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Focusing Community Turnout at SG Tourney Events

mcpeanuts said:
I dunno man. The last time I was at ECT, Skullgirls's tournament setups were in the hallway outside the main ballroom. You're sure things are going to be different?

I feel like one more chance is fair.

We don't need a international player base at first, we can test the waters with just us East Coasties(tm) and see how it goes.
 
i may or may not be able to do ECT this year (i hadn't heard ECT for SG was really anything so I hadn't budgeted going) but if it ends up being good I'd like to go in the future, one of the big reasons I'm disappointed about DTN falling through is that I really like having an event around this time (july/august) and we're moving away from big e so no summer jam
 
keninblack said:
I feel like one more chance is fair.

We don't need a international player base at first, we can test the waters with just us East Coasties(tm) and see how it goes.
Alright. Well, I don't know if I could go this year anyways since I'm pretty low on vacation days, but I can help spread the word about it.
 
Pickles said:
i may or may not be able to do ECT this year (i hadn't heard ECT for SG was really anything so I hadn't budgeted going) but if it ends up being good I'd like to go in the future, one of the big reasons I'm disappointed about DTN falling through is that I really like having an event around this time (july/august) and we're moving away from big e so no summer jam

Well, there was Xenocore, which I know you couldn't make, but just saying.
 
mcpeanuts said:
I dunno man. The last time I was at ECT, Skullgirls's tournament setups were in the hallway outside the main ballroom. You're sure things are going to be different?
The last ECT I went to was the one I met you at. Where we were was I guess acceptable at the time, I just assumed they were getting better. I was planning on going to the next ECT, it'd be nice if we have a legit area to be.
Pickles said:
i may or may not be able to do ECT this year (i hadn't heard ECT for SG was really anything so I hadn't budgeted going) but if it ends up being good I'd like to go in the future, one of the big reasons I'm disappointed about DTN falling through is that I really like having an event around this time (july/august) and we're moving away from big e so no summer jam
I really wanted DTN to be a thing. Even if it just was a local major, no WC or MW heads, I'd be fine. I'm really not sure about the guy running it, but it would have been nice to have an event like that here.
 
Sorry for the double post, but, reading the stuff everyone is saying has me thinking a lot about it. Would rather say it then just sit on it forever.

Firstly, we knew it wasn't going to be big at all. 10 entrants, 20, 30 tops, it didn't really matter, we knew the turnout that was expected wasn't going to be hit. We've known for about as long as the early-bird registration was open and there were not even 10 posts in the thread. No amount of the TO pushing the event or us saying "we should support this" probably would have changed much, because of reasons similar to what Sage and Cloud have said. So, I think the important question is less "why couldn't we make it big", and more how does the community go about informing TO's about it's habits and intentions? We don't want another TO to set up a SG sign in between GUTS and CEOtaku and then leave forever when people don't show up.

Now, Sharpie says I'm crazy for wanting to do this, but here's my idea: if the community got together and presented the TO with some information, or a formal address, I think it could have helped a lot. As the SGC, an address to a TO could look something like: "Thank you very much, DTN TO, for the opportunity of Main Stage and a Pot Bonus. However, this year doesn't seem to be possible for many SG players. This tournament may only garner 10-20 players, but if you ensure the tournament is well run for those few players, the rest of the SGC will take notice and strongly consider turning out for DTN 2017. Missteps with Prior TO's have left the community plotting out which events are known to treat us well, so that we all can have a good time, so having your SG attendee's walk away happy can see to it that your event is prioritized next year." It's probably a terrible idea, but that's what I would have done. I thought about it when the event was announced, but I didn't think people would listen.

That aside, there's another point that I want to bring up. The game's been out for 4 years, with no balance changes since Robo over a year ago. Everyone who is going to be playing this game in the FGC is already playing, with the only real growth being from people newish to the FGC overall, and I think it's going to stay that way until SG2 (if it happens). In the meantime, when we aren't making content for both ourselves and to help new players who do show up, these tournaments should be for us, not to appease someone who wants us to roll out for a pot bonus and a stage. That's why we started talking about focusing turnouts in the first place, right? To ensure that when we show up, we have a good time, and that we get the most out of our travel, time, and money. I remember what it was like to spread ourselves so thin that 10 people is a major, and I'd rather not have that happen trying to dance for a new TO we don't know. We would rather have 6 tournaments with 50+ people than 12 tournaments with 10 a piece, or at least that was the intention behind focusing on key events.

Also, I would love to go to a @Mike_Z run event.

TLDR; maybe we should collectively let new TO's know in advance, as a community, when we know their event won't be big. Also, it's fine not going to every event. "Have a lot of fun at a handful events over 10 people a major" is the reason we're focusing on key events in the first place.
 
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Zidiane said:
if the community got together and presented the TO with some information, or a formal address, I think it could have helped a lot. As the SGC, an address to a TO could look something like: "Thank you very much, DTN TO, for the opportunity of Main Stage and a Pot Bonus. However, this year doesn't seem to be possible for many SG players. This tournament may only garner 10-20 players, but if you ensure the tournament is well run for those few players, the rest of the SGC will take notice and strongly consider turning out for DTN 2017. Missteps with Prior TO's have left the community plotting out which events are known to treat us well, so that we all can have a good time, so having your SG attendee's walk away happy can see to it that your event is prioritized next year."
I think this is a freakin' amazing idea. I would also suggest that a "Let us know if we can help in any way to make the SG tournament better" would go a long way in this kind of a reply.
 
Cadenza said:
Why would you go to a place that is virtually byoc? Despite a main game title
You mean Big E events? I mean. Yeah. Winter Brawl was literally BYOC btw, we had to provide the setups (and no one said that we would until the event started).
 
Zidiane said:
TLDR; maybe we should collectively let new TO's know in advance, as a community, when we know their event won't be big.

i mean we did, from what I heard KPB was telling DTN from the start that 60 was unreasonable. Its just that even KPB expected 20-30 and DTN barely got half of that.
 
Pickles said:
i mean we did, from what I heard KPB was telling DTN from the start that 60 was unreasonable. Its just that even KPB expected 20-30 and DTN barely got half of that.
if a, say, official/unofficial Skullgirls account contacted DTN publicly and we all left a like on the comment/commented saying "this is accurate" or something, that's more along the lines of what would probably work. Cause it's easy to say "you don't know what you're talking about, just stream the game" to a streamer (as much as that probably shouldn't be the case), but if a community formally contacts you, it seems different. It's like the difference between getting an invitation from a tournament organizer and getting a invitation from Capcom, I guess is the best analogy I can make.

Also, they probably would have pulled the pot and stage for 30. They wanted AT LEAST 60, not kinda, not close to, but that number was their minimum. I personally don't feel right calling out our players because they don't have the time or resources to make everything, especially when they are consistently making plenty of other events (events that aren't trying to do us dirty or have unrealistic expectations of us, even) through the year.[/Spoiler]
 
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I really don't see why any tournament would consider any game with under 30 entrants a main game, honestly. On one hand, the DFN organizers may be unreasonable, but at the same time I don't understand giving a pot bonus to an under-50 entrant game. Hearing "cater to us 5 people now though and we'll bring 10 more entrants next time" still doesn't sound too promising, either.
 
To just make it as simple as possible:

SG is very alive, we have a lot of players.
Our players have limited money.

We can afford to do 3 or 4 majors a year.
If you put a tournament in between two of our hopefully biggest majors (CB and CEOtaku), thanks for the support but we can't give you what you want.

Also, I'm perfectly fine with the gap in between CB and CEOtaku..
If we lost a member for Ceotaku because they spent their money to go to DTN that would kind of suck.

TL;DR we don't need 10 majors a year and it's not realistic.
 
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North888 said:
So as someone who hasn't kept up with the tournament scene in awhile but still wants to come out to show my support for the community, I can only make it out to events as of next year and 7probably only two events. As someone in the midwest, I dunno if any of the events listed here are in decent distance from me. Combo Breaker is doable and I had blast at it last year (couldn't make it this year due to issues with my job situation), so what event do you all think someone like me should look into? I keep seeing everyone mention GUTS 4 and CEOtaku, so I'd assume them unless there's a better altnernative.

I really want to get back into showing up for events like these, as trash as I am at SG. Its just tough to find time to go out and enjoy the community in person sometimes D:


If you wanna drive down to Maxout we'll always be happy to help you. If we get to know your face (like literally just show up twice in 3 months) I could convince my roommates to let you stay the night if you don't want to make it a day trip. I'll hit you up with the link to facebook page.
 
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Liam said:
To just make it as simple as possible:

SG is very alive, we have a lot of players.
Our players have limited money.

We can afford to do 3 or 4 majors a year.
If you put a tournament in between two of our hopefully biggest majors (CB and CEOtaku), thanks for the support but we can't give you what you want.

Also, I'm perfectly fine with the gap in between CB and CEOtaku..
If we lost a member for Ceotaku because they spent their money to go to DTN that would kind of suck.

TL;DR we don't need 10 majors a year and it's not realistic.
The way I see it, instead of having one huge Mecca event (EVO), we are split up into two big events (CB and CEOtaku). This is advantageous as it gives us two chances to have people from the general area to attend a big event without sacrificing huge expenses. However, it has the draw back of the more diehard players potentially having to purchase plane tickets and sacrifice time of work twice. To do that three time would be insane and could split our player base. It would be pretty shitty to have missing members of the top 8 because peoples finances are being spread so thin.
 
Alright, let's start a job program. That'll get everybody to all the tournaments.
 
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MegaMix said:
The way I see it, instead of having one huge Mecca event (EVO), we are split up into two big events (CB and CEOtaku).
Combo Breaker gave us main stage streamed Top 16, Top 8, and two separate after-hours community streams, and that's after we grew at the event over the course of 4 years, with lots of relationship building with TOs, by myself and others. That kind of growth is what we want for all the events we're eyeing, but let's actually let them grow before we start moving priority away from our biggest, most centrally located, and hospitable event.
 
Big E just asked for game codes, so here's hoping that signifies it's not BYOC this time at least. :^)
 
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Dhoppler said:
If you wanna drive down to Maxout we'll always be happy to help you. If we get to know your face (like literally just show up twice in 3 months) I could convince my roommates to let you stay the night if you don't want to make it a day trip. I'll hit you up with the link to facebook page.

Considering your roommates go to maxout too, i can't imagine it's a hard argument.
 
Liam said:
SG is very alive, we have a lot of players.
Our players have limited money.
We can afford to do 3 or 4 majors a year.
If you put a tournament in between two of our hopefully biggest majors (CB and CEOtaku), thanks for the support but we can't give you what you want.
This seems like a good concise list. A schedule of the timeframe of majors we are attending would be great. Can we get something like this pinned on the forum to point TO's to in the future?

Mike_Z said:
Big E just asked for game codes, so here's hoping that signifies it's not BYOC this time at least. :^P
... I have no faith in these events. But, if he's asking for codes... maybe...? I really don't want to go back to another Big E event, but it's a pretty convenient event if we get treated nicely since we have so many people already in and around Philly. I'll... pay attention to the twitters and facebooks to see if he says anythign special about it. Anyone else think it's worth giving one more shot?
 
Zidiane said:
This seems like a good concise list. A schedule of the timeframe of majors we are attending would be great. Can we get something like this pinned on the forum to point TO's to in the future?


... I have no faith in these events. But, if he's asking for codes... maybe...? I really don't want to go back to another Big E event, but it's a pretty convenient event if we get treated nicely since we have so many people already in and around Philly. I'll... pay attention to the twitters and facebooks to see if he says anythign special about it. Anyone else think it's worth giving one more shot?

i said this after last NEC but these events are always about the community who goes. As someone who still hasn't gotten prize money from a Big E event almost a year ago I would still go to NEC if people came out. More or less irrelevant to me if we get treated as a main game or a side game as long as I get to see my friends. That said people are probably not going to prioritize NEC over GUTS so we'll see who comes out I guess.
 
That's what I'm saying, though. If we can all meetup at GUTS and have great time with each other and at a good event, do we really need to meet up again a couple weeks after at a not good event? If the event doesn't matter, let's just go to XenoEncore, or Xanadu, or GU.

NEC and GUTS are close enough and cheap enough where I can make both if nothing bad happens (and still make everything else I was planning on making, probably). I honestly could have easily made DTN if my luck was a little better and my car didn't break 4 times in a row.
 
hopefully everyone who comes to GUTS will see that new england is pretty great and maybe come up to GU sometimes
 
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Dhoppler said:
If you wanna drive down to Maxout we'll always be happy to help you. If we get to know your face (like literally just show up twice in 3 months) I could convince my roommates to let you stay the night if you don't want to make it a day trip. I'll hit you up with the link to facebook page.

That's a nice offer, but I'd be fine driving down for days. Don't know when I'll be down, but hopefully I'll be able to look into it before the year ends :D
 
Hey Pickles try messaging Big E on Facebook. I'm sure he'll get the money to you if you talk to him calmly
 
Zidiane said:
This seems like a good concise list. A schedule of the timeframe of majors we are attending would be great. Can we get something like this pinned on the forum to point TO's to in the future?
I can definitely do this, but I think it'd need more information than what you quoted (say, each of the points from Liam's post as a subheading with a few sentences explaining why below) and a prospective list of tournaments would be good as well (probably Kai's list of nobody has any objections).

If somebody wants to write that up then its pretty easy to either make it a news article or a standalone page (like this one, but actually... y'know... finished) with an easy to remember url, and then also create a permanent link from this section to there. Let me know what you want and I'll make it happen.
 
Vadsamoht said:
I can definitely do this, but I think it'd need more information than what you quoted (say, each of the points from Liam's post as a subheading with a few sentences explaining why below) and a prospective list of tournaments would be good as well (probably Kai's list of nobody has any objections).

If somebody wants to write that up then its pretty easy to either make it a news article or a standalone page (like this one, but actually... y'know... finished) with an easy to remember url, and then also create a permanent link from this section to there. Let me know what you want and I'll make it happen.
If this gets done well enough, I could probably post it on SRK, too, to get it out there to TO's and the public in general. Something like this would actually be news worthy, honestly, like a mini community version of the CPT.
 
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Zidiane said:
... I have no faith in these events. But, if he's asking for codes... maybe...? I really don't want to go back to another Big E event, but it's a pretty convenient event if we get treated nicely since we have so many people already in and around Philly. I'll... pay attention to the twitters and facebooks to see if he says anythign special about it. Anyone else think it's worth giving one more shot?
Nah dude, I'm done. I've given Big E events so many second and third and fourth chances and they're still always bad. I want to say it was over two years ago that I first said "I will never attend another Big E event", but I kept going anyways because the community kept making the events huge. Now that they're not huge anymore there's no reason for me to go.
 
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It's frustrating having tournaments ask the community to come out in huge numbers to have a chance at getting better treatment at future events. I don't know why its so hard to tell the community something like "if you get 32 people you get ___", if you get 64 you get ____" etc. ComboBreaker was the only event in recent mind who gave us the chance for greater things if we showed up as a community, no other event is willing to do that, because even if we do we're still in the secondary room away from the main stream like always.

Big E has done that multiple times. Since I started going we've never had more than 2 set ups per pool, main stage(DOA gets it every time ayyy. It's a cool game), people randomly don't get paid on time/at all, pot bonuses have been forgotten about(TFC), I never got my medals/trophys for SJ and NEC and that's super annoying because those are the only events last year where I actually beat Sonic.

Outside of SG for years the games run late to the point where I show up to my pools like 30 minutes late because I know they haven't started yet, and then I end up being right every time. Smash 4 last year was supposed to have pools -> top 8 on saturday but then we had top 16 the next day because we had to wait for Chris G????? That frustrated me to no end because I had to wait there for like an hour or longer thinking I had to play for no reason.


Btw, I'm not willing to work with DTN next year, and I'm not going to help make ECT big if we're gonna be a super side event again just because we have to prove ourselves before getting a chance. There are other events to choose from, and if I wanted to feel like a side event I can just host a local or go to a local event instead.
 
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mcpeanuts said:
Nah dude, I'm done.

I second this.

dekillsage said:
Big E has done that multiple times. Since I started going we've never had more than 2 set ups per pool, main stage(DOA gets it every time ayyy. It's a cool game), people randomly don't get paid on time/at all, pot bonuses have been forgotten about(TFC), I never got my medals/trophys for SJ and NEC and that's super annoying because those are the only events last year where I actually beat Sonic.

I really think we should use the way we are treated at GUTS as a baseline. They gave us main stage at GUTS 3 and there were (I think) 8 entries and this year, even before preregistration opened we're given a $300 Pot Bonus and main stage. Every person was paid out properly and immediately, and we got out Top 16 (essentially everyone that signed up) on stream. That's the way events need to work and we should show our respect by making sure to stop going to events that treat us the way Joker treats Harley Quinn and go to events that treat us the way Robin treats Batman.

Just saying.
 
Yeah, GUTS 3 entrants was definitely in the 20's somewhere. GUTS 1 and GUTS 2 had 8 entrants each, you might be thinking of one of those.
 
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dekillsage said:
It's frustrating having tournaments ask the community to come out in huge numbers to have a chance at getting better treatment at future events.

dekillsage said:
Btw, I'm not willing to work with DTN next year, and I'm not going to help make ECT big if we're gonna be a super side event again just because we have to prove ourselves before getting a chance.

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.

dapurplesharpie said:
I really think we should use the way we are treated at GUTS as a baseline. They gave us main stage at GUTS 3 and there were (I think) 8 entries and this year, even before preregistration opened we're given a $300 Pot Bonus and main stage. Every person was paid out properly and immediately, and we got out Top 16 (essentially everyone that signed up) on stream. That's the way events need to work

GUTS is a great supporter of SG but to put it bluntly this is unreasonable to expect us to be treated. I've seen the vids peanuts has shown me of early GUTS where we had the main stage and hall for a 8-man bracket, thats obviously great for SG but seems a little absurd for a TO to be doing. Of course I'm not saying that I don't appreciate what GUTS is doing for skullgirls but to say this should be standard behavior for TOs is a little crazy. I like the idea of having entrant tiers, like Sage was talking about with us getting more perks the more entrants we get, but again this would be the reaction of the TO to the SGC showing interest, not the investment of resources to host a game that people might not even come out for.

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. I understand that there are a lot of financial concerns regarding going out to majors, and maybe we have reached the maximum support at events that a community of our size can maintain. However, I would love new organizers to add SG to their rosters but 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 but 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)

edit: just as a case study of sorts, big E events are exactly the wrong type of events we should be supporting. NEC has repeatedly gotten very good numbers for SG and provided no additional benefits. While we shouldn't expect something for nothing I do think that if the SGC establishes to a TO "ok we like your events lets make it happen" then at that point I would expect a TO to provide things like main stage, pot bonus, etc.
 
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It's not that we're expecting good treatment from anywhere; we're trying to double down on the places that have given us good treatment.
 
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I do seem to remember saying I would refuse to go to another one after the latest Winter Brawl.
mcpeanuts said:
Yeah, GUTS 3 entrants was definitely in the 20's somewhere. GUTS 1 and GUTS 2 had 8 entrants each, you might be thinking of one of those.
That's actually probably my fault she mixed them up, I talk about GUTS 2 every chance I get.
 
Zidiane said:
That's actually probably my fault she mixed them up, I talk about GUTS 2 every chance I get.
That's fair, GUTS 2 was an amazing experience. I lose it every time I think about how they gave us that massive lecture hall and Spooky's stream to run an 8 man tournament.
 
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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.

dekillsage said:
I don't know why its so hard to tell the community something like "if you get 32 people you get ___", if you get 64 you get ____" etc. ComboBreaker was the only event in recent mind who gave us the chance for greater things if we showed up as a community, no other event is willing to do that, because even if we do we're still in the secondary room away from the main stream like always.
 
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