Bubble Shooter Arena - Skillz

New changes make it harder to just break-even, nevermind win. $50 bonus cash used to be given with deposit of $100. Now it’s just $35 bonus for $105 deposit. Tickets are awarded for playing games. Previously saving up 280 tickets could redeem $20. Now it’s 400 tickets for $20 prize. And no longer are tickets given for Z games which are free to play. And gotta spend a lot more for tickets. I lose most games I play because the matching algorithm isn’t fair and I sometimes get matched with expert players who win by 100,000+ points, when my average score is 20,000 on this game. I was ok losing previously because of the ways to get bonus cash, which meant I still lost money overall, but not so much. I considered the money I lost like a paid subscription to a game I like. Now it’s just too expensive, no matter how much I like it. So I play free games more often but I did like the cash games, so much better before the new changes made it too expensive. The company is losing money, their stock value is way down, probably because they’re losing customers like me. I still play, but not as much. I’m a shareholder as well. I’ll likely sell at the end of the year and take the loss as a tax write-off. It’s unfortunate. Skillz used to be a good company that cared about their customers and rewarded long-time players.

I'm not really a betting person, mostly playing the practice levels. However, I did like having the chance to play for up to $100 in prize money if I wanted to. Now, the $100 prize level is gone. Also, for the practice levels, you would earn tickets whether you won or not. Now, you only get tickets if you win, which means it will take way, way longer for practice players to earn enough to redeem prizes. This isn't fair since not all jurisdictions allow playing for money. AGAIN - game developers - it is NOT legal to mobile gamble in a number of jurisdictions. Adding to this, the number of tickets needed to redeem most prizes has INCREASED. So again, there are very few incentives to continue playing, something I probably won't be doing for much longer.

This game has two ways to play. There is a “Free” way where you rack up tokens that can be redeemed for prizes (although most require ALOT of playing and winning). The other way is to put up your own money and bet it against someone else, while Skillz takes a 17%. Overall the free play was fun for a bit. I ended up redeeming some of my coins for a sticker and “$2 “free money” (which you have to play with and cannot cash out). As for the playing for money, it almost felt like a slot machine and really came off kind of fishy. You would win a couple and feel some luck coming on, then suddenly get blown out and lose all your money. The moderators, aka rent a cops, claim “by winning, you go up a skill level and play others in that level” and if you argue they would suspend you. So, essentially unless you are in the top 1% of the game, they will always pin you against someone they know will beat you, take a 20% cut, then expect you to keep funneling money to try and get it back.