I missed the evolution of this thread last night, but have discussed with Josh via email.
I have suppressed my profile because @pinwizj said flat-out that input was not valid unless someone stepped up and did it. I don’t know why that’s the bar for him but I can do it if needed.
I feel strongly that the IFPA as the “guiding light in competitive pinball” needs to consider the impact their sponsorships and endorsements have on the sport and hobby, it’s not just the lighting mod guy with the advertising strategies and ethics that I don’t agree with but what seems to me to be a trend. If more companies take advertising approaches similar to pinstadium and get greenlighted by the IFPA I think it will actually be very harmful for the hobby. I don’t expect Josh to act on this input but dismissing it entirely is not OK.
IFPA has doubled the number of listed sponsors in the last year or so (looks like 43 right now) and we have already seen an increase in the amount of IFPA-email-list-fueled outbound marketing.
It looks like I’m going to miss out on SCS this year and we’ll see what happens in the future. It seems like Josh is taking this feedback seriously and as always I sincerely appreciate everything he does for us.
Josh’s comment in question was accompanied by a winking smiley, and (for better or worse) he has a rich history of off-handed snark, which I assumed made it obvious that he wasn’t serious. I feel like you know that and are choosing to die on this hill regardless, which, okay.
His continued involvement in this thread (and several others) seems to be proof he’s not dismissing input entirely. This bears repeating: just because the IFPA refuses to change a position one person feels strongly about doesn’t mean they’re deaf to input. They hear you, they just disagree.
That’s what success looks like in a for-profit company, which the IFPA is. I personally am totally fine with them getting paid for the countless hours of work they’ve done growing and promoting competitive pinball. If that means I have to click delete on a few emails, I’ll live (apologies for dredging that topic up again).
I am seeing more emails, but I don’t think sponsors have doubled in the last year. A quick search on the wayback machine says there were 39 sponsors two years ago.
I was curious yesterday so I checked ten years back, when pinball was almost dead. Not quite 20 sponsors then.
I don’t like the idea of sponsorship for pinball, but that’s a different topic. They’re here and they’re not going away. The only sponsor currently on the list that I don’t approve of is Titan. I’ve played brand new Stern’s with Titan rubbers installed (rings and flipper rubbers) and they play like total crap. Way, way too bouncy. Unplayable IMO. I remember someone on Pinside asking why they decided to call them ‘competition’ rubbers. The reply was that they thought is sounded cool. IMO, Titan rubbers are detrimental to competition and IFPA should not have them as a sponsor, not matter how much they pay.
I don’t know much about the stadium lights, but I don’t see anyone dissing them. Is Adam’s mention in the subject line a joke, or has he complained about them?
I think I missed something here then - I was under the impression that this was in fact what people that had concerns about what Josh did were expected to do? It’s happened in the past over the dollar thing etc? He said as much? I’m really not understanding here. I see the winky-smiley, but… what? I don’t get why you would joke about that.
I don’t expect action based on one input, I just want Josh to consider things more carefully and be clear about that. I don’t think that’s unreasonable?
Regarding the number of IFPA sponsors - I saw as many as 25 in past years using similar tools, and it looks like there was some kind of “friend of IFPA” thing I missed, but we’ve gone from a couple dozen companies on the front page to over 40. Why is there a deeproot link in the IFPA toolbar? That was the last change I’d noticed and then pinstadium. It just seems… off.
Either way, this is way past the pinstadium synergy thing. I think my view has been stated - it’s that, cool, other people have other opinions. Yay for lights?
I’ve always thought Josh would be more effective at leading and promoting the IFPA if he’d just put the snark away occasionally, especially when dealing with legitimate player concerns. His responses online can come off the wrong way to those who don’t know him personally. However, disagreeing with the snark appears to be an unpopular opinion around here.
1 IFPA added a sponsorship I don’t like the sponsorship they added.
2 IFPA sponsorships in general - I don’t like them
3 Pinstadium lights blind me
4 Pinstadium charges hundreds for something I could do for less.
Am I missing any?
2 has been discussed elsewhere and 4 is just business.
1 and 3 go together? The simple solution being if you don’t like them don’t put them in your pins and don’t play in tourneys using them. PAPA has stated superbands are here to stay and maybe the same goes for Pinstadium lights? I don’t know. What I do know is that we’re not playing on regulation pins here. Josh’s language in the top post is just puffery. He isn’t in control of what streamers use, TDs use or what you use. He is in control of what he uses and what he uses as a td when he’s able to make changes to machines.
If you go to the sponsor page, Stern and Deeproot are ‘diamond’ sponsors. Stern’s link is right next to Deeproot on the front page. Diamond level apparently gets you a toolbar link.
I hear you though. Besides sponsorship, there’s a lot of other things in the hobby that seem off to me these days. I try to pick my spots now. The hobby is going in directions it’s never been before. Some good, some bad. For now, the good in the hobby, mainly continued growth, outweighs the bad in my book.
Could you give us a breakdown of how carefully you considered each thing? Maybe a simple spreadsheet with the length of time each thing was considered, location the considering was done, who was consulted and if their input was given careful enough consideration? You’re a president, not an emperor! Democracy dies in darkness!
OMG, I would’ve taken anyone’s bet at 20:1 that I would spend my Friday night defending IFPA policies…
IFPA accepts sponsorships, and has done so for ages. You might or might not like the products offered by IFPA sponsors deeproot (they have a product?), Stern, Zen Studios, ColorDMD, Double Danger, Music City Pinball (who? I just get security warnings and/or password prompts in my browser), or others, but that should have minimal influence on your opinion of IFPA itself.
If you are fastidiously opposed to an IFPA sponsor, then stop attending pinball events endorsed by IFPA.
Otherwise, just ignore it. Someone got money from someone else. Yay.
I took this as a reference to Bowen unsuppressing and not meant to be taken seriously. Someone actually suppressing over this comment is baffling to me. Everyone needs to lighten up a little bit. Geez…
It’s more than that tho if the relationship starts to include elements that change the actual game you’re playing. Having sponsors like Marco… Zen… etc didn’t influence the actual game people were competing on. When you start sponsoring “equipment” and that becomes a norm, the “suggestion”, or similar… there is a much greater impact of the partnership on the actual experience.
Like when an event is ALL Stern games… or rubber is all changed to vendor X which alters play… or you start altering how the playfield is illuminated, etc.
New isn’t necessarily better. And players can be “on top of” without wanting them in top level competition.
For instance, superbands make ball control significantly easier - in ways the original game was not designed with. This is not just about liking a vendor or not… but something that actually materially changes the game we play.
Note I said “the original game” — not all games as some collective.
The great thing about pinball is it’s diverse, but each game was still designed and tested as a UNIT. It’s not “resistance to change” to want a game to play as it was intended to be played.
So you are saying just because a sponsor donates equip to one event everyone should be used to that equipment?
I believe sponsor(s) should send all TD’s equipment they want to have used at big events so all players can get used to it. Otherwise leave it off as it creates an unfair advantage.
