So I was speaking with Brad about this subject at Battlefield this weekend, and because we do so many events and contract 40+ groups a year to setup all their gaming we tend to see a lot of the issues in the industry with all the groups out there that are trying to start up or the ones that have been in the game for a long time.
I have seen quite a lot of this over the years, little guys getting big and random people trying to get into the scene and hurting the other little guys trying to do something good for all of us. with that all said this is what I spoke to Brad about.
We had recently worked with an event group that is relatively new, they made a real heavy rookie mistake by listing guaranteed amounts for payouts but never had that money in the bank somewhere, it was all based on attendance - which is fine, but there was nothing to indicate “Attendance requirement” for the payouts.
Naturally, the event occurred and during this time myself and the other gentlemen working on SRK/Zaibatsu community events felt it prudent to collect and handle the money ourselves from the players as I also did for the few shooters groups there and we paid those out immediately when those tourneys ended.
SRK/Zaibatsu community tourneys were smooth, well attended and everyone had fun - that was not the problem.
The main focus of this event was the Smash community - perhaps this is not the venue to point these issues out - but if you bare with me you may see the same issue I see and then I will rest my case and let you guys what is prudent in this situation.
At the conclusion of the Smash tourneys which were running singles for Melee and Brawl as well as teams for Melee and Brawl none of the payouts were available…The organizer came to me and told me he had no money…
I pulled him aside and made him count out all the funds he received from the entrants and the door. my understanding was a simple one…why would you not have enough money if the entries are all here. he then showed me his guaranteed payouts for each placing which started at $1250 for 1st in each catergory, the amount of entries were no where near these numbers - so he paid out half the entries to the players and less then 1/3 to those in 4th and tied in 5th place…
I at this point was furious and had him count every cent he received through the event. This is Saturday…
his intention at the time was to just pay half and leave it at that. some of the players were in the room at this time while I slowly but calmly pounded the notion at him until he understood he has to fix this problem. He decided that Sunday, since it was full brawl day, more players will come and that will solve the money issue, the numbers did not add up unless he was receiving more then an additional 200 players on sunday, he only got 89 - many of which had been there all weekend long so no extra door fees.
I got him in the end to consider paying in pieces the remaining amounts to the players before his next event. he begrudgingly agreed and I got the players which included some of the best that had come to support this show to agree that he will be paying them, and I guaranteed he would and gave out my number so that if they had trouble with him they could call me and I would help get in contact with him to light a fire under him.
I saw a lot of these players recently @ Pound 4 and asked the question, have you been contacted, has anything been paid? Nothing…
I kept trying to reach the organizer he of course has stopped communicating.
When I finally got him on the line he wanted to argue with me about what we brought to his event and how he does not want to pay GPX…I had a contract with this event because they are a for profit organization - it makes sense for me to charge him appropriately for those services, after arguing with him over the phone as to why his shooter side failed (because he didnt promote) he agreed that we brought him more then was promised and never charged him for it - because I wanted him to be successful and I hate the question “do you have this game” and we answer “sorry no” I prefer to have it and make someone happy then not be prepared, even if the event only ordered 8 copies of MW2. We had one screwup on our end which was all our copies of Halo 3 were at another event so I asked if I needed to buy more since his staff told me they had over 15 copies there (we provided 8 setups). when it came time to put the games on, those 15 copies were gone, I asked again should I go buy you some copies - mind you there was no one there for this game…Str8 Rippin (top rated halo team) came through and one of their players came to me and asked me where are all the players - I stated to him no clue bud, we just setup for the show it wasnt our event. he told me he was headed to our lan center back in miami for the competition we were having the next day, we pounded it out and they left - 1 team showed up…
Friday night when they were to lock up the space, the organizer and some of his staff remained in the event space and played games through the night, in the morning our network hub was damaged (the ports were torn out) and the cables had the clips on the caps pulled out…??? when I asked who was in the space when we closed he told me no one…my assistant had gone back to check if maybe they were still locking up because we needed another console from inside the room for our after party - this was roughly 1am - they were all in there on our shooter setup playing games…so he lied to me about this. then wanted to tell me how it was all my responsibility and he was not liable for damages to my equipment…he should of read my contract.
despite these issues - the organizer wanted to try and get out of paying us our contract.
We told him not to pay us…it was chump change - to use that money to pay the players he had not paid yet - @ the event when this issue was all coming to light we forewent our fee for the next event in February to help him pay those prizes.
So what I understand now is that roughly $3000 in payouts is still not paid - us as a company had to forfeit our pay to help out those prize payouts, which have yet to be paid - confirmed by every player that was to be paid to me on the weekend of 1/16/10 (Pound 4).
Here is why I am posting here.
I have a theory that if he runs his next event which will not include GPX or our other associate to run fighters he will focus on the Smash community and attempt to run events for fighters and shooters. Because the smash community to a degree has a bad taste in its mouth he may not get the same support as he did, but because everything was smooth on the srk/zaibatsu side because of us, most will attend and if he needs to pull money to make things right on the smash side it will come from the srk/zaibatsu side.
wow that was a mouthful.
I have tried to keep some names out of this for now because my problem was knowing what I know about this group - I feel it is my responsibility to state something to help prevent what could happen as opposed to not say anything, the event occurs, money gets taken or burned and I could have said something. So now I share in the responsibility of this event cheating others out of their money.
Its tough being in my spot as an organizer because I dont want to put people on blast for nothing and I have made mistakes in my past that I have had to work hard to fix and make sure they dont happen again - but nothing like $3000 in the air for players that travel from all over the US to get screwed over. and then not communicate.
There was one player I spoke to that was very polite and forgiving with his prize payout because he knows the organizer and told me about his situation with work and that its hard for him to pay…
I told him I thought he was really nice, but all that is irrelevant, you might be nice enough to let it go, but your winnings are in the $150 mark what about the dude who is out $600 of his winnings…
Facts for now:
multiple players were paid a portion of their winnings some less then 1/3
$3000 in winnings is not paid
GPX forfeited its fee ($500+$184 remainder in travel) for use to pay prize payouts
I spoke with the hotel, the hotel would have worked out a payment plan with him to payout their facility, he could of used the money he had to pay prizes. he also had money he exclaimed to me was to pay back someone else he owed money to - not sure what portion of the door and prize money went to that, but he had it to pay out and did not.
So there you have it.
its in your hands now.
