US Prerelease prize structure change

[SteveP]

Q. If we reverse the prize payout(so the lower ranks get better prizes), do you know what will happen?
A. The players who notice the blatant flaw in the system would just start throwing games, and end up with a worse rank(and more prizes).

Let me elaborate. In a reverse-payout system, the prizes are still mostly uniform. It's just that last place gets maybe 1-2 more boosters than first place. Any odd number of boosters are given out starting from last to first. That's all it is, not "last place get's a box."

I've noticed that your posts tend to sound slightly defensive. Or is it just me?

My wife says the same thing about my opinions when I express them to her.

To be perfectly honest, if you think that giving legitimate prizes at a prerelease hurts the local shops, then why do you even run prereleases to begin with(since giving out product without the store selling it is bad for business)?

Good comeback. But, IMO, this new prize-payout addresses the problem in the old prize-payout of rewarding your most-likely customers with lots of boosters.

I applaud the PTOs who are going to dip into their own profits to keep the players happy.

I wonder how many PTOs out there are actually running Pokemon tournaments to make money, or spawn future sales. Guys like M45 and PokePlayer probably don't own their own stores. Their generosity is intented merely to keep the top players happy (and urge their attendance), NOT to make money. I can't imagine ANY PTOs out there who make much money running tournaments. My PTO is also a store owner. Tournaments at his venue are meant to be a catalyst to incite sales.

Likewise, PUI is in the business of making money and increasing sales; thus, this new prize-payout. But, I suppose if PTOs are buying the "additional prize product" from PUI, then I suppose PUI would approve it (like they did with M45). Afterall, PUI is getting its money. Hopefully, that won't have a negative impact on sales at the local card shops.

 

[SteveP]

Now THAT is irony...

I think you mean "hypocrisy," not "irony."

PUI's generosity has NOT changed, just the way they distribute that generosity. I like their generosity. I just like their NEW generosity better than their old generosity. That's all. No hypocrisy whatsoever.

 

[gwgtrunks]

I'm with SteveP, especialy with his points about some PTO's not owning their own stores. I work closely with the store I've been playing at since WotC started Pokemon OP to make sure my players have a spot to play, and that I have a venue for my events. I can see how damaging it is to them when tournaments of 20-30 players have massive prize support and they arn't making anything off of the event.

I've yet to talk to the manager there, but I have a feeling he's going to like the new set up, because it means players are going to have to buy product instead of winning it.

 

[dld4a]

I believe that I may have an answer to the concerns that some have expressed over the change in prize distribution at prereleases. I have stated before that because of the changes, Limited rankings should now count towards the invites to the 2005 World Championship. This statement has not gotten any response and I’m thinking that means there is no support for it. I’d like to address the issue a little further. The most common argument against doing this in the past has been that a sealed draft involves too much luck and invites to Worlds are too big a prize to hinge on such a luck based segment of the game. I do not disagree, however there is a version of drafting that requires a much higher amount of skill, Rochester. I believe this is where all the cards that are to be drafted are laid out in front of everyone and you take turns choosing one card at a time until all cards are chosen and then proceed to build your 40 card decks. The luck is reduced because you’re not stuck with what ever packs you happen to get and the skill is increased because you are now not only trying to select the proper cards to put together a good deck for yourself, but because your are watching what others are choosing and you can try to choose cards that you think your opponents want, to disrupt their strategy. If the prereleases were to be run in this style it could, I believe, justify the inclusion of Limited rankings along with Modified rankings to decide the invites that are given to the top X number of players (don’t mean to assume that they will be doing this again in 2005 though). There are some issues that may need to be addressed with this:
1)
Rochester drafts from what I understand can be quite a bit longer than a sealed draft. I think this could be shortened by drafting in smaller pods of 3 maybe 4. This would eliminate some of the skill involved because you are no longer seeing what everybody’s drafting, but it still reduces the luck factor. I think to ensure a reduced luck factor even further it may not be a bad idea to add a few extra boosters to the pile of draft-able cards (ensures a better chance at complete strategies). Pods would definitely have to be selected randomly and extra attention paid to the drafting process.
2)
If your going to count Limited then there may be those who want to count Unlimited. There are some definite problems here. First of all is the state of Unlimited itself right now. It’s kind of a broken format and some major rulings would need to be made in order for it to be viable. Personally I think it could be made to work if they errata Slowking and ban Blastoise. You also have the much larger issue of including Unlimited being counter productive to increasing sales. I believe that they are pushing to get the whole world on the same schedule with new set releases so it may just be best to let Unlimited remain as a side event type of thing for now.
3)
The 10 and under group may have a difficult time with this style of drafting. I don’t know. I’m just throwing this out as a possible concern. If it is I think it would still be acceptable to use the Sealed format for them.

Overall I like the idea and think that this, combined with the trophies, Prerelease promos, and good deal on the boosters, will increase the desire to attend prereleases.

 

[SteveP]

Let's take a real-world example:

I have a league player who is currently ranked 5th in the 11-14 division worldwide in Modified.

He is not rich. He spends ALL of his allowance money on Pokémon. ALL of it.

At $5/week, he can NOT afford to pick up 3-4 Blastoise ex or to buy several boxes from our local shop. He spends all he can there.

I think it is only fair to reward his dedication to playing this game since 1998 with opportunities to WIN more than 4 prize packs at a prerelease.

Perhaps the wealthy are also blind to certain realitie.

You're breaking my heart.

Sorry if that seems insensitive, but I don't empathize. Maybe this kid just need a good sponser, kind of like what competitors in other activities need if they're in need of funds.

 

[SteveP]

dld4a, I'll bet that Limited and Unlimited ratings are somehow tabulated into the overall ratings for the Worlds 2005 Top 16 invites. However, they've got to fix they way they combined the various format ratings last year (the main reason why they didn't use the overall rating for the Top 16 invites).

But, now we're off-subject.

 

[Rainbowgym]

Pop- While this structure (and the free entrance subject) should be appear Worldwide I'm very on topic.
What do you need for an event pronounced as a pre-release or CC

A (P)TO - or another idiot to run the show which should "work" under the same conditions worldwide.
Support - and it should be equal for each same named/runned tournament worldwide
Players - lots of them if possible.
(and meaby a judge who knows the rules a bit)

If one of those is missing there is NO tournament.
If there is no TO and no support, were are you as player. Well you could be in the Netherlands.


I prefer that one or two boosters a person of this support can be used to get top 4-8 a slighty more prices. because that's giving an event just a little more excitement. And I'm not alone in that opinion.
I always found the full box price to much, but quess what if I win a same tournament and only get one booster and someone else overseas gets for doing the same a full box, yes than I'm upset.

We will have our after Prerelease party in 2 days and the only support we have is:
Prerelease Wartortle donated by sweet TO's from overseas (thanks again I hope you all can save me some new badges this year too)
1 boosterbox FRLG from the sportmanships award (thanks judges) which I added to keep the entrancefee as low as possible.

Most players have to travel at least 1 hour single way to attend, and some even more than 2 hours with public transportation because not everyone has the luxury of a car.
So all the moaning about I'm not willing to spend so much money and only earning 10 packs is not given notice a being a real supporter of a game.
If you have hart for the game you go to a tournament to play and have fun, keeping a game alive that way. And in case there are prices to win, well that's a nice extra.

And about this one

I have a league player who is currently ranked 5th in the 11-14 division worldwide in Modified.

He is not rich. He spends ALL of his allowance money on Pokémon. ALL of it.

At $5/week, he can NOT afford to pick up 3-4 Blastoise ex or to buy several boxes from our local shop. He spends all he can there.

I think it is only fair to reward his dedication to playing this game since 1998 with opportunities to WIN more than 4 prize packs at a prerelease.

Perhaps the wealthy are also blind to certain realities.

Welcome to the world of Pokemon, you need at least wealthy parents to get the cards you want to play.
Most kids overhere spend their 1 or 2 Euro weekly pocketmoney on cards and those also are not able to get those EX cards.
So dividing prices should give them a better change to get some but a much better solution for this game would be:
To lower the price of a booster (like half the price it's now), so they can buy more of them in the range of money they have to spend. Then you create competition, because there is more acces to better cards, now it's to expensive for most of them.

Because I see what is happening with those rare EX cards, I see this game heading to a dead end overhere, because for a kids game it's too expensive.

 

[GymLeaderPhil]

The idea that higher ranked players in a Prerelease will spend more money on packs if not given enough as prizes is silly. Even with the old prize structure or an attendance based one, lower ranked players would still purchase product. Why? It's a limited event. A sealed one at that. Not to offend anyone, but I can think of two of our local players who constantly rank high in constructed tournaments who try to avoid limited ones like the plague (mostly because of rankings). Sealed is very random and as such any notion that an equal prize structure will boost sales sounds like a desperate cry for an already money crunched store.

Premiere events bring business to stores. When stores start to change things for their own personal benefit, even if the events are constantly brining new customers, it makes me sick to think that that theory is any close to the truth. People buy boosters regardless of rank at a Prerelease. Especially the younger division. It's not the fault of Pokemon Organized Play that your entire tournament consisted of eight people in each age division and swayed them from purchasing anything at the event's venue. Your efforts should then be to find ways to boost attendance. That is SHOULD BE a very seperate claim and SHOULD NEVER affect the event itself.

IMO, I've dealt with plenty of store owners throughout the term I've been with this game and I can only name two-three whom I can say I respect: our two prerelease venues in Florida and the store owner who was there for Sensei's Stadium event. That's it. I would be highly offended if any one of them came up to any the staff and blamed our event for a difference in sales. I would also be very suprised, because it tends to be the very opposite. I'm sorry, but that's a seperate issue, even if the store owner is a PTO.
-Phil

 

[annisarich]

SteveP:

Let's take a real-world example:

I have a league player who is currently ranked 5th in the 11-14 division worldwide in Modified.

He is not rich. He spends ALL of his allowance money on Pokémon. ALL of it.

At $5/week, he can NOT afford to pick up 3-4 Blastoise ex or to buy several boxes from our local shop. He spends all he can there.

I think it is only fair to reward his dedication to playing this game since 1998 with opportunities to WIN more than 4 prize packs at a prerelease.

Perhaps the wealthy are also blind to certain realities.



Now THAT is irony...

+

I am not wealthy
We do have friends.
They were all excited my son won a trip to W04
Many friends/league players ,not going, lent him cards for his deck. (And me too so I could play in the grinder.)

BTW
My kid won a prerelease this past event. Took Second in another. I judged.
No Blastoise EX in all those cards. I cant afford all those entry fees if he doesnt get a blastoise ex

<toung in cheek reminder code>

 

[annisarich]

<snip>A (P)TO - or another idiot to run the show which should <snip>

Why do you need to attack others by calling them names.

Calling PTOs idiots is uncalled for. Most of them are hard working persons who do it for fun and give unselfishly to others by running and creating events. They are not idiots.

This ability to turn any subject into a platform to again and again state your displeasure with PUI is certainly amazing. I do though think that we get it, we understand it. But hearing it so often can lead to oversaturation of the subject and people may start to turn off.

 

[Adv1sor]

I hardly think that it's fair to call a player 'spoiled' if they are not willing to drive a total of 3-4 hours and burn most of a tank of gas to get 10 boosters for $20.

If this is all that you get out of such a trip, then you are right, it's not worth it at all.

Personally, I am lucky enough to attend tournaments with my son. We drive all over the East Coast to play Pokemon and have played in many different states and stores. The time we spend together traveling to and from these events, the fun of visiting different places, and the chance to play in the tournaments are plenty of reward for us.

If all I wanted were cheap cards I'd just buy them on the net.

 

[Broken Lizard]

I think you mean "hypocrisy," not "irony."

Actually, I did mean 'irony'.

'Irony: Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.'

Let's see. So it's more mature for players to covet more boosters, yet not be considerate of those who are less fortune?...I can see that others don't have that same vision.

Perhaps is you who lack consideration for those who are less fortunate. Perhaps it is you who lack vision.

My shop owner realizes that my players retain a good bit of their enthusiasm as a direct result of their chance to win lots of product at the tournaments held there. My shop owner has the vision to realize that enthusiasm translates into better sales over the long term. For every player who wins a box there are many more who did not win one. Even players who win boxes still come in to buy more cards and more supplies.

There is no way that a truly competitive player will get all s/he needs from a set by winning an occasional box at the local prerelease. That player will still need to buy more cards... from the local shop!

It is ironic that you so lack the vision to realize that all the card sleeves, binder pages, toys for the little brother and sister (bought at the store by parents) matter too...

It is ironic that, in your zeal to protect the shop, you overlook 'those less fortunate'. In my world, 'those less fortunate' means the kids who hope to win a box they could never afford otherwise. Not every player has parents who are thrilled to max out their credit card to buy their kid a box. Many parents are hoping their kids will quit 'that silly game' and move on to other things.

I don't know about your league, but here in the real world, my players pay for the majority of their cards with their own money. THEY are the less fortunate (compared to the 'rich kids' in some places) and unless they have the chance to win cards, and therefore the hope of staying competitive, they'll gradually lose enthusiasm. When that happens, we end up with just another dead game (HP anyone?)

So, I was not thinking you are a hypocrite. I just think it's ironic that you lack the vision to see that there is an incongruity between what might be expected (by you) and what actually occurs. The game stays healthy when the prizes are big enough to matter.

I applaud Nintendo for this decision! I want everyone to walk out with a minimum of 10 boosters.

I also want those less fortunate to walk in with the hope of winning a box!

 

[Rainbowgym]

Annisarich
Well you are again trying to read something different than I wrote, or my English is worse than I thought.

Do you read pokemoncards the same way. I said OR and if I translated that well I didn't say that (P)TO's are idiots.
So you need a P(TO) to organize
OR you need an idiot like the UK and Dutch Professors who are putting their own private money in and trying to safe what is left of this game.

And yes as long as the differences are not solved I will keep stating my opinion, like you are allowed to put yours on.
Meaby if you tried to solve the problems, I didn't had a reason to ventilate my opinion.
But what I read in your words is, we don't want to hear, it's not hitting us so shut up, because if we don't hear there is no problem.

 

[IvesRountree]

I was thinkinmg a lot about this decision from pui, and I come to a point that may explain it, i believe that all the philosophy behind the change of prize structure is ok, but there is a more important point, you see, the whole season of premier events is free, ok? so lets do some VERY basic algebra here:

a plus b = c
where a stands for budget for prereleases on this year
b for the budget for competitive tournament structure
c for the fixed budget total

lets say we are comparing last year budget next to this years, ok? since b has become free for participating, and PUI is absorbing that cost and paying it directly to PTO´s then we can safely assume that b drastically rose, therefore, while we might also assume that c increased due to the huge succes, it is very obvios that a actually had to decrease to keep the equation balanced, ok? why decreasing a? because we have seen time and again pre release tournaments in which 10 and under attendees werte overpriced, just for attendance, therefore i had seen players who brought their siblings, who didnt now how to play ( i once was asked if a 4 year old player could participate) just to pick a box for 15 bucks; i will not get into discussions on whether or not the change benefits or not the media, i believe all opinions are valid, if they are stated properly, so i will go with the harsh cold numbers, what do you prefer (in terms of growing the game, not for personal profit) 3 pre release tournaments to have the same structure and overprice some, or lower costs on those, and allow everyone to play free of charge at all the premier event season? i know this might sound really silly to some, but then again this is my opinion, and then again, if you dont like it, you can always do what Vince does, he takes it in his hands, and as i have understood he is still giving away big prizes on pre releases, so my morale here is simple, if you dont like it, go were you will, that way ptos like Vince will demonstrate their point, and perhaps ask for a change in the future, the only thing that will get us nowhere is sit to complain at the boards, at the very least, send an email of discomfort to pui, that way there is a precedence on the topic (it is impressive how many times has dave asked us to send emails to pui and not do this on the boards, since that way they will be at te official source) as for me, i am one of the few ptos who might probably benefit from this change, since my last tournament was a 2 flight 140 players, believe me, no one expected to get to top 8 easily, and instead assuring everyone they were getting that many boosters might very well rise my player base.
i hope i have not spoken plain silliness, if so, let me know, ok?

 

[Rainbowgym]

I think we have 2 visions customer wise.
A>Players in the age round 13 and under - most of them don't have money of their own and their parents are most times paying for tournaments.
Giving these players each 10 packs for $15-18 and a day of fun , you will also satisfy their parents.
If they see that so much is given for less money they will let their child attend another time.

B>Than we have the 14 and older without a steady income (so no payed job but still on school)
I can understand that for most of them earning that box is pure gold and an impulse to keep on playing.
But how many of them will still be playing in 2-3 years. Most of them quit because of other interest.

For this new system there are only a few players who are much affected. Only number 1 and 2 will go home with less.
(meaby 3 and 4 to but I'm not sure about what they did earned before).
But for the majority they become better of it.
That majority will include a lot of Parents sponsored players who are needed to insure the future of this game.
Because of their age the younger players are in normal circomstances staying longer in the game than a 14 ,15 year old.
So motivating this group will normally give you on the long term more prespective.

Personal - I would prefer to have 2 ways.
agegroup 10- and 11-14 the new way.
agegroup 15+ 8 boosters and 2 boosters to stack to increase the prizes of nr's 1-4 of 1-8.

That way the younger ones will look forward to turn over 15, but are still satisfied because now they get more than some older players.

I'm not even thinking anymore about the point of view of PUI, I can't see or guess their vision, so I will only express the side of the players which I know.

 

[annisarich]

Now thats good input and opinion on this subject Rainbow.
I actually think this might be a nice proposal.

Less competitive, but still fun for younger kids with awards that suit them and something to look forward to when they get older. To run with the big dogs

 

[dld4a]

or better yet create a separate Prerelease rankings section and award invites to the top X number of places in that category, combined with Modified or even better still, all together different invites. Now that's incentive to attend prereleases. More of a reward to attend + equal prize distribution + you can still increase the prizes based on attendance like Vince and Jared are doing. Everybody wins IMO.

 

[SteveP]

It's a general believe that those who receive "dole-outs" become dependent on those "dole-outs" and lack the initiative to become self-reliant.

Rainbowgym, I'm not completely convinced that it would be good to have different prize-payouts for the different age categories. Children have a keen sense of what's fair and what's not fair. I'm thinking that a 10-year champ would think it's very unfair that he only gets 4-6 boosters while his adult counter-part gets much more.

Broken Lizard, let me give you a good example of irony. Isn't it ironic that by rewarding top players with more boosters, they are less compeled to spend their own money for more boosters? hey, nothing personal. I hope our strong opinions and disagreements won't make us foes. I truly enjoy reading your strongly-opposing ideas. Kind of like why I like watching Hannity and Combs on FoxNEWS.

Ives, it's good to hear from a PTO who has massively huge pre-release tournaments. In your situation, PUI has actually INCREASED it's overall generosity.

I suppose "time will tell" if this has a positive or negative impact on attendance and overall player satisfaction. "You can't please all of the players all of the time." But, I suspect this change is best for the random majority, and not so good for the elite minority. We'll just have to wait and see.

That's all.

 

[Gym Leader Blaine]

and like SteveP says... top players can be infamous for not spending much money at their local shops (they have all the cards)

This could be true, but I also know there is another side of it. All the shops in my area have seen an increase in sells because of the tournaments in the past year. Even some of my top winners that win a box at State or Prerelease go out and buy two or three more boxes of every set. I do know that you guys have posted that once some people win a box they dont buy any more, but I know that their is the other side of things that I have seen more people buy packs even after winning a box at a prerelease, so it can go both ways, but I do see the point SteveP and others are making just be open to what I have seen also.

 

[SteveP]

This could be true, but I also know there is another side of it. All the shops in my area have seen an increase in sells because of the tournaments in the past year. Even some of my top winners that win a box at State or Prerelease go out and buy two or three more boxes of every set. I do know that you guys have posted that once some people win a box they dont buy any more, but I know that their is the other side of things that I have seen more people buy packs even after winning a box at a prerelease, so it can go both ways, but I do see the point SteveP and others are making just be open to what I have seen also.

If winning a box spurs players to go out and buy 2-3 more boxes, then that's good, if indeed that happens. That's probably true for adults, but not so for youth. The majority of players in my locale are youth.