This obviously came as a result of what went down at VXG, but this was a long time coming. This part is particularly interesting:
Yep. Appearance is important. That VxG has known collusion by top players is a big black mark on the whole FGC.
It’s about goddamn time.
FGC stepping it up.
I’ll say, just do it.
Here are my problems with this…
What’s the difference between someone like Justin or Flocker picking an alternate team or not playing their hardest and the other 2/3rds of the brackets doing the same thing? If you’re going to micro-manage characters and teams to that extent why not make all tournaments character locked? I normally play Vega, as he is my main character. Does this mean that if I were to pick Gief (who I’m competent with but not as good) or Hakan/Juri/Abel/Guy simply because:
A. I know I can’t beat my opponent with my main
B. I know I can beat my opponent with my main but I want a challenge
C. I know I can beat my opponent with my main but I do not want to showcase myself in front of potential future opponents
D. I just spent 6 months training my alt, and I want to hype up the crowd with it
E. Any other reason
…that me as an average player is DQ/warned/infracted simply because I “intentionally under-performed?” Or does this only apply to “top” players?
“Oh well ChrisG repeatedly dropped a combo he normally doesn’t drop.” This implies that all players should play perfectly or near perfectly. Everyone makes mistakes… even those that blame it on monitors. People at all levels of play do wake up ultras, make bad reads, drop inputs, have other things on their mind, don’t care about winning,and/or occasionally just do stupid shit. So to only hold certain players to a higher standard while ignoring the remaining 70% of the bracket either shows favoritism toward “low” and “mid” level players, or that not everyone has to follow the same rules. Both are bad. Yet to hold everyone to this standard is absurd simply because not everyone that enters a tournament knows how they “should” play or even knows how to break the bad habits they have. So how exactly does this argument resolve anything at all? You’d rather people “feint” trying hard instead? What’s the difference between pretending to try hard and not trying at all? Only the perception that it was real.
So lets suppose that 2 people admit to collusion. So what does it matter to any of us that 2 people decided to split the pot and sandbag the finals. The likely answer is revenue. People that stream online get money for advertisements they post. Just as networks get ad revenue from commercials they run. If “top” level players sandbag during the later part of the tournament, then stream numbers go down. Sponsors also do not like this as it hurts the exposure their brands get since fewer people are watching. It probably doesn’t help to have a potential threat of a CEO or other high ranking corporate officer just happen to tune into the stream or get wind that the events are not as popular only to ask the question of “Why are we supporting this?” and then promptly act to shut it down. The evidence of this is that this wasn’t a big deal until a sponsor mentioned it. All of the sudden lots of people started caring.
From my perspective this wasn’t thought out well at all and that it looks like everyone just wants to jump onto the bandwagon that one of the sponsors started. I can understand an admission of collusion, but short of that how are you going to judge fairly? Furthermore, if you threaten to punish collusion, who is going to admit to it? Whether this is simply a problem because of potential stream revenue, tournament sponsorships, or because TOs/sponsors genuinely care about the “sanctity” of the competition, this is ultimately a problem tournament organizers can not fairly solve and still maintain open registration.
It’s pretty obvious when people aren’t putting their all into a match. Nobody in the world is good enough at hiding that. Using an alternate character isn’t cause for getting you banned, but it’s not hard to see when top-level players don’t really care anymore and they sandbag each other.
The issue is not with revenue. It’s about not respecting the tournament and not giving your all. It’s an insult and disservice to the spectators, stream viewers, your fellow players, the TOs, the sponsors, the casters, everybody. It’s showing that you’re not taking it seriously, which completely goes against towards improving the scene as a whole. If the top-level players don’t take it seriously, why would anybody with the means to provide further support (including financial) take the scene seriously as well?
The great irony is that Chris G often states how he wants bigger events and more money to the players and then pulls stunts like this, proving that he really doesn’t give a shit or that he’s too stupid to realize how his actions on the main stage will affect the scene.
I don’t care if you split the pot, just play it like it matters.
So what about the randoms that “top” players fight to make it through pools? Should they be punished for not doing enough research, practicing enough hours, learning set ups, combos, how to deal with pressure, meter management, or life lead/deficit? What about the “top” player that he or she fought that decided to pick an alternate character that isn’t a counter pick? Should they be DQ for not picking their main or not picking a counter pick? Is that not the very definition of “intentionally underperforming” aka… sandbagging? If it’s so easy to tell when someone is not giving it their all then why has no one actually took the time to define it?
And if it’s simply left at the vague discretion of TOs where does the line get drawn? What may appear to be collusion to one TO may not be to another. Is it really the collusion that’s a problem or is it the sandbagging? This is the problem I’m trying to point out. If you’re going to ban an action almost impossible to prove and almost entirely based on speculation… why not have judges and TOs decide the winner of the match instead of the game deciding the winner of the match? I’m sure we can all think of matches where people who should have lost, actually wound up winning even though they were the weaker player.
Should I as a player get the opportunity to call out my opponent for sandbagging as a rule violation to a judge at a tournament? If I am accused of colluding or under-performing, what recourse do I have? It’s just as difficult to prove someone isn’t colluding or sandbagging as it is to prove they are.
This whole thing is subjective. How do you determine if a player is really playing to win? If I wanted to, I could have made this argument about Daigo in AE Top 8 at EVO this year. Not counterpicking against a player and character who 5-0ed him at their last encounter. I still cringe at all those bad reads Daigo did during both of their sets. I’m sure some people tuned off when Daigo got eliminated, especially during that Akuma mirror.
How many times have we seen players drop their finishing combos in Marvel to win the match? Instead of going for the easy finish, they try to swag and sometimes lose the match over it. For all we know they’re catering directly to the spectators who want to see swag combos and OCVs. Not to mention more than half the pro players don’t counterpick against Chris G’s team and get withered away with fists and missiles.
You can’t please the fickle stream monsters and spectators. If they see something they don’t want to watch, they won’t watch it. A serious match may consist of turtling and fireball wars, which may put some of them to sleep, while a player in winners GF might troll, but will entertain the crowd with unknown tech and unseen combos or synergy in Marvel’s case. People went nuts over Hakan at Evo this year.
Won’t be long until majors become like professional wrestling, where matches are scripted and choreographed to please the fans.
So y’all saying that what happened at VxG was legit?
This was a huge problem long before streams, its disrespectful to the people who showed up to the tournament and can put attendance for future events in danger, anyone who thinks this started because of stream monsters wasn’t paying attention to the scene in the early 2000s. It did get worse after streams because there is another layer of disappointment added on to the problem, but to think the problem is due to stream monsters is being misinformed.
Why is everyone who has a problem with this trying to play the slippery slope argument on counter pick and pocket characters, while no one is mentioning that this rule should exist because there was a random select final the last time this issue came up. If people want to object to this rule they should begin by explaining the reasoning why random select grand finals should continue to be condoned.
I think I’ve mentioned this three times online already today, but when the type of matches that this rule is aimed at happen the crowd in the venue knows it, when the crowd overwhelmingly knows it is watching a fake match there should be a unified rule in place to do something about it. People keep making it out like everyone is going to be okay with a match and then a TO is going to say “hey that wasn’t legit” and overrule everyone else, but when these matches happen and you are in the actual venue there are a large number of people who fully understand what is going on and are pissed about it.
As if anyone cares what happened at VxG, I’m surprised ChrisG even bothered to enter the tournament with all the shit happening there, so him colluding to at least get something out of going is hardly a surprise.
Can someone clue me in on what happened at VxG…and of course it had to involve Chris G?
I think some people are over-thinking things, or they just don’t know what collusion is (which is something that absolutely has to be made clear in the rule set).
What do you guys think about having to register the characters you plan to use before the start of a tournament?
Doesn’t matter if it’s VxG or any other tournament, shit like this shouldn’t happen.
Weren’t there…Soul Calibur(or something) finals the one year at Evo where the two guys had obviously pot split and fucked around?
This problem has been around for a while.
Sorry, but what happened at VXG? I’ve been busy, and forgot the tournament happened.
ChrisG and Flocker messed around during Marvel grand finals by picking troll teams and not really playing their best. The match was made worse by grand finals being best of 7.
That should really go without saying, but there will always be someone who takes advantage of a rule not explicitly stated.
LOL, it sounds like something I would approve of actually.
But in seriousness, that’s really fucking corny. I heard about the pot-splitting, which, as people have said, I don’t give a fuck about, but at least put on a show. It’s grand fucking finals for a major streamed event. If it was like WNF’s or something, nobody would give two fucks.