Is that hard to believe? I already have 6 results tagged for this year, which should shortly be 8 assuming one old one gets unclogged from wherever it's been hiding and the tourney I went to on Saturday. Assuming same pace for rest of the year it would put me right around 33. I've missed several events already due to a schedule change at work also. Seems he's saying their top 50 are on their way to an average 33 events this year. Which is kind of crazy. I would bet most of our TX folks probably end up around the 20-25 mark for the top 16 in-state, and below the top 20-25 players that number is going to DRAMATICALLY crater to 5-10 events.

they are on track to average that amount. We have 26 people in the top 50 that have 8 or more events at this time. that would put them on track for 32 or more to end the season. We have one person with 21 tournaments right now that would put them on track for 84 to end the year! We also have 18 with 10 or more events all ready which puts them all on track for 40+ events for the year.

I assume your numbers are right but it still seems off to me. It's the 15th week of the year so anyone with more than 15 events is playing more than one event per week. Weekly tournaments I guess ?

Uh, are you agreeing with me or not ? As you said, our top players are doing 20-25 events a year so yes, I think 33 is a bit high especially for an average.

The analysis was on 2016 data. Yes, the 2017 results will likely be different, and very likely to be higher than what was observed in 2016. My goal was not to predict 2017 or 2018, but to describe 2016.

You can't cherry pick extreme outliers in your state to claim they are "the average representation" of the player base. The unfortunate truth is that the typical player does not attend thirty tournaments in a year. As I explain in the analysis, 75% of all players in 2016 (at a national level) played in 5 or fewer tournaments.

Here is a vector of the number of events attended by the 177 AZ players in 2016.

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,8,8,8,9,9,10,10,11,12,12,13,13,14,16,16,18,18,18,19,19,20,21,26,34,34,38,39,44,49,55,59

Yes, if you take a subset of your highest activity players, your mean $/year value will be much higher. But they are outliers in your dataset--the majority of players simply don't attend that many events. (For what its worth, the mean value of the highest activity 50 players for 2016 is $15.76.)

And no, I did not "skew the stats to say what I wanted," I did what any sane statistician would do. Further, I reported both the mean and the median. I explained that the median was better to use in this case because of extreme outliers, which you can clearly see in the AZ data above. If you wish to look at the mean, it is there for you to observe. Even if you go with the mean, the numbers are still very modest.

If you think my computations are wrong, I encourage you to examine the code and data on github and double check my results.

a lot to wade through between the 2 threads in the past few days, but I don't understand the above statement. how does the governing body (the IFPA) make it sound as if the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing here?

the way that I read the above is that the PAPA event made us (the IFPA) pay a fee to us (the IFPA) to earn circuit points. yes, I realize that what josh probably meant was that PAPA was the first event forcing the [players] to pay a sanction fee of $5 per player to earn circuit points, but again that seems pretty not well thought out. it's like going to disney world and after paying your entry fee, they decide to charge you (after the fact) to ride the rides

That statement was made in context of me being a TD that had to deal with a player fee similar to what we plan on imposing.

I just wanted to provide an example that I personally had to go through to help explain that I know what it will feel like to handle logistically.

It seems like if this entire $1 had been reframed as an "Admin fee to support IFPA infrastructure, some of which will be used for prize pool at state and national level, at IFPAs discretion" almost all the controversy would have been avoided.

https://img.gifamerica.com/85c588a29c8804b1e95223ed060880e7_one-dollar-bob-on-make-a-gif-one-dollar-bob-gif_320-180.gif

but yet those players combined are paying almost half of the total prize pool and also the most likely to be turned off by this new fee.

$75 generated from 1 event players
$50 from 2 event players
$45 from 3 event
$40 from 4 event
$180 from 5-10 event

a combined $390 from 1-10 event players
(total of 153 players)

$566 from 11+ event players (total of only 24 players)

clearly shows that the people NOT playing for SCS (153) far out number the ones serious about playing for SCS (24). They are asking 87% of the casual playing population to fund over 40% of the prize pool.

Would liek to see the vector fo WI events/players form 2016
(I have no idea how to pull it)

I keep coming up with the fact this could be considered gambling. These changes, could possibly turned this into a "pay to play" system.

You ever get those McDonald's Monopoly pieces on your meals? Well, McDonald's allows people to play the Monopoly game by not purchasing anything filling out a form. They do this so it's not considered a lottery or gambling.

http://blog.rafflecopter.com/2015/04/no-purchase-necessary-giveaways/

Just food for thought

At a national level, 75% of the low activity players (1-5 events/year) are contributing 25% of the total pot. Not an insignificant amount, but far from the majority.

Here is your data for WI:
1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,11,11,11,11,11,12,12,13,13,13,13,13,13,14,14,14,15,15,15,16,16,16,17,17,18,19,19,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,26,26,27,27,27,30,30,30,30,30,32,32,32,32,32,33,34,35,36,36,37,37,40,40,42,44,44,45,46,48,50,52,58

Just like the national average, 75% of the players in Wisconsin played in five or fewer events in 2016. They also would have contributed about 22% of the pot.

thanks for the index.

5 or less is a pretty low bar for 'casual' IMO. Given the amount of events, attending 1-10 is pretty casual. Keep in mind that many times 2-3 events happen in a single day at a single spot. 5 nights out of playing pinball in a year is pretty casual.

The unfortunate truth is that if you want compete at SCS you must enter thirty tournaments a year in AZ. The people that are playing one to two tourneys a year are those who just happened to be at the arcade at the time and dont care about ifpa. No one outside the top 50 will be competitive for SCS. So that is the base of people I am comparing. Why include the 1's and 2's if they are not going to be a part in the end for SCS. Also I bet most of those 1's and 2's fall off if we start charging anything. As of rigth now its free and they are all ready at the arcade. bottom line is if you want to compete for the SCS more than likely you must compete in around 30 tourneys or just be really good and do very well in the couple of big ones.

I'm going to tell my son to quit swimming, because he can't win and won't progress up the competitive ladder, so he might as well quit and not bother.

using the 2016 WI data some interesting facts:
474 unique players.
406 players that played in 10 or under events (casual) would have accounted for $992 of the prize pool. These are the people most likely to be lost from IFPA events under the new fee based structure. In other words, WI stands to discourage over 85% of the current competitive pinball population from playing in future IFPA events. I term this as a bottom up errosion of the player base and bad for pinball.

68 players that played in 11 or more events (pro) would have accounted for $1762 of the prize pool

Digging a bit deeper with another important data point...
The minimum # of events played by ANY 2016 SCS attendee was 25. If we use that as a split point, then you have the following:
439 players played in 24 or less events (i.e. little to no chance statistcially of even making SCS or a chance to win back any funds) and accounted for $1503 of the prize pool
35 players played in 25 or more events (i.e. had a reasonable shot of making SCS) and accounted for $1251 of the prize pool

This means that in WI, we would be asking for 92% of the playing population to pay in to a prize pool that mathematically ONLY the top 8% have a shot of recouping any funds.

That 92% of the population would be contributing 54% of the total prize pool.

At the same time, WI would have double and in some cases triple the prize pool of adjoinging states (MN and IL in particular), so now there is greater monetary incentive for people from adjoinging states to travel out of state for only the big events and thus be eligible for a prize pool in excess of $2250 at SCS.
I see this as a top down erosion of large events and ectually creates an incentive for in state TDs to NOT create large IFPA sanctioned events but rather to focus more on smaller regional events which dont promote the larger aspect of the sport and influence travel.

It all becomes a bit of a sticky wicket. Interesting to look at the numbers.

poor comparison, as I assume your son is not paying into a prize pool for a state or national champion each time he goes to a swim meet?

There are dues for competitions and meets. I have no idea where that money goes. All I know is it doesn't come back to my pocket (or my son). Probably funds those damn elites trying to get into the olympics. F them.

Yes he does pay into a 'prize pool'. The club, the LSC (state level org), and USA swimming all take cuts from money raised at swim meets.

The money goes to cover travel for the sectional and national level meets for the clubs as well as funds travel and training for the Olympic swimmers.

Some of the Olympic swimmers even get stipends for training exclusively. Ryan Locthe got money for this.

So yes here is an example of how 'casual' swimmers pay for the Olympians, and no one complains about it. (Well they don't pay for all of it, and I'm sure there are people who complain about it too, like Frolic. But you get my point.)

And by the way, even in WI there are entry fees into swim meets and sometimes trophies.

I joke that I picked swimming for my kids because I figured, how much could it cost? All he needs is a swim suit. Boy was I wrong.

But I'll put in a plug for my son, he got a swimming scholarship starting this fall.

I was being facetious for anyone that didn't catch what I was up to.

And yes, competitive anything costs money, and we do it because it is fun and my son enjoys it.

Congrats to him, that is awesome. I brought up swimming because it is something my son just started doing, and he enjoys it.

You are worried about discouraging players from competitive pinball who, by your own definition, are not that into competitive pinball?

The good news is that you can easily manage those 70 active players with a google sheet! No custom website required.

Guess I should have used the facetious font too, sorry I was trying to be funny. I have no idea how you Canadians fund swimming but assume its the same way we do.

Keep it up as long as he likes it, its good for him all around.

My son leaves tomorrow for a Grand Pix event in PHX this weekend, so thanks to all the swimming parents here for helping to pay his travel costs!!!

Back to Pinball...

I'm the new TD for the Atlanta Head to Head League. I doubt the dollar will bother anyone in the leagues or tournaments here.

But in general they don't like change. I started using Matchplay and asked everyone to use thier phones and you should have heard the graoning. Sounded like a pinside topic!

The biggest issue with this topic is change, not the dollar, not the legal issues, not the admin work. It is change itself.

They'll get over it. We just started using it this year for our leagues and stuff and while there were a few tiny hiccups, overall it's been MUCH preferred to "Hey some guy has the matches on his tablet what are we playing?!"

Should players who only play in one or two events have a shot at the SCS? Is that a fair test of skill? Most would say no. For what it's worth, I wouldn't be opposed to having a cap on the number of events that contribute to a players state ranking, similar to how the world rankings are computed.

It's a dollar, but it's not.

If I play 7-8 events a month, which is typical for me, that's $96 a year for what? Nothing.

If you feel so free about sending money to others, then just send me a $100 in the spirit of "making it worth it." Yeah, that doesn't sound realistic does it? neither does the dollar off every event. IFPA doesn't provide the games or the venue, so why would we pay them?

When I pay a $5 entry fee at a local tourney, I know that money is going to someone with whom i competed at that event. I flat out don't care about SC tourneys or the like. Yeah, it's fun being rated, but when it comes down to that $1, I guess that's what IFPA feels my membership is worth, because I will not play in a tourney where the proceeds are not all paid locally or have hidden agendas for big shot players elsewhere.

I guess the pinsnobs can slap themselves on the back for cleaning up the game...SMDH.

Just like the $1 when this goes into effect!

Any player that played 10- events are considered casual players. The players typically play pinball for fun and care little for SCS.
Any player that played 11-20 events are considered mild interest players. Dedicated, but not serious about making SCS.

Any player that played in 20+ events was actively trying to make the SCS.

So based on that understanding, here is how different groups would have contributed to IFPA Nationals and WI SCS in 2016.

404 Players played in 01-10 events accounted for 990 entries, which equals $990 collected, with $742.50 (WI) & $247.5 (IFPA)
29 Players played in 11-20 events accounted for 421 entries, which equals $421 collected, with $315.75 (WI) & $105.25 (IFPA)

Total Casual portion: 433 Players created 1,321 entries, which equals $1,411 collected, with $1,058.25 (WI) & $352.75 (IFPA)

16 Players played in 21-30 events accounted for 424 entries, which equals $424 collected, with $318 (WI) & $106 (IFPA)
14 Players played in 31-40 events accounted for 488 entries, which equals $488 collected, with $366 (WI) & $122 (IFPA)
7 Players played in 41-50 events accounted for 319 entries, which equals $319 collected, with $293.25 (WI) & $79.75 (IFPA)
2 Players played in 51-60 events accounted for 110 entries, which equals $110 collected, with $82.50 (WI) & $27.50 (IFPA)

Total Serious portion: 39 Players created 1,341 entries, which equals $1,341 collected, with $1,005.75 (WI) & $333.25 (IFPA)

The Grand Total collected $2,752, with $2,064 (WI) & $688 (IFPA)

433 Casual Players contributed $1,411, which is 52.27% of the total collected. This group averaged $2.45 per person per year.
39 Serious Players contributed $1,341, which is 48.73% of the total collected. This group averaged $25.91 per person per year.

472 Players contributed $2,752 in total.

The average cost to play all IFPA events by groups

404 Players playing 01-10 events averaged $2.45 a person per year (Casual just wants to play pinball)
29 Players playing 11-20 events averaged $14.52 a person per year (Interest in points & Interested in being ranked via SCS)
16 Players playing 21-30 events averaged $26.50 a person per year (Very Interested in points & Serious about earning SCS spot)
14 Players playing 31-40 events averaged $34.86 a person per year (Serious into points & Serious about earning SCS spot)
7 Players playing 41-50 events averaged $45.57 a person per year (Hardcore into points & Hardcore SCS)
2 Players playing 51-60 events averaged $55 a person per year. (Hardcore into points & Hardcore SCS)

Take these numbers as you wish. They are just numbers.

Marcus

I think a lot of this math makes assumptions about how people will report results to the ifpa right?

I believe in the other thread, ifpapinball said a group could just report their year results once and only pay the $1 per person per year. Maybe I misunderstood that.

This is absolutely correct. In fact our old WPPR system limited locations to only submitting annually. If they submitted more than once a year, their points would be divided out by however many events they held.

Rather than shifting back to that 'old way', we leave that option open to the individual tournament directors to figure out. They are more than welcome to submit annually which would make the fee $1 per player per year.

You are partially correct. A TD who runs 12 tournaments per year could conceivable treat all events like a single event and only submit once to the IFPA. This single would cost a lot less in fees, but it would also be worth a lot less WPPRS.

Wait a second, now I'm confused. You're saying I can submit the results of my monthly tournaments all at one time, and they'd still be worth full value?

7/8 a month?!

Has to be a typo. 7-8 Events per month would make JNX one of the top 20 most prolific players in the entire IFPA database. Like top 99.9999th percentile.

So you've been able to enjoy all the IFPA has done so far for absolutely nothing and now you want to bitch bitch bitch because in the course of the year ~$70 might go to someone in your state? Seriously? Why not just opt out, problem solved.

Edit: over the line. sorry about that.

yup, numbers that perfectly demonstrate IF you are trying to build pinball nd the sport of competitive pinball, then it seems rather obvious not to forcibly charge people $1 so they can fund the prize purse for the top 8% in the state and top 1% in the nation...

I stated openly that i would pay $5 fee directly to IFPA.

I disagree with the payoff lottery/ tax/ redistribution system.

Apples and oranges

weekly events are for IFPA points, correct? 4

The local selfie league plays for points every other Saturday. 2

The monthly tournament makes another. 1

Am I misunderstanding which events would be taxed/ pay the fee?

Now change the RIDICULOUS rule that results in someone from Chicago and then Oregon being the Ga. State Champ the last 2 years. Talk about killing incentive for local players....

Josh clearly doesnt care about growing the game nationally since he allows ringers from other states to come to Ga. every year to kick our ass and leave with our state trophy. Lemme guess - its the same 35 people every year at the Nat. championship.

It depends, if the single has 100% TGP and has a large amount of folks who played in atleast 6 tournaments it could be worth more..

It depends on how the TD submits them to the IFPA. A weekly league might only get submitted once at the end of a season.

I just wanted to clarify I wasn't exaggerating, but might have misunderstood which events would count. I thought it was anything submitted for points.

Yes.

I was comparing our old way of having that 25 point base value for the year regardless of the number of events.

Under the current system you're limited by TGP (max 100%). So there's room to optimize if you run monthlies that grade out to 32% each to submit them quarterly and not lose any value. Beyond that you would be giving up value (if you submitted annually for example).

Those data are from 2016...when there was $0 fee. The vast majority of your player base was clearly content to casually play in a few tournaments per year. They were never going to become highly competitive players. Maybe with the new policy you lose a few of these casual players because they refuse the horrible injustice of contributing a few dollars to the state purse in exchange for entry into a local event? So what? They aren't your target audience. Or more likely, the added prestige of the state championships will drive a different set of players to cross over to the next level-- ones who actually have a competitive spirit and a drive to win.

The attrition rate in competitive pinball is just terrible--why defend the status quo? I trust Josh Sharpe's judgment on how to build a competitive player base.

The longer I stay on the competitive side of things, the more and more I keep coming to the conclusion that people are intrigued by competitive pinball because it seems "easy" to just play a game and potentially win money and prizes. The average "player" has no inkling at all of advanced flipper skills, nudging, and all the things that someone can actually LEARN to be good. They just want to flip the ball and play, and you can't win like that....unless you're Daniele. I placed well for a long time playing that way but even I've had to succumb to more controlled play to improve. It took me like...2 years to win my first tournament? Most people aren't going to have the stomach for that kind of torture, to either just get outright SMASHED or not-quite-there'ing it for two years...instant gratification society and videogames have taken their toll in this regard. I think ultimately, competitive pinball is going to need some kind of handicapping system that's universal to entice new players to stay 'in' until their skills improve to an actual competitive level. Otherwise, we're going to keep seeing the massive churn and dropout rates from newcomers.

really? LMFAO. Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

Competitive spirit=/= sitting there and taking it

Whether it's pinball, or more importantly, life itself; I'm absolutely fine with my will to win and drive for results. But we're just talking about a hobby, right? Now all of the sudden we're judging people's character over a discussion of principle and a topic upon which, most of the participants( payers) have been given no say in the verdict.

We can agree or not, and that is just fine. Stop it with the personal shots. You're better than that.