We're making it clear here

It's why we've posted the details 9 months in advance. If some things aren't clear we can use these upcoming months to help make it more clear for everyone.

https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=17629#

Let's examine further the 1% charge the whiners keep putting forth. Here are some of the world rankings that made it to Nationals.

249
268
320
415
441
584
594
957
1160
2442
3107
3888
4384
4762
13671

I really don't see the big deal here. $1 per league/tournament is like an additional $12/yr. I would gladly pay that to support the top players and competitive pinball in general.

I don't think passionately discussing something that's opposite of your opinIon needs to be phrased as "whining", does it?

I qualified for nationals and couldn't make the trip. I'm currently 3,127th.

I will say I really thought nobody on pinside gave a shit about this stuff and clearly I was wrong.

Yay competitive pinball!

What does the yearly total submission VS monthly submissions do for points? Does the single submission value out at 12x the WPPR points? Or do you come up shorter because you only submitted once?

I'm assuming you're just expecting submission of the final standings for the season, so it would be 1 event of (X) people worth the standard amount of points for that size event. So if the league players are trying to climb the WPPR ladder, they'd rather submit each monthly (which would cost the original assumed price) -- no?

It hurts monthly that report month to month more then a league that reports much less. and it leads to people being able to scoop the cash by just playing in the big events and not even doing the smaller monthly ones.

There should be a difference from small to big events or something to make the % take out more even for say an $5 per player event vs say an $20 per player event.

This also makes so that an $5 per player over 12/mo reporting each month puts in a lot more the one that does the same but only reports 1/2 times a month.

If say an monthly over a full year only needs to kick in say $1-$3 per player. Over the full year MAX.

How many of them played just one or two events in Wis?

Not everyone was born into WPPR privilege.

These guys took it upon themselves to create this and it provides something fun to track your progress. Now they are asking to help them raise the awareness of pinball by helping fund larger prize pools for their system. Maybe it's the worst idea ever. But maybe it will do something.

Obviously people care about the WPPR's because they would not be here protesting. I am willing to accept this idea as a way to help out the guys who have helped pinball by creating this. The WPPR system is part of the fun , whether people admit to it or not. I guarantee most of the people saying they don't care are looking up their ranking. I know , because i am one of them.

You have been getting something enjoyable for free. Kick in a buck! Or just go about your business playing pinball.

Is that going to be a state wide vote? When does Wexit happen?

The problem is the mixed messages being sent out depending on who you pay attention to. For Bowen (and PAPA?) it's all about how every single pinball player should be encouraged to be a competitive pinball player. Even the ones who suck. IFPA is clearly trying to gear this more toward serious players and WPPR whores. I really do think both goals can be accomplished but there might have to be some divvying up of the players.

I don't have a lot of tournaments on my IFPA profile but the ones I do have were NOT free to get into.

Usually by this point in an argument people have forgotten.

I nominate you. I hear website building of this type is really easy, and processing results from 1000s of tournaments a year is even easier. I'm sure your free service will be a smash hit.

When he's done with that he can head over to Stern and bang out that KISS Kode everybody says can be done in a couple days.

So why not do a yearly dues? I play in a pool league and it's $25/yr to be a member. You could also set the maximum a person can put into the pot a dollar per event at $20 or something.

No no no!!! You have to be morally outraged on behalf of everyone's dollar for every event, otherwise you can't make it sound like people are being fleeced (which of course they are not).

It been said that a membership system is very hard to administer, as well the IFPA isn't out to make money here how are they to redistrubute these funds fairly to each state especially since many of us play out of state and province, they are simply collecting monies and then 100% fully distributing them back into each state and province every year to make it a really clean transaction, they are a essentially a bank without fees, lol...

But the IPFA system will be that you report each monthly even it's $1 per player per event vs say a monthly where each event add's up the finales with one reporting date. Where that hurts people who can't make it each month and makes it to you need to do good at each month vs being able to just win 1-2 months. Or am I getting that part wrong.

This also is bad for events that are free as some people don't want to deal with the issues of paying out / taking cash in.

It really depends on the TGP of the league meetings.

If you're playing 100% TGP events every month, then you leave a ton of WPPR value on the table because you're already at max TGP.

If you're playing 12 events that are each 8% TGP, you literally get the same amount of WPPR points submitting annually (at 96% TGP).

Ultimately this is the push-pull that TD's will have to decide with their player base. Do you submit 4 times a year because that lines up with TGP maximization, and lowers the percentage that we take with the endorsement fee? In our league we meet every month, but only submit once per year. We leave TGP on the table but we "don't care". We will NOT be sending $420 to the IFPA, we'll be sending $35.

If the players want to climb the ladder by submitting more events for more points, that's the CHOICE to be made by those individual player groups. The endorsement fee comes into play based on how that community wants to proceed, but we're totally flexible in accommodating how that community wants to report those results.

not an exit. moreso the possibility of another option.

It obviously does not involve you since you dont run events in WI.

I don't think it is whining from a large part of the people who oppose this, but some of them, their vitriol and deeply insulting charges, it's making me rethink where I will play in future for sure. And after all, it's a dollar. I know there are some who wish to add up all the dollars to make it sound like a huge amount that benefits only a tiny group, but the group really isn't that tiny, and as I've posted, there are people who are ranked well south of 2000 that have a shot at not only cashing at the state level, but the national level as well.

And as I've additionally pointed out, any one of us posting here who also plays darts, bowls, plays golf, none of them seem to have any moral outrage at funding multi million dollar tournaments for the 'elites' when they buy their equipment.

No idea. I guess we will find out what players think at MGC. Maybe a survey.
How many events in MN are cash based vs non cash based?
When people show up to play and now a TD has to ask for a buck what will the reaction be? I don't have the answers. It maybe positive. It maybe negative. It may result in tourneys with 20 people only submitting for 5. It may result in people maybe not returning to an event.

I don't see this move by the IFPA as a cash grab. I see it as s way to level out the legimacy of the WRRP. My thought is they are trying to eliminate the amount of submissions for tournaments they fell don't measure up to the status quo. In this respect, it's a positive to lower submissions. It doesn't take a high IQ to see that.

I don't care if my rank is 230 something in the world but I do care how well I am going VS individuals in my state for the SCS.
I will never be a top 100 player. I just don't have the ambition or investment to go to other states to play pinball. I think a majority of people in my state feel the same but I can't speak for everyone. From the people who have posted in this thread, we are the TDs in WI running events. The consensus seems to be the change is not a good one for us IMHO.

I think my meaning is very plain. The charges that only the elite cash are totally without merit. If you want to examine each state's top 16 qualifiers (or more accurately to include how far they went down to fill out the bracket) you will see tons of rankings in the 4000s or lower. It's not about the 1% alone. But naturally they have the best shot at winning. It is a competition after all.

Perhaps this is the statement that chaffs me the most. A dollar might be a pittance to you, whereas it's a struggle for me to put 100 pennies together. So now it becomes more of a "haves" vs. "have nots" type of thing, which I don't think will do much to grow the pinball userbase.

As a Wisconsin Tourney player I wouldn't have an issue with the fees as long as Charity events and free (no cash involved) events are exempted. This would give the TD's a choice as to which type of tournament they would like to run and if they want to deal with the money and legal side of things. I know the vast majority of tourneys here are free and open to the public and I would like to keep it that way for the growth of pinball. If they start charging entry fees for the monthly tournaments it will discourage new people from playing since it is generally the same handful of players that win every month. It's better just to keep it for fun and keep money out of it.

For the paid tournaments like Wauna, Tom's tournaments, or even league I'd be fine with the fee. The players that generally play in these are more established players vs. new players. Since money is already being collected it isn't a big deal just to charge an extra buck and put that money towards making the SCS prize pools bigger.

I think the prestige of the SCS could easily be increased if it was actually that, a state championship series. What's the point of calling it "states", when the only eligibility requirement is participating in a tournament? Right now it's not a state vs. state matchup, it's "the best players who happened to travel to that state at some point in the year".

I note you conveniently left out that fat bag of cash you scored for providing commentary on the live stream at Nationals. How many endorsement deals did that gig land you?

Can't really talk about that shit until the ink is dry.

What do you mean? You have to qualify and be in the top 16 players in a given state. Even in Alabama where numbers are low, we still run about 70 players on average in a given year. You can't just walk into the state tournament, let alone win it.

I don't live in the U.K. either but I was interested to watch the Brexit vote. And I would have been happy to contribute the $12 a year or whatever to your state pool, but at least now I don't have to be concerned with that. I made the decision about a year ago, long before I heard about this development, that I was going to branch out and try my luck at PAPA and a circuit event or two in place of all the traveling I did to your state. The downside is I'll play in less mid sized and larger sized regional events, less events overall, the upside is now I can test myself in harder settings.

Yeah, I loved Wisconsin pinball. Lots of amazing friendly people and a core of very good players. I think guys like Tom Graf, Steve Tully, Dave Daluga, Ryan, they are what make pinball very fun and are fun people to be around. And MN players supported many of Wisconsin's events. And no, it doesn't involve me in any decision making process as I *obviously* don't run a Wisconsin tournament. You are perfectly free to do as you choose. I support the idea of a Wisconsin only ranking system and your own state championship.

Figured I should chime in as a long time competitive player as well as a tournament director. I heard about this awhile back and I was against it when I first was told about the possibility of this happening. I agree that national visibility and legitimacy of pinball as a sport is needed, I just didn't want that to come on the backs of the new/casual players. I see both sides of the coin as a top competitive player in the state who would most likely benefit from this and also someone that has run events for years here and is constantly trying to get people out playing at events and on route. From the player perspective, pinball is way behind basically every other sport and bar league event on a national prize and visibility scale from darts, to Golden Tee Golf, foosball, Pokemon and just about any other game you can think off. To help change that, money has to come from somewhere and without major sponsors (which the IFPA are constantly working on) this is one way to generate more prize money which attracts more visibility. When I won the State Championship last year and did interviews with newspapers and other outlets about it, it was always embarrassing when they would ask how much money I won for it and I would have to say only $100. It was a major achievement to win State, it takes a lot of work and dedication to do, especially in a state like mine with great competitors and tons of events that I can't always get to because of work, wife, kids, etc. The problem is the prize package doesn't reflect that currently, so it's easier for people who don't know or care about pinball currently to diminish the accomplishment because they could have easily just won more money playing pull tabs at the bar than I just did for a year's worth of commitment and competition. That perception needs to change somehow.

On the tournament director side of things, it is already hard enough to get people out to events so I was worried about how this would be received. Already operators here have to give the house away with free beer, pizza, additional random draw prizes, additional cash, free play and organizing huge special events here just to draw some people out only once in a while. I know lots of people already look at entry fees as "donations" and any additional fees, even $1, are just more straws that break the camel's back. To put fees on the groups of people we are specifically targeting to grow location and event pinball is not right in my opinion. It would hurt attendance in MN without a doubt in my mind. I know there may be some tricky logistics for other states/events, but the happy medium solution to this for myself and all events that I run is that if this goes into effect, all endorsement fees will be paid out of the prize pool. That is a simple option offered by the IFPA and I believe the best choice for my events locally. So if 20 people show up, the prize pool for the event drops from $100 to $80 on a $5 buy in event. A $5 event will still be a $5 event. This change would be invisible to the new/casual players and cost them nothing, while still seeding a larger prize pool for the State Championship Series, in which prize money would now be distributed to most or all top 16 qualifiers in state, instead of just the top 4 previously. I am interested to see how it plays out, but I want to make sure that everyone knows that I will not put the financial burden of this on the new/casual players that attend any of my events, so they don't have to worry about that.

What I'm saying is that to be eligible to represent a state in the tournament, all you have to do is play in a tournament in that state. I think it would be better that a player can only qualify in the state they reside in, or they "declare" a state before the start of the next series. This topic has been discussed many times before, but I think it would be nice for the SCS to have more of a player/state identity than it does now.

I already volunteer countless hours to pinball.

I was pent up and frustrated and the lack of details, and the lack of details are what is causing an absolute storm.

I'm all for donating, within reason. In fact I heavily donated on a gofund me to get our local player Jody to Texas this year. $50 bucks to the campaign and an additional 50 bucks in person.

I help run the largest league in Canada. I think it's perfectly acceptable to pay the yearly fee, I don't think it's reasonable to pay monthly. Paying yearly would cost our league around $700 - yearly would be $70 bucks - which I think it's great and I'm all about Donating to a good cause......within reason.

We built our league to focus less on pros, and more on average players and we've had great success. Submitting monthly would not work for us.

Hopefully IFPA can revise their announcement that will curb some of the negative feedback.

If the announcement had more detail, and listed the annual option I wouldn't have been upset, and it would have been a positive read, not a negative one...

As mentioned in every post I've made, I respect all that the IFPA has done, I didn't think what they designed was reasonable, but it actually is - it's just that the details were missing...the way I know it is now, I fully support this. EmLover1970 CrazyLevi ifpapinball

I roomed with two of them last year, and haven't you been to Pinburgh at least twice? But what you are getting at is that you don't have the time for multiple pinball trips a year. I get that. It's why I did the day trips to your house. I could afford a trip if it was only a day or two. I'm getting too old to handle being up 42 hours in a 46 hour stretch... damn, getting old sucks.

Your question about how many are for cash and how many are not. Most have some small amount involved, like $5, for East Side survivor, but the Super League is just coin drop and every four player group at it's finals gets $25 to the winner paid by the operator. Blainbrook runs leagues, which cost money ($30), but it's spread out really well. They also run free tournaments that have operator funded pay outs. The one I ran in March had a player optional $5 entry fee (funny, no Wisconsin players to be seen), which went over really well. Only 4 (I think) out of 29 chose not to opt in.

When I started to read this thread I 100% believe that the "outrage" was all part of an April Fools joke of some sort. It was only after I got deeper into the thread that I realized that it wasn't a rub but some people were legit losing their minds. Perhaps it is because of the other tournaments that I participate in (such as Racquetball) have much, much larger fees and dues in addition to the local cost of entry that it does not bother me that much.

I have no idea what I should say to this. Maybe I'll use the example of what it costs me for an average trip to Blainbrook. It's about 40 minutes one way. So I guess it's going to be about $5 in gas or so. Then qualifying games will cost $6-7, if I make it to the final four, tournament games will cost another $6. I will have been there 6-7 hours at least, and food/drink will be about $15 (with the free drink chip). That adds up to $32. I'm really not going to be able to tell the difference between $32 and $33 dollars.

I haven't included any extra coin drop for warm up games, any extra beverages, games between rounds waiting for other groups.

I've never considered myself one of the 'haves' based on one dollar. That's a pretty low bar.

I feel like we need a poll

Edit: Poll added https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-you-in-favor-of-the-ifpa-changes-for-2018-poll#post-3690830

I see what you're saying. I wholeheartedly agree.

Thanks a lot ahole. That guy beat me!

Maybe if you could think of this as an administrative fee to list your position in every event you play instead of worrying about who wins the money, it might make it easier to live with. Perhaps think of what was once a free service now costing one dollar to record your event per person. Only in this case, you have a chance to win some back.

Dang! That's kinda funny. Jody is a great player and a super nice guy

Thanks Chris.
I went to Pinburgh the last 2 years. It is a lot of fun and going back this year. I also do expo for a day every year. I play with Eric in the team tournament (non IFPA). 3 kids and a business. Can't be everywhere at once. I know Josh can relate.

I would have went to your tournament but with league & Wuana in between i couldn't make it. Just too much pinball at once.

I am happy to run my events still as IFPA events as long as people are okay with it. I always love having Art and a bunch of the MN crew at my place.
I just know the changes will affect MGC, Madison Pinball's events, mad Rollin charity event, and probably our league in the Fox Cities.

Fair enough.

Maybe the IFPA could consider 15% or 20% going to nationals and keeping more money in each state. That's about the only thing I would change.