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Subject: Smallworld to TSN to Rotohog
Posted by: Dunkenstein
- Leader [039541913] Sun, Mar 21, 2010, 21:47
As we've evolved from Smallworld to TSN and soon to Rotohog, I'm trying to reconstruct history.
In the beginning wasn't Smallworld Ultimate free? And IIRC there were no prizes.
When did they begin charging to play? When TSN bought it or before? And is that when they added prizes?
And when did they start selling trades in the Basic game?
I know there are some Gurupies out there from the Smallworld days, and I'd appreciate any help you can give me. |
| 1 | KrazyKoalaBears
ID: 12353217
Sun, Mar 21, 2010, 22:22
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Smallworld was definitely free to start. I remember playing in 1994 (IIRC) and since I was in college, I know I wouldn't have been able to pay to play. I also remember the huge trade fiasco, which I think was the same season. They started with something like 25 trades and then suddenly they gave out 75 trades and then brought it back to 50 trades... or something like that.
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| 2 | KrazyKoalaBears
ID: 12353217
Sun, Mar 21, 2010, 22:22
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Oh, and there were prizes. One of the Gurupies won a trip to the baseball ASG for leading the standings at the time of the ASB. I can't remember who it was though.
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| 3 | Farn
Leader
ID: 451044109
Sun, Mar 21, 2010, 22:33
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Yeah, it was definitely free in the beginning. I was in college as well and never would have been able to pay (well, I would have chosen beer over SW).
I fondly remember the "find the hidden piggy bank in the ads and get 10k SW bucks".
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| 4 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Sun, Mar 21, 2010, 22:34
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As best I can recall, the game was originally free, and there were prizes. This was back in the mid 90's, when advertising revenues were sufficient to pay the freight.
At some point, a free game was not going to fly, so they developed the Ultimate/Basic split. Ultimate was a fixed price game, while Basic was a pay-for-trades game. I don't recall when that happened, but I think it was after TSN had bought Smallworld.
I have more than 11 years of daily blurbs archived (see the links at the bottom of the blurb page). I'll bet there were some comments whenever those changes were made, if anyone wants to do some research.
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| 5 | twolves
Dude
ID: 811161317
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 00:09
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I think from looking back, I started the last year of small world which was the 2000-01 season. They may have had some cash prizes I think. I still have a smallworld hat that I won that year. Sporting news had the same game for free in 2001-02 but not sure they offered too many cash prizes--maybe for the very top ten finishers or something. I think David R. won that year. I think I got a sporting news subscription and something else small but no cash for finifshing in top 100.
I think it was the 2002-3 season they started charging for teams and offered division prizes and more cash prizes. I remember I wound up in a division with David R. I remember I could not collect any money for placing or winning divsions because of living in the wrong state.
I think they offered basic with trade buying that year, too. I do not know if they did the year before or not as I never did participate in that segment of sporting news basketball.
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| 6 | Dunkenstein
Leader
ID: 039541913
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 01:28
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Thanks guys. Any additional info would be appreciated.
So from what we remember during the Smallworld era there were just a prizes to a few of the overall winners. When TSN bought the game they began charging a fee for the Ultimate game and for trades in the Basic game. Concurrent with that, they began giving out prizes to division winners as well as the top worldwide finishers.
Like many of us, I have never played Basic. What do division winners get as prizes? From what I understand owners can join buy-trade divisions or no-buy-trade divisions. Do the winners of no-buy-trade divisions receive cash prizes as well?
Does anybody remember the maximum number of Ultimate owners? For some reason I think it reached 7,000 one year, but it may have only been 5,000. Sadly, we seem to be down to around 1300 this year.
Like Farn, I also fondly remember searching for the hidden piggy bank. It was like a sin not to get those extra SW Bucks each day.
I also remember getting a TSN T-shirt one year for coming in in the top 100.
twolves, could the duplicate game in 2001-02 have been on CBS Sportsline? I don't think it was on TSN.
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| 7 | twolves
Dude
ID: 811161317
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 01:45
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I am not sure but pretty sure Sporting news definitely was the site from smallworld the next year. I think CBS may have a competing and very similar game running those first couple of years TSN had the game and actually at the same time as smallworld but had to pay for it I think.
Rotohog had the basic game with no trade buying one or two years before going to the stock market game I think. I did win a gift certificate for being in the top ten for the year--actually a combination of season I and season II. That game was free.
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| 8 | Comic Book Guy
ID: 20817160
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 02:59
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I started playing Ultimate the second year it was on TSN and there were more than 5000 teams. I figured there were more than 6000 the year before by looking at long-time players' trophy cases. The number has gone down every year.
I've been such a fanatic I can name all of the champions off the top of my head: Dave R, Guru, a different Dr. D, Luebeck Eagles, L'Bron, twolves, Slamdunkers, Senator Urine. I've never scaled such heights but it has been fun getting $80-150 ever year. Helps defray my Fantasy Football losses! I would certainly play for no prizes though.
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| 9 | deejay
Sustainer
ID: 501182710
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 07:22
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6
Like many of us, I have never played Basic. What do division winners get as prizes? From what I understand owners can join buy-trade divisions or no-buy-trade divisions. Do the winners of no-buy-trade divisions receive cash prizes as well?
No division prizes in the Basic Game.
Yeah there is NTB and TB.
Up until this year, there were separate Standings.(Not anymore)
But no prizes for non trade buyers, except honor.
Aside the one year NBA.com(with TSN) partnered up and offered the Basic Game for free, and you could win prizes.
I remember cuz I won that year.... a trip to a Game in the Garden. The sad part was I wasn't able to go.
Second and 3rd prizes were something form the NBA store If I recall correctly.
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| 10 | ole
ID: 33228226
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 07:35
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i've been playing for a while and the only thing i can say for sure is that the number of players has gone down ever since i started playing. oh, and that i never reached the top 100 ;-)
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| 11 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 08:53
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Smallworld used to run a clone of the game at CNNSI.com. At one point I believe the price changes were separate for the Smallworld vs. CNNSI games, because I remember having to track two sets of prices.
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| 12 | youngroman
Donor
ID: 02934823
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 14:34
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archived smallworld.com (takes forever to load)
1996 baseball had a grand price of $1000, check here
early 2001 was smallworld
early 2002 was the 1st season of TSN
did not check all the other archived versions.
I started playing in 1999 and stopped as soon as you had to pay for it. don't know what year that was. most likely 2004, because that was the year where I switched to Roto-leagues.
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| 13 | Dunkenstein
Leader
ID: 039541913
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 17:13
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Again thanks for the additional information. Does anybody remember if TSN started charging for the Ultimate game the year they bought if from Smallworld or did they wait until the next year?
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| 14 | youngroman
Donor
ID: 02934823
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 17:57
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2002, the 1st year of TSN, they offered 2 baseball games:
- Ultimate, 1 team for $19.95, 3 teams for $39.95, over $15.000 in prices and $50 for each division winner
- Basic, free with option to buy trades, over $6.000 in prizes
source
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| 15 | Dunkenstein
Leader
ID: 039541913
Mon, Mar 22, 2010, 18:22
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Thanks youngroman.
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| 16 | Rex Davidson
ID: 42562613
Fri, Mar 26, 2010, 15:21
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deejay said: "Aside the one year NBA.com(with TSN) partnered up and offered the Basic Game for free, and you could win prizes."
I believe that was 2004-05 as I played it also. Everything, inlcuding price changes, was driven by the TSN game.
I also seem to recall TSN offering a rotostyle baseball game for one year, maybe 2003 or 2004. If I recall, I finished second in my group. I only needed some saves to pass the guy ahead of me and he pulled a (a-hole/brilliant) move to lock me out. I needed to pick up closers to try and collect some saves. This guy picked a number of closers off the waiver wire, then traded those ones for different relievers. If you picked up a guy, you could drop him immediately but once a player was dropped, no oneu could pick him up for 2 or 3 days. This left most of the decent relievers unobtainable or already on his roster.
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