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Focusing Community Turnout at SG Tourney Events

Pickles said:
while I can see the logic in "its not worth the money to go to a small event when I could go to a big event instead", I think its unreasonable to expect a TO to give lots of benefits to a small game. I would never expect a tournament to provide main stage and pot bonus to a game with 11 entrants.
I don't think anyone is mad that DTN took the pot or stage, or didn't want to give it to us. It's the way they did it. Like, GUTS 2 wouldn't have the same good memories of it if when we showed up they were like "wow, you couldn't even break 10, let alone some unrealistic expectations I've been pushing on you? Here's a couple setups, play in the hallway, no stream."

GUTS is a great supporter of SG but to put it bluntly this is unreasonable to expect us to be treated.
I think it's more along the lines of "these things (pot/main stage), as well as giving us goals to hit and benefits for hitting them, are signs of respect," and it's important to support events that will respect us. We have a handful of events that treat us this well, so we should prioritize those and not stress ones that don't.

It's starting to look like the surge of growth for SG predicted after last year has pretty much come to a halt, as unfortunate as it is.
Honestly, I'm not upset about this. We did what we could. There's still some growth possible, but it's good enough the size it is. We don't need to be giant.

if the community intends to take the stance of "give us main stage and a pot bonus before people sign up or we don't want anything to do with you", not only is that a level of entitlement I don't think we deserve yet
I've had enough of huddling in corners, playing with the wrong version, not having setups, and players not getting paid/medals. The reason this thread was created (and the two before it) was so that we could be done with 10 people showing up to 12 majors a year and actually get things like a main stage. Sure, more events are nice, but if they get in the way of the events we've chosen to support, because those events support us and we have a great time there, why would we do that?

it also pretty much ensures we will never get past a handful of majors a year (though maybe's that's OK? Zid mentioned that pretty much everyone in the FGC who would have picked up SG has done it by now but I still would like to think we could bring some more established players into the fold)
The time for growth is more or less over. It's okay to not be huge. We have obviously flourished by picking our battles (events), and I wouldn't want to see us take any steps backwards. I think about this video every time I think about why it's important to be okay with being a smaller community with targeted focus:
 
I disagree that the time for growth is over, or that SG, with the turnout at CB, is small when you consider games that really ARE small.
However, I DO agree that the time for trying to have everyone go everywhere should be over. Support, in large numbers, those events that have supported us. We have those numbers, even NEC showed that. But we don't, and can't, have them for every tournament everywhere.
 
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Ok so I have a question. If we're doing a smaller number of tournaments so that everyone can make all the big ones, how many tournaments is everyone willing to do? What can everyone afford? I could do like, 9 a year.
 
I can only do a maximum of three with staying in my area.
This drops to two due to going to Combo Breaker starting next year, those two being Combo Breaker and NEC. I don't care if I have to run a side tournament for five people for Skullgirls, I still am going to support the one big local tournament I still have (I admit Summer Jam and Winter Brawl are not as big as NEC).
 
Mike_Z said:
I disagree that the time for growth is over, or that SG, with the turnout at CB, is small when you consider games that really ARE small.
However, I DO agree that the time for trying to have everyone go everywhere should be over. Support, in large numbers, those events that have supported us. We have those numbers, even NEC showed that. But we don't, and can't, have them for every tournament everywhere.

Skullgirls is definitely still growing. It seems that every other week I find someone new joins the SGC. However, it is true it is never people from other games, but usually "this is my first serious fighting game" types.
 
Four tournaments a year is a nice middle spot especially for people that don't live on the East Coast. Four tournaments a year with each being every four months or so actively gives people time to save up and plan for events, plus if something else happens and you can't attend one, you have a good spacing between your next one.

I honestly think any more than four would be over-saturating.
 
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Mike_Z said:
I disagree that the time for growth is over, or that SG, with the turnout at CB, is small when you consider games that really ARE small.
I more meant that the time for pulling our hair out trying to figure out what we can do to recruit people is more or less done. Everyone who would know about the game in the FGC by seeing us do well pretty much does already, our main demographic is new comers, who already are getting the chance to see us. I agree with the other thing, but I feel like CB less makes us big and more gives us a spotlight (that, yeah, we're lucky to have over other even smaller games). People want SG at CB to be happening everywhere, that's what they mean when they think "it has to be big or I'm not playing it", and what I mean by "it's okay to just fill our niche".

mcpeanuts said:
Ok so I have a question. If we're doing a smaller number of tournaments so that everyone can make all the big ones, how many tournaments is everyone willing to do? What can everyone afford? I could do like, 9 a year.
I can make GUTS really easily, it's an hour away. I can also make NEC and ECT pretty easily, but I don't know if we're attending those at this point. Can definitely make Combo Breaker. Might be able to make CEOtaku. Might be able to make one of either NWM, Frosty, or a big Mike Z event. This is one of the reasons I wanted DTN to stick around, I would have liked to have another Major I could drive to.
 
NWM keeps coming up and I don't want to discount it from whatever we decide are THE EVENTS, so let's talk about it. I haven't been, so I need you to tell me: was NWM the kind of event where it was, "pretty cool, I guess," good, or was it the kind of event that was, "we should do everything we can to grow this," good?

I figure it's like this: Combo Breaker is THE ONE, and then we can shoulder three more tournaments. We have Frosty Faustings, CEOtaku, GUTS, and NWM. I truly believe we need to pick three of those four, or risk stretching ourselves too thin. I feel that Frosty is an automatic yes, because it's run by a lot of the same people who run CB, so our attendance strengthens our standing with those TOs.
 
Zidiane said:
I can make GUTS really easily, it's an hour away. I can also make NEC and ECT pretty easily, but I don't know if we're attending those at this point. Can definitely make Combo Breaker. Might be able to make CEOtaku. Might be able to make one of either NWM, Frosty, or a big Mike Z event. This is one of the reasons I wanted DTN to stick around, I would have liked to have another Major I could drive to.
Okay so you named 9 tournaments, but I get the impression the answer isn't 9. Looks like how many you can do depends on which tournaments they are due to the cost of travel, which I imagine is gonna be the case for a lot of people. You have four "definitely" and five "maybe", how many "maybe" tournaments would you be able to do?

The reason I asked my original question is because if most people can only do like 4 big tournaments a year, there's no sense trying to make SG huge at more than 4 events, you know? Like I'm not super happy that I committed to going to an out of state tournament tomorrow where only 11 people signed up, I'd like to avoid that in the future.
 
Kai said:
NWM keeps coming up and I don't want to discount it from whatever we decide are THE EVENTS, so let's talk about it.
Frosty is a good strategic choice, I think. From what I hear, NWM was run well, but I haven't been. I'm imagining it's the WC GUTS.

mcpeanuts said:
Okay so you named 9 tournaments, but I get the impression the answer isn't 9.
Solid list is GUTS/CB, maybe list (meaning something bad could happen and I wouldn't go) is CEOtaku/Other Tourney. So, that's four. I don't know which Other Tourney I want to go to, I honestly don't really care which one it is. I would also be able to add ECT/NEC pretty easily if we were making those happen without interfering with anything else.
 
I've heard some mixed reports about NWM tbh, I wouldn't mind hearing from more people who have been. It would be convenient if that could be one of our big events since otherwise we have nothing on the west coast.
 
NWM streamed some pools and gave us main stage + main stage stream for Top 8.

I had tons of fun at that tournament but part of that is because we didn't have combo beaker numbers.

If we have tons of people showing up for NWM we'll have to set up some linked hotel rooms in order for the community to fully gather and feel included.

We did this at NWM2015 where Sage showed up and it was great.

There's also a grill inside the current venue with drinks and free red bull the entire event from the people that walk around with red bull back packs.

I really would like if one of the 4 majors is a west coast one and NWM has been good to us forever.
 
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Yeah, I'd like a WC stop to be on the list. Two EC and two MW stops does sound not very inclusive. The only hard part about NWM seems like it's a month before CB. Which I guess might be fine to save for since there's four months with nothing before it.

Liam said:
The red bull is carried by cute girls
I can probably make NWM.
 
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I dunno that I can handle interacting with girls. It's enough stress to show up to an event and interact with girl. Plural is scary.
 
NWM was reallllly nice, as mentioned multiple times.
The venue was too small and too warm for this year, but they know that already.
We got main stage, main stream, hella pools streamed, and it's in an area where people that play SG in a group, who don't often get to travel very far, ALREADY LIVE.
If the event is as nice to us this year as it was last year, I'm all for it being a big thing.

I can probably make NWM.
Look but don't touch. Goes double for you.
 
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Mike_Z said:
Look but don't touch. Goes double for you.
Have you met Sharpie? Not that I would, but do you know how many of my extremities would stay unharmed if I touched anything I wasn't supposed to?
 
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I actually have plans to make NWM next year.
 
Kai said:
I figure it's like this: Combo Breaker is THE ONE, and then we can shoulder three more tournaments. We have Frosty Faustings, CEOtaku, GUTS, and NWM. I truly believe we need to pick three of those four, or risk stretching ourselves too thin. I feel that Frosty is an automatic yes, because it's run by a lot of the same people who run CB, so our attendance strengthens our standing with those TOs.

This is very similar to a situation a year or so ago from another game I'm working with. My advice would be that if you expect most people are going to be able to make 3-4 tournaments, then the list of events to focus on should still be slightly greater than that number. As a result, I think it'd be worth using all of those events listed in the schedule for next year instead of trying to decide which one to cut.

Obviously I'm missing some of the perspective that everyone else in the thread here has, but still. The main thing is that even though a person might be able to attend X events a year, there is no guarantee that they will be able to attend all events in a roster of exactly size X. For any given player, one event might be on the other side of the country and have expensive accommodation, or be interfered with by family stuff, of they can't get time off work on that specific weekend, or their car/etc. breaks down and so on. As a result having most people's ability to attend plus one extra event seems like a good idea. The other game I mentioned earlier trimmed down the list too quickly tried to focus on cons and they found not only that it actually had an adverse effect on attendance but also once they'd opted out of attending one year it becomes very difficult to go back to how things were after that.

And finally, you can always reduce the list again later if it turns out that you were right all along.
 
Is there any other event on the WC that treats us well? Or is it currently just NWM?
 
cloudKing211 said:
but will there be ice cream?
just bring your own icecream. i mean i don't think that would be too hard. Also you can get your favorite flavor just for yourself.
 
Deleting my old comment and replying because this is serious thread and hoping not to derail it.

May i briefly ask how is the Japanese skullgirls community handling things in regards to meetups? Do they have arcade gatherings? I'd imagine they'd be able to get together and train offline much more easily than here in the states.
 
Mike_Z said:
Combo Breaker
CEOtaku
GUTS
Northwest Majors
Frosty Faustings
[this thing I'm gonna hold in a parking lot somewhere]
?
I like this list a lot and can easily make all 5; having a Mike-run tournament would be awesome.
 
It would be nice to have at least two Majors on EC, two in MW, and two on WC for the year.
 
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Are WCW and NorCal out of the window as far as Majors that'll treat us well go?
 
Mike_Z said:
Combo Breaker
CEOtaku
GUTS
Northwest Majors
Frosty Faustings
[this thing I'm gonna hold in a parking lot somewhere]
?
What's so good about this is that it covers pretty much every part of the country. Life in the Northeast? You can go to GUTS. Live in the Southeast? You can go to CEOtaku. Midwest? There's both Combobreaker and Frosty Faustings. Northwest? There's the appropriately titled Northwest Majors. Southwest? Mike Z's Extravaganza! Let's be honest here, most players who are really into the game aren't able or willing to spend the money the fly across country for a tournament, unless they are REALLY into it. However, having a main tournament only a few hours drive away gives people no excuse. It will help a lot of the more casual players show up to these events.
 
Zidiane said:
we already have the slogan, too: "I don't understand why other tournaments don't do this"
Won't fly - CB does everything that any event I run is likely to, and more.

cloudKing211 said:
How far from the airport would this mike thing be?
It's still around 80% a joke...

MegaMix said:
However, having a main tournament only a few hours drive away gives people no excuse.
You'd be surprised.
 
MegaMix said:
However, having a main tournament only a few hours drive away gives people no excuse. It will help a lot of the more casual players show up to these events.
I live 10 minutes from Pheasant Run where CB was hosted and I borderline almost didn't elect to show up. You underestimate people's ability to make excuses.
 
Mike_Z said:
You'd be surprised.

Psychopath said:
I live 10 minutes from Pheasant Run where CB was hosted and I borderline almost didn't elect to show up. You underestimate people's ability to make excuses
Let me rephrase my post, since I feel that my tone was misinterpreted. It isn't that people won't make excuses, it's that the threshold for one to set aside time and money to try their hands at a tournament is lowered, therefore it is more likely for them to attend. It is significantly more likely, especially for new and more casual players, to attend a tourney that they can only drive to in two hours rather than having to shell out a $300 plane ticket to fly cross country to an unfamiliar state.
 
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