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Hi!
Preface: I haven't been and most likely never will be to a US major tournament yada yada and am thus merely an outside onlooker.
Perhaps everything I'm going to say is entirely preposterous, or maybe it makes some sense but is still garbage etc..
I personally am not concerned by it, so these are idle thoughts moreso than "pushing for change".
Okay, now on to the (entirely blasphemous) topic:
I don't believe that "the biggest SG tournament" should be at EVO.
To explain..
SG won't become an EVO main game anytime soon. I think we can all agree on that much.
What this means is: No prereg on the actual page (people have to dig around on Skullheart to find where to go), no streamtime on mainstream + looming threat of no streamtime at all (or disasters such as the EVO14 stream), players stuck in some offplace BYOC area, no accommodation for their schedule in other games (players can't request to play SF4 on a later timeslot when it clashes with their SG grand final match), tbc
Generally when you're "not wanted" in a place, you go somewhere else.
The most prominent example here would probably be the Smash community, who, shunned by Evo, went ahead and created their own Major - Apex.
However, that approach carries two issues on its own:
1) It completely cuts you off from the rest of the FGC. It took quite a while from me being into FGs until me learning that Smash is played competitively, as it had no exposure at the common tournaments and their scene strictly stuck to themselves.
2) You need a LARGE community for this to work. Apex can host tournaments for 64, Melee and Brawl + all of these sold more than SG. Skullgirls simply couldn't carry "its own major".
HOWEVER, there is another solution: Move the nominal "largest SG event of the year" from EVO to a different major.
- There are some events which are a LOT nicer than EVO - as the most basic example I'll list Frosty Faustings, an upcoming tournament that has SG on the "main games" list.
Instead of "crawling in the dirt" in front of the Evolution tournament, hoping that we get our Top 2 streamed with just 4 rather than 6 hours delay, we could be on main stream.
Instead of giving TOs who put us ~on the list~ 30 entrants while Evo gets 150 for nothing, we could "thank them properly" by bringing numbers.
Who knows, someone might even stumble upon Skullgirls, as it's shown on stream (and for longer than 5 minutes)..
Maybe all of this is stupid. Maybe it's not THAT stupid, but the SGC wants "the evo experience" anyhow.
Maybe people considered this before, but concluded that as long as there's a side tourney at EVO (and there would still be one) it would be "seen" as the biggest tourney, even if it nominally wasn't and everyone said "If you can only make 1 tourney per year, go to Faustings".
Maybe half the reason for SGs good numbers at EVO are onsite registrations by random people, something that wouldn't happen elsewhere..
.. Maybe all of this becomes obsolete rather soon, as SG dies within the next year?
As said, I am just an outsider without a serious voice; merely wanted to post some.. Food for thought.
Happy discussing (hopefully)!
E: To make it clear, Faustings is just an example. I'm pretty sure that most majors would work - even ones which currently don't have SG on their main games list could likely get reasoned with if one promised 150 entrants.
E2: Bonus Contra-evo arguments:
1) It is really full and big on other games, which makes many people who play Sg sorta on the side not want to enter due to time/stress constraints; eg jwong and chrisg have entered various sg tourneys, but keep clear of the evo one
2) The effect of our entrants count is greatly diminished by how large evo is; 150 entrants just isnt that much at a tourney where sf4 gets 1000+. The same count at a tourney with 50 usf4 entrants looks rather imposing.
Preface: I haven't been and most likely never will be to a US major tournament yada yada and am thus merely an outside onlooker.
Perhaps everything I'm going to say is entirely preposterous, or maybe it makes some sense but is still garbage etc..
I personally am not concerned by it, so these are idle thoughts moreso than "pushing for change".
Okay, now on to the (entirely blasphemous) topic:
I don't believe that "the biggest SG tournament" should be at EVO.
To explain..
SG won't become an EVO main game anytime soon. I think we can all agree on that much.
What this means is: No prereg on the actual page (people have to dig around on Skullheart to find where to go), no streamtime on mainstream + looming threat of no streamtime at all (or disasters such as the EVO14 stream), players stuck in some offplace BYOC area, no accommodation for their schedule in other games (players can't request to play SF4 on a later timeslot when it clashes with their SG grand final match), tbc
Generally when you're "not wanted" in a place, you go somewhere else.
The most prominent example here would probably be the Smash community, who, shunned by Evo, went ahead and created their own Major - Apex.
However, that approach carries two issues on its own:
1) It completely cuts you off from the rest of the FGC. It took quite a while from me being into FGs until me learning that Smash is played competitively, as it had no exposure at the common tournaments and their scene strictly stuck to themselves.
2) You need a LARGE community for this to work. Apex can host tournaments for 64, Melee and Brawl + all of these sold more than SG. Skullgirls simply couldn't carry "its own major".
HOWEVER, there is another solution: Move the nominal "largest SG event of the year" from EVO to a different major.
- There are some events which are a LOT nicer than EVO - as the most basic example I'll list Frosty Faustings, an upcoming tournament that has SG on the "main games" list.
Instead of "crawling in the dirt" in front of the Evolution tournament, hoping that we get our Top 2 streamed with just 4 rather than 6 hours delay, we could be on main stream.
Instead of giving TOs who put us ~on the list~ 30 entrants while Evo gets 150 for nothing, we could "thank them properly" by bringing numbers.
Who knows, someone might even stumble upon Skullgirls, as it's shown on stream (and for longer than 5 minutes)..
Maybe all of this is stupid. Maybe it's not THAT stupid, but the SGC wants "the evo experience" anyhow.
Maybe people considered this before, but concluded that as long as there's a side tourney at EVO (and there would still be one) it would be "seen" as the biggest tourney, even if it nominally wasn't and everyone said "If you can only make 1 tourney per year, go to Faustings".
Maybe half the reason for SGs good numbers at EVO are onsite registrations by random people, something that wouldn't happen elsewhere..
.. Maybe all of this becomes obsolete rather soon, as SG dies within the next year?
As said, I am just an outsider without a serious voice; merely wanted to post some.. Food for thought.
Happy discussing (hopefully)!
E: To make it clear, Faustings is just an example. I'm pretty sure that most majors would work - even ones which currently don't have SG on their main games list could likely get reasoned with if one promised 150 entrants.
E2: Bonus Contra-evo arguments:
1) It is really full and big on other games, which makes many people who play Sg sorta on the side not want to enter due to time/stress constraints; eg jwong and chrisg have entered various sg tourneys, but keep clear of the evo one
2) The effect of our entrants count is greatly diminished by how large evo is; 150 entrants just isnt that much at a tourney where sf4 gets 1000+. The same count at a tourney with 50 usf4 entrants looks rather imposing.
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