Should the votes be linked to IFPA numbers? Not if you want to reach people who haven’t played before. A friend of a friend sees a post about the circuit and says “Wait - competitive pinball is a thing? That’s awesome! Where can I play?” That leads people to their local locations and leagues and tournaments, and then they move up to traveling to events, and sharing pinball around amongst their friends, and thus the hobby grows.
We asked five specific questions of the players that attended each event, because we wanted answers to those five questions. It can’t be a binary yes/no when we’re asking about quality and enjoyment of the event. If the tournament was awesome but your significant other was bored out of their mind because the larger show was bad, that will inform how likely you are to return. If you were consistently unable to find a TD when you needed a ruling, that should be considered. If there were too few games, if the space was too cramped, if you thought it was too expensive - this is all feedback we wanted to know, and that we shared with the organizers of each tournament, to help THEM know what their players wanted, what they liked, and how they could improve.
First off, I appreciate all of the constructive feedback.
Watching this whole process unfold it was quite clear to me that the TDs and people who were out there promoting their event and the vote to everyone were the ones who got their events into the top 8. Once the process started it was pretty clear how it was set up for anyone to vote, not just IFPA registered players, or players who played in the events. So the guidelines on how voting worked were pretty clear.
Events that were already on the Circuit had a HUGE advantage to remain on the Circuit. Their players were polled directly. If an event was removed, or an event was sent to voting, it is directly because of your players. No ‘outside’ influence on those votes.
If you were out there promoting your vote to your friends and family and whatever, that’s good for pinball. You were letting people know there is competitive pinball out there, there are shows with all this cool stuff. If only a small percentage of those folks decides to attend one of these shows or decide they want to join the local league or maybe even check out this Circuit thing, then I think that is a win for everyone.
Lets also try to remember that the Circuit is a free tool to promote your event. It costs players nothing to participate and it costs events nothing to be on it. It costs the Replay Foundation $10k+ every year.
When we would choose the events every year, Mark would get hate mail from TDs and players because their event wasn’t selected and we must have some vendetta against them or their region. It was set up for them to fail surely!
So this year we sat down and came up with a player based feedback system to decide what tournaments are the best and also have a way to provide direct feedback from the players to the TDs so that the TDs could take action (or not) on their feedback to make it better for players. We put the selection process up for the people to decide.
The open poll system was a way to encourage everyone to get out there and promote their events. Yes, even outside of the core competitive pinball community. Events that got on were super excited and events that missed out are bummed.
But, the surveys and polling still caused people to bash PAPA and Replay in numerous forums over how unfair and biased the whole thing was.
We reevaluate everything we do every year. We listen to all feedback and try to make decisions that are best for pinball, gaming, and the Replay Foundation itself. Sometimes those decisions are unpopular. I’ll admit based on the fact we get hate spewed our way on the Circuit no matter what we do, perhaps it isn’t worth the trouble. Or, maybe I’m just upset everyone else isn’t as excited as being able to spread the CIrcuit to new events as I am.
Then you get into a chicken and egg problem to some extent.
Look, RF did it exactly right. They got opinions of actual participants on every event. They opened it up to new events, who I presume were screened for Circuit inclusion readiness before being presented to the public (I have not heard one way or the other if some submissions got cut before voting - it could be people respected the qualifications, too, and all submitted events worth “worthy” of at least being voted on).
Some churn is to be expected. If they did it exactly the same as next year, it’s entirely likely that the 4 dropped events had an average of a 4.5 rating.
Here are some opinions of a few specific events:
@dbs mentioned NWPAS had a 4.1, which I would consider a very respectable rating. I know that event, though, is considered kind of convoluted by a lot of folk (note: I have not played in it) and is probably a pretty major reason it missed the cut.
Similarly, there is always grumpiness at the expo tournament, even though it is a fairly normal tourney. I would suggest that a major reason is that (warning extremely biased opinion ahead) people are tired of it being a Sternament all the time, not just because of what I think, but hearing it from lots of other people who participate. The time commitment is also borderline ridiculous, and another major reason why people are so burned out on it.
TPF (again, never been, but read a lot) has been considered nothing but a disaster for YEARS until this year. I suspect with the proximity of nationals next year it’ll get a lot more attention and notice and probably make the cut next vote. At least it is getting better, that’s ultimately a win for everyone.
I’ve only been to one CAX, over 10 years ago, so I’m not sure why that’s not more fondly thought of. That one surprised me, TBH.
Finally, the last event I have an opinion on is Pinbowl. The fact that it got cancelled immediately after voting just makes me question why it was even submitted to begin with.
I don’t see how there can be any issue with how everything went down. I don’t have an opinion on most of those events since I don’t travel a lot, and the only surprise to me was CAX. Maybe NWPC a little bit.
This quote was the primary reason I just wrote all that. You guys are doing everything exactly right. As someone who’s done more than his fair share of listening to man-boy whining over the years, you just have to realize it’s a vocal minority, most people really like and are appreciative of what you do, and it all stems from internal personal issues on their part, not your actions.
Selfishly, I’m slightly bummed that expo isn’t a circuit event anymore since it was so close, BUT a) I’m not surprised and b) ultimately it doesn’t really affect what I personally do anyway.
People just need to realize that like a lot of things, the Circuit is a constantly evolving thing and it would really suck if it was the same events over and over and there was no opportunity for change. Otherwise what is the incentive for trying to come up with a (possibly novel) new event and get a chance to get on the Circuit some day if people are just going to the same events all the time like a bad habit.
Run a good event and get good feedback, and avoid facing the public.
There’s no authentication linked to your IFPA id. E.g. even if you register with IFPA there’s no way for third-parties to say “the person interacting with my service is this particular IFPA player”. For obvious reasons I wish there was, but it’s not so
I was chatting with Nate on C2C last night and had thought that there were some rules about being eligible for a PAPA Circuit event. Looks like that list is still up as part of the official rules. I pulled out numbers 1 and 3 under Section V, Criteria for Eligibility.
Tournament must have already been held for a minimum of three years prior to applying (exceptions may be considered if a PAPA representative attends and takes a greater role in overseeing the event in the first year).
Tournament must have a running 3 year average of 40 players or greater in the highest division.
Just browsing the IFPA archives, and I’m seeing some tournaments not meeting these requirements:
24 hour Sanctum I only show having been held the past 2 years.
OBX I show one “Spring tournament”, never a “Fall tournament”, but not 3 years worth of ‘anything’ with respect to tournaments averaging over 40 players for attendance.
Buffalo Pinball Open I can see 3 years worth of data, with player counts of 19/24/20 . . . so not hitting the 40 player average.
Cleveland Pinball and Arcade Show, I only show it being held once previously.
Bat City similar to Buffalo. I show 3 years worth of data, with player counts of 22/22/18.
If the requirements are no longer requirements, maybe update the rules verbiage? If they are still requirement then everyone underground now?
Personally, I’m in the opinion that if the location doesn’t have a low cap give them a chance. The cream will rise to the top and adjustments can be made for the next season.
I made it ON TIME you bastard!!! Who knew the marathon 5K walk-a-thon-palooza was happening Sunday morning? I didn’t, but that didn’t stop my from jumping out of the car and running to the show to make it on time.
I’d remove those WPPR’s from the system but they have already decayed to zero
You can probably nix clepin from the list, since papa representatives were in attendance with roles in tournament game setup and repair. They also offered their help with rulings.
My understanding is that all the unlimited entry tournaments got somewhat bashed this year, and that is my guess as to why we got pushed down. Most of the comments were about long lines and not enough games, which is why we are moving to limited this year. Hopefully we can pull it back together next year.
You are correct Josh that we have only run this event 2 times and this will be our third. Our cap this year is 100 players. What we have built here from nothing is basicly a dedicated tournament facility with 40+ games that we open once a week to the public.
We were only submited into the process after some talk with Bowen and the PAPA folks about what we have and are doing and Bowen will be in attendance for the event to make sure we are on the up and up.
Of all the discussion in the different forums I’ve seen, the stuff that has truly distressed me is the implication that the process was “rigged” or set up to “screw me/my tournament/my region”. Do people think the folks at PAPA are actually attempting to tank specific pinball tournaments or pinball tournaments in a specific part of the country? If that is how you feel, you need to step back and get a grip.
I’m with keefer and want to express the feelings of the often-silent majority who greatly appreciate what you do and the grief you have to put up with to do it. I also support your voter-based system, since as you say, the point is to have circuit events that people enjoy and want to go [back] to. Those who made the circuit earned it, at least for this coming year. Those who didn’t now know that while some people enjoyed their event, many others thought it was not one of the best circuit events for them.
I know from late-night personal experience about TPF’s issues [me vs. Trent and Colin at 5 a.m.].
I went to all four events that got “kicked out” and can see why. NW’s format was weird and not for everyone, although it clearly is popular with the many people who do it each year. FPF’s 5 machines undoubtably killed them. Keefer pretty much said it all about Expo. Michigan also has a bit of format quirk and their show component is much smaller than Expo, FPF, TPF, CAX, etc. None were “bad” events [FPF was iffy], but they were not as good as the events that did get in.
I’m also a bit mystified by CAX’s failure to get enough votes, but it’s huge enough it’ll be fine as a non-circuit event.
The one downside is the NW part of the country [plus Vancouver] being shut out. Lots of votes for something in the region, but split among them so none got in.
Parting thoughts: hey, guys, it’s like a tournament. You can’t all be the winner, and you can’t all make the playoffs. If you’re one of the top ranked, you’ll likely do so more often than others, but there’s never a guarantee.
And to the hate-mailers, listen to Rudy: “It’s only pinball.”
Follow-up note on TPF. It was better last year than in prior years, and from what I’ve heard, this year was a further improvement. I would expect to see it on the circuit at some point in the future. That said, there was one thing I saw this year that would trouble me. The original posting said 30 plays on 12 machines for qualifying. Just a week or two before the event, I saw that this had changed to 20 games. To me, that would constitute a “significant change” that, as a prospective player, I would have been displeased with had I planned to attend. Any time you can’t play every game at least twice, it presents a definite shift in the character of the event. For “3+ but still limited” plays per game, the “how many more than 3” wouldn’t matter to me. Fewer than 3, I start to care.
Am I bummed that CAX didn’t make it? Sure because it’s right in my back yard. But as others have pointed out the tournament will be fine. There will still be 150 people at the tournament and it’ll still be great fun.
I’m excited to see PAPA (and the pinball public) put so many newer tournaments on the circuit. That seems to be in the spirit of the mission to promote pinball. I’m excited to see so many newer high quality tournaments out there competing for a place on the circuit. It’s a lot better to let those in than to grandfather in a tournament like CAX.
