I’ll play for a cool trophy over prize money any day. Whatever money I win in a tourney is typically spent fairly quickly, if not already spent just to be there in the first place. A trophy stays with me for a lifetime.
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I think the money factor varies based on what the amount is. I have seen the ‘freebie’ players not be interested and be hard to find etc. Or they play out of turn and get a zero and it’s not that big a deal but it kinda is. Maybe it’s more with newbies than ‘pinball’ people.
Might be more a thing here since we play in bars a lot and folks might be like sweet I’ll do it if it’s free and then hang out mostly with their friends and not be paying attention vs being more committed.
I do like the charity idea a lot but i think the magic combo is maximizing WPPRs + charity 
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I would argue the reason you don’t get “big players” is because you’ve been so openly hostile to them for so long no one wants to support your stuff as a result. I’m sure most of the top 250-500 people are well aware of your tournament attitude.
Who would this even be since you say you don’t get “big players?” The very people you rail against aren’t supporting your tournament, so some no-names show up and give you a hard time and you’re blaming most of the regulars of this site. It just doesn’t hold water.
There are much bigger tournaments than yours with much bigger payouts, much bigger participation, and many more games. At each of these that I’ve been to, players have been ultra respectful to the volunteers and staff running them. Even when confronted with an unfavorable ruling, people get it, maybe fume over it for awhile, then move on.
I don’t know what soured you so badly on tournaments, but most of us enjoy them quite a bit and have lots of fun in them. I’ll grant yours probably is fun, but your attitude most certainly is not.
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At the risk of alienating myself, I can’t understate the importance of wpprs or circuit points as a draw for me to events. For many players that have already been to the top and back it might not be nearly as much of a concern, but as of now, testing my competitive limits and seeing how far I can take myself is very important to me. Money earned for playing well at a tournament is just the icing on the cake
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I think you are mis-understanding my posts.
The tourney we run, we do not want top players. We don’t apply for WPPR points, and we don’t give out cash prizes. That is done on purpose, almost to drive “professional players” away from this tourney.
The subject was about money and how much of an impact it has on tourneys. My point is i personally think, from my experience, that money has everything to do with why people go (or don’t go) to certain tournaments.
You are correct in stating that i am hostile to the whole top-end tourney player system. I think it’s defeating to pinball, and doesn’t help the hobby. Again this is my personal opinion. I will even go so far as to say that I personally believe the whole WPPR thing and ratings,etc etc was invented to find a way to get people paid more for playing pinball. But i’m probably an island on that thinking, but it’s how i feel.
And in regards to games, you’re are SO wrong about that. Our Ann Arbor tournament had FIFTY machines in the tourney. When is the last time you were in a tournament with 50 games? Pinburgh? i would say that’s probably the only one that has more. And we have 300 games we could have put in the tourney (but i limited it to EMs and early chime box solidstate games.) I don’t think even PAPA can get 300 of their games into tourney shape.
I try and run tournaments that attract newbies and locals to the scene. i would love to find ways to make that bigger, and to get people involved in casual competitive play, without a league (which is too time consuming for most people). Getting people involved in entry level pinball is what spreads the hobby. Getting top end WPPR players does nothing for pinball, and is probably even counter productive… It’s preaching to the choir.
Note we also run our tourney before our show starts. This is prevent tourney players from monopolizing games. We want all our games available during the show, opposed to roping off some (many?) from the masses. Again, trying to do the right thing for the many, opposed to catering just to a few that participate in the tournament.
Look i’m not trying to be argumentative. i’m just relaying the experiences i’ve had with tournaments. Your mileage may vary. I’m sure many top players don’t care about money in tournaments. But from what I have seen, all i hear about is this… “how far back does it pay? how much prize money is there? are the monies guaranteed?” Stuff like that. Which again shows my point that many tournament players use money as a large guide on what tournaments they participant.
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That sounds like a sample size of Andy Rosa 
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Pinburgh had 280 of PAPA’s machines in the tournament. There are definitely more than 20 other machines that are in tourney shape but some are bad choices for competition. 300 for the next Pinburgh sounds like a good goal to have. Keith’s comment toward “more games” was more about the length of the experience than the breadth of machines available.
Having played in and enjoyed dozens of events with an entry fee and no cash prizes, and having run events where I voluntarily choose to organize and not to participate, I feel the quality of the event and experience has a much greater impact on my decisions than money. As someone else said, this may be a local issue for you, I don’t know. I’m not getting paid to make tutorial videos, I care about getting more pinball in the hands of more people.
I do agree that decisions about style and substance of events should cater more to first-time and casual players. Top-tier players will have a good time pretty much no matter what, and if they don’t, they’re grumps and they’re outnumbered.
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I have heard these questions from a few players. I don’t like them, either – it suggests a lack of trust in the organizer, and yes, event choice based on money. If this is the typical interaction you get with competitive players, it makes a lot of sense that you wouldn’t want them around!
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coffee actually came out my nose when i read that. LOL does not quite cover it!
to be fair though, i’ve actually never heard Andy say that. but i don’t talk to him much. Sorry Andy, didn’t mean to have you as the butt of a joke. well maybe a little… wink!
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"Keith’s comment toward “more games” was more about the length of the experience than the breadth of machines available.’
Bowen are you suggesting longer events are a better thing?
i’ve heard a lot of complaints about multi-day events. having to stay overnight or miss work, etc. That can’t be a good thing, in the big picture right?
we do a 3 strikes you’re out (head to head, players picked randomly from a hat, and each round is best 2 of 3, game picked from a hat at random). Is that not a good format to go with?
On the 300 games in Pinburgh, yes that would be hard to beat. We have 300 games total, but all full restorations, all ready to go. PAPAs games don’t really fit that bill, from what i’ve seen and played. We are the 3rd largest dedicated pinball facility in North America, behind PAPA and Banning.
I would be careful about this assumption. That might be true for some players, but I’ve had the opposite experience. I can’t get new people to come to tournaments…they don’t think they are good enough. Oddly, league play seems more approachable, even though it requires a much larger time investment.
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huh, i see your point.
maybe it’s me that doesn’t want to do the time investment. ha!
I think this is just a personal preference regarding the length of the event. Historically feedback from Pinburgh is that people like that it’s a multi-day affair, though that may change with the fact other things are going on at ReplayFX.
It’s definitely a selling point for out-of-town players, who are likely going to have to stay overnight anyway. If their main purpose of travel is to play competitively, more than one opportunity or more than one day is a big plus. I personally prefer this if I’m traveling to an event. For more local events, it’s a minus for the reason you give.
You can have it both ways though. For example, what John Reuter does in Maine is to have multiple little events, one per day. Then, people can decide how many of the little events they want to play. Some pick one, some play them all. This also gives an opportunity to offer different formats, such as golf or team play, by mixing it up each day. PAPA does a bit of this too by having the one-day Classics tournaments while the main qualifying is going on, so players who can’t stay through Sunday or players who only want to come in once can still play a little something.
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On the number of games issue, we had 50 games in our tournament but there was only 40 people participating in said tourney. pinburgh had 280 games, but I suspect there was a lot more than 280 people playing in that tourney. So in the end, the game to people ratio was much better at our show. I suspect the number of people playing at pinburgh was probably proportional to the games available?
The wppr system has definitely encouraged tournament participation in my area. And I’m speaking from the standpoint of someone who has criticized and debated certain aspects of that system, i.e. not a fanboy. It’s simply a fact: it’s drawn in players and made existing players come out even more. People really like to see themselves go up in the rankings and qualify for IFPA or State. It was extremely common for players who were only attending their 2nd or 3rd event to ask me how soon the results would be posted to IFPA.
I’ll also add that with the changes of the last two years to how wppr points are awarded, there’s far less incentive for a “pro” to just show up for an easy points-grab. A one-day event with mostly casual players would not be worth it.
But anyway, increased participation due to a rankings system is just common sense. It’s why rankings exist in pro sports, video games etc. It’s fun to see how you stack up and try to improve based on where you currently stand. Even if you don’t use wpprs, start up your own ranking system for your events and crown an annual champion and watch what happens. People will want that top spot.
As for top-end players not “helping”, I don’t know where you get that from. Yes, there are a handful of tournaments run mainly as a gathering of the in-the-know tournament scene with the bottom rung filled out by skilled-amateurs, but that’s fine. Not every single tournament has to cater to newbies.
Regardless, players like Neil Shatz and Andrei Massenkoff are legendary in the bay area. Players don’t go running in the other direction when they play events, they WATCH and aspire to emulate them. They ask them questions. Occasionally, they can and do beat them. I hate to say it but you seem to take an attitude that when a top player shows up, it’s “Oh well, tourney’s over, hand him the prize and let’s all go home.” Instead the attitude should be, “how did that guy get so good? What can I learn?” Maybe you should ask that top player if he’d be willing to do a short “how to play” tutorial before or after the event.
And then there are the ancillary things many top players do which have grown things by leaps and bounds. Pinball 101, tourney cam, all the PAPA tutorials, seminars, live streams, etc.
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I agree. I would say at least 75% of the league players in the bay area rarely play in tournaments. They play in leagues because it’s more of a social thing. Even if they’re not very good, it’s an opportunity to make new friends, talk tech and just hang out.
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Continuing the discussion from Thoughts on money in pinball events?:
Yes exactly! With league we have tons more casual players in our league here in SF and a waiting list of like 40-ish people i think (league is capped at 80 players). With league you can kinda show up to as many as you feel like so in a way it’s less a commitment but totally get what you are saying Clay.
Also related to what @JonnyO said about top players I think one thing people do like about pinball is that you can actually play against a World Champions or “legends” and even beat them maybe (i secretly smiled when I scored higher than NES the first time I met him, although he was really just feeling out the game than trying to score big - this was the day Metallica came out on location).
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WPPR didn’t mean anything to me when I did my first league. I got a few points after that league and I was ranked who knows what, 15-20k maybe? I really wasn’t interested in more points until I went to another event and got enough WPPRS to bump me into the thousands. After that, I was going to every event I could drive to in order to get more WPPRS. This went on for a few years and now I really don’t care.
Long story short, I think WPPRS are what got me into participating in more tournaments. I think they also got me into running my own tournaments and other local collectors running their own tournaments. Now I just go to enjoy the competition and hopefully play well against great players. Money is fine because it helps pay for some of the expenses of traveling but, in the end its not really important to me. The quality of the games and the players are what I find to be the most important.
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I couldn’t have put it any better. My exact opinion on the matter.
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