Thanks for clarifying, Mr. Schwimmer. How foolish and arrogant of me to assume the voices of our enormous and loyal player base have any effect on the decisions TPCi makes. I am pleased that one of your rare posts to the community was made only to clarify that our repeatedly voiced concerns had nothing to do with the decision made for time limit at Nats.
I am about as pleased as Dave is by the tone that a handful of folks have chosen to take on this issue but I think/hope that we are simply using the word "lobby" differently.
When Dave talks about lobbying he is referring to the kind of threads where we are preemptively smeared at the mere thought that we might not do (insert action a vocal minority decides to champion in that thread), and folks are given the idea that if everyone is just
loud enough, we will be forced to do what you want.
End of the day, that is just not how the world works.
When players work with their local TO's to try a change, that is working towards a solution. When TO's are able to show us data on the impact of those changes, that gives us something to work with. As Dave said, not everything that "works" locally work for our goals or get approved but this is the kind of effort that allows things to get done. All without anyone suggesting that someone needs to lose their job.
Oh and as a side note: You have given community pressure credit for some really odd things recently. For example, claiming that the community response was the reason that a player was penalized for breaking the rules is actually pretty bizarre. In the case you cited in another recent thread, we saw evidence that a rule had been broken, we took into account a history of behavior, and we applied the appropriate penalty. Same as we would have if no one but us and the player knew about it.
Mr. Schwimmer,
... we expect you to be a professional and make decisions based on the best interest of your player base and the game itself -- not the tone in which some people asked for it.
I suppose it a good thing that we are professionals then. You will note that despite the vitriol thrown our way in a recent thread we made the decision we thought was best, because that is what we do. What Dave was pointing out is that the behavior he described
does not help make the case.
Why not allow a panel at nationals, maybe a day prior to, that would allow the community to speak with the respective forum of members that do decide what is in store for the game?
Because these things are not decided by a community committee. As I noted above there are already constructive ways to contract us with ideas and there are ways to work within the system to get things done.
You appear to have came here with an obvious passive aggressive tone only to back off when the threat became more than you could handle.
"..more than you can handle."? Are you implying that it takes some kind of toughness or fortitude to argue on the internet? Like it is a good thing?
Another perspective might be that he was actually pretty direct and then chose to take the conversation to a one on one with a person he knows pretty well once it became clear that the conversation was not going to be productive . A spectacle does not really help resolve these kinds of differences.
I believe you ignorantly pointed out the, youthful, vocal-minority that constantly plagues the community, while failing to acknowledge the proper amount of respect for the portion of the community that attempts to make your game prosper, with or without the help of TPCi.
Except for this part of course:
There were plenty of folks in that thread who were more than respectful, including Pooka, and many others. Many people seem to understand that it isn't always about what "you" want, but what the company wants.
You believe that many of us do not take into account that you are a company looking to clearly create better profit margins, as was noted by your comment that many of us do not take into account things your company does. Well let me tell you that many of us do notice exactly the type of things TPCi does consider, such as
1. Cutting prize support for masters (your largest competitive player base) to enhance profit.
2. Extending the amount of regionals/states/cities/battle roads/etc., not in an effort to "give the players more of a chance to play", but in an effort at making the game more visible. It is clearly an attempt at making the circuit more "year round" in an effort to compete with more competitive games such as Yu-gi-oh and Magic.
Your version of why we make the calls we do actually proves Dave's point: You can't actually fully understand why we do the things we do. It's not a slight on you, how
could you take those things into account without being an employee here? The point is that if you decide that you know why we are doing a thing and you find that it makes no sense, arguing against the logic that you just made up does not help change things.
How about you quit making Pokemon Center Exclusive TCG/VGC/memorabilia/etc. overseas, and bring some of it stateside.
Here is where I do what you expected and point out that this is not controlled by our department. Like, at all.
I know you will tell me these things are far above you and out of your control, but everyone has a voice Mr. Schwimmer.
So you want to imply that Dave retreated from an online argument because he could not take it, call him passive aggressive and more, and then imply that he should be your advocate to other departments on topics which you already know he does not control, all while assuming that he has not already done so. That about right?
Was this actually meant to be constructive or have I just been trolled?