Turf zone – ArthursSeat
I’ve mentioned in the past on various turf blogs about the fall in the numbers of active turfers and the trend seems to be continuing. At the foot of the main Turfgame.com page there’s a figure showing the number of turfers. Today it stands at around 350,100. Now, I’m assuming that figure represents the total number of turfers who have created a turf account since Turf started. That’s seems an incredible number of turfers but today at the start of Round #141 there are only 4796 turfers active. That’s only 1.4% of the overall total.
Globally, if we look back 12 months to Round #129, there was 9001 turfers actively taking part. Today, in Round #141 there are only 4796 turfers taking part, down over 4000 turfers. That’s almost a 50% reduction in numbers. Here in bonnie Scotland, in Round #129 we had 760 active turfers. Today, we have only 275 actively taking zones, almost 500 down. In other words, two out of three turfers are no longer actively turfing. Why are so many turfers leaving, or perhaps not even starting, this fine game? And what can we do about it?
Without factual data about why people don’t continue with turf, we can only surmise what those reasons might be. Perhaps new turfers try the game and simply don’t like it. It’s just not for them, which is fair enough. It might be other factors preventing them playing turf such as work, family, health or whatever. Again fair enough and not a lot we can do about that. The one aspect we can do something about is the game of turf itself. Is there something about turf that causes turfers to lose interest and give up, or even fail to start?
Honestly, I don’t know and can only speculate. However, one thing that does come to mind is when you first start turfing ranks and medals come thick and fast but as time passes the points/effort required for each rank/medal gradually increases and both become more difficult to obtain. In your early days as a turfer you are regularly rewarded for your efforts but the longer you turf the less rewards you obtain. Could this have something to do this fall in turfer numbers?
A possible solution would be to continue the early system of rewards as you ascend the ranks, perhaps by offering medals that are only available when you reach a certain rank level. For example, once you reach Rank 40 – Turf Master, you are able to try for medals only available once you attain that rank. Another possible solution would be to change the number of ranks available from the current 60, to say, 100, and reduce the points required between each rank.
Another thought that might help us retain turfers is to keep everything fresh. This already happens with the addition of new zones and the occasional new medal series, such as the Five-A-Day, though the latter is not common these days. I’ve spoken to a few new turfers and one aspect of the game that is exciting and helps keep their interest is when medals pop up on the mobile phone screen, and also gaining a new rank. How can we continue, or add to, this exciting aspect of the game? Is there a way we could add something more to the game? Perhaps we should all put our thinking caps on a see what we can come up with.
Copyright ©2022 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
