Hey bhoy

Anybody know anything about US Antitrust laws? Like how much consumer protection the Clayton Act might provide in spots like this?

Well yes sure.. but even if they didnt merge they would still have plans to increase prices in the future. Thats the ultimate goal.. make more profit.

I would guess a decent % of their users are not frequent players and a monthly subscription would be pretty bad for them.

Also, that trend to keep everything on the cloud has started to annoy me. Who said I want to keep all my hh somewhere else other than my own private drives.

^^^ Are you for real?, i always thought hem/pt was catered towards regs & semi recreationals who dont lose much if any at all & do poker part time?. If so then subscription imo always made the most sense for them business wise, i think its inevitable for them to do it, they have the market locked right now & its just the best business move imo, if you owned their company im sure you'd do the same.

I only draw from my experience. Most of my friends that play poker online are not big winners, unfortunately, and a monthly subscription will put them off. I am in a skype group with lots of members but most of them play micros. Maybe Im completely off here.. I dont know.

Either way it depends on the price of the monthly subscription and the rules that they will set up (i.e. if they allow you to freeze the subscription for a month etc.). As someone else said, the current business model is kind of a subscription when you have to buy (or upgrade) the latest version in order to keep up with the latest poker room clients.

As much as I like the game, and haven't actually lost money from it, I would hesitate to say I am a 'winning player'. I'm ahead at the low stakes.

Sadly, even at 10NL, the HUD becomes a must have.

If they make it $10 a month, that's a BI I would have to make up before we start off, sounds like nothing to players at higher stakes who are way more competent but it may well be enough to put me off. $120 a year for a micros player is not insignificant. I liked TN1 because it made playing easier but I am not paying a BI a month for it. It was nice and not a necessity, HUD's generally are.

This, HUDs are so last year, jus play like a GTO robot where you face a new unknown opponent every hand and profit

who gives a fk. the huds are already extremely underpriced

Every time I beg them to fix a lesser trafficked sites HUD I feel a little guilty because I don't know how they can justify continued support. I'd happily give them $10 a month.

They charge the lesser trafficked sites if they want their hand histories to be supported by the software. Combining PT and HM will give them a lot more clout in this regard.

this can surely only benefit hem users (I'm one)

I wouldnt have quite called this a monopoly but it certainly is a giant in its marketplace.

Subsciption based products have long been in the pipeline: its been clear that sources of income have been drying up so to take a proportion of customers earnings each month rather than a lump sum makes perfect business sense. Yes of course that's not favourable for the player, but it is a fairly straight forward business plan. Anyone who thinks otherwise is utterly naive

The reality is from here that you are going to be paying X dollars per month for a full suite of core products most likely with a subscription or 1-off payment system for additions to those products. May even get a sliding scale to take more from those who play in bigger games and have a bigger earning potential.

The only left field thing this 'might' influence is the end of HUDs as players cant (I doubt wont is an option) afford to play for a HUD/tracker software on a subscription basis. That wont necessarily make better players any better, but i would expect it to make the average, b/e players worse....which might not be a bad thing.

Potentially if this does happen, and I think within12-18 months (if that long) you will see it, it will leave an opening for another product to do a one-off lump sum product - say poker office or a totally new product. That may see players move away from the dominant HEM/PT company

Juk

Obviously if one company controls enough of the market then they'll want as much money as possible. That means monthly subscriptions. The provident micro grinder will just move to Bovada/Bodog instead of taking a hit like that.

Hopefully another big player will enter the market to put a check on any crazy price increases.

Unless the whole market is shifting towards supplying the sites rather than individuals. Already revenue comes from both, active cooperation comes from the supported sites, this middleware that sits between a supplier and their customer is often integrated to the core product, potentially with a cash fee for the premium service or say a price in VIP points or equivalent.

The site has many reasons to want to control their product and interface, maturing as a supplier might mean becoming a business to business supplier rather than a business to consumer one, even if suport etc stays with them. In this market it is the 800lb gorilla of Stars/Tilt with more market power than this new merged firm or the end user of this software.

If so then the integrated HUD effectively squeezes out the new entrant as well as the old model for HUD supply.

You guys realize they have a micro/small stakes version and pro version of both hud and pt4 right?, clearly if they go subscription model then it would be the same.

If you guys want a perfect example of what a monopoly does, look at Adobe. Their offerings now SUCK and they have gotten worse since acquiring a bunch of companies/software.

Lightroom and Photoshop suck?

I was a die-hard Rawshooter-fanboy who curled up in the fetal position and cried when I heard Adobe had bought them, but Lightroom turned out to absolutely rule after they incorporated Rawshooter into it.

When TableNnija 2 switched to subscription based pricing it was the first time I looked for an alternative program in years. Very happy to have moved on, AHK scripts solve all the TN2 functions for free.

If HEM/PT go for the same model they better be well ahead of the competition because many people will immediately look into competitors to avoid the annoyance of subscription pricing.

Yep I abandoned TN2 also when it went subscription, that's where I draw the line. Will do the same with HEM/PT if I have to.

Sadly though I am still using TN1, can you link me to a master AHK list or something explaining it?

If only there was a way to know if TN2 is making more money than they were with TN1.

lol

It's not really fair to describe this as a "monopoly" in the "big/bad/horribleforeverything/zomgstandardoil" sense people are trying to use it to mean. The PT/HEM merger has little to no ability to really hinder anybody else's attempts at competing with them, outside of simply being ahead of the game for now.

I'm not sure what the odds are that this merger will create a significant upward trend in their prices, but I'm positive it's less than the "sure thing" odds everyone in this thread is insinuating.

For that matter, I'm pretty sure the line on the result of every announcement thread in NVG is a few clicks to the "less pessimistic" side of whatever the first 10 replies indicate.

4$/month max please...

i hope players will buycott