WTF?

GREED!

Shame on your sharpe brothers!

I seriously thought this was an April Fools joke! Amazed that this is just another way for you and your buddies to line their pockets.

Please explain how this is good for competitive pinball.

I can do the simple math that we run ~48 events this year in Madison with an average attendance of 20 people. That would be a 960 fee required from the player base this year in order to have these events sponsored? Where is that money going exactly?

720 to the WI SCS champ? Screw that. I'm not paying in $50 prize pool for playing each year just so 4 possible winners can get a $720 pay check. I can assure you the player base of the majority wont pay this either. Also can assure you that a few TDs running private events will no longer host if you force them to pay in.

25% then to nationals pool.

Curious, how much money would this have netted you and Zach from this year if it was in place?

yup, and the effort all builds off the dedication of the player base and TDs that put it all on.

Seems rather simple to just charge a one time annual player fee for anyone that wants to be ranked. With over 40k ranked people they could line their pockets with 200k each year from a $5 annual fee. At least then it would allow players to choose on an individual basis what to do.

BS. You are pulling a greed move after a hadnful of dedicated people have worked hard to HELP you build the sport. You have done so without any contact to many of your most prominent TDs and supporters in the past years. This change is an obvious and direct ploy to help add to you and your brothers wallet.

Make a player or a location pay for IFPA sanctioning, LOL. the logistics of this are not even close to thought out.

You want TDs to collect $1 from each person playing in an event but still work to build the sport and bring in new people?
or you expect the location to pay for the fee?? again WTF?

I can give the example that a typical tournament brings a location $3-5 in play per person. take off taxes, split, game maintenance, insurance, and you are looking at a typical tournament making an operator $1-2 per player. now you want 50% of that and for what work exactly?

You maintain a website and run the nationals event at a crap location with poorly setup games and all based on your travel schedule, lol.

Good luck with this lead ballon.

Looks like it is time for the core group of state TDs in WI to talk about a new system to track players for free. I can damn well say if I am paying in any sort of participation fee, I am going to make sure it stays in state rather than funneling out to you and your national buddies.

so how many event have you run and what effort have you vested in helping build the sport the past years? Just curious as to where to couch this opinion?

As one of the most prolific TDs in the past 5 years in the entire midwest, I can tell you that you dont understand the dynamics of operating or running events.
If you think an operator can go to a bar owner and say "hey man, I am going to need $20 in order to run a tournament here you need to pay for it since you make so much off the beer" you are not experienced in this world.

more important quesiton:
Will casual players pay an extra $1 to play in a tournament just to fund the prize pool for a handful of people that are the best in the state and fund an even larger prize pool for the best in the nation?

My thoughts on how to circumvent this, is that the main state players in each state can just organize together and decide they wont be paying in any fees for any events.

A few of us can work together to build our own state rankings and then if players want to determine whom goes to nationals, we run 1 end of year event where we pay in $16 to IFPA and the winner goes to nationals.

In WI, there are 4 events each year that have an entry fee and pay out prizes.

Over 90% are free to play besides coin drop. Prize pools are not what people play for and what has built the sport up to be such a fun thing is the LACK of cash involved.

Dont worry Eric.

You, Tom, Tully, Paul, DD, etc need to all get together at MGC next weekend and discuss a plan forward. I think we can come to a consensus on our path forward for WI competitive pinball and still keep things plenty of fun and growing on our own level.

We have 7 months to reverse engineer the algorithm. If things work out well then maybe we can help a few other states and show them what we have.

Keep in mind that this also puts a bias against states that run more events with more players.

the more prolific competitive states are by default paying more to play and send a player to Nationals, than a state with only 1 event.

not going to happen, but since you dont own games in public, dont operate, and actually dont even run many public events... I would not expect you to know that. Shame that you did not reach out to talk with some poepl with more experience in this arena..

20 average players per event in WI and no prize pool for 95% of them. Again not gonna happen. "Hey buddy congrats. you just won the event, but if you want this to get IFPA sanctioning then you have to pay them $20" Another lead ballon there Josh.

Again, not going to happen. Aside from being a real slap in the face to all the new comers we have tried to welcome in, this is a logistical nightmare. TDs expected to collect an extra buck form each player and then send it to you to collect interest and furthe pad your bank account for the year? Nope. What happens when someone decides not to pay? Winner have to cover it? Location? TD?
I am beginning to see you really did not think this out very well.

so if everyone opts out, whom pays for the event to be sanctioned? If only the winner pays $1 does that mean they get .5 points for winning and all good?

I need to talk with a few other WI based TDs, but sounds like if you move forward as currently written, WI is off the map for 2018 events.
I am sure you may get a few TDs that opt to pay to play with your new game, but the majority wont.

I have gotten messages from the 3 most prolific already this morning and sounds like they all want to go a new direction. This is not just "see if Hilton was right" I am just the vocal prick that has not troubles calling this as what it is, a money grab.

If you want to help convince us other wise, please share some data:

1. In 2016, what would have been the total amount paid in to IFPA fro WI based events if you assume ALL events paid to play?
2. What does that make the SCS prize pool? What does that make the amount funneled to Nationals for your brother to win (or in this case 2nd place; yes we already established you are not good enough to beat him)
3. What is the amount that would have been paid in by the top 10 players in WI in 2016?
4. What is the run down of total amount provided to nationals from each state in 2016 if this had been in effect and 100% participation?
5. What happens to all the interest from this IFPA account that would be quite large and growing throughout the year?
6. Any amount used for administrative costs?
7. Will states now get representation in IFPA decisions since there is taxation?

I am waiting to hear the actual numbers from Josh.

Let's use 2016 and assume 100% participation form all events.

How much money would WI have brought in and then donates to WI SCS and Nationals?
Heck, give us the run down of money that would have been donated by every state to Nationals.

Right now, my biggest issue is that this is a logistical nightmare and also goes against the building of the community around competitive pinball. Second issue is that a state with 1 event still gets to send 1 player to nationals that could win the whole pot which is funded largely by other states that run hundreds of events. Makes more sense to set a set fee to participate in nationals. If a state sends a player, they pay the set fee rather than a percentage of total money brought in. This current manner incentivizes TDs to run fewer sanctioned events, not more.

Seems like a much easier and fair way is to charge each player an annual IFPA membership fee. $5 tracks your rankings for the year and your rankings only count after you have paid the fee; due on Jan 1st (or within 10 days of your first tournament being played).

Hell, if you are smart you will provide added features for profiles for more funds.

I totally get the desire to make more money for the elite that win these events, but this is the wrong way to do it.

Do it right and you can even get enough funds to invest and grow a steady bolus to start off each year.

Just ran some quick math and through the first 3 months of the year in 2017, WI would have brought in ~$600 already.

Since the next 9months there will be even more events and larger events, we can take a random stab that ~$3000 would come in fr0m WI alone in 2017.

at 25% donated to nationals, that means WI would be donating $750 to send a player to Nationals. F that!

you get all 50 states in and get them that involved and you are talking over 30k in prize pool for the same elite group (with the ocassional new to the scene guy).

What does that payout structure look like Josh? 12k to First? 8k to second?

Just curious since people are saying you and your brother wont make any money off this money grab...

again, so 2598 player entries in order to give cash to the top 16 people. Then WI pays another $650 to nationals for more money to the elite.

What would the Nationals payout structure have been?

Sorry but in principle this is all obviously a way to make other pay for the prize pool of the elite.

give us the 2016 nationals payout then, with 100% assumed participation.

Safe to assume my large charity event is exempt form this shenanigans and IFPA waives any BS fee?

or do you also want to take money away from Cancer patients so you can bring more 'prestige' to pinball?

buck up buttercup. It is the right thing to do.

It cant be all that difficult. Heck, Pinside has the ablity to take individual donations form users and immediately give them a red heart and other features of the site open up.

IFPA has all indicidual player profile pages. This cant be all that tough. instead you are attempting to shuffle a poor form for money generation and putting all the added work on TDs.

I am guessing it will be too late to just simply hit the reset button after 1 year.

Seems people are already taking action to work things out, and assuming they do then they are unlikely to go back in a year.

odd, I was not contacted and I am pretty sure I run the largest charity event in the midwest region...

so in short... IFPA comes before charity events. check

edited I dont need to make it personal like that just because you do.

if you drop to 1/3 of your total events in a year, then I doubt you will get those TDs back.

you are the guy telling someone "up yours"

I dont understand what you are saying? If an event is a non-point event, doesnt that more accurately mean non-IFPA?

I mean, if I am not paying in the $80 for the 80 players in our charity event, then why would I even put it on the IFPA?
Sounds to me like the option is either pay to have your entire event ranked, or not be an IFPA event at all?

I think you got the answer to this on April 1st...

Obviously the IFPA stance is that it is all about the money.

curious if IFPA is now starting championship series for other countries also?

or is this new fee structure only for US and CAN based competitions and everyone else gets to be ranked for free?

this is a guy that colluded at Wauna to try and work with his other MN buddies because he wanted to try and secure more money...

in short, yes. It is always about the money

I wish you good luck.

I think the way you went about all this was terrible and find it disrespectful to not have reached out to talk with some of your more active TDs to discuss this was looming (WI being an active state and nown of the TDs were contacted). Quite a few of us have worked hard to help build the sport and in turn the IFPA. This all smacks of greed totally against building of the sport.

I care about WI SCS and the WI pinball community, not about WPPRs.

I guess, I look forward to not being ranked/my ranking dropping and no longer being restricted at larger events

how do you deal with certain counties in states which prohibit paying in or paying out for competitive pinball (ie. MGC) ?

it is being look at. It seems the majority of WI players dont care to donate a larger portion of funds to nationals, esp when states like WI run more events/players than many other states.

The more active TDs will luckily be able to discuss options at MGC next week. Perfect timing to brain storm what we dont like about the current system and see what our collective path forward is.

It is not "just a dollar". It is the principle for many and the turn off for the community building for others.

people like having ranking, that is obvious. I think many are even happy to pay in to IFPA for the service they provide.
many are not willing to pay a prize pool so a select few can cash out at the end of the year at SCS and nationals.

how does this work for the event point value and structure?

Lets say 20 people show up for an event. 5 people opt to pay in $1. Those five people finish 4, 5, 8, 12, and 20th.

When submitting, do I only include them as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?

I assume the event is only worth 2.5 points if grading at 100%

I also need to ask Josh...

Why the heck announce this on April 1st? What was the logic behind that?

Lets not spin this with verbiage

It is clearly SharpeCare

so, your new rankings wont be a very good reflection of skill if continually the top players opt to not pay in?

For extremes, lets assume an event with 110 people that grades at 100%, where the top 10 finishers all opt to not pay in for your fee.
That means the 11th place finisher is now #1 and gets big ranking points?

I figured. takes one to know one I guess

Since event values are based on number of players (and now players that pay the IFPA) this will defianelt have impacts.

No idea how it will play out, but i don't plan on paying a single dollar to IFPA myself which means every event I play in is worth .5 less points as a result.

If the local players all want to organize and get the money together for monthly events then a large discussion is going to have to happen.

I hope we can come up with a WIFPA plan moving forward.

Still have not heard the accounting for how it makes sense for more prolific states with larger player base to fund a large portion of national prize pool but only send one person?

I have to assume CA for example will be providing a much larger prize pool than utah does.

If anyone out there has and can share the current algorithms for how IFPA calculates and awards points, it would be appreciated.

We are looking into setting up a system that works for all the WI players/TDs and it would be nice to just see the current math behind the ratings and degradation based on strength of player and # of players for an event rather than attempting to reverse engineer it form scratch.

For example, the obvious base value based on number of player is easy.
The TGP is easy.

The more difficult to calculate is the addition to the base based on strength of player and the calculation of player strength.
The also more difficult is understanding the curve of point value and how it changes based on # of players in an event.

thanks for chiming in Dan.

so Josh, is WI now exempt due to legal reasons also?

you appear to be exempt and the US/CAN are the players that have to pay.

thanks Josh.

Shoot it on over to my email Much appreciated!

I have been in discussions with a few of the other main TDs in WI. Seems this is the impetus for us to look at other options.
Luckily we have plenty of time to examine things, talk with the player base, and make plans if we opt to go in another direction (I am guessing we will but will take some time to settle in and evaluate fully).

At this stage the players I have spoken to today value the state level competition more than other things.
They dont want to pay in for a larger cash prize pool for the end of state competition.
They dont want to pay disporportionally to fund a national competition for an elite group of people to get even more prizes.
They dont want to sell out the good thing we have all worked to build int he state the past 5-7 years for a buck.

Creating a WIFPA system offers lots of pros:
We control our own destiny of rules and can vote to make changes in the future to ensure we work towards promoting the hobby at all times.
We dont have to deal with the additional logistics of charging players in what are mostly free entry events.
We dont have to help buy a new Stern pinball machine or play into some of the obvious conflicts of interest.
We can support and grow the state competition even more and dedicate more energy/$ towards that. Seriously... why give away $6-800 dollars of WI money to National players when we could uses those same funds to promote in state.
There is the side benefit of no longer being restricted as IFPA player rank drops

Cons: no longer IFPA ranked to hunt a magical number (which holds no real value outside of the top 50 players). Sure it is fun, but does not appear to be a major driver in WI pinball.

just a state based one. Player base here seems to mainly like the whole idea of gathering points throughout the year in order to work your way into a year end State Championship event.

That is what we are thinking may be the best solution for us.

looking forward to the info from Josh and very appreciative of him being willing to send it along.

Curious if with this new format all states will be afforded the opportunity to host Nationals?

or will it still be played on crappy quality games that are set up poorly in order to match up with your travel schedule Josh?

thanks

also, if the spread sheet has the full equation to go through and calculate event value and point distribution, then that is even better.

They did, and the td for that event broke the law as a representative of the ifpa.

A risk we have taken to this point, but sounds like people don't want to take it with the added press likely to come from this newest change.

math...

how does it work?

lol

I would be happy to opt out of all cash prizes if and event I participated in did not have to pay this fee to seed the pot for the top 1% in the state and then top 1% in the nation.

The WPPR system is a nice thing and I enjoy participating in it. The state championship is also a great thing and what most of the regualr players in the state strive for. I am thankful for what the IFPA has done up to this stage and have been happy to support and grow the sport with LOTS of donated time, personal dollars, and energy.

I am happy to pay an annual player membership in order to get the benefit of the IFPA tracking all events and administrative fee. They can do whatever they want with that fee and if they want to hand it out as prize packages then cool for them. If they want to implement a restriction for SCS and nationals to only people that have paid the fee then that even seems fair.

I would go so far as to say a smart idea would be to offer a $5 annual member ship of pay for 5 years up front for $20. This will bring in more goodwill and support from the community and bonus that you get a large cash influx which you could safely invest in a trust to gain profits and build the ever growing prize pool for whatever events you want. I understand this creates some logistical hurdles, but guessing with this methodology you may even find some free help from others that know how to set up a membership based fee page and interact it with IFPA profiles to make it simple on you.

Change management is a tough thing Josh and I hope you reevaluate prior to implementation of this current idea.

In WI, we could put forth the effort to create our new and own tracking system but to be honest, I would rather just use what you guys already have and pay a player membership fee to do so.

no, people are suggesting all players get tracked (that way events are still accurate in tracking; i.e. getting 5th but winning first for IFPA tracking is silly; i.e. beating 50 people in real world but only beating 10 people in IFPA world due to only 10 paying in is silly and devalues the entire system), but only players that pay the annual membership fee are eligible to get profile feature or qualify for specific events. Make a persons personal point accumulation dependant upon date of membership payment.

If they want to raise money they could even enact this chage today anf give players 1 month to pay up for 2017 points to count. Immediate cash influx. Make it easy by setting up a paypal store, instruct players that their player number has to be in the subject line of their paypal payment. Then take one time payments and sort by player number. Sure it wont be fun for the immediate, but guessing a cash influx of 50k would be enough to hire someone to make a slicker interface for next year which decreases work and makes it seamless.

this math does not seem to add up...

In WI alone we had around 500 uniquie players in 2016. Only 16 of them qualified for SCS. Only 1 of them makes it to nationals.

if that is the case it agains shows the issue with each state paying a percentage of money rather than a predetermined set fee.

WI pays in 600, but a state with only 2 events could pay in 10 bucks.

Both are eligible to send a single player to nationals...

not an exit. moreso the possibility of another option.

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

hoping that the majority of people that support the charity event do so for the fun of the chaity and the team event aspect. I refuse to spend even 1 dollar from the charity pool in order to donate to IFPA prize pool. It will no longer be an IFPA sanctioned event after this year *if they go forward as planned

Dan has made it clear he will not take the legal risk and I support him and hope people dont try to put the entire event at risk by pushing him to.

Is there a new announcement I missed?

Been busy today and only skimming.

Is there now the ability to run "amateur" events and participate as an amatuer and still get IFPA tracking, but just not get "Pro" status or ability to play in SCS and Nationals?

Sounds like we can now elect not to pay and that just means no SCS play or Nationals play???

I think without the option to have an amateur rankings in 2018, the player base will be forced to take on the task themselves as they like the state based rankings system/ state championship idea and dont want to loose momentum on what we have worked together to build (a state comraderie and competition which has challenged us to play better and compete more; while being welcoming to new people and making the barrier to entry as low as possible).

I have no way to predict what will happen but I hope the main TDs can get together and figure out a unified plan.

I am guessing there is even a way to work together and have our own WIFPA or Wexit state rankings each year and then leverage those to send a player to nationals by meeting the minimum requiremnets of your new rules (2 events played in a calendar year). We could of course do the minimum of having an end of year event to determine our State Champ and then use that event as a sanctioned event with only 1 person paying the $1 (the winner). I guess in reality that would mean they also get .75 of that back when they go on to win the WI SCS by default. Do we just mail you the .25?

go right ahead. That is your option to do so. I dont think it will have much impact and enjoy going to nationals. Expensive trip to get dominated in.

It seems from the feedback I have gotten across the state the concensus is that the majority of competitive players have zero interest in paying in to seed a pot for the top 1% of the state and top 1% of national players.

They like the state championship and tracking/competiing with each other throughout the year.

I could use some help with setting up a website and system for a new FPA system if anyone else is possibly going down this road.

Basically I would like something that functions identical to the current IFPA system for valuation, scoring of events, degradation.
I would like to be able to set up a calendar on the site for listing events and allow admins/TDs to put up events and also submit the event results. We would then use peer based review for TGP calcuations. In essence IFPA light since I am just looking for something to deal with the approximately 50-60 events run in the state of WI.

I am happy to pay for anyone that can help make this user friendly and easy for TDs to both submit events and results.

Assuming we come up with something scalable, I am happy to host for other states that may be interested in doing something similar and peer hosting their own state based FPA.

actually it wouldn't in my case.

I run ~30 events in a year between monthly, launch, home, and MRP charity event. The logistics of me dealing with collecting money is one of my least favorite things to do and I only put forward that effort once per year for the charity event. I cant imagine having to do it or ask for players to pay it and I certainly cant afford to pay it myself. I also wont ever do it as it is unwelcoming to new players and that is a big part of why I do this. Some of my best friends I have met through playing pinball and running events. i dont consider it a good way to start a friendship or welcome someone into the hobby.

It would actually save me time if I can get a good new system worked out and dont have to worry about any $1 colleciton approximately 600 separate times, then deal with the possible legal implications, then deal with the selling of my values by filtering that money to the elite player base at nationals.

Some of us dont like playing for money, period.
Others dont mind paying for money, but sure as hell are not going to donate .25 every time we play just so an elite player can make 10k each year at nationals. or donate .75 each time we play so a top WI player can walk away with 2700 at the end of the year.
Others have no problem with that but just dont want to break local laws on behalf of the IFPA.
Others have no problem with any of it but find it a real PITA to have to deal with cash since 90% of WI based events are no entry fee.

For me it is a little bit of all of this, plus the fact that this feels like the frog in the beaker situation and I would rather stop investing in something that changes without input and an obvious bias for elite players over new comers to the sport.

The only shame I see is that WI players and TDs have been very active in building the sport (to the benefit of the IFPA and their eventual reality TV deals and the associated payout) and were not even talked to in advance about the topic, let alone the trolling of this all coming down on April fools. It shows very clearly how the IFPA thinks of its player base and TDs. I hope it is the impetus for a few others to get motivated to figure out something better that does not money grab for the elite. As Eric noted, i dont want things to get diluted like boxing, but I am optimistic that something better can come of all this.

Shame that the easy thing would be for IFPA to stop experimenting (is is not a scientific exp by the way Josh, merely a social exp; a soft science at best) and just provide the option for people to get ranked as it has always been and opt out if they are cool without being eligible for nationals. If you really want to have the winners pay for an event, then simply have them pay up front.

Seems rather clear that the majority of the player based would be more than happy to pay a $5 fee for profile access on an annual basis. With over 50k ranked people if even 20% paid up, that is a gaurenteed 50k right now. If you need help setting up a trust to shelter the funds then LMK. Pretty easy to be able to legally do this money grab and do it in a way that feels better for the whole player base.

oddly I find that quite often non-rated players are placing in the top 50% and even top 4 in their first or second event.

It seems to have been put in place to defeat super league stuff, and ends up hurting other events.

I thought current rules for any combined event was that a person has to attend 50% or play 50% of the games to count?

it is valuable information to see. I assume in a best case scenario, this would have all gone over smooth with 100% change over and continual growth of the player base and events.

Only seems right to just publish the info and let people see what would have been that reality in 2016.

I think it is spelt Pre$tige.

I prefer it to be worth no WPPRs. Since in order to even qualify for the SCS played in 2018 you have to be playing in 2017, I would prefer it not to put any new to 2018 player at a disadvantage right out of the gate at the beginning of the new season.

It basically sets you up for a snowball effect in some cases.

Take ND for example (an extreme example but you get the point), where the ONLY event so far this year is the 2016 seasons SCS (played in Feb of 2017).

whom knows what the future will hold...

I know people much smarter than I are working on an emulation of the current system. I hope something can be made that works identical to the current system, satisfies the desires of the vast majority of the state based competitive community, and is well received /incorporated. I really enjoy the state based camaraderie, competition, and rankings from the current SCS setup and would liek ot to remain as accurate and worthwhile as it is now.

At the end of the day i wont personally take the legal risk to violate the law (regardless of any personal feelings about this new 2018 system), so I am not going to take or hand out any money for events I TD for (which is something like 50% of the total events in the state).

they are invited, not expected.

IMO they are silly in most cases to even think they should have a shot at a national event and the numbers show that if you are outside of a top 200 ranked player you wont win much at national either. Your national player, Mike, would have gone home from nationals with a whopping $100 this year after losing in the first round and tied for 36th.

Keep in mind that your Utah prize pool wont be much different given how few events are run in the state. From state championships, the winner should have walked home with at least $200 this year based on the $20 buy-in that IFPA requires. If they removed the $20 buy in then next year they would be on track to walk away with even less since Utah appears to have had only ~$100 pay in to hypothetical pool based on 2016 numbers (and where it is tracking for 2017). Just putting it in perspective that under the new system, your Utah state champ might have walked home with an additional $75 this year. That money would have come from your state player base, of which approximately 90% are non-rated players currently and it appears many have not returned after their first tournament.

I can tell you from experience that growing a player base is easier with as few barriers to entry as possible.

I completely agree! Which is why I wish the money aspect was not being put into all IFPA sanctioned events by force.

you misinterpreted what I was saying. I have nothing but props for you folks getting things going. I just wanted some perspective on the real world dollars and where they come from and go.

and my point is that THEY should be the ones to pay that out of their own pocket if they choose to do so. Sorry, but you are a top 200 player and I dont care to ask other players to support your travel to a national event. Heck, I like our state champ from last year, but there is no way I think he should win over 2500 (supplied mostly by people that have a near zero shot of even playing in the SCS) for winning a state championship series just so he can afford a trip to texas to play in nationals. If you want to fund it then just make the fee to play in SCS $200 per player. That is $3200 for EVERY SCS. Give 25% of that money to the IFPA and that makes for a 40,000 prize pool at nationals.

*note this ensures equal fees paid by ALL states and also ensures the national event will be a large prize pool so Josh can tell sponsors that each state champ wins $1200 and the national champ wins $12,000. Seems to fit the real motive behind all this.

That also seems like a VERY easy way to do all this. It is one tournament, only 16 people ot colelct money from, and keeps everything else very simple.

Keeping 75% of that money back makes for a $2400 prize purse at each state. Award $1200 to first place and that should pay for their trip to nationals. Split the other $1200 all the way down to 16th if you want.

sorry, I thought I was clear on that earlier.

I think anyone that wants a profile and to be tracked SHOULD pay the ifpa. I would be happy to pay the IFPA an annual membership fee and I think the majority of current and new players would also.

The IFPA shuold set up a direct pay system when every player can easily sign in to their profile and pay their $5 annual membership. This should afford them the ability to play in as many sanctioned events as they want for the whole year.

I think that woudl be great! I would be happy to pay them even a $5 admin fee and they can do whatever they want with it. I just ask that they collect this fee rather than ask TDs to do yet another thing (and potentially break the law in some cases; I dont understand it all but I trust the conversations other have had and am unwilling to put the boudaries, esp as someone with lots of personal games on route that they could easily make an example of it they wanted to shut it all down)

i can see it now
"news at 5, local pinball nerd wants to gamble but indian casio lobbyists say no"

I think it would be funny/appropriate if others knew the current IFPA rank of each posterin these threads. I have a general idea for many and you would notice a trend that those people largely for the funding for the elite on the backs of the masses are... wait for it... actually elite players mostly in the top 10 of their state each year and in the top 250 in the world...

I can see also that the pinball culture in each state is more broad than I originally thought. Lots of different dynamics in each state at play. Lots of dynamics that were not accounted for.

That again shows me that this entire idea was not thought out very well. It appears the main group of people the idea was tossed out to were people ranked high (elite/potential elite) and only actively participated in by a handful of state reps largely. If 51% is your only measure of success, I think IFPA needs a better measuring stick.

I said nothing about opinons not counting. In fact I went on to say how there are obviously lots of dynamics at play.

One trend I am noticing is that elite players tend to be happy with the novices funding their potential prize pool throughout the year.

worth note that I am around 250 and have qualifed for SCS all 4 years so far. I dont fit the trend I noted above, but then again when do i ever fit in.

I dont appreciate the cut of your jib and franky it is BS. In short I give away hundreds of free games (and not free games I have won from matches and replays; actual free games with credits from real money). If you want a pissing contest I can assure you that you are barking up the wrong tree.

Sorry you dont get a more eloquent response, but I need to get some stuff done before heading home to get more stuff organized for clock chaos and to voulenteer my time for yet another year to help keep competitive pinball cracking and dealing with shit like competitive players smashing on personal games that I spent hundreds of hours to restore.

Tony and crew are GREAT people doing lots for pinball. We have copied many of the things they do because they are great ideas!
Tutorial nights to explain tables and objective for free. Free play parties with trophies and prizes. End of month free play for selfie leagues. Free games whenever we are out cleaning stuff up or get and error code and stop out to fix while the person is still there. 1/2 off payrange nights. Openeing up the hood and showing a novice and spending time with them. Yup, those are all things we do all the time, but appreciate your continual insinuation that we do nothing to give back.

gotta go fo real now. Have to be sure and tighten up all the tilts for chaos just to protect the collector games from the tossers Thanks for the reminder; funny part is I was just talking in general about competitive players tossing around beautifully restored games.

p.s. gotta love the guy that attacks and then turns around and complains when I defend myself. can't make you happy can we

exact same scenario in Madison. There will be 48 casual events this year and only 5-6 of the typical 16-30 people that attend will have any shot of making SCS. Those are the same players that also attend the large events (MGC, MRP, Wauna, Tom's). Quite a few of the casual but active players would drop $20 in donation to the state champ and national champ combined.

Rob, I dont think we managed to chat IFPA junk since we were having so much pinball fun, but needless to say... there will be an entirely free WI based alternative that closely assimilates the current system tracking. If you know and good web developers or coders that want to donate time to help then please let me know. There are a few guys much smarter in that world that I, and they are starting to get something together so we can test it out this year before needing to implement it for 2018.

my guess is that yes, some TDs/players will be fine with charging and dealing with the legal/tax issues while others will not.

some TD/players will want IFPA ranking and some will be plenty happy with a free WI ranking.

I dont think of it as alternative. I think of is as a different and potentially better option that can better accomodate the culture and desires of WI along with continuing to promote growth of the sport on a state level. (i.e. things like your idea (or was it Eric's suggestion; cant remember as the MGC weekend was a blur) of limiting total event count for State Championship to XX number or a % of total events played in the year; which should help promote play and hosting of events but also help to balance the relative bias form areas that hodl lots of events to those that dont)

I will be happy to foot the entire development and hosting costs associated with it. If a web developer/coder has the passion and wants to help then I welcome it. If they want to charge a reasonable rate for the services, I am happy to pay for it also.

funny part os actually that MOST players would be HAPPY to pay in to support the administrative needs of the IFPA if they could do so...

oddly they are not providing that option.

I checked it out and it looks slick. unfortunately it appears to require all players to have an established profile?

The benefit of the current system is that one TD can submit for everyone, even if they dont maintain a full profile and just a name.

you are wasting your typing on him. He is a top tier player that is obviously more concerned with how much money the noobs in his state will pay in to a prize pool he can win. A short sighted goal if it ends up meaning less money in the long run due to fewer people showing up to play and contribute.

If it was a tournament flat fee, then he would have a good point, but since the tax is based directly on the number of people playing and tied directly to them, the whole thing is a fee/tax to play in a sanctioned event.

Oddly, I am not sure why they did not at minimum decide on tier levels for event fees. Seems like they could have easily done a structure of:
1-30 people = $5
30-50 people = $20
50 - 100 people = $50
100 -200 people = $150

Basically a structure that was tied to the actual event rather than the individual. A structure that incentivizes still trying to grow the sport (if you are running a small weekly then you should try to maximize your value by getting up to 30 people there). A structure that would have financially made it possible for operators to more likely support as more would likely be willing to give IFPA 5% of their coin drop rather than 30+% of their coin drop from a tourney night.

What I interpret from Josh's posts is that his thougts are a higher prize pool for SCS and Nationals creates a buzz. The ability to say "A SCS winner will take home $500 to $5000 in prize money depending on the state and a Nationals winner will take home 10k and a NIB pinball machine" is some how prestigious. He seems to think this prestige and buzz will then allow him to somehow bring in more corporate sponsors which will add to the prize pool further. It seems the unltimate goal and payoff is to then leverage all this into some sort of reality TV show.

Seems like the simplest way, but amazingly it appears that even Josh baulks at this idea as he does not want to just pay in $200 entyr for the SCS in IL so his brother or now Elwin can take home the prize. I do find it funny that his own logic is not extended any further.

A $200 entry fee into the SCS would serve the same purpose and ensure the fixed payout for every state and national entry fee.

seems like a pretty obvious difference to me. Those all support local pinball.

this leaves the city and goes to elite players.

I am not sure why it is so difficult for some to understand that.

I think the idea will be something along the line of 20 total events will count for your annual state championship ranking (same as what IFPA currently does for your national ranking).

The idea is that you cant just play your way into an end of year championship, but rather need to play well.

The constraints to think about is that the # of events will vary based on state activity. I personally think it is a good way to help balance the activity of different regions in a state but at the same time you need to be cautious to not make it so people run or attend fewer events.

In WI we have over 60 events each year so your top 20 events seems to be a reasonable metric to use. I personally think it may also be beneficiall to change leagues to be a 1 time per year reporting rather than a multiple 'season' reposting each year. Basically it would help to level the value of any league.

I still dont understand the push back form top players to just pay in a $200 entry fee for your Sate champtionship position. Earn your spot through points and pay your own entry fee.

so you are feeling entitled to others paying in for your prize pool because you have been playing pinball for 20 years... and want a biugger prize pool, but are unwilling to just up the ante form your own pocket???!!! WTH! glad that is cleared up.

Sorry but I would love to see you explain this in person to new players as a tournament for their first or second time playing.

Casual person >>"Hey DNO, why do we pay and extra buck for each event now"

DNO >>"Because I have been playing pinball for 20 years and you should be paying in so I have a shot at a bigger prize pool at the SCS"

Casual person >> "what is the SCS? can I play?"

DNO >> " Well the chance is slim to none, but sure" "It is usually an event where the top 25-30 player in each state duke it out for 16 total spots, but with years of practice and competition you may eventually be good enough and play enough to earn a spot"

Casual person >>" so what happens if I dont want to pay the extra buck?" "how many events do I need to play in currently to feasibly earn a spot"

DNO >> "then you dont get to play in these events and dont get to be a WPPR ranked person?" "realistically you are going to need to play in 25 or more events ina year; alternatively you could just be naturally talented and win a few reall big events (but good luck with that as it rarely happens)"

Casual person >> " thanks but no thanks" leaves and never returns to play competitive pinball again

Casual person to friends >> " You would not believe it... They wanted me to pay and extra buck everything I can to an event just so they could get a prize pool of 5k at the end of the year, but only the top 16 players in the state get to attend" "Yeah, I had fun playing pinball, but the ultra competitive vibe and paying extra money was a total turn off"

Reality as I have seen it at casual monthly events (which tend to be the stepping stone for getting into bigger events)

Player: hey, what's all this commotion about?
TD: Hey, I'm Steve. We're actually running a pinball tournament tonight. Do you play?
Player: Yeah, I like pinball... but I've never entered a tournament. What's the story? How do I enter?
TD: It's easy, you put down your name and email, pay a $10 entry fee and you pay for each of your games. The registration also lets you track your history at a site called the IFPA and establish a world wide ranking. We play in a head to head format, the guy with the iPad will tell you who you are to play. It's a bracket to the final four. Top four people get cash prizes

Player: $10 to play plus a coin drop. No thanks. I'm not interested.

That is as far as the conversation ever goes IME when you are charging money to play in the tourney on top of the coin drop.

love that gif!

yes

Many did not like and still dont like it, but in that case it is ONLY $100, is the same amount for every state, is a 1 in 16 shot of going to nationals (i.e. you have already self selected for elite and committed state based players at that stage), and IFPA was providing a trophy in exchage of that $100 (a reasonable fee for a cool custom trophy). The new idea is a totally different concept.

It is amazing how widely it can vary from state to state. We had another monthly meetup locally last night and it was the exact opposite and people were fully committed to go a new direction.

I dont think it is going to be all that difficult to accomplish. I am hoping we can get something running in the next few months. That will allow us time to back enter 2017 results so people can see how it compares. It will also allow us the ability to play with some adjustments and see how they pan out (i.e. things like only using a players top 20 events form the year, rather than the ability to play your way in via shear participation/cummulative of all events)

Actually does not seem to be just a WI thing (besides the obsession in your head). We had 2 out of state players yesterday and it seems there is a spectrum. For example, I was told some people in Seattle are taking it very personally and have bigger plans to defect from the union completely.

We also had 4 new/er faces last night and I spoke to them about potential changes and asked for their POV. All of them said they would not come out/ as often if they knew there was a mandatory fee to be rated/sanctioned event.

no rebellion...

Just time to look at alternative options.

actually all I did was give them the details on how IFPA currently works and how it will work in the future. I left my opinions specifically out of it as I wanted to use the opportunity to see what they thought as a new person to come out. I asked them why they came out, what interested them, and why they woudl come back. Not every one is like you DNO.

I prefer to just tell them how it is and let them make up their own mind, rather than charge $5 and not explain what happens with the funds.

I made no insult towards DNO. He point out that he just charges the $5 to play and nothing else. In other words he gives the minimal information.

I tlak with new players and in this case asked for their opinion on how things would be changing i the competitive pinball world. Believe it or not, while passionate on here in text... I am a very logical and level headed person IRL. I have the ability to talk with people and provide facts without opinions (it is really not that hard).

because it is shady to not just be up front about it. People have a certain level of trust and respect at the start for the TD/person running an event. You are taking advantage of that ignorance and respect if you dont at least mention that $1 is being skimmed for another competition.

Simply put, it is not the right thing to do.

If you dont think that people will care, then just tell them the truth instead of the middle truth Nobody wants to be the middle truth guy.

because it is still part of the conversation. Just because I am trying to look at other options does not mean I am no longer participating in the topic.

That would be like saying "you dont own game x, so why are you commenting"
seems like a silly thing to say

spot on and glad other see the difference between the middle truth and the truth

your spin is a little late on this one, but I appreciate the effort at a revisionist history while refusing to just say the change control was poorly done

I vote for calling it "stupid"

If you are going to call it a membership fee, then just charge each individual member the fee. (I suggest once a year and paid directly to your paypal account)

Now we are all good

LOFL!!!!!

Can we get that officially updated on the IFPA website please...

hahahahaha