Jason Klaczynski pushes for 90 Minutes

[Lawman]

But that is not how businesses are supposed to work, when you make changes good or bad you need to explain them to your customers. That is just good business sense.

Look at JC Penny. This January they had a big announcement that they were doing away with sales. They EXPLAINED to their customers that they were doing this so that they could have everyday low prices on all their merchandise at all times and not have low prices on some items and higher on others.

Now the customers knew why the change took place but they did not like it so many stopped shopping at JC Penny and their sales dropped.

Now JC Penny has made another change and they EXPLAINED to their customers that sales would be coming back, and they did so because they found out that their customer liked shopping for sales and did not like shopping in stores that no longer had them.

Can you imagine what would have happened if JC Penny had just dropped sales from their stores without saying why? And then when a customer came in and asked a manager why noting is on sale? And the manager said "Well they are gone now and that is all you need to know." Then the Customer asks "Can you please tell me why they are gone I liked shopping your sale merchandise" What do you think would happen if the manager told the customer" You do not need to know why, but people in charge have your best interests in mind so do not worry about it"

Do you think that customer would ever shop at JC Penny again?

This is the situation we find ourselves in with Pokémon, but we cant choose to shop at Macys or Sears like the JC Penny shopper can, we don’t have the choice to play Pokémon at Organization A's torment or Organization B's tournament so we are stuck with changes thrust upon us with no recourse or options. It would just be so nice if we could be given some explanation for why thing are changed, it is just constantly being kept in the dark that is so frustrating.

OP is such a small sliver of the Pokemon Business scheme. We hardly make a dent in sales. Please understand that OP brass have bosses too. I imagine those bosses tell OP brass, "you do this with this size budget. Oh, by the way....dont talk about what we talk about". I can imagine this being the case based on the closer interaction I have with OP brass via the PTO route than you would as a player.

I know OP brass have our best interests in mind. They LOVE this game and the people in it. Just like in business, sometimes decisions are made on what is popular, sometimes on budgets and sometimes for other reasons.

Just something to chew on.

Keith

 

[JandPDS]

OP is such a small sliver of the Pokemon Business scheme. We hardly make a dent in sales. Please understand that OP brass have bosses too. I imagine those bosses tell OP brass, "you do this with this size budget. Oh, by the way....dont talk about what we talk about". I can imagine this being the case based on the closer interaction I have with OP brass via the PTO route than you would as a player.

I know OP brass have our best interests in mind. They LOVE this game and the people in it. Just like in business, sometimes decisions are made on what is popular, sometimes on budgets and sometimes for other reasons.

Just something to chew on.

Keith

How is it proven that players a a small part of the money spent on Pokemon?. I have never understood by what means is it decided what money spent is by players who participate in Organized play and what money is spent by people who dont?

When I spend $125.00 at a Prerelease for my family to particpate ithe event is that money counted as player spending. But when I by a tin and 4 packs at Target for my Dughter as is that money then counted as non player income?

What about whene I purcase a Theme deck at local game store where our Pokemon leage is held, is that $15.00 player spending or non player sending?

I think they vey underestimate how much income they get from players purchasing Trading Card game products.

Most players will be purchasing full play set of Mewtwo EX, Darkria EX and Rayquazza EX from the new tins, but how wil this income be counted?.

 

[NoPoke]

I'm sure that question has come up before and been answered too. Player sales are assumed to be hobby store based and non player sales big box store. Yes there will be some overlap but to a first order the overlap will cancel out.

Players buying the tin exs in bulk probably won't be buying from hobby stores (without a deal) or the big box stores.

 

[Regis_Neo]

How is it proven that players a a small part of the money spent on Pokemon?. I have never understood by what means is it decided what money spent is by players who participate in Organized play and what money is spent by people who dont?

When I spend $125.00 at a Prerelease for my family to particpate ithe event is that money counted as player spending. But when I by a tin and 4 packs at Target for my Dughter as is that money then counted as non player income?

What about whene I purcase a Theme deck at local game store where our Pokemon leage is held, is that $15.00 player spending or non player sending?

I think they vey underestimate how much income they get from players purchasing Trading Card game products.

Most players will be purchasing full play set of Mewtwo EX, Darkria EX and Rayquazza EX from the new tins, but how wil this income be counted?.

Conceptually though, PUI has already made their bucks by selling to the store; you buying theme decks at game stores or boosters at Target or from any 3rd party source doesn't boost their profits anymore as they already made money selling to the middleman. Prereleases, I don't know how exactly they work, but they're likely the closest you'd get to direct sales from PUI.

I guess my point is that, we players don't directly boost PUI's profits in that matter from what you're outlining; my general understanding is more that like other businesses, PUI sells to the stores or through whatever other forms of intermediaries there are, which then sell based off the MSRP. So by the time you've bought your boosters, you're helping the store's profit, whereas PUI has already made their money long ago. Back when they used to charge fees to enter stuff, yes then I would argue that would be a form of income they're receiving from the players. But otherwise for the most part, I would think it isn't. Certainly we show enough interest and buy enough from stores for them to warrant still printing new sets and such, but again they don't sell directly to people. At least that's my general idea on how it works, I could be wrong.

 

[Dawn]

This is kind of a distorted way of looking at things. Don't try to think of 90+3 giving an advantage to certain decks. You are right - technically, when you move from 60+3 to 90+3 certain decks become better, but whether the best decks end up indeed being Stage 2 decks, Stage 1 decks or basic-based decks shouldn't matter. All you're doing is allowing Pokémon games to be played as real Pokémon games. Calling certain decks slow & gimmicky seems pointless, too. Whether 90 minutes results in a basic-based, Stage 1-based deck, Stage 2 deck, "lock" deck, etc is irrelevant. The entire point is that the game is being played in the way it was intended to be played.

1) Even if you allow these games to be played out, there's no real point. In Vaniluxe/Accelgor matchups, we all know those decks will win if they get set up. No one really wants to play in a format where all they do is Deck and Cover/Double Freeze or Pass for games on end. That is not how the game was intended to be played, the game of Pokemon that I played involved skill, luck and strategy. These Trainer lock decks require little to no skill to play and ultimately ruin the game.
2) These decks are very gimmicky, as mentioned above, all you do is use the same attack while your opponent passes, and these decks require difficult set ups, coin flips and top decks. Darkrai introduces an element of strategy and skill to the game with snipes and catcher kos making it a very difficult deck to play. Mewtwo wars are even better than these trainer lock decks because in Mewtwo wars you have to consider everything, odds of drawing cards, resources remaining and how to get the best trade offs possible. Trainer lock decks only involve the same attack with no strategy whatsoever, hell you don't even have to conserve resources, in the end it doesn't matter. They may not require evolving or anything like that but at least you have to conserve your resources and think.

 

[Tego]

This is an interesting debate. Ness' article is a well-written and thought provoking piece, and I enjoyed reading it.

Being both a competitive player as well as a judge/TO for every kind of tournament including Nationals, the issue of time limits for top cuts has been something I've given a lot of thought to through the years.

Here in Norway, every TO is free to decide the time limit of best of three matches, with 45 minutes being the minimum. We have been using 75-90 minute limits too.

50 or 60 minutes is common for our smaller events like BRs and CCs, and I'm comfortable with this limit both as a TO/judge and as a player. These are one-day events, and many families have long car rides and appreciate every extra minute they can get. With only 50 or 60 minutes for each top cut match, I consider best out of three to be a system that mainly reduces the amount of short donk-decided 5- minute top game matches. A time limit of only 50-60 minutes however sharply increases the amount of game 3 being a short game decided by one single knockout. But in those cases at least the players got to play for 50-60 minutes total in their match, which makes it better than a donk in a
single game match.

At our two-day events, it's a whole different story. Because of the way the attendance numbers have been decreasing in recent years, our top cut sizes have never been larger than T8. This means we have the luxury of having a whole second day for only playing through three best of three matches. We've run 75 or 90 minute matches at Nationals in recent years because of this. The players love it, and most matches actually complete within the allocated time, e.g. we see full game 3s being played out. Best out of three here guarantees that the whole match won't be decided by a quick donk, and also makes it quite unlikely for game 3 to be played as sudden death.

But how many events in the US are two-day events with such a small top cut size? I can wholeheartedly recommend running 75-90 minutes to any TO that can find the time to go trough with it, but I can see how difficult it must be for the huge one-day events in the US (and by huge, I even include your CCs. Ours have 30-50 players).

 

[bullados]

Jand: ICv2 is about as good of a source as you're going to get. Pokemon is currently 4th in "Hobby Channel", 2nd in "Mass Channel", and 2nd in the "Overall" channel, which is the combined totals of the other two. The #1 TCG in all 3 cases is MTG. Also, the Top 5 of the Overall Channel most closely matches the Top 5 of the Mass Channel, with only HeroClix making any upward movement due to the Hobby Channel.

Not only this, but Pokemon's stats have been remarkably similar for over 5 years on ICv2. They're usually no higher than third on the Hobby channel, no lower than 2nd on the Mass channel, and no lower than 2nd on the Overall.

What that tells me is that the Mass channel dominates the sales in virtually all cases, but especially in Pokemon's case.

Mass Channel -- WalMart, Target, etc.
Hobby Channel -- FLGS, possibly including online retailers like T&T.
Overall -- Combined Mass and Hobby channels.

 

[Ness]

I've played about 30 Premier Events in Florida in the last two years. These events, ran by three different organizers, span across the entire state: Fort Myers, Ft. Lauderdale/Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Port St. Lucie, Tallahassee. In all the events I played, even Battle Roads, I can't remember a single one that had less than a 75-minute Top Cut. Florida gets a lot of big turnouts, too. Still, the organizers always managed to find venues that allowed for 75 minutes, and we always got out in time.

The entire state of Florida is not some fluke or anomaly. The main problem really isn't finding appropriate venues, it's running the tournament effectively. If you don't waste time holding up games with unnecessary raffles (let's not raffle off each individual pencil) or announcements, and if you simply get the results in and post the pairings quickly, you can typically easily fit 75-minute top cuts. Anthony Caspanello made a great post earlier in this thread that lists ways for players and organizers to keep the tournament moving along.

For venues that truly don't have a minute to spare, there's other venues. Players can help organizers by calling some of their local libraries, gymnasiums, stores, halls, etc. and inquiring about them. If you get a good response, relay that information to your tournament organizer. This is how you get 75 minutes at your events. And if you can't find another venue, then so be it, have a 60-minute top cut, but at least make it be the exception.

 

[LOLZ]

Players can help organizers by calling some of their local libraries, gymnasiums, stores, halls, etc. and inquiring about them. If you get a good response, relay that information to your tournament organizer. This is how you get 75 minutes at your events. And if you can't find another venue, then so be it, have a 60-minute top cut, but at least make it be the exception.

I slightly disagree with this statement Jason. When negotiating/inquiring about a new venue a player really shouldn’t be doing this, The Tournament Organizer should. Granted there probably are some players who can find and secure a good venue, but a good bulk of the players don’t have the experience to interact with the venue owners are a business level. Securing a venue takes more then asking a venue owner “Hey can we play Pokémon here” A player could say something to a venue owner that turns him/her off to Pokémon completely. Securing a new venue is something a TO needs to do as he/she needs to commit time to open up a dialog and form a business relationship with venue owners.

Now if players happen to come across a venue that might work for a tournament there is nothing wrong with passing that location, address and phone number on to their local TO.

 

[amphyrules]

Without reading each and every comment on this thread, i'd like to offer up my opinion on the matter. I hate that I may end up repeating what has already been said, but at least i'll be reinforcing posts that understand the actual issue at hand.

Losing on time is not fun.

60 minutes for 2/3, is simply not viable. Too many important matches are decided by players manipulating a series of games, making them overwhelming favourites vs certain decks. Fix this issue, and everyone will have more enjoyable events.

Sami

 

[bullados]

60 minutes for 2/3, is simply not viable.

Sami

60 minute top cuts are not viable in all instances. They can not be mandated, or tournaments that would otherwise happen will not be able to happen.

 

[Tego]

tournaments that would otherwise happen will not be able to happen.

This would only be a relevant scenario if we'd make 90 minutes + 3 extra turns the minimum requirement for best out of three matches (like 45 minutes + 3 extra turns is under the current Tournament Rules).

Isn't the discussion here that it would be a good thing if more tournaments would run 90 minutes in top cut? For some tournaments, like one-day events with big top cuts, it's arguably very hard thing to do. But in the case of Worlds, which is a two-day event with a maximum of a top 32 cut, it's entirely possible to do 90 minutes. I fully understand the players' wish for 90 minute top cut matches in a tournament like Worlds, and personally I would also love to see this some time in the future. :thumb:

 

[raznprince]

I slightly disagree with this statement Jason. When negotiating/inquiring about a new venue a player really shouldn’t be doing this, The Tournament Organizer should. Granted there probably are some players who can find and secure a good venue, but a good bulk of the players don’t have the experience to interact with the venue owners are a business level. Securing a venue takes more then asking a venue owner “Hey can we play Pokémon here” A player could say something to a venue owner that turns him/her off to Pokémon completely. Securing a new venue is something a TO needs to do as he/she needs to commit time to open up a dialog and form a business relationship with venue owners.

Now if players happen to come across a venue that might work for a tournament there is nothing wrong with passing that location, address and phone number on to their local TO.

True. However, sometimes there are those venue owners where if there's been a good customer relationships with the players, then it does become easier to communicate and throw around the idea of possibly (key word) being willing to host for a Pokemon Tournament.

The bulk of the players won't have the business acumen to negotiate the venue (more power to them if so), but at the very least they could be good representatives between their TO and the venue owner to recommend communicating with each other.