Yeah man. Playing to win ruins the scene! Good character and who your friends are is the best way to win! I mean, player skill doesn’t make you a true winner, only good character and if you’re friends with the tournament organizer!
well, was brought to this thread by choi. read most of it and heres my opinion. guy who is supposed to replace actual dude on winning team… i highly suggest you do the honorable thing and just decline invitation cause it obviously doesnt belong to you. im sure you feel loyalty to the idiot who owns this arcade but sacrificing self honor and being on a team that you dont deserve to uphold emos name? is this worth it? secondly, does this dude need a hit put out on him? not that violence is ever needed… but stealing money from tourney winners? continuous lying, cheating, stealing? iono guys… im too old for this shit, but maybe someone should really whoop this dudes ass. gl and JOHN CHOI FTW!
Copy/pasted from dustloop.com…
Thought I’d try to break down an ACTUAL, REAL, THOUGHT-OUT post (instead of the usual “oh hay guys, titties!” *ninja vanish crap he usually does) Emotiongear finally made on his own forum regarding the situation… Unfortunately, it’s not looking too good at the moment.
A lofty and honorable premise, indeed. Little did we know that would not be the case here…
So you’re trying to say that the downfall of arcades and videogame market are caused by people who want to win in competitive fighting games? Seriously? Never mind the fact that the real reason why arcades died out is because of the technology gap between arcades and homes have been surpassed, meaning there’s little reason for people to go to arcades when they can just play that same game within the comfort of their own homes, therefore leading to the downfall of arcades. Also let’s disregard the fact that the Japanese companies don’t care about the U.S. market because their games (not including the big-name franchises that have had roots in the U.S. market beforehand) are too niche for the general U.S. public to consume, which means poor sales, which leads to scaling back on international support of their releases. Oh, and can’t forget the reason why we can’t even host national tournaments on the games people want to play is because of the above reasons. But no, it’s THOSE people who WANT TO WIN in COMPETITIVE FIGHTING GAMES who are the cause of the downfall of arcades.
I can agree with you somewhat on the first statement; in a business sense, you’d want to protect your own ass in case shit happens that you have no control over.
BUT, with the way you carried out business recently, it seems like you’re trying to protect your own ass to the point where you have the option to screw over your customers if you have to. Nice business sense. And don’t give me that “it’s a risk I take when dealing with this” speech; what about those who have sent people to SBO for the last few years? Aren’t they taking risks too?
And as for the so-called “problems” with U.S. players in Japan, you’re just making a mountain out of a molehill. The so-called “problems” with U.S. players in Japan have yet to lead to a rejection of SBO spots; tell me why Family Fun Arcade is holding Third Strike qualifiers for the sixth year in a row after all of those “problems”. They must be doing something right after all those years.
Bottom line is, there is nothing major to fix; you’re just making up shit right now to make it look more serious when it’s actually a trivial matter.
Oh wait, business sense. Make other’s businesses look shitty in comparison to yours, even if it involves slander and blowing shit out of proportion. I get it.
Again, blowing shit out of proportion. Especially when people who have been dedicated to the scene for years are finally making an impact on the scene. Why else do you think STHD is getting a re-release after all those years? Why else would there be a SF4 in production?
Oh wait, doom and gloom, scare tactics to promote your business. I get it; great business sense!
Transparency and honesty are the keys to keeping a community intact. The way you have conducted things have showed us that there is a lack of transparency in your operations, which have caused players to have little confidence in your events, as opposed to, let’s say, the Evolution series. Hell, they have even explained to the detail exactly why things beyond their control happen for a reason (i.e. wait time between end of tournament and receiving the prize check). We may not agree with some of their decisions, but at least they had the transparency and honesty to show us the reasonings behind their decisions, and that goes a long way in establishing trust between the community and the event organizers.
Of course, I don’t mean total transparency like divulging your tax numbers or your social security number or whatnot, but man, use common sense!
I’m sorry, you’re totally wrong here. The basis of growth for the community is active participation, and the will to participate. Acting better and being more respectful is just a byproduct of active participation, not the cause of it. And people are willing to be more active if they know EXACTLY what they were getting into in the first place. The sudden rule change to include a PlanetZero representative onto this year’s SBO team after the tournament has already concluded is just bad business sense, and already has added to a growing list of transgressions.
You forgot to include the fact that not only the West Coast, but the East Coast, the Midwest, the South, and even Canada will boycott Showdown. And hell, even some of the Texas players are boycotting Showdown as well. So who suffers? Who loses? You tell me.
If you were just told that you will not be in the running for a prize you had rightfully won, how would you act? Of course it’s understandable for Zinac to act this way; he has a right to let others know what has happened to him. If anything, at least he had the balls to call you out on what kind of practice you had conducted. And what’s wrong with wanting to know what’s going on? Remember, the key to a great community is transparency and honesty, and apparently you achieved neither of those.
Very few people have stepped forward because of your track record. Again, transparency and honesty go a long way.
And ironically, the Evolution event had the exact same problem as yours regarding the money issue (though not as prolonged as yours); they explained exactly what’s causing the delays and stuff. Have you done anything like that at all?
Oh, and according to one of the Japanese players, they have yet to receive their money. It’s been almost a year and a half.
And you wonder why people don’t want to step forward.
Nice try trying to steer the focus away from your business. Business sense, indeed.
And John Choi has explained exactly what happened, what went wrong, and why in the SRK version of this thread. Transparency, indeed.
How does it make sense businesswise? You tell me, since you’re the one who owns the arcade; I’m just one of the many players in the country…
Oh, and don’t act like you’re the only arcade in the country that has to shell out all that money for the new games. But wait, business sense; pretend you have no competition when talking about yourself.
Unfortunately, there is an alternative available not that far in the future…
Now, let us go back to your original premise, and review exactly what has happened since then.
-Indeed, you have changed the way how tournaments are run; you don’t have to win to be considered a winner! Or in some cases, no matter who wins, we all lose (and PlanetZero takes your money at the end of the day).
-Indeed, you have expanded the community and general interest from outsiders, albeit in a negative way. There are people who don’t give two shits about the Guilty Gear scene in general, and they have expressed dissatisfaction over the way you have carried out things. In fact, I thank you for exposing the Guilty Gear scene even more.
-Indeed, you have changed what it takes to be a top player. It’s not about what skill you have in the game; it’s about who you know, and how dedicated you are to that person. To be more precise, you must be a resident of Houston, and a card-carrying member of the PlanetZero arcade for a prolonged period of time to be one! Thanks for introducing politics into an already strained scene. Whatever happened to just plain winning?
stop that
lol, Emogear needs to make his rules with less loopholes for arbitrary decisions and favoritism.
Also it’s obvious SBO was unaware of how he would rearrange teams as he posted
Which clearly shows that he talked to them AFTER the fact about doing it. So all his whining about how SBO knew how he was running shit was clearly false. However, it seems they sadly will uphold his decision as he probably just said he wouldn’t send a team or someother set of BS.
If such change as switching up teams becomes standard some rules need to be made so that the decision isn’t so arbitrary. Since SBO believes that it would be best because of our ‘population’ to do such. Like any members of the top team must play one best to 10 set against only one contender decided by the staff hosting the tourney or whatnot.
However, I think it should stay winner takes it, and Zinac should get the spot.
Also interesting note. All members of the Zinac’s team got 9th in the Singles Tourney. http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=152744&highlight=Showdown+2008
I havent been around long enough to know who emotiongear is, but I’ve been reading this thread the last 24 hours on and off and since everyone has already made all the rational debate arguments I can just say
Fuck you Emogear. You are one stupid fuck.
Thanks for listening guys! Carry on.
If the replacement dude ends up going, I hope he faces a Slayer in the first round. I’ll gladly sit there and watch that all day.
No you didn’t phil. I was responding to the statement you made about tga being the only tournaments on the east coast that has japanese joysticks! That all I was disagreeing with you sir. No I wasn’t drunk since I hardly ever drink anymore. Maybe I should have just cut that part out so you would have known what part of your post I was commenting on sir. My bad, but I’m still willing to help in anyway. I know I can run the 3S team and ST team sbo quals if needed, but I do think that since I can’t do all 3 games that FR should be a last resort type of thing. Since MWC and TGA have ties to sbo its only right one of them keeps the right to hold the sbo quals imo! In the spirit of fairness that would be the best mode of action for the gg community imo!
Good shit, thats what I talk about looking out.
One other option- it’s also possible for the community to put pressure on the players. Maybe say if you take the spot, you’ll be banned from all future GG tournies. That’s one way to put pressure back. That’s mean, but it might be the only way to get the proper result.
It’s not like people haven’t been banned from tournies before. You may not be able to pressure Emogear directly, but putting the pressure on the players who got the undeserved slots might work.
I wouldn’t blame kensou for taking the spot that was given to him. I’m sure its a dream come true for him. That’s like if he found a winning lottery ticket on the street. Is he not suppose to take the money since he didn’t buy/earn the tix? The problem isn’t kensou imo. The problem is that the entire team isn’t going to japan. No need to hate on the guy that was given a lottery tix to sbo. If sbo allows this team to compete at sbo then PZ wins.
Ultimately, part of being in a community is to do the honorable thing. If he shows a lack of integrity to take something he didn’t deserve, then what’s to keep it from happening again?
There needs to be consequences, or people like Emogear will continue to roll over people. Emogear makes money from other sources, not the tourney scene- so he doesn’t care about the community, nor does he have to. Kensou does, so punishing him is the only effective option. It’s a sucky situation for him to be in, but he can avoid it by declining the invitation.
Ultimately, it’s what we can do, versus what Emogear can do. The only option we have as a community is to punish/shun the people responsible. I will consider anyone who takes an undeserved SBO slot as a scab. (Yeah, I give two shits about the GG community, but whose to say that another tourney wouldn’t do it- ethics take a long time to build up, but an instant to come crashing down- look at NBA refs. I don’t want that shit in the games I play)
This is why I say the only realistic options left are threatening the players, and seeing if Emogear can be held liable for fraud. (That letter to Choi could be evidence he was doing something materially different then what he was advertising to do, under a reasonable person standard)
I feel really bad for the GG community with all the shit they’ve taken over the past year. It’s unfair and undeserved.
That seems to be a rather dangerous line of thinking.
I also don’t think it will make much of a difference. Kensou is a friend/patron of Emogear, he will take the sbo qualifier you can be sure of that. If a friend went through the trouble of stealing a qualifier for you, you better take it if you don’t want to piss him off.
Couldn’t Zinacs team just refuse to go out of solidarity if he doesn’t get his spot and then the parts of the community that are in japan could tell the japanese community about the circumstances ?
To keep whoever takes the teams spot from being seen as the american representators by the community there atleast “Nevermind the corporate bullshit”
As in a rather have no representation than false representation kind of way.
if that happens, then there’d STILL be the “PZ rep” with the free ride going.
Great post sir. There needs to be ethics/standards people need to follow. I agree with you sir. I think he should step down if he didn’t earn the spot, but he doesn’t have to do that. I met the guy and he seems like a really cool dude, but he might get ban from PZ if he doesn’t take Z’s spot on the gg team.
It seems as if the held the tourney in order to fund the trip for the pre-choosen players who were going to be sent. Kindda like saying “we’re gonna let you play in the qualifier, but your winnings and your spot are gonna go to a local pre-choosen player.”
This is a WTF moment, never thought something like this would happen. Esspecially at PZ. I’ve heard some good things, but now it’s confirmed, it truely hasn’t been the same since Stargate closed.
Stargate R.I.P.
In a perfect world the team would have the integrity to do that, but this is real life, free holiday to japan is a rare opportunity that most people would be crazy to turn up. Considering that the players probably can’t fund this sort of trip by themselves, i’d be surprised if they gave up the prize.
Yeah, honestly, I’d view the trip to Japan as more fun then being able to play in tournies, but the community has to make a stand here- and quite simply, a ban from future tournies is the only response that has any teeth, since as a community, unless people went unethical and tried Scientology-type shit, there’s no way the FG community can hurt PZ that much.
From what I’ve heard from someone who goes there as a regular, most of his business is casual otaku types who generally don’t like hardcore players or SRK that much. They’ve probably buy PZ’s arguments and support him more. So the next step is to go after the beneficiaries. You can’t make someone have integrity, but you sure as hell can encourage/threaten them to do the right thing, even if integrity runs downhill.
I’ll say this- it’s better to lose 1 or 2 players permanently, then have shit like this ever happen again.
let’s get back to the circular argument
- SBO quals, BY THEIR RULES, are determined by a (series of) tournament(s) for that area/region.
- The winner(s) of the area qualifying tourney, ARE THE ONES THAT ARE GOING TO SBO.
- If the winner/winning team cannot go, then the 2nd place winner/team goes, or the team plays with only who is going.
- US quals get what leeway now?
If Showdown Championships was not the SBO qual, then WHICH TOURNAMENT IS?
Because this interview bullshit AIN’T CUTTIN IT. LET THE PLAYERS KNOW WHEN THE ACTUAL TOURNAMENT IS, EMOGEAR.