Italian feasts and prize giveaways

So I and seven other members of our Yahtzee family (Pinksushi, MysticShores, Spartan, Sheila, GregRulz, DiceDominator and Xray) have organized "teams." The seven members noted are team captains, and it's up to the captains to reach out to players directly and remind them that we are using a delay tactic in playing the Family Feasts. Our goal is to delay the start of the Feast by at least 18 hours in order to get into an easier pool of teams, which ultimately costs us less dice rolls to compete in. Whether you buy rolls, or rely solely upon earning free rolls, the fewer you have to spend, the better. Simple economics, right?

So our message of delaying the start of the Feast didn't get to everyone, despite our efforts. Not everyone reads private messages, I have learned, and not everyone follows the group chat. Nonetheless, the delayed start of today's Feast, which seemed to begin without warning, helped us get into a less competitive field.

If you haven't heard, it appears that there's a new pricing structure for playing Feast games. Not sure if it resets daily, as it's still day one, but GregRulz noticed that after so many games, the cost to play another game of Feast went up from three rolls to four, and others are reporting that the cost increases again to five.

Yahtzee is trying to find ways to increase the spending by those who pay to play, of that I have no doubt. People spend money to buy rolls in order to help their team win a Feast, that's a fact. (The prizes aren't worth a buck, if you ask me.) Yahtzee is testing how much it can earn before driving people away, a common tactic used by many companies in many industries. It sucks, but that's commerce.

As I always say, play what makes sense for you. If you're playing free games of Feast only, that's good enough for me. I'm not interested in building a super team. I want active players, but that'a all. I don't give a DARN about how you earn or spend your DICE. When the game becomes a part-time job, it's not a game. I'm active daily, and it's still fun, because I refuse to let it become a job, no matter how many prize climbs they dangle in front of me. Honestly, I need to spend a lot less time playing games on my phone and more time pursuing my many writing projects I'd love to make time for, like blogging. But I digress.

Special thanks to Greg for helping coordinate and police our Feast status. He didn't volunteer for the gig, yet he did. And it's super helpful to have a person available for that job when a Feast starts. Thanks again.

And thanks to all of you who continue to contribute, through good times and bad. Not everyone chimes in on a regular basis, and I don't have communication with some of you, but I hope you enjoy having a group that does and will chat or socialize from time to time.

You're always welcome to submit something for this blog to share with all of our team. Contact me privately if you have a contribution.

Self-serving note: Season 3 of my podcast ended recently, and the episode was initially streamed live via YouTube. You can see that at tr.im/izzy. And the audio for the episode, and all others, is at cantturnitoff.com.

While season 3 ended and we're about three months away from the launch of season 4, there are "bonus" episodes coming up. The first should drop Monday, Aug. 26. Each season I do bonus episodes, known as "hiatus spectaculars," and at least one hiatus spectacular this year will deviate from the format of the past two seasons. That's episode 40, and it might not be of high interest to you if you haven't listened to many of my past episodes, but here's a spoiler for you folks only: Episode 40 will include updates on several past topics/guests. (Therefore, it's helpful to know the original story, but I will provide a simple summary of each story in presenting the updates. That summary may spoil the "twist" in the story that I withheld when I initially presented it, unfortunately. You've been warned.)

Finally: I have prizes coming in on slow boats from China, and I'm trying to get a few worthy, easy-to-mail prizes in the prize closet. I have some good secondary items, but not the greatest primary prizes. Keep in mind, I spend a buck or two on prizes, generally, but I aim for unusual, quirky and/or nostalgic. I have some fun stuff coming, someday, thanks to cheap foreign labor. The stuff I'm buying, by the way, is hard to find anywhere, let alone in bulk for a reasonable price anywhere close to my home. I'm all for buying American, but I'm not sure some of the things I'm looking at even have a local manufacturer. It's a weird world we live in.

I have two people awaiting prizes from the last two contests: azjim and MysticShores. I'll have a new contest when my next podcast episode drops. We haven't done that since June. And Google won't help you answer the question, whatever question I pose!