The current rankings ARE the “Professional” rankings. For us the best path for financial success is to make it opt-out for TD’s . . . and that one year gap of players missing their WPPR’s is us leveraging that interest towards trying to pull this off.
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If you actually need WPPR’s for this hobby to be worthwhile to you, I actually don’t know how to respond to that except . . . “I’m sorry?”
I’ve been playing since 1993, and had 13 years of earning ZERO WPPR’s for that activity . . . loved every freaking minute of it.
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I don’t have an issue with paying the $1. My issue is the opt in/out part.
If I win (ok not me but @stevevt to make it more realistic) the winter session of NEPL next year, but 200 people decide they don’t want to be part of the rankings then suddenly it goes from being worth 40+ WPPRs to 5.
Then another tournament/league has all 200+ players opt in and the winner gets 40+ points. Same difficulty but far fewer points just because people decided not to pay $1.
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People should be deciding if they want to be included or not BEFORE an event begins . . .especially when payment is involved.
I can’t think of any tournament where you can first play, and then decide whether you want to pay for that entry or not.
As someone soon attending PAPA20 however, I would totally be in favor for getting to pay for an entry only if you want to keep it after it’s finished.
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I get that its before. My point is a large league/tournament has its value slashed just because people don’t want to pay.
Is this the end game for the ifpa? Financial success? For whom? And I’m still sincere. Just trying to figure out where things are heading.
It’s my understanding that TDs have the option to make it a designated WPPR or no-WPPR tournament from the very beginning, aka “everyone needs to opt-in” or “no one opts-in.” I predict most TDs will be doing that since accommodating both fee and non-fee players in one tournament is going to be a clusterfunk.
If you have players complain about that… you can always retort with the classic, “Well go run your own damn pinball tournament!” Or tell them to send their complaints to IFPA Pinball. 
I think many players like to play tournaments because they are fun (or cool) in themselves. The wpprs is an added spice that has made it even more fun to compete. It’s been fun to see ones rise (and fall) in the rankings, and you’ve done such a good job maintaining those. It saddens me to see the system change as you have proposed.
“I’m being serious”
YES . . . financial success . . . for the PLAYERS.
Talking to media about 700 players fighting on February 11th across the country for a chance to win $100 leads to a ton of great “that’s cute” stories. It gets to the point of almost being embarrassing in the interviews I end up giving.
Talking to media about 700 players fighting for their of a prize pool that is “X” allows us to broadcast a more serious tone with what we’re doing.
More serious tone leads to a better opportunity to land outside corporate sponsorship. More media. More attention. More players. More events. More prizes.
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Totally agree . . . an “added spice” shouldn’t be the reason why any tournament no longer exists IMO.
If this fails, then we either migrate to the Professional and Amateur rankings, or we do a full repeal and go back to the 2017 system.
Can’t fail unless you try . . . and I’m not afraid of failing (as seen by my 0 for 31 performance in winning Major Championships) 
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Ah, I didn’t know about that flag object in the API. We can use that to categorize the events we pull and list on pinball map as either points events or non-point events.
Im totally fine with this, honestly dont see what the fuss is about.
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This whole concept is a bit of a CF, but I don’t think player opt-in/out is a big deal, and in fact I feel it’s an important option. IMHO it’d be much better if player opt-in happened directly at the IFPA level (e.g. players pay a $10 annual fee directly to the IFPA if they wish their points to be tallied) – that would take multiple pressures off the TD, who already has a lot to deal with. But either way works – this is just an extra checkbox “IFPA paid” on the tournament sign-in sheet.
No different from today. Hopefully TD’s always explain how player funds are distributed – we’ve had this discussion about “tournament transparency” many times. And if a player wishes to opt-out they can ask to be suppressed, just as they can today.
Simple. Abbie won the tournament. Period. Donna was the top-ranked WPPR participant in the tournament.
Very few tournaments have a guarantee of how many participants there will be, so no one should ever be “expecting” a certain number of WPPRs. For WPPR purposes, a high opt-out rate is similar to something like bad weather causing a lot of people to bail on the tournament… except more fun, because the competition part actually happens with all the participants.
Again, I don’t see any confusion about this. There are no two sets of photos or announcements. The tournament was won by Abbie, Ben came in second, and Charlene was third. Period. As far as the tournament is concerned, it’s irrelevant if these players did or didn’t opt-in to WPPR’s.
No, it doesn’t. Look, just pretend that the opted-out players haven’t yet met their minimum of 5 WPPR events to be “counted”. The opted-out players are still participating in the tournament, maybe they’re kicking ass, maybe they’re getting their ass kicked, but they’re still part of the event, and influence the final rankings.
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The “pretend that opted-out players haven’t yet met their minimum” is a good analogy, and the case is similar…but not exact.
Under the new system, someone could win WPPRs from a tournament without playing directly against any of the other players who won WPPRs in that tournament. The same cannot be said for the current system.
But the “I’m being serious” was in quotes. So you aren’t serious??? Are you serious or not? I’m so confused. /s
You could say that Josh is the Champion of Failing. 
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Okay, so we’ll all live in a world where there are opt-outs. Are TDs required to allow opt-outs? Or do they have the ability to state ahead of time that players will not be given that option?
There have been hundreds of posts on this and @pinwizj has been able to avoid stating the answer to this explicitly. Inquiring minds want to know (so we can complain if it’s the “wrong” answer)!
Absolutely NOT required. Totally up to the TD if they want to be that flexible and accommodating for all players.
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Ah, that’s a relief. Maybe I can just go ahead and skip the next thousand posts.
I already agreed with this change from a personal standpoint (contrasted with a hypothesis that it has the potential to hurt competitive pinball growth in my small city and others), but after reading hundreds of posts on multiple forums, do so even more now. Here’s why:
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IFPA Ranking and the WPPRs that fuel them only have a “real world” effect on qualifying for SCS, Nationals, various other large-scale tournaments, and division restrictions at large events. For example, our new pinball league in Eugene, though certainly IFPA-sanctioned, is highly unlikely to provide enough WPPRs to affect change on the “real world” aspects of the system within the state of Oregon, let alone the U.S. or world.
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Regardless, it is clear that one’s IFPA ranking provides an extrinsic motivation to play in a pinball competition, even for thousands in the U.S. and Canada that may never qualify for an SCS tournament. This is in part due to “bragging rights” in one’s social circle: a friend, partner, or rival. My girlfriend always outperforms me in Portland, and the fact that it is recorded, public knowledge brings her great delight.
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It is also due to the hope that one can “climb the rankings” enough to attain some of the “real world” value the system offers.
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The “real world” value of the system increases substantially with this change; if you are able to qualify in your state or province, the rewards are now much higher.
I do not believe the amateur ranking system will garner any support. You either want to be measured up against the rest of the world or you don’t. If the “real world” effects of the IFPA do not have a noticeable effect on your player base, and the extrinsic motivations outside of those effects do not motivate players to play in a tournament, it is truly not worth your time (and money!) to adopt the system. That said, I believe that the majority of pinball tournaments that currently subscribe to the IFPA system will not do away with it in 2018.
At Blairally Vintage Arcade here in Eugene, they have a weekly tournament that has run for years without IFPA points. After some cajoling (hi), they’ve finally become sanctioned, but will likely not be in 2018 with this change. Sure, they could re-work their format, reporting frequency, etc., but they simply like doing 3-strike weeklies, and will host them whether or not they get WPPRs. Ultimately, you’ll participate in the events that you want to participate in, run those you want to run, and if gaining or providing WPPRs is a motivation, you’ll be along for the ride. If not… you’re still playing pinball, which is a damned awesome thing.
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