Thoughts on the finals not being recorded?

[vaporeon]

Its little things like this that prevents the game from growing. In Magic, its encourage for people to watch matches and I for one enjoy watching them and I don't even play the game. One day I went to youtube just to watch some magic games because it gave me what Pokemon could not.

There's no excuse for the final round of Nats to not be recorded. Many players were looking forward to it. This just proves they don't care about the game.

 

[QD4U]

I'm disapointed. Seems like the organisers (or whoever said no) just want to do the bare minimum and then go home.

 

[bullados]

vaporeon: MTG does NOT encourage players to crowd the Finals matches. This is something that Pokemon tries hard to emulate. However, they do not even ATTEMPT to encourage other behaviors, such as watching on other screens or something similar. Streaming would be excellent, even if it's just select matches. At Worlds, I believe that EVERY Top Cut match should be streamed at least on a basic level. There are few enough of those that it's not excessive to get it done. Decent webcams cost less than $100 each. A decent central computer costs about a grand. Cabling might run you $200 total. I get decent nonstreaming results from a $100 digital camera (not camcorder) and a $50 webcam attached to a 5 year old computer. When I get enough personal income to upgrade, my computer should be able to handle multiple streams by itself (and it'll be an older-style computer at that, maybe a year or so). It's a one-time purchase, much like the Pikachu balloon that goes everywhere, and it will significantly increase the marketing reach of TPCi far more than the Pikachu balloon ever could. Once the one-time cost has been taken care of, the rest should be reasonably easy to take care of.

 

[vaporeon]

Thats agreeable but here in AZ, that had a state level Magic even that everyone watched in on. I even asked if it were okay to watch because I assumed it were the same as Pokemon and they said it was fine to do that.

Its just Pokemon is doing all the wrong things a game should do.

 

[SD PokeMom]

@bullados: labor...setup, teardown, people to run the camera(s) etc...is not a 'one time' cost.

What I don't understand is why it took so long for Pokemon to get back to The Top Cut on whether they could record or not. From what I understand, Pokemon was contacted before Nats, didn't respond back, then still didn't respond on Thursday or Friday and only got back to TTC late Friday. If you're not going to let them record at least let them know.

Its little things like this that prevents the game from growing. In Magic, its encourage for people to watch matches and I for one enjoy watching them and I don't even play the game. One day I went to youtube just to watch some magic games because it gave me what Pokemon could not.

There's no excuse for the final round of Nats to not be recorded. Many players were looking forward to it. This just proves they don't care about the game.

I'm disapointed. Seems like the organisers (or whoever said no) just want to do the bare minimum and then go home.

Its just Pokemon is doing all the wrong things a game should do.

chain of command for decisions when dealing with corporations is never as simple as it seems...and when said corporation is an international one, even MORE so. the good folks at OP have hoops to jump through as well...it's just not as simple as you think.

jmho.

 

[bullados]

That's why you let volunteers like TTC and those that have proven themselves to be reliable on many levels who want to do this stuff do this stuff. We're willing to spent the monies and time to put good products together to help the game. We want to do this. Let us do it.

 

[vaporeon]

That's not an excuse I want to really hear. TTC spend the money to do this and they do a great job of it are are extremely knowledgeable of the game and meta. Like Bullados said, instead of spending the money for Pikachu Balloons and other pointless stuff, put the money where it belongs. The TCG makes a lot of money on stuff like this. There SHOULD be video coverage for State and higher events especially if they are 3 day event.

To my knowledge, the VGC uses screens to play on, so why not the TCG. I'd rather watch the cards hit the table rather then watch from 100 feet away players just sitting there.

 

[Mystery Thing]

That's not an excuse I want to really hear. TTC spend the money to do this and they do a great job of it are are extremely knowledgeable of the game and meta. Like Bullados said, instead of spending the money for Pikachu Balloons and other pointless stuff, put the money where it belongs. The TCG makes a lot of money on stuff like this. There SHOULD be video coverage for State and higher events especially if they are 3 day event.

If you played a tournament of that size in a vanilla hall with nothing on the walls, nothing hanging from the ceiling, no signs, no tablecloths, etc, you would change your tune really, really quickly.

To my knowledge, the VGC uses screens to play on, so why not the TCG. I'd rather watch the cards hit the table rather then watch from 100 feet away players just sitting there.

The VGC doesn't need camera rigs, time spent making sure those cameras are in the right spot, fine-tuning the focus, making sure the sleeves used aren't too reflective as to make it so you can't see the cards, or plotting out how big of an area you can get away with without showing the players' hands. All the VGC needs is one of those magical white boxes that has a DS' top screen video out. If you ever saw what the staff goes through on setup day to make it so the TCG finals at Worlds can be watched on the screens, and have what's going on actually be coherent, you would realize you're comparing apples to bulldozers.

 

[baby mario]

I'm disapointed. Seems like the organisers (or whoever said no) just want to do the bare minimum and then go home.

I don't know why they wouldn't let the topcut record the finals, but to just go ahead and assume laziness is bang out of order and really quite insulting.

 

[SD PokeMom]

you may not want to hear the 'excuses'...but that doesn't make the way things are decided by large international corporations go 'poof' and disappear.

nationals is not just an OP event...but marketing, legal, brand etc. are also involved. those inflatables you think are such a waste of money are part of marketing the pokemon brand: you really want the biggest event in the world held in a bare convention center hall?

the OP folks may 'know' TTC...but brand, legal, marketing et al don't. i'm pretty sure handing over webcasting and commentary of the finals of the biggest pokemon tcg event in the world to an outside party/website is not a decision that can be done at the OP level...and once you start going 'upstairs'...you're in a whole different ballpark.

you may not like it, you may call it 'excuses'...but that's the way it is in real life.

jmho.

 

[yoshi1001]

The most direct solution I could think of to this would be to create some custom version of the TCG online, "digitize" each player's deck for the finals, then have them play on that. In between there would be a third computer that would "tap in" and have only the public information on display. You could then send that to a TV. It would have to be really thoroughly tested (I'd hate to have the finals lost to a crash or marred by a card not being implemented correctly), but that would be the most flexible route I could think of.

 

[SMP88]

you may not want to hear the 'excuses'...but that doesn't make the way things are decided by large international corporations go 'poof' and disappear.

nationals is not just an OP event...but marketing, legal, brand etc. are also involved. those inflatables you think are such a waste of money are part of marketing the pokemon brand: you really want the biggest event in the world held in a bare convention center hall?

the OP folks may 'know' TTC...but brand, legal, marketing et al don't. i'm pretty sure handing over webcasting and commentary of the finals of the biggest pokemon tcg event in the world to an outside party/website is not a decision that can be done at the OP level...and once you start going 'upstairs'...you're in a whole different ballpark.

you may not like it, you may call it 'excuses'...but that's the way it is in real life.

jmho.

If they didn't want them to record the finals then why bother having them record anything at all? Brand, marketing and legal didn't know about TTC when they were recording T16-T4 either. You also can't say that they didn't want to hand off the finals to TTC, they handed off the finals of Worlds last year to them to post on their youtube channel and commentate.

 

[SD PokeMom]

i don't recall seeing a TTC camera setup on the finals stage at worlds '11...

 

[vaporeon]

@ Mystery Thing and SD PokeMom

Sure, some branding is needed. The National Championship posters and such are needed. The side events are fun to play in and I for one would love to be there. I'd also hate to see nothing on the walls. We want to know that we are at a Pokemon event. Pikachu balloons are cool, but not need. The people in the snivy outfit was cool, but not needed. Those thing don't help the game grow.

I use to work in retail stores doing commissioned sales. You can get over 200 feet of cable for about 50 to 60 bucks. Thats cheap for a huge company like Pokemon. Camera you can get for about 150 or so and are cheaper in bulk. Web cams now record in HD. You can also build a video server for under 600 now. TV's you can not get a 42 inch for about 300 to 400 on a cheap brand. Again, cheap for TPCi.

The Top Cut helps the game grow and are doing a great job of it. I now here TOs saying they have had unreal attendance for their events AND I believe TTC played a huge role in that. While marketing and other legal things are good for the event, the players should not be punished because of it. The players don't care about legal and to an extent marketing. Everything else is cool and fun. Players like a fun atmosphere but it means nothing if they can't stay and watch the games. All they need are 3 or 4 TVs and a rig setup somewhere. It's pretty easy to do and would be good for the game.

 

[yoshi1001]

The people in the snivy outfit was cool, but not needed. Those thing don't help the game grow.

They do if you consider the portion of the market they're aimed at. No, they probably won't bring in the people in their 20s who played back when they were in grade school, but they are appealing to the people who are just starting with the franchise.

 

[vaporeon]

That's fine but not only kids play the game. attendance is higher in Masters most of the time then Juniors and Seniors combined. The kids are a good part of the game but its also the same for adults. Kids like big screen TVs as well. They have to get out of the mindset of 'for the kids' because its bad for business. Most of the money they make comes from Masters and parents.

Now I'm not saying make the game for only Masters but saying for the kids this and that is just as bad.

 

[baby mario]

Honestly, Snivy etc are a bit of fun for everyone and add to the atmosphere (plenty of Masters like to get their pics taken with them). I highly doubt that the reason for no TV coverage was that they blew the budget on a Tepig costume.

If Pokemon can't attract kids and parents, then the game will eventually either die or be played exclusively by a bunch of 40 yr old guys.

I don't know which would be worse.

 

[SD PokeMom]

just because you say 'players don't care about legal and marketing' won't magically negate them as a factor in what can be and won't be done...

 

[vaporeon]

Honestly, Snivy etc are a bit of fun for everyone and add to the atmosphere (plenty of Masters like to get their pics taken with them). I highly doubt that the reason for no TV coverage was that they blew the budget on a Tepig costume.

If Pokemon can't attract kids and parents, then the game will eventually either die or be played exclusively by a bunch of 40 yr old guys.

I don't know which would be worse.

That's true but I know for a fact those 'fur suit' as I call them are of the quality are at least 600 bucks. They had 4. Again, that's normally a one time fee. 2400 bucks on average. Thats not including banners, posters etc so that may be around 10 grand in just advertisments. Again, I'm not trying to turn this into a debate but media coverage is needed for tournaments this large. Just think about how bad the NBA would be if they took on the same rules as Pokemon.

 

[Pooka]

I could write a lot about what happened over the weekend (and I probably will on our site), but this is the "short" version. About two months before the event, I reached out to Dave Schwimmer about streaming and recording US Nationals this year. Since recording matches from Worlds 2011, The Top Cut has streamed and recorded tons of matches from events ranging from Battle Roads to Regionals. We never had any complaints from Tournament Organizers, and they were all happy to have us there. So, I realized that we weren't the most established group in the world, but I had hoped that we had a good enough resume to have the guys from TPCI trust us with covering the event.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a definitive answer as those two months passed by, but we showed up with our equipment just in case. On Friday, I got to speak with Dave, who directed me towards Rob Novickas and JC Smith. Basically what they told me was that they had looked into getting an Internet connection for us in the venue, but it wasn't feasible. So, streaming was out of the question, but we would be able to record. We were told to bring in our equipment on Saturday and set up. If it looked good, we could record on Saturday and Sunday.

Before the tournament resumed on Saturday, we brought in our stuff and set up shop. After taking a look at what we had, the guys said it looked good. Unfortunately, we were informed that we wouldn't be able to record on Saturday either. After a lot of questions and trying to work out a solution, the final answer was no. So, we had to pack everything back up and accept the fact that we wouldn't be able to do anything until Sunday. We also were told that we would be able to record matches until the Top 4, but not the Finals. I'm still not sure what the reason was for this, but that's neither here nor there. At this point, all of us from The Top Cut were frustrated with the way the weekend had turned out. However, we were given permission to record some matches, which is better than nothing.

At 7 AM the next morning, we showed up and set up our equipment. Thankfully the staff there provided us with power, and we were all ready to go by the time the Top 16 started. It was a great experience, and we caught some amazing matches on camera. The only thing I'm sad about is that we couldn't share the experience with people in the audience. Maybe next time we can bring a few monitors for people to watch. After the Top 4 was over, that was that. For the Finals, the players were moved to a new area, and all we could do was clean up and watch from a distance.

During the Finals, I couldn't even express my disappointment in words. I had about 100 people come up to me and ask why we weren't recording the Finals, and all I could do was shrug my shoulders. I don't think it's fair to blame any one person for the biggest match of the year not being recorded, but it was a terrible feeling. I understand that there are legal issues involved that we may not be aware of, so I don't want to make a big deal out of this. Still, it stung more and more every time someone asked me why we weren't recording the Finals. To me, I had let down every person who is a fan of us and a fan of the game in general. To be honest, I couldn't even bring myself to watch the match. If we got anyone's hopes up, I do want to apologize, but sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to. However, I was happy to see John stand up and celebrate his victory. I just wish someone could have captured that moment.

Hopefully we can move forward and work together with TPCI to make the game better for everyone. The Top Cut is an independent group that does everything for free. As such, it's going to be tough to justify continuing to do this if we aren't able to work with the people in charge. I love Pokémon, and I'll put everything I have into it for as long as I can, but this past weekend certainly was a disappointment for all of us. Right now the only thing keeping me going is the support from everyone in the community. I truly appreciate everyone's kind words over the weekend, and I'm looking forward to Worlds.