that outcome. It'll be more for the bots. Our thinking is that maybe some people would be interested enough that they would want to build their own teams and would buy in. We knew that retention would be a challenge for this reason when we designed the game, so another option we considered was tiered pricing - full price to build your own team, and cheaper pricing to take over a bot team. But then we changed it to all-in-one pricing to take over bot teams if you like, so that model is irrelevant now.

On a related note, I took over a bot team recently that went 1-14-1. It's almost like building a team from scratch, but without the long draft. I think I'm going to enjoy the rebuild.

[Kevin]

PaperLions, you posted while I was typing my previous post. That's a really intriguing idea. I worry that the drafted teams will still be weak compared to the previously owned teams just because the previously owned teams will likely have more concentrated talent, but at the same time, it would give people some control over a rebuild. And drafts are fun. I'll run that by cdcox to see what he thinks.

[Wind From West]

Rainman, do you have the Facebook link?

[Wind From West]

Im trying to figure out how to promote this but no one wants to build full teams, let alone take over one of 31 other
GMs ideas.
They're all about regular ff.

[JackCarsten]

Thanks for the input, guys.

JackCarsten, are you thinking a standalone document that you can print or forward? Or would a link to a simple summary flyer on our site work?

Wind From West, yeah, that's a concern of mine. Some bot teams are going to be stronger than others, but most will be weak. Our biggest problem with retention (I think) is that people tend to leave when they have a losing season, and by definition about half of the teams will have that outcome. It'll be more for the bots. Our thinking is that maybe some people would be interested enough that they would want to build their own teams and would buy in. We knew that retention would be a challenge for this reason when we designed the game, so another option we considered was tiered pricing - full price to build your own team, and cheaper pricing to take over a bot team. But then we changed it to all-in-one pricing to take over bot teams if you like, so that model is irrelevant now.

On a related note, I took over a bot team recently that went 1-14-1. It's almost like building a team from scratch, but without the long draft. I think I'm going to enjoy the rebuild.

I think a link to a simple summary flyer would work. Just something that does a better job of selling it then me, cause I'm having a hard time getting folks interested. And if you play madden or fantasy football then can't see why you wouldn't be interested in this.

[PaperLions]

PaperLions, you posted while I was typing my previous post. That's a really intriguing idea. I worry that the drafted teams will still be weak compared to the previously owned teams just because the previously owned teams will likely have more concentrated talent, but at the same time, it would give people some control over a rebuild. And drafts are fun. I'll run that by cdcox to see what he thinks.

I think you’re right in that the new drafted teams still not being much better. But, just like you said, drafts are fun, and if you’ve drafted your own players, maybe you can can get a base group of players so you can build your team and can get the team in the right direction and new owners will feel more invested and stick around longer since it’s a team they drafted. Some of those bot teams have a decent amount of cash carried over from season(s)….maybe you could collect all of the salary cap dollars each team has could be pooled together and divided up evenly across each all the new teams too? There are a couple of other ways you could divide that up, such as the team with the first pick thru the last pick get a little less for 1st and a little more for the team picking last? I’m sure someone can think up even better ideas for this. Or you could just wipe the the salary cap dollars of each team clean. I like the new ideas you’ve laid out today, too.

[smackawits]

I appreciate what you are saying and doing Kevin (and cdcox). IMO, the biggest impediment has been the turmoil of the off seasons (delay in getting season started) and the time it takes to do the drafts. Last off-season's turmoil (including the near total lack of communication from yourself and CD) is probably the reason that so many teams are currently running with a bot. IMO, one hour time limits during drafts could be cut in half......drafts are just taking too long. While the last off-season certainly got rid of those players that were "instant gratification" types, I am hopeful that a marketing strategy can be found for those of us who like to play "the long game".

[JohnMeynardie]

I’m curious about how the alternate alternate universe works after the season. Do we go through a draft and keep that ongoing, in essence running two versions of the same team? Or is it just to get new people interested and then they switch over to the original alternate universe?

[Wind From West]

I’m curious about how the alternate alternate universe works after the season. Do we go through a draft and keep that ongoing, in essence running two versions of the same team? Or is it just to get new people interested and then they switch over to the original alternate universe?

Back in the day, the Sim was created to keep us occupied AFTER the season.
The Sim has no data to run until they play so our season should start after '23.
When this was in beta we drafted prior to seasons. The Sim has finally caught up.

Just trying to understand your question?

[pit1232]

I did a comment on facebook under Edmund Notheabert a few week ago to tell people what I thought of the game you can look it up under on facebook. I know we had a bad start to the new season and that did not help out at all. And I know there are other thing that need to be done to make that game better. Just my opinion alot of times we ask question and it take a few days or a week to get to the answer. Some people want a answer right away and if they don't get it they don't stay and we lose people and I know it take some time to get to it. Maybe cdcox need some one to try and answer them when they come in. That would help cdcox work on what he need to do to keep the game running. That person could keep cdcox up to date with what other owner are look for or the complaint that come in. When all the bad thing happen this year all of us just want to know what was going on and that is call communication and when cdcox had time he would let us know what was going on. But that didn't go over good with some of the owner and we lost some of them. It wasn't cdcox fault because he was working on making thing right. But we need to work on that. that why I think someone should help him out. I like to see one league that would just be a league that would be a test league were if someone came up with a idea they would try it and see how it would help out with how it would help the game. We all ask for think we would like to see and if it would make the game better down the road. So if it work it would be add in each year to make the game better.

[Kingswood]

I’m curious about how the alternate alternate universe works after the season. Do we go through a draft and keep that ongoing, in essence running two versions of the same team? Or is it just to get new people interested and then they switch over to the original alternate universe?

I was wondering about that too. When they come back to the original alternate universe they'd be at a bit of a disadvantage since they would've already missed a good part of the off-season.

[cdcox]

I need to think about how the year 2022a sims would work simultaneously with teams participating in free agency. Those would need to happen simultaneously. The code isn't set up that way right now, so it might be the fatal flaw Kevin mentioned. It depends how difficult it will be to make lineups happen with changing rosters and with players who have zero-year contracts.

[JackCarsten]

I appreciate what you are saying and doing Kevin (and cdcox). IMO, the biggest impediment has been the turmoil of the off seasons (delay in getting season started) and the time it takes to do the drafts. Last off-season's turmoil (including the near total lack of communication from yourself and CD) is probably the reason that so many teams are currently running with a bot. IMO, one hour time limits during drafts could be cut in half......drafts are just taking too long. While the last off-season certainly got rid of those players that were "instant gratification" types, I am hopeful that a marketing strategy can be found for those of us who like to play "the long game".

I think that problem would be solved with more active teams. I believe CDCOX said it be to hard to code autopick for bot teams. And the college draft took less then a week in most leagues so I think that problem will fix itself. The first draft takes forever you are right. The late season start did lose lot of members (the trading with bot teams incident played big factor in that). Biggest thing is getting more players to join because I believe once they do they'll stick.
The downtime is an issue though. I think the active league will help with lot of that.

[mdboucher]

Allowing anyone newly brought in to participate in building their team seems like a huge anchor to keep their interest. Things that encourage more involvement--trading and free agents during the season, for instance, would also be big for retention, I'd think.
One other suggestion for recruitment is that part of the draw of fantasy football is playing with your group of friends. I have no idea the feasibility, but allowing registration of a group of people to play a league together seems like it could bring in others. You could combine a couple 4-8 team groups to fill out a league, for example. Engagement would be higher if it's your friends that you're trading with.

[pit1232]

One thing I think need work on are trades. So many times someone will propose a trade and if you reject it that the end of it. There are very few owner will send a counter trade to see if they can work thing out. You say we need communiction to keep people interest in the game that is one way. if we all can try and do something like that it might keep people interest in the game.

[JackCarsten]

One thing I think need work on are trades. So many times someone will propose a trade and if you reject it that the end of it. There are very few owner will send a counter trade to see if they can work thing out. You say we need communiction to keep people interest in the game that is one way. if we all can try and do something like that it might keep people interest in the game.

I think Facebook group or WhatsApp group text will help that. 90% of the trades I’ve made have come from Facebook chat or private messaging where we go back and forth before trade is agreed to and offered and accepted.

[pit1232]

I think Facebook group or WhatsApp group text will help that. 90% of the trades IÂ’ve made have come from Facebook chat or private messaging where we go back and forth before trade is agreed to and offered and accepted.
that work for some people I try sign in to the but it did not let me in. There was a Jet league one at one time and I think maybe only three or four player were on it. One thing that happen is that you get someone that will facebook you at 3am or 4am to see what is going on. that the only thing that had happen and the wife get a little upset when the phone is dinging to say someone at that time want to see if you want to make a trade.

[Kevin]

Rainman, do you have the Facebook link?

I actually haven't been posting on it. I need to do more, obviously, but it's kind of hard to translate our text-based game into Facebook posts. I could never think of a compelling way to do it. That's why I'm asking for the annual summaries, so I can start posting them.

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=sandbox%20simulations

[Kevin]

Im trying to figure out how to promote this but no one wants to build full teams, let alone take over one of 31 other
GMs ideas.
They're all about regular ff.

Yeah, we came into this figuring that maybe 1 percent of the FF market would be interested, and that's still a whole lot of people. I think it's something less of 1 percent, which is still a whole lot of people, but our challenge has been reaching them and convincing them that we're a legitimate game.

[Kevin]

I think a link to a simple summary flyer would work. Just something that does a better job of selling it then me, cause I'm having a hard time getting folks interested. And if you play madden or fantasy football then can't see why you wouldn't be interested in this.

I can do that. We can put it up as a link at the website. I just have to get myself in design mode.

[Kevin]

I’m curious about how the alternate alternate universe works after the season. Do we go through a draft and keep that ongoing, in essence running two versions of the same team? Or is it just to get new people interested and then they switch over to the original alternate universe?

The alternate universe would just be for last season's roster, so it would be as if the league got together in the offseason and decided to play another season before the rookie draft and free agency hit. You would have the one team going forward. (However, if we get the software put together I could see as offering a second "phantom season" as a regular offering.

[Wind From West]

Yeah, we came into this figuring that maybe 1 percent of the FF market would be interested, and that's still a whole lot of people. I think it's something less of 1 percent, which is still a whole lot of people, but our challenge has been reaching them and convincing them that we're a legitimate game.

I'll help to keep it OVER .08, burp.

[UmmBerrto]

One of the things that has statistically been viable in the marketing world is the raising of your base

advertised price and offering your truly expected price point as a sale or limited time offer.

In other words, if $18 is your acceptable membership annual price.

Statistically, you should advertise the price at $29.99 with a limited time sale price of $17.99.

Americans have been programed to respond to these types of offers on a subliminal level.

Also, when you begin having success from your marketing and you eventually raise the price to $29.99

your clients have already been programed to expect it and accept it.

[JackCarsten]

Yeah, we came into this figuring that maybe 1 percent of the FF market would be interested, and that's still a whole lot of people. I think it's something less of 1 percent, which is still a whole lot of people, but our challenge has been reaching them and convincing them that we're a legitimate game.

My target audience had been those who play madden and do franchise mode.