Will TOs do something about this? Or is it just so ingrained in fighting game culture we’re going to continue to pretend it’s not a problem?
After last night’s showing and some matches in the recent past, it’s starting to look like no one takes these offenses seriously.
Back in 2000 when I started playing in tournaments, it was cut throat even among friends. Now it’s all to put on a show which is fine, but not if we pay to enter a tournament that turns into jokes at the climax. No one seems to care, either, because the behavior has pretty much permeated through every event.
Will TOs ever place a rule disqualifying these practices? Or is it just business as usual? Because now that I make a pretty good living, I’m finding less reasons to go spend it at tournaments that are jokes.
Personally, I don’t think anything will change until TOs come up with legitimate consequences for the action. Either that, or delay payment til a few days after the tournament.
Eventually, this will go away til the next time it happens.
you have to consider that there are some occasions where a joke grand finals is actually what the audience wants. the prior week, april duels, Justin Wong used his Iron Fist team because he was urged by the crowd. And there are reactions like the manager of AGE shrugging off the Fanatiq vs Chris G match at final round.
Honestly, this is more about honoring the standards set forth by the Cannons and the evo series. They ran their tournaments, even at a loss, for the love of the game and the genuine desire of determining who the actual strongest player is.
I think the apathy is the result of player personalities overriding everything else nowadays in importance…and the fact that there are so many events now, that top players see each other so often. They’re buddy buddy enough to throw matches for the sake of friendship.
I just want to watch good matches. It’s not my place to tell them what to do with the actual MONEY (that’s the TO’s issue, i guess). I just really want to see them kinda put on a good show
You can’t stop a “pot split” in terms of money; that is going to happen if the players want it to.
They should handle this in two ways; both in terms of rewards and in terms of rules. There should be a rule to prevent sandbagging (see EVO’s yellow cards), and each major should try to give out rewards that are not splittable.
Personal thoughts
All Majors: First place should let you automatically bypass pool play the following year for that game.
Road to EVO: First place lets you bypass pool play at EVO for the game won.
Championship Belts (that the winner of a year has to hand over in a ceremony to the winner of the following year if they do not repeat. That will get people REAAALLY salty.
The swords of Civil War
No idea on other majors though. Maybe really cool trophies?
Then again, I think that all the majors (currently regarded as EVO, NCR, SCR, CEO, Texas Showdown, Final Round, The One in New York Whose Name I Keep Forgetting, and Civil War) should get together and work on a unified set of rules and seeding policies, and then start working together. Imagine if winning a major let you bypass pools in a following major.
Not naming names but let’s just say that if you look at the top-two finishers from most of the major pre-Evo tourneys, there was a lot of pot-splitting going on. I can’t definitively say that it was MORE than today, but it would be difficult for it not to be.
That being said, just because the pots were split, that doesn’t mean people weren’t playing for real. It was still real characters and real strategies. But the pots were split damn near all the time.
I agree with @SuperFreak that this is definitely less about splitting (which is whatever) and definitely more about not playing out your set.
I agree with @Hecatom that this is definitely less about stream monsters and definitely more about how the active player base reconciles with itself the priorities of the community, whether they be growth or cash or entertainment or whatever.
This is just one of the very real growing pains that our community will have to come to terms with. Aside from showing poor sportsmanship and consideration for the players who aren’t, you know, coming out anywhere near even on their trips/hotel and travel costs/vacation days used/etc., the #stAGEd player matches aren’t really breaking any rules, or at least any enforceable ones that TOs will be willing to see through (full disclosure, next year will make a decade for which I’ve been running tournaments and my tournaments explicitly prohibit uncompetitive play at the risk of tournament disqualification). And yes, I will bring TOs into this discussion because rules need to be enforced and we rely on TOs and their staff to do that.
There is definitely a reluctance on the part of the still-really-good-at-games crowd, or the old elite, to take part in a changing of the guard with respect to the culture of the community. There is absolutely an “I can do whatever I want” mindset and back in the day we would resolve this with quarters at the arcade, but it’s just not that way anymore; if you didn’t like the cut of someone’s jib, you just put up however many credits you needed to correct their tone. Regardless of whether we like it or not, that environment does not exist anymore and it cannot exist if we want the huge tournaments and the myriad sponsors and the huge pot bonuses. If we are willing to give up those things, then yes, we can go back to the decidedly Darwinist legacy of the arcade era, but we all know that nobody is willing to do that.
This problem can definitely be rectified by sacrifice on the part of any party, but they’re sacrifices that nobody is going to accept. We could all stop going to tournaments or entering games we don’t like or play to stop funding matches that we don’t want to see. Is that gonna happen? No. We could stop watching streams and subscribing or supporting stream and YouTube channels that broadcast matches we don’t want to see. Is that gonna happen? No. We could stop socially following, donating to or supporting players that play matches we don’t want to see. Is that gonna happen? No. We could stop supporting and attending tournaments run by TOs that allow the playing of matches we don’t want to see. Is that gonna happen? No. And I mean all these "we"s in the very general sense of the mainstream majority.
The overarching issue is that this community wants to have its cake and eat it, too, while trying to remain blissfully ignorant of the changes that are happening more rapidly than NetherRealm Studios game patches. There is always a breaking point, however, and while a few rotten apples may not spoil this bunch, they also may inadvertently work toward the detriment of their fellow players. This is where the C in FGC breaks down; where players and organizers suddenly feel that they are not beholden to anyone. It’s an attitude that has to change if people are serious about fighting games not only growing, but also about fighting games being taken seriously worldwide in the same vein that other genres are.
tbh I wonder if the other players would try harder against ChrisG (in marvel3) if he decided not to share the $$ anymore (at least he seems capable of taking majors without doing it). don’t see it happening anytime soon, but it’s nice to imagine…
that’s pretty much the only thing that bothers me about pot splitting…
Collusion is a pretty slippery slope. People say they have the right to do it because they beat everyone else already. But then whats stopping players who are good friends from colluding with each other in the middle of the tournament?
