I like the idea of having fancy graphics showing your progress to an upcoming bowl. But that's where my enthusiasm ends.

These changes will probably make me play less at the end of the month. If I think there is any chance of me not completing a step, I won't even start it. That's coming from someone who plays 95% of the time for fun and usually doesn't care about the rewards. I think I've only ever reached Gold Star once (because of a promotion), so it won't even be 50% of the extra rewards I lose out on, it will be 100%. No thanks.

I usually try to be supportive of PS changes, or at least to provide constructive criticism on how they might be improved if I have any ideas, otherwise I don't post anything. This is not going to be one of those times.

sounds like a money by Amaya to pay down their debt to creditors.

In the grander scheme of things this is just a detail. Come announcements of the new VIP program and this little detail will be completely forgotten.

Yep, complaining about this is like complaining about the noise the V-1 flying bomb makes as it flies towards your house. Yet come 2016 when the new VIP changes are implemented that bomb is going to explode bang on your roof.

Amaya sees the Gamblers Anonymous 12-step program, and raises to 20.

There's a post on the official Unibet thread, where's the room rep said that PS shouldn't innovate since it is the market leader, competitors should innovate (risk) in order to catch up. Obv this makes a lot of sense...
You guy are expecting huge RB cuts in 2016, but as Unibet Andrew said, making large changes is a big gamble.
Now I do understand Amaya is chip away as much as they can, but they aren't totally clueless... there will be changes for sure, but don't expect your RB cut of 50%.

Also, if in 2016 there's will be huge changes, why making this FPP change? If the cut is too big, no one would bother to complete the steps

yea, for platinum- players it's painful changes...

How many current SNE's will quit pokerstars if the rb % was dropped from 70% to say 50%?

How many current SN's would quit pokerstars if the rb went from 40% to 30%?

This is what Pokerstars is trying to guess as it feels no sense of loyalty to customers that have been loyal to them for many years. If they feel this move will be profitable then they will do it with no qualms.

As for the new "step program" if it gets people more interested in playing then good for poker/good for Stars. Oftentimes Stars has shown that they like to change multiple things at once in an attempt to confuse people into thinking that the changes being implemented are good for the consumer. If there's only one variable it's easy for players to find out what's happening.

The extra fpp take is just a drop in the bucket compared to the future VIP cutbacks.

His opinion is tricky. That means that Samsung and Apple shouldn't innovate since they are market leaders? :/

About the 50%: it's not a big change as people is thinking about reaching higher ranks. People who can get a certain rank, probably will get the rank. But about when they not complete the step, Pokerstars will be saving some tens of thousands per month in this next year! They have revenue because of regulars (don't matter if he is recreational or not). So, yeah, regulars won't have as much rakeback as before.

I don't think that it's a great deal, really. Things are getting tougher, that's all. But I think that it's very ingenuous to make poor Dylan to make a statement in this forum saying that this change is just about the loyalty program. No, it's not. Declining poker traffic and tougher economy they have to make some changes in how they earn (and save) money too.

It looks like SNE's get an extra 12,500 fpps for every 125,000 vpps they earn. i fear that this is meant to replace stellar rewards/milestone cash credits. If so, this could mean a reduction of value in SNE of $22,800, or $42,800 if they drop the $20k milestone at 1,000,000 vpps.

I am probably missing something here, but what happens to the SN/SNE multiplier in the earlier stages if the number of FPP released is fixed?

ie. step 1, 5vpps, 5fpps released. Wouldn't that be 17.5 for SN's?

In general i like teh idea alot to make recs moar aware of vip rewards and those permanent steps are really good way to do that. That could potentially be really really good but doesnt help much if they decrease rake multipliers and/or vip multipliers wit teh next announcement

This is only a benefit for this year uk beta and shouldnt be implemented for next year (bonus point in step 5) iirc

Also if i understand this correctly effects on supernova pros will absolutely be neglible. You realease teh fpps every 5k vpps earned so teh only thing u have to do to not lose any value is to finish year at a round 5k number aka 225k vpp, 355k vpp, 515k vpp. Shouldnt be very hard to plan that if if u r supernova.

For platinums its certainly abit moar tricky with 1k steps resetting each month.

So wat id gather from all this is they dont want to **** with their high tier vips too much (yet, wait for october announcement) while forcing recs, micro regs, lowvolume ssnl regs etc to play moar or lose some value

I think other poker sites should take advantage of this current move. What if Party Poker removed all withdrawal fees, and started to offer 30% RB... Would that be enough for you to make the switch?

Not if they are going to steal $9k off me if I am unlucky enough to win it from a fraudster...

If they **** with SNE then Stars will no longer be my sole site, and their income from me will be a fraction of the $100k it will be this year. Good work.

The reduction in rewards in 2016 could be a massive boost to Stars' competition.

GG SNE and what's left of the sng ecosystem

totally disagree, damn. I don't want to do "tasks" and have to play games for tasks to get FPP, I wanna play my games and be happy with the crumbels of rakeback we have now.

making the bonus scheme less transparent is the worst thing to do. PS had the easiest, most clearest bonus scheme online and it wasn't even that bad vs other sites. Now it will be same level of rip-off like other sites AND untransparant meaning 80% of the people will only find out after it has been implemented some time that they got ripped off.

Just tell u gonna lower rakeback, there will be a lot of heat in the beginning but it will quit. Now u will just see people quit and don't know why. ( we all know why )

the market leader should keep innovating to stay the leader, the rest will follow as they are folowers.

Basic essential business strategy: keep innovating to stay on top. Innovation is key to long term growth and market leadership.

What unibet did: try to reach a nichemarket without hardcore grinders but only recreationals, on Unibet there are no players who want to become a grinder. On pokerstars eveyone who deposits wants to take a shot to become the next Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan or Daniel Negreanu. (Especially the latter, why spend so much marketing budget on him else)

That's really interesting wording. I don't think I'd read into it that much though as they know there'd be some resentment already from grinders so hopefully they're not stupid enough to let on about that getting the axe.

Can someone explain the changes a bit clearly, and especially what does it change for SN ? The OP makes no sense to me. Says I will get 50% less if I don't do something but that's all I really understood. Sorry for being dumb.

According to timstone this wouldn't change anything for SN's but a lot of people say it will cut RB so not sure what's going on.

Maybe, as I say the rule is incredibly unclear but as people here can calculate a cash value for FPPs at the various levels I doubt merely using points is that significant.

I expect Stars will be fine, inaction and inertia will likely win out but making the rewards more central via in game "visualisation" and potential 50% penalties for not meeting deadlines could be problematic.

Assuming that the reward structure 2016 onwards is to be shifted towards recs not regs these changes make sense but I doubt that is good news for many here.

I hate to reinforce my killjoy image but the UK reward changes did not cover 50% of the POC Tax, we are still waiting for the second item to get to that target - rake differentiated by country.

I don't really fear it, I think it is an appropriate response.

The tax on the operator differs by where the player is in Europe. In the UK the tax is 15% of revenues but after rakeback or VIP. In Germany it is VAT instead which is 19% and no carve out for rakeback, Belgium is different again with a levy, 15% but no carve out for rakeback.

Stars said when they withdrew some of their rake changes back in December, including charging rake on rebuys, that they are planning to charge more rake in higher tax locations. Players pay more where the tax they pay on the rake is higher.

This already happens in segregated markets like Spain and France. The rake is higher but they are not in the international pool too which is worse.

For UK players there was some bitching re reduced VIP benefits but that was nowhere near the 50% of the tax charge. The rebuys rake for UK and general higher rake for everyone was to cover the remainder. They withdrew them but said that once they had the software developed they would charge players in the international pool different rake to reflect the different tax hit on them. They said not before July but hey, it's nearly September now.

Stars said 50% of POC would fall on players and 50% on them but the VIP changes are well short of the 50% target. That means higher rake, soon. Well unless they have given up on differentiated rake, which I doubt, as that just means spreading the hit accross countries that don't tax by player location to cover the rest of us. That would mean that the UK could up the tax but have none UK player pay most of it. An irresistible incentive for them and for all other countries to jack up the tax rate.

UK winning players get a good deal, we pay no income tax on it. In terms of player location taxes we also have a good deal with a rakeback carve out that casino or slot games don't get - their incentives or bonuses are treated as marketing spend so not deductible fro the 15% levy.

All I'm saying is that the EU VAT ruling and the UK POCT regime mean that in Europe we will have differentiated rake and as these are new additional taxes that rake change ain't gonna be nice for us, even with Stars eating 50% of the bill.

i poker have not changed there rakeback due to the tax. if stars make somethign that liminates games been beatable which by the looks of it they are then I will just move to ipoker. which i kind of semi have already.

Ty a lot for explaining it in detail

Yup, I tottally agree with you!
I think we have some great examples in 90's and 00's, internet or not companies that failed without innovating.
888poker maybe had a great increase in Brazilian Market after WSOP2014 because of Bruno Politano at the final table of the main event. They are always sending me e-mail marketings about deposit bonuts, ticket for a trip and a tournament and something like that.

Using my reasoning that I posted before, it would be wrong to calculate cash value for FPPs, even that $10 is 1000 FPPs and $25 is like 2250 (I don't remember the original values). Hum... and for the tolkiens, they could claim that they have different tolkiens for different status, even that could be the same tolkien. Tricky again :/
So the "unclearness" can be clear using a reasoning like that. I don't remember how frequent flyer program (and similars) or credit card points work, but we could put these things side by side and compare them. I think it's the same (so, the rules would be similar).

I don't think it's problematic about the 50% penalties in a general way, as I said before. Things are getting tougher, so we have to deal with it .

But again, it's ingenuity to think and tell us (users from 2p2) this change is part of the loyalty program.

Even if sounds good to you, this is not how company thinks...
This is your opinion, but facts are different... in order to understand how things work in the economy I would suggest a very interesting and easy reading...

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Strat.../dp/0393310353

In the intro chapter you will find why you (and all the guys who think market leader should innovate) are dead wrong, happy reading

yeah but its not as simple as that.

for a lot of games like hypers etc the margins are very small many of the players at the top levels dont make a profit before rakeback.

up the rake and reduce benifits your now making a loss.

players in that category would be better off if it remained the same but they just pain tax on there winnings to the taxman.