Outside the US - What is left?

[Professor Dav]

Okay so US Cards sent to distributors and US posters and that took time why TEGO?

I know as a company man you have to toe the line but we have been screaming for some help for months and what we asked for was some US promo's sent direct to the MPs and now we get US promos sent to distributors to do with as they will...

Still cannot see why there was a delay and still is a delay... in getting support to active leagues, still cannot understand why active leagues are not registered and advertised on Pokemon-TCG site, still cannnot understand why a My Nintendo account is needed to use things like deck builder on the site .. why exclude the rest of the world for a little bit of thought?

And Dave how about answering the questions asked? Certainly we have experienced a lack of response from international OP and that is a reason we have moaned .. but then we also have had a lack of response from yourselves and yet other European Professors have had a response?

Your messages are not coming out to us all at the same time and in the same way Do you have a list of Non-US Professors and have you tried emailing them?

How about starting by introducing Jarrod Nack to us all? Certainly we are glad 30 kits are coming over and I for one have briefed the Distributors to grab as many as they can .. it will be interesting to see what comes out of that scramble...perhaps it's how we tell which distributors are commited to OP by how many kits they manage to nab

All of my communications have been done via THIS board, and mostly in THIS thread. The only other communications that I have personally had with anyone was when they have emailed me or called me. I am not disseminating any information to one person that has not been disseminated on this board.

I felt as though I did in fact answer the questions asked, at least the ones that I was qualified to answer. As mentioned, I am NOT part of the international team. As mentioned, the international team has been greatly understaffed until recently, and have been extremely busy building strategic relationships throughout the rest of the world, which means that the particulars of implementing the tactical portions of OP have lagged behind.

Prof. Dav

 

[)v(ajin_ipg21]

Prof Dave, WELCOME TO VERY PASSIONATE POKEMON PLAYERS

Guys. Take it easy. FROM HIS VERY BUSY schedule *i imagine* Prof Dave replies.

What still baffles me is the NEED for immediate and OVERNIGHT solutions...
HE PROMISES too much he may let you down.
HE DOES NOT PROMISE enough and he still let's you down.
Scylla and Charybdis.

IMO MTM at times may have said too much too early *and unfortunately HE AND all of us paid a price for that TRUST.*

The cogs are moving along... let's KEEP Prof Dave and not chase him away... they are listening...

 

[ukpokemonpro]

What still baffles me is the NEED for immediate and OVERNIGHT solutions

5 MONTHS NO SUPPORT ... enough said :nonono:

 

[NoPoke]

Greatly Understaffed! That I can believe LOL

Dave. We will never understand why PUI were unable to send us some promos ages ago. As of today, we still don't have any promos. If there was a will then a way would have been found.

I hope things improve in the future but PUI/Nintendo must realise that they have already sown the seeds of mistrust in the international community. Such a shame.

 

[)v(ajin_ipg21]

According to whose timeline?

PUI's or YOURS?

Sure they probably WOULD WANT TO HAVE ALL THIS OUT TO YOU.

Then again, IS ANYONE at PUI willing to say more than they can so that AN ONSLAUGHT of vitriol sent their way sends them into spincontrol mode?

Time will tell & the NET has shortened the distance between us all, for better or worse...

Again, speed of light solutions to CORPORATE maneuvering does not seem realistic.

 

[Rainbowgym]

Prof Dave

Sorry if you think a attack you personal, because that's not what i'm trying to do. Sometimes it's hard to explain what you mean in a different language.

But to make one point very clear. Our distributor is not having any windowcling or poster to announce the Ruby/Sapphire cards. They didn't got any and they asked for it again and again. Then when they had a meeting with the (pre) OP people they asked if they could print those things for Europe so that we have promotional material too. This was not possible.

Because i was at Gencon Indy i asked you overthere (i think it was you at the Nintendo boot) if i could take some posters (those "they are here" ones) and i got a mousemat which you were giving away. I also got a windowcling but i don't know were that one came from.
I gave that windowcling(sticker) and poster to another gymleader overhere because he is running league in his store, so he needed it harder than i did.
The day we had our meeting with the distributor (gathering in that store) the president of that compagny saw those items and was almost spitting fire.
How the H.... we got those items. He asked for those and couldn't get them, he was not allowed to print something like it and untill today he did not recieve anything to hand out to the stores he is selling his Pokemonstuff to.

My point is, these little things like not having ordinairy posters to announce a new cardset is bad for the sales overhere. And if anyone decides to send material what is left, you better change the text in "they were here".

Something else i can't understand, the day we European professors could register there was a big change for PUI to email those people listed and ask them of they had a running league. They could have send promokits to still running leagues withour interference of the distributor. We are talking about 70 registered profs at this moment. Meaby even not all having a running league, but for the ones who have that was a golden change to keep people playing because you had something to offer. Even there is no OP for Europe yet you could let your players see that they were not out of sight.

But enough if this i will keep on playing and if we get OP i will see if i can participate.

 

[Professor Dav]

Prof Dave
Because i was at Gencon Indy i asked you overthere (i think it was you at the Nintendo boot) if i could take some posters (those "they are here" ones) and i got a mousemat which you were giving away. I also got a windowcling but i don't know were that one came from.
I gave that windowcling(sticker) and poster to another gymleader overhere because he is running league in his store, so he needed it harder than i did.
The day we had our meeting with the distributor (gathering in that store) the president of that compagny saw those items and was almost spitting fire.

But enough if this i will keep on playing and if we get OP i will see if i can participate.

I'm sure we met at GenCon Indy, I'm sorry if I don't remember exactly who you are though, I met a lot of people.

You bring up too many points for me to address at once, but one BIG point you do bring up is the issue where the Pres. of the distributor was upset because you had materials he didn't have access to.

This is just one of the many reasons we didn't send OP kits to professors only. We do value our professors, both domestic and international, and our professors will have the same benefits regardless of where they live. However, as I wrote in a previous response, there are two separate and distinct groups that we have to keep happy if we are to stay in business. Retailers and Fans. Distributors for the most part, fall into the same category as the retailer. If we sent kits to our Professors that weren't available to retailers and distributors internationally, we'd be dealing with fire spitting from all angles. We'd have some fans who were being supported, while other fans, some very near by, wouldn't be.

If you stop buying cards, retailers don't order, and we don't make money. If retailers don't order, you can't buy cards, and we don't make money. Our strategy MUST account for such issues when we roll out any program.

All I can really say is, International OP WILL be supported. We are working very hard to get everything up and running and bring our english language releases concurrent across the globe, as well as our OP programs.

If I had all the details, and if everything was worked out, we wouldn't be having this discussion because you'd all know what you wanted to know. Unfortunately, that simply isn't the case right now, and I've told you all of the information that I can at this time.

As previously mentioned, our remaining league materials will be collected next week, and we should begin sending those materials to distributors for kit building within the next week or two. After that, international leagues should start rolling very shortly thereafter.

Prof. Dav

 

[Michel]

Dave,

I do perfectly understand that both fans/players and retailers/distributors have to be happy.

I just disagree on one point of your previous post ... it is not because local retailers don't order that we may not buy. We live in an open market where international trade is easier every day, and I know that, for Pokemon cards like for anything else, there are people and shops who buy abroad for different reasons (delay, price, ...). Even if it not good for the local business, it is logical and easy to understand that people prefer to have boxes two weeks earlier at 80 USD/box (shipping and taxes included) instead of two weeks later and at 140 USD/box. It is exactly the same for YGO European cards, even with the 'non European cards forbidden in European OP' Konami's system. I'm sure that fans and players money will arrive to you anyway.

Almost every Professor in Europe works with one or several local shops. Most of them have worked together for a long time and it would maybe have been a good opportunity to reward these shops by providing them the first material a little bit earlier. I think that Rainbowgym's message follows the same idea too.


If I understand what has been said about International OP, at least in Europe, distributors will be the link between PUI/POP and the community of players (leagues, ...).
Our experience in the past has shown that all the distributors were not like PS Games in Holland.
PS Games have already had a meeting with professors in Holland about OP while, in some other countries, distributors don't even know what OP could be.
Historically, I have to say that PS Games has always been very active for Pokemon with their support to STS qualifiers, Gyms, ... That has not been the case everywhere. 'Older' players will remember the difference in qualifiers between 2001 and 2002 when the intervention of the local distributors was required by WotC.
Some markets were bad ... but it's always the same circle, you don't invest time and money, people buy less, and as people buy less, you justify that you don't invest.

I'm afraid that, according to the interest and involvment of each local distributor, POP will be very different from one country to another.

I have the same feeling about Professors. If they are 'linked to' the local distributor, you add a personal relational aspect to what I've mentioned above.
If Professors are directly 'linked to' PUI/POP in the USA, they could be quite often in conflict with either their local distributor or PUI/POP .

My friends who will be involved in OP in Europe will see how it will work in the future, and I truly hope everything will be fine, but I must admit that I'm worried about these points.

 

[ukpokemonpro]

Then again, IS ANYONE at PUI willing to say more than they can so that AN ONSLAUGHT of vitriol sent their way sends them into spincontrol mode?

Unfortunately we feel that PUI started in Spin Control Mode and have stayed there.

Once again I see no conflict and no reason why distributors would have been unhappy with Master Professors and Professors recieving promotional cards to support leagues, I still see no conflict.

Indeed did distributors here moan when some Professors who made it to Indy came back with bucket loads of Groudon and Kyogre promo's that they then traded or sold ... NO THEY DID NOT... what was upsetting was when NoPoke asked for some specifically to support our leagues they were denied!

And these are not even league promo's, we outside the US will probably never have access to them accept via eBay so why was there a problem?

When WotC dropped all support the only people who stepped up to keep things going were the Master Professors (yet again)

We stated right at the beginning of this thread that we did not expect to see OP until Novemeber/December at the earliest and look at what comes to pass...

As previously mentioned, our remaining league materials will be collected next week, and we should begin sending those materials to distributors for kit building within the next week or two. After that, international leagues should start rolling very shortly thereafter.

So we get materials somewhere in November to the distributors and then we get to start our leagues on Season One in December while the US start season 4!!

LOL whatever happened to ..

Pokémon Organized Play will start after the product is released internationally later this summer.

Cough, Cough later this summer?

The problem is that we have heard platitudes and it's coming, trust us for so long now and so far all we have is 30 kits making it to Spain and the distributors ...

What was wrong with then sending every professor a kit at the same time so that we could see them too .. then the distributors and the professors would have them at the same time?

No arguments then surely?

What was wrong with listing our leagues before the distributors got anything? At least that shows us some support..

What was wrong with giving us equal access to Pokemon-TCG.com ?

What was wrong with giving NoPoke some promo's to keep his league going when he stood in front of you guys in Indy?

These questions continue to go unaswered, especially the website and league listings .. it is these little things that go a long way to showing there really is an interest in International Leagues and OP.

 

[Tego]

LOL whatever happened to ..

Quote:
Pokémon Organized Play will start after the product is released internationally later this summer.

Cough, Cough later this summer?

The product was released later that summer. Ruby/Sapphire did arrive here late summer, just like promised. And OP does start after this release, just like promised. We didn't get it before that. We could get OP in Year 2060 and the promise you're refering to would still be kept.

My point isn't that we have to wait ages to get OP, but it's that we can't base everything on these announcements, especially when they really don't promise too much.

 

[NoPoke]

Dave, I think you will find that the distributor's president was upset because the materials obviously were available but he had been told that HE culdn't have them.

I'd love to see you use that reasoning in the USA.: 'California can't have a league because someone in the mid west hasn't got one'.

interesting marketing policy: 'equitable denial of product'. I don't think I've ever come accross that before. Maybe its a new idea?

 

[GuardianTIM]

interesting marketing policy: 'equitable denial of product'. I don't think I've ever come accross that before. Maybe its a new idea?

(I assume by Equitable you mean '[Even/Fair] denial of product')
Well, actually - look at Blizzard Entertainment (PC game company) - they take FOREVER to release games - I've got a pic from Starcraft:Ghost (It'll be a console game, and then later released on PC, I've heard) as my background, and the Copyright date is 2002, yet the game hasn't even been released yet (ie- almost 2 years since it's announcment, and NOTHING).

However, when Blizzard releases a game, they make sure it has a WORLDWIDE release date, and that prevents such problems.


So, you're saying, "why can't PokemonTCG be more like this?". The thing is, Blizzard takes FOREVER to release games (as mentioned above), so really, it doesn't work so well for the TCG.

Actually, the idea has been around for quite some time.

I just wish that they could do the worldwide release for things (Cards, Gameboy Games, and TV shows), rather than having us be forced to wait and feel particularly ignored (that's called an understatement, btw ) by the people who make it, all because we live in a different part of the world.



Just as an aside note, my friend was designing a Sandstorm-based Eevee deck, weeks before the set had arrived in this country. Although it's cool and all, we shouldn't have to do this. We should be able to make the decks because the cards are available, not have to sit around merely designing them because they're not...

 

[NoPoke]

True enough if the product is just not available then there isn't much more to be said.

But we were denied promos and given the excuse that stores would be unhappy if we had something that they didn't. the fact that store based OP no longer exists in the UK didn't seem to figure in the ostrich like response.

But anyway.. enough of this.. what was predicted has come to pass. And this messenger still doesn't want to get shot!

So What is left outside the USA?

US thats what. Much like under Wotc if we were unhappy with the support that we recieved then we just did it ourselves. Its the ONLY reason why pokemon has any OP left in the UK.

 

[ukpokemonpro]

Yeah like it or not PUI have got US to contend with, you can ignore us, scorn us and not support us but we are still here

 

[Professor Dav]

Dave, I think you will find that the distributor's president was upset because the materials obviously were available but he had been told that HE culdn't have them.

I'd love to see you use that reasoning in the USA.: 'California can't have a league because someone in the mid west hasn't got one'.

interesting marketing policy: 'equitable denial of product'. I don't think I've ever come accross that before. Maybe its a new idea?

Yes, just as mentioned, we made a limited amount of materials available to a limited resource that were not available to the general pool of distributors, and he got upset. Just as I said. Those materials were not 'obviously available' in fact, they were limited in their aviailability, and were distributed to a single person, who then showed them to a potential strategic partner who was then upset that the same materials were not made available to him. Where are you not seeing that this example is exactly what I've been talking about?

The programs are equally AVAILABLE to all provinces in North America, including Canada and Mexico. I absolutely would NOT launch a league in North America that was not EQUALLY available to all markets inside of North America, just as the international team is trying to make our products and programs equally available in those markets.

We aren't forcing anyone to run a league that doesn't want to, so that reasoning really isn't even an appropriate comparison.

I'm done with this thread guys. I'm not going sit here and go around and around arguing with you over the same points again and again, especially when I'm not even the official voice of OP International. This forum is NOT an official means for transmitting information from PUI/POP to the public, nor is it an appropriate forum for myself to engage in finger pointing with fans from overseas.

You all have equal access to my email addresses at [email protected] and [email protected], if you'd like to hear my answers regarding these questions yet again, you may email me there.

Prof. Dav

 

[)v(ajin_ipg21]

*That's what I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL THEM.

We've been fortunate enough that in the past *way far past* and present we have become a bridge for communication.

BUT the issues are quite complex that this board cannot provide the solutions.

BEWARE: they shall keep you busy, we players are a dedicated, thoughtful, ACTIVE bunch.

ukp: what did I say about scaring PUI

 

[ukpokemonpro]

IPG,

hey as PUI Dave has said ..I'm not even the official voice of OP International .. that voice Jarrod Nack has yet to be heard here's hoping...

And maybe Dave is right to get as frustrated as we are .. he cannot see our point that the distributors wouldn't have minded a tick if PUI had sent the Professors some promos to use to promote the game that would then mean more sales for the distributors ...

but what they did mind was that point of sale material was not forthcoming forget that it came from the US anyway it was the fact it was not available that made him mad....

I am sure had he been in a store in the us and seen the promotional support he would have been equally as mad!

We have tried explaining that the distributors are not going to fight the professors for kits and promos but that the professors maywell have to fight for kits from the distributors!

30 kits to keep Europe going for about a month ... I know I will fight for my league and I will share what I can but some will go short because of it

Ask the question I posted elsewhere again.. if this is the US and there had been no promo's, no pre-releases, no league kits and no help after 5 months would you be grilling the PUI rep ... I think you would.

But as Ian has said we are still here we still love the game and we will work for it but please don't give us corporate spin, give us the tools and we'll do the work, show us you care and we'll be loyal... but slap a dog too much and eventually it bites...

So what about equality on this pokemon-tcg website then ... you still haven't given us a reason for that Dave! and why can we not register our leagues and when will the deck constructor be available to all ... or is it more of my sig?

 

[Rainbowgym]

Do you really think you will get a kit out of those 30.
Keep on dreaming. They are not meant for us but for the distibutor(something like a sample). I can't find a source saying that those kits have to be given to players.

 

[NoPoke]

I doubt that the distributors will want to hold onto the kits. Especially when they can pass/sell them on. Personally I doubt that the distributors will want to have anything to do with the league kits unless there is a commercial advantage in doing so. The message that we keep telling our distributors in the UK is 'not to worry we will provide OP for you. All you have to do is ensure that the product is available'. Should be music to the distributors ears.

I don't know how much we might get but I promise that I will share anything that I receive.

 

[Michel]

OK guys, and especielly my UK friends.

You, just like other gym leaders or TO's in Europe, don't have support for a very long time. Will a couple of weeks make a difference ?

PUI said that OP will be the same all over the World but it takes time to start the OP program in other countries than the USA.
OK, I do agree and I do understand them.

I do also agree with you on the fact that no support for months is not acceptable, especially when we know the efforts you've done to keep our game alive.
But Nintendo/PUI/POP is not the only responsible. They're not responsible, for example, if a lot of Pokemon material will be destroyed from Wizards UK warehouse

I propose to give them time. Time to start OP in Europe, time to answer to rulings questions, ...

We all know that we'll have OP in our countries, and pushing them will not make things go quickly.

I really do prefer to have a good OP, an OP that is equal everywhere in Europe a little bit later than a bad OP a couple of weeks earlier.

We are a community of fans, players, professors, and instead of fighting for better delays, I think we have to think in terms of quality and equity.
Will OP be as good as we think or hope ? What can we propose or do to improve it ? Is OP the same everywhere in Europe ? What can we do to help PUI/POP about OP in our countries ? ...

Like I said earlier in this topic, and for the reasons I've mentioned, I'm in fact out of OP now. But I've been too involved in the game to stop thinking and reacting as a GL, judge or TO.
But if I look at the game from my new player point of view, I may assure you that I will not understand, and admit, that a player who lives and play 40 miles away from my home has more, or less, than me because he lives in an other region or another country.

Instead of focusing on delays, wouldn't we have to focus on the concept of 'worldwide OP', the same OP everywhere in the World ?

If I understand that it can take more time to launch a program in Europe than in the USA, I wouldn't understand that people from some countries would be penalized for any reason once the programs are launched. I'm sure you'll agree with me on the other side of the Channel

If I do understand what people from Nintendo/PUI said, we will have the same as in the USA. I think we'll have to pay attention to that, and be prepared to react if things are not like that because of PUI or any other part of the chain.

So, what I would ask you, is to stop talking that much about delays (even if I know it's important), but to think about what we hope, expect, and will do in the future when OP will be effective in our different countries., as Professor or 'simple' player.