I like your thinking here, that thought should be very encouraging to a new player

Yeah, technically they are public in the sense that they are on the ifpa calendar. i have never seen a random show up like what happens at a route where everyone is welcome. I meant private in the sense that they are in a collectors home and only the other players or known entities attend. Thoae events are differnet than the majority of public locatin events which are free to play.

That would be a nightmare for tourney directors. I plan to keep hosting IFPA events next year. If you enter one of my tourneys there will be no choice for the player, their $1 will go to IFPA. If they don't like it then they need not enter.

I'm not supportive of the $1 fee by the way, I think it will hurt side tourneys, but I'm not going to explain to each and every person the details of opting in vs opting out, if they are present they are in...full stop.

Hopefully you also truthfully point out that the same thirty people out of five hundred make up the top sisxteen each year.

Is it really hard to say, if you want to count for IFPA then pay a buck. IF you don't care about IFPA then it is $1 less to participate?

Seems really simple to provide players the choice and seems like the best thing to if you are running IFPA events and want to bring in new people. hive them the option and they may come back nex time and pay the buck???

Yes, because then I'd have to explain to them what the IFPA is and just that conversation could be frustrating when I'm trying to grow involvement from new people. The IFPA and $1 fee and opt in vs opt out sounds complicated to totally new people, I want their expierence to be as simple as possible.

Again, I don't think the $1 fee is going to accomplish what the IFPA believes it will, but I'll give it a shot and see how it pans out. I think side tourneys and charity tourneys should be immune to the fee, but not my call.

Yeah, i can understand just not even telling them at all to keep it simple.

Please for the love of god don’t let people’s opinions on pinside make you think that is what it’s like in the real world.

You’re not far from me. If you want to come have a great time, come and hangout at my place this Saturday for a tournament I’m hosting. Free food and booze. Some great local players will be there too.

Pm me for details.

I'm going to wade in for just a second...

For those people that don't know, part of the underlying thing is for a long time there was a "good ol boys" group of players who worked to basically select the top players and the top tournaments to continually give themselves the best chance of winning. In the early days of the IFPA reboot, the IFPA was really a driving force on trying to change that as much as possible, letting in lots of people to play in simple ways, while creating a system that was solid enough to get the "good ol boys" to more or less adopt it as their own thing while growing the sport. Suddenly, anyone could become a tournament director, submit their own results, and that network controlled less. A lot of people thought this was a good thing.

A big part of this of the current concern I think is this undercurrent that now, the IFPA has suddenly decided to give the good ol boys network a huge cash windfall because they are the best on the state, and I think that's a fair critique. I don't think this was their goal, but I think that the communication of the change, which many tournament directors heard of well after it was already decided, probably wasn't the best way to handle it. Making the decision with the behind the scenes people of the IFPA, which does have many great players in it, makes it questionable to those of us who are being asked to pay into the pot.

BUT, there are two things that seem to have been mostly overlooked by both sides in this. The first is that the IFPA has been run as a business behind the scenes since its inception (reinception?), not just a for fun thing. At some point, the market of tournaments starts to become saturated and needs to grow. This leads into the second point...

A lot more people are top players now. Like, a lot. So this being a pure "good ol boys" move I don't believe.

So everyone is in some ways correct. But threads like this won't change anything. The best players, who are the most vocal about liking the change, aren't going to convince tournament directors that feel burned by the new rules that making the state championship that they are competing worth more that this is suddenly great. Tournament directors aren't going to be able to go back in time to get the communication in a different way that makes it feel like it isn't a good ol boys idea suddenly being pushed.

Ultimately, this is what the IFPA feels is the best way to grow as a business, and I don't necessarily think they are wrong. The Midwest Gaming Classic won't be participating because of weird Wisconsin legality things that I don't care to get into. I spoke directly with Josh about this, and he understands and support it, the same way I understand and support what he is trying to do.

The flip side, and this is what i would encourage tournament directors to think about, is that if you choose not to do IFPA points it does open up new things. For those who haven't been following forever, one of the difficulties the IFPA encountered was that as it grew, certain tournaments abused the formats to try to give themselves more points. This led to format changes with point calculations, and at least for the MGC, made us drastically change how we ran certain tournaments. This year, we get to re-explore formats that would no longer be IFPA legal or would result in almost no points that players used to love.

I expect we will have a few people who won't want to participate because of that, but an equal amount who will want to join in casually because of the change.

My favorite formats are casual, and if you're not going to do IFPA, I challenge you to explore something fun like that instead. As for the IFPA, I hope it thrives, and the nationals become the biggest tournament by money in the country, like they should be!

So you seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand you want to grow the sport of pinball, but on the other hand, you don't want to explain to them what the IFPA is.

If you'll allow me to compare this to the sport of golf, which I happen to know a little bit about, golf has a participation issue. So if I've got someone that is at my golf course to learn how to play, to play casually, to participate in a 'fun' competition or to participate in a competition that's a little bit more serious, I'll talk about my sport all day long to whoever is here. It's NEVER an imposition to talk about ANY aspect of my sport, including what the PGA (Professional Golfers Association) is all about. I need to do that to grow the participation locally. Sometimes it leads to people getting hooked on the sport, sometimes it doesn't.

Pinball is like golf in a lot of ways. A person can go as far along as they want to. You can play in a local beer league, or if you want to test yourself against better players, play in state, regional or national competitions. Play as an amateur or play as a pro. Golf, like pinball, will sort out the best players.

But holy smokes, don't feel put out if you have to explain a pinball association to someone. I'd think you would welcome that, especially if you are running events, and especially if you are a moderator on a pinball forum.

My .02 from someone that loves to play pinball and has been a golf professional, and professional golfer, since 1982.

Sorry. It’s much easier for me to have an IFPA event or a non IFPA event.

If I run an IFPA event, entry is free, but all players must pay a $1 non refundable ifpa fee. Then I submit my results like I always do plus a small payment.

If I run a non ifpa event, it will be free. No fee associated. Then I don’t need to submit anything. Yay!

It’s just like if I run a pinball tournament for 5 bucks. You don’t have to pay the 5 bucks, but you can’t expect me to be okay with you playing without you paying the 5 bucks. All the causal players at my tournaments seem to be cool with this line of thinking. I guess I won’t know for sure until the second Friday in January.

I won't tell them either, just take the $1 off the pot.

For free entry tournaments if the player isn't willing to put in the $1 nor the location or a sponsor etc I wouldn't make it an IFPA sanctioned event. The flip side is if you have a location that is willing to pay the $1 for a free tournament they'll just recruit that player base.

This is why folks become Tournament Directors, so they can run events the way they want them. You have 10 pins and can run a monthly tournament out of your house the way you want to. You can also partner up with a location and run them however you want adhering to the IFPA guidelines if its a sanctioned event of course.

Yep, I do not believe growing Pinball and explaining what the IFPA is and the nuances of opt in vs opt out are the same thing. I have a lot of friends in the legal world that stop by and play, if I had to explain to each one of them what the IFPA is and what the fee is and how it is allocated and why it's legal or not in my state it would be a giant pain in my butt. It also complicates my interaction with them and could get me stuck talking to one person for an hour.

Host a half dozen Pinball tourneys at your house with new people coming (some of which have never played Pinball before, some of which you never met before) and try explaining to them about the IFPA...you may feel differently.

When you are hosting events at your house you worry more about your machines working, where people park, how warm the food is, explaining the actual rules of the tourney, texting with people who are late but are in rout, etc. Explaining the IFPA opt in vs opt out is just not going to happen, for me anyway.

Why would you have to explain anything to folks coming over your house to participate in a tournament. Do you not have any interaction with them prior to coming over and they don't have internet? Just tell them to head to this site: https://www.ifpapinball.com/menu/about/about-the-ifpa/ . You can also print out some copies and hand it to them.

Well, if we're still comparing pinball to golf:

1. I own my golf course and live in an apartment above my pro shop. So every day, for eight months of the year, I have people coming to my house to play golf.
2. I host 16 tournaments and 4 weekly leagues, and have new people coming in daily http://www.hiddenmeadowsgolf.com/2018-tournament-schedule/
3. I have to worry about the condition my course is in, how good my greens are, are my fairways and roughs mowed, making sure my parking lot is big enough to handle the new people coming out to my course every day, how warm the food is and how cold the beer is, explaining the actual rules of each tournament and league, and dealing with people on the phone who are late but are enroute (I don't, and will not, text. Yes, I'm so old I fart dirt, and won't give in to texting).

Yeah, maybe a person could look at it as a pain in the butt, but I don't. And yeah, there are times I end up talking to customers (some are friends in the legal world, some are friends in the medical world, and some are friends from the local mill) for an hour instead of catching up on a bazillion other things that I could be doing. But I certainly don't ever consider it being 'stuck' talking to someone. I am humbled that they would want to talk to me.

I personally take offense to this statement.

Looking forward to it and THANKS!

I clarified further in a later post about being private run events. It was a bit of an emotional response. You do LOTs to promote pinball and always thankful for all tha you do for the community.

The point I was making is that the events already charging entry fees in the state are the ones tha don't have a problem using a portion of those fees to pay the IFPA. That is how it appears based on the TDs that have decided to still run IFPa in the state compared to those that are not.

Hey, I was in Madison last week. Do you have anything to do with Geek Mania Arcade?

Nope. They are a pay to enter model full arcade.

Myself and a few buddies are just regular route operators. We have games out at four bars around town and focus on quality and variety from old to brand new.

My wife and I actually run two monthy IFPA events in Milwaukee at a local bar.

We have been running the tournaments for two years.

Sick of the BS and I don't feel like doing accountant work for Josh in addition to the other tournament responsibilities.

We took a vote of our player base. The majority did not want to pay for points because the tournaments used to be free. A few people wanted points. We offered up one of the tournaments for someone else to take over so they can charge for points. As of yet no one has taken us up on the offer.

So next year one tournament is cancelled and and the other will be non-IFPA.

There used to be 4 monthly IFPA tournaments in Milwaukee. As of right now there will be zero IFPA tournaments in 2018. I believe the other two tournaments are also canceled completely for 2018.

I get out to Fondy about once a year around Thanksgiving, and always spend a day in Madison. Next year I'll look you up.

I will be coming over to support your fun events with Heidi more next year. Thanks for running the fun stuff and sticking to your principles!

Madisonpinball.com for current games list

We also try to keep pinballmap and pinside map up to date.

It's hard for me to believe this is even a thing.

Go play some location pinball and you pump in a buck for 3 balls.

Seriously, wtf!

This is a good data point.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out and if the local bar or player base will change to pay the $1 per player fee. The only time we'll have free tournaments in this area is if there is a sponsor and we're trying to promote something and have schwag to give away..

I'll take this opportunity to put a cheap plug for an upcoming tournament in Neenah, WI on December 30. FREE IFPA points, help a charity, awards!!!! Nobody will be suppressed either!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/last-chance-free-points-grab-tourney-dec-30-neenah-wi

Huh? Where were these illuminati meetings held?

Show up... compete... win. The only "good ol boy" angle was there was a consistent pack of players that were willing to TRAVEL frequently to compete. Now certainly there is an angle of "the tournaments were more convenient to attend for XYZ vs ABC" - yeah well that's the same for everyone because it's a location thing, not a virtual thing. The 'good ol boys' were the top competitors who not only were good, but they were near pinball hotspots and would travel. Look at the PAPA circuit.. the same faces event after event... that's not a fix... that's people making the commitments.

There was no mob controlling what events would get big or draw more players. Putting on big events took resources few had. Few people would travel explicitly for shows besides Expo.. and maybe CalExtreme. Many shows didn't hold truely competitive tournaments.. and the structure to help people learn how to do it effectively wasn't readily available. Call it the "dark ages" if you care... it's not that it was manipulated, it's that it wasn't progressing on its own. The advancement of tools, sharing of knowledge, and products like WPRR helped change the interest level of competing and made it easier for new people to get involved.

This "its all rigged" mindset that keeps brewing out in that area confuses the hell out of me. No one was keeping people from running events, or 'fixing' outcomes. I swear, the amount of drama that comes out of WI, MI, and Chicago distorts the entire pinball continuity at times.

Reality is 99% of this drama about the fee is because there is a vocal population of people who run 'free' events and this challenges their model of getting all the benefits, while running everything as no commitment.

Do you feel you need to run golf events as completely free to even have a shot at making it happen? Or do you think it's reasonable to ask for a few bucks over the normal golf fees to facilitate the event, or provide some sort of payouts/rewards? That's what 99% of this noise is really about.... people thinking if you ask someone to pay a few bucks, somehow that is going to run them all off.

Meanwhile, hundreds of others prove that fear false... yet here we are months later where people still think asking people to pay to play is the apocalypse for participation.

People pay for entertainment!!! It's not just "I won't pay in because I won't win" - but yet some hold onto that as if it were religion.

This is the way to do it.

It's a IFPA event or not... easy enough for all to understand. No need to explain or interrogate player preferences. The event has a simple fee/operating structure and just go. No need for each person to play accountant... play or don't.

Why on earth are people canceling events over this? Just don't do IFPA - why the freaking drama about taking your toys and going home?

If you had a strong tournament... just keep doing it.

Local resturant/arcade here charges $5+coin drop in a weekly strikes tournament. They get usually 30+ people playing... of which probably 60+% of never played competitive pinball before this weekly was setup. They pay out top 3 or 4 people... the vast majority of players won't ever get near the payouts. Yet they keep coming back week after week...

People who keep thinking 'no one will pay' are selling themselves short. If you offer a great experience, people will pay nominal amounts to participate without requiring an expectation to win.

I think too many people have conditioned themselves to be afraid of fees and are scared to death of something that challenges their 'It has to be free or people won't play' theory.

Ruger puts on a top notch event at his house quarterly... and gets upwards of 50 people to come play... with many coming from 150-300+ miles away.... staying overnight no less. People pay $20 to enter. Not because they expect to get their $20... but because they feel they get $20 worth of value and entertainment.

Too many organizers fear charging IMO. I say... If you put on good events and you'll find people will pay.

Attendance has been down for all local tournaments. Not sure why.. crappy route games, over saturation with too many tournaments, divided community over points pay-ola?

We are still keeping one tournament going. Nobody seems willing to carry the torch for the other one. I can't speak to why the other tournaments are being canceled. Similar reasons as above I guess.

Is it safe to say the IFPA is the governing body of competition pinball? Real question.

Once you add money to the equation it ceases to be "FOR FUN"
If something is not FUN why do it?
Oh yeah because there is money involved, and often times I find that brings out the worse in people.

Its a shame that this thread has been allowed to go so far off topic.
The IFPA commenting that "they love this is going on in a Bowen thread" is to me a slap in the face of someone who has done as much for pinball as anyone on this planet.

Exactly why IFPA tourneys are not welcome where I play...

Yeah, I'm clearly just a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist.

But I'm a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist that hosted the relaunch of the IFPA in 2006 at the Midwest Gaming Classic, and who worked for hours directly with the IFPA on creating a more open system

First projected from above pinball machine? That was us! (Although we only did it once!) Multiple format changes and tweaks to encourage new players? That was us too! Both developed with the IFPA directly!

But since I'm from Wisconsin, I must not know what I'm talking about! I like drama!

Yeah, but you're not right. I mean, I'm probably just a moron, but...

Those players would make commitments to certain tournaments. Now, you can say something like clearly those were the best, but there was no specific way to determine what caused a tournament to be great, it was mostly just the top players would decide where they were going.

This led to some difficult things to overcome. Like, why, other than money, would a player bother coming to a different tournament if they knew those top players weren't going to be there?

For players trying to get in and score points, you had to know who the top players were, and which tournaments they would be in ahead of time if you wanted your ranking to be worth much. Larger tournaments (MGC 2009 for instance was bigger than CalEx 2009 by player count) might be worth significantly less points than smaller ones. It was difficult to have any idea how this would go unless you were one of the players going to these places.

If you think this is all a made up thing, and that there wasn't a ton of work put in to help smooth the system over the years, making it better so that new players could play in enough to make it worth their while, sure. I think this was the biggest part of the change, making it so tournaments without many (or any) top players could still make a significant difference. There is a reason small local tournaments are wrestling with this choice, and ten years ago they wouldn't have bothered... And that's good!

The problem is this tin hat wearing conspiracy theorist was there the entire time, and may just know the actual history behind it.

guys, it's just a dollar.

$0.000913242 for every day that tournament result actively counts towards your world ranking.

Depending how it was presented, I honestly think it could be the point thing. You end up potentially dividing the base, and so you either have the half that wants points lose some interest or three half that doesn't lose some interest...

I've seen it a bit with mgc. A few people have asked us what we are doing. Legally, we can't run an IFPA tournament at our show. Josh and I spoke on the phone about it at length and there are no workable solutions that we found. Neither of us are mad, I'd say we're both disappointed, but we also understand exactly why the other is doing what they are doing and it is what it is.

There are a number of people who have told me that without the points, they are far less interested in coming to the show or competing in our tournaments. It's not tons, but it's definitely some. So that potentially lowers the totals.

We're planning to run things a bit differently this year, so it will be difficult to determine if overall tournament play is up or down, but we're monitoring it to see what we can do if this method stays long term.

Could you run an IFPA tournament if you had a sponsor who would pay the dollar for all participants?

Yes.

lol. I was asking Dan specifically. If MGC had someone sponsor the ifpa dollars and kept the tournament free could an ifpa tournament still happen?

You dont run IFPA tourneys where you play because money brings out the worse in people yet the $1 per player per event fee to award points is starting in 2018.

You also mention its a shame this thread has been allowed to go off topic yet your post doesn’t mention anything about Bowen?

I think Bowen is a great guy and yes he is a supressed player but he competes in and runs IFPA sanctioned events and has made no indication he won’t continue this in 2018. He supressed himself in April 2017 days prior to PAPA 20 where he finished 2nd. He helps run Pinburgh which is the largest IFPA sanctioned event in the world. This topic is old news and has been debated to death on facebook and other forums months ago.

seems to clearly be the case from what I have seen. Both the people wanting points and those that specifically dont want to deal with points have lost interest over this. Moreso I think the regional community has evolved and learned that there are different interests in competitive pinball; it is just this IFPA dollar thing that brought it all to a head. The interesting dynamic is that both sides have felt pressure from the other; IFPA side wants people to attend to keep point values up, casual side wants people to attend for fun and hang with friends that they fear will now only go to IFPA sanctioned events. I honestly have no idea what will come from it, but I personally am looking forward to pulling back from the amount of time I invested into a system that no longer agrees with my personal values in the sport. While i dont plan to run any IFPA sanctioned events in the future, I may have to use them to help draw in people that refuse to play for fun now that there is a division? time will tell I guess

I currently host 2 IFPA events in Madison each month which I wont be in 2018.

1 event is switching to non-IFPA and will provide the opportunity to use new formats and have fun with pinball. Team events, maybe some split flipper, likely some critical hit. This one will have no constraints of IFPA or format adjustments intended to add point value to the event. This event will likely evolve over the year as it is in new territory. I think it will be a fun year for pinball in general, am looking forward to fewer sanctioned events and seeing what happens in the local, regional, state scene as TDs and players both figure out more what they like/dislike about the sport and where they want to invest their time.

I predict a few places will pick up and start IFPA sanctioned events and the player base interested in those points will adjust accordingly as the points are still a huge drive for many. I also predict we will see some more casual players return to play that were previously put off by the point hunters (myself included). My only hope is that things continue to grow for pinball on the whole and there are enough players to fill the new niche for both.

My parties are "private" invite events, but... have been IFPA events. The three times we've had tournaments there, only one person had ever showed up without an invite - and he won...

No.

There is a long explanation I'd be happy to explain in email, but I don't want to relitigate it here where armchair quarterbacks like to call me a drama queen for knowing the local laws. I'm good with the state people that I know who work in enforcement giving me the answers.

There is no legal way with the change this year for us to run an IFPA tournament, and based on the actual contracts I signed, it could put me in jeopardy a few different ways. Josh and I spoke about my unique situation on the phone at length, and there is no way around it.

Again, I hold nothing against the IFPA and don't think the change is terrible, I'm just in a unique situation. As the birthplace of the modern IFPA, it is going to be disappointing to not be able to host an IFPA event this year.

Having said all that above, it's going to allow us to make some format tweaks to make our tournaments run in fun ways that are no longer IFPA compliant. Like a return to the original Clock Chaos format is being discussed. It was drastically changed to comply with IFPA rules a few years ago. Pingolf has a tweak planned we think will make it even more competitive, but would disqualify it entirely as an IFPA event.

And again, that's what I suggest for other tournaments to think about doing. There are competitive options out there that may appeal to new players more in particular that wouldn't apply for many or any IFPA points in the old method. These formats may draw in local players just by the fact they are different, and then everyone wins.

Its the best solution we could come up with.

Just like Matt Damon.

rounders (resized).jpg

Tom, you could likely run an under the tabel IFPA event at MGC (without Dans knowledge )

Just post it up and organize it and I bet all the competitive people sign up to play.
I thought about doing it this year before the change to IFPA was announced.

You could pick 12 games spread around the convention center, talk with the owners in advance to get their OK, and then run a selfie event. Players are allowed unlimited play for all day saturday and they take photos of high scores (probably need a rule that you can only play 1x on a game before going to play a different game and this could be verified by time stamps on photos submitted to a special set up FB page) to turn in by 8pm. Compile all the socres using never drains software (heck, make each registered player and admin and require self entry fo scores by 8p to count; other players will police each other for honesty and socre entry accuracy). Run your playoffs on Sunday

Could be a way to get around it all and still have a tournament at MGC. I mean if Dan and MGC are not affiliated with it (and dont know about it ) then it could all happen.

Hide and go seek selfie tourney...

I don't know that it is they have lost interest so much as they are becoming two separate player bases that each look for something different.

I mean, not to toot my own horn, but the MGC by player count has been a top ten tournament countrywide for years now, but we have never been about trying to attract the top players. We worked directly with the IFPA to help develop ways to make it so that new players could just have a blast playing. It didn't help that PAPA was on our dates for many years, or that we lost the ability to give any prizes, but neither of those affected our attendance.

A lot of tournament formats were based directly around maximizing IFPA points which has made what you can do with those formats more and more limiting, because a lot of places worked their formats to ensure they would be worth the absolute most points instead of ensuring they were super fun first. I think in those groups where the question was asked of the dollar, a lot of players took it not as just a dollar, but the choice between more relaxed, casual play and more serious play. Before, that choice wasn't really acknowledged. Now it is, and that has changed the dynamic for some players.

There is nothing that turns me off more than a good player complaining that they aren't getting enough for something I have been just having fun doing, and I think the places that allowed that vote have exposed that rift a bit.

Well, and here's the thing... More of this stuff should happen! I personally have little to no interest in playing in "traditional" tournaments, which are the ones now that qualify for the IFPA points. I don't want to spent six hours playing I'd rather play for an hour. I will fully admit that those methods don't prove my skills as much, but I'm not so concerned about that.

There is an underserved market of people like that. Different formats can and should be introduced to try to better serve that market without the IFPA points.

If everything works out, what actually happens is you have a bunch of casual, fun, public tournaments that serve as the gateway to the more serious IFPA tournaments. In that case, the playing group divides and does both smaller this year, and then they both grow in the future, which is what I honestly think will happen.

We just need to get over the initial rift and for that I simply say players, give both sides a shot. Don't write off tournaments that don't do IFPA points as worthless and see if they are fun enough to be worth your money anyway. And don't write off IFPA tournaments as worthless until you play in them and see what it's like. They will probably become more serious with less of them, which should ratchet up what certain people really love about them. If they do, everyone wins.