Is 2009 dead or dieing for owners?

[john1974]

We have been a longtime league online using OOTP games for awhile now. We currently have decided as a league not to upgrage to 2010 since we are tired of having to buy a new game every year and think getting another year out of 2009 would be nice. So with that we have had to contract 4 teams since they have been open for about 3-4 seasons. We have been active posters on OOTP forums looking for members but they seem to be few and far between out there... even for good leagues with good commishes.

Is 2009 dead or dieing for 2009 leagues hoping to continue with 2009?

[gollum65]

Seems like it to me. I'm having trouble filling 1 team.

[RxDoc]

Honestly, I am thinking as a whole, OOTP is dieing.

Interest on all the boards is waining.
Leagues don't fill.
And the new editions are glorified money grabs.

[kq76]

Except for when 2006 came out and 6.5 was better and even when many thought it was even better than 2007/8, IMO it's always been the case that if you don't upgrade to the latest version then you're going to have a difficult time filling your league.

Take the CBL for instance. We didn't upgrade until just recently and all last season we couldn't fill a couple of very good teams. We discussed whether to upgrade or not for this season and we went with upgrade and even though we ended up having to replace 7 members, in addition to the 2 spots that were already open, we're now full again within a fairly short time and I honestly can't remember the last time our boards were so active. So yeah, we lost a lot of people, but adapt or die I guess.

The good news for leagues that don't upgrade is that there are plenty of people who drop out of their leagues that do upgrade so do whatever you can to bring them into your league.

You're messaging the people whose posts in the "Looking for a League..." match your league, correct? You're doing what you can to best advertise advertise your league by reading the "Recommendations for Advertising..." sticky?

Yes, you can probably do everything you possibly can and you still might have problems if you don't upgrade, but most people want to play the latest version of the game if they have it. I myself would stick it out in a league for a season or two with an inferior version of the game if I really loved the league, but anymore than that and I'd probably leave too. It's probably worse if you're not familiar with the league. All else equal, a league that uses the latest and greatest version or one that uses an inferior version? Easy choice I'd say. Opinions differ on how much better new versions really are, yes, but I think in general most will find new versions better overall.