Here's what happened... I WANTED to stream Brawl. However, I can not stream matches, that I am not given. The Brawl TO desk was literally right next to me; and I couldn't get matches from them. Don't misunderstand me, I love RJ and Keitaro, but they just weren't doing a good job running Brawl. Anyone who was watching the stream, could attest to the FACT that there was very often, 10-20 minutes of dead air in between matches. On Friday, I streamed Brawl for FOUR hours; and I only got about 98 minutes of match footage (the rest was dead air).
So Saturday comes along, and I start off with Melee Doubles. The Melee TO desk was LITERALLY across the entire venue from me; and anyone who was there can tell you the venue was PACKED. Yet, the Melee TOs had no issues keeping me stocked with matches to run; they almost always had something on deck, and sometimes 2-3 extra. The first few hours on Saturday were GREAT (except for us starting 60 minutes late, but that was because the website was down, and people needed help finding their pools, so the extra 60 minutes was granted to help the players).
Eventually the schedule calls for me to switch from Melee Doubles to Brawl Doubles. Which I do... and immediately, things start to slow down again. I was not getting matches, and I had to constantly hound RJ and the rest of the TOs to get me matches. Its not like I wasn't trying to get matches for the stream; I was doing what I could for you guys. According to the shifted schedule, I should have been streaming Brawl singles at around 4pm. However, by the time 4pm comes along, I don't think singles had even started. Meanwhile I'm running around trying to get TOs to get me matches.
SEVERAL times before this, as I am sitting on dead air on my stream, yelling out for matches, the Melee TOs are like "hey, we got matches to fill up your stream if you want!". And I am CONSTANTLY denying them, because I'm SUPPOSED to be doing Brawl. However, at around 4pm (I think), after getting exhausted from constantly getting nothing from the Brawl TOs, and sitting on 20 minutes of dead air, I get asked yet again to stream some "hype" Melee matches. At that point, I give in and say yes. Better to give you stream viewers SOMETHING to watch, rather than nothing. (before you get on me about the 90 minutes of dead air before KI, keep reading)
So at that point, I tell Maria to get me a setup for Melee. Then FINALLY, I get another match for Brawl. So we do the match for Brawl. I yell out to the TOs if they have anything else for me... nothing. So I say to Maria, okay, I'm done hounding the Brawl guys, lets set up Melee. So then we start running Melee; after a while, the Brawl TOs finally come back to me with another match. At that point, I've already got SIX Melee matches scheduled into the stream. (the Melee TOs were far more efficient). At this point, I still don't think Brawl singles had even started yet.
I did tell the Melee TOs though, that to keep with the schedule, I wont be doing anymore Melee after a certain time because I am scheduled for Marvel. I was guaranteed Marvel on the schedule; it was one of the things I specifically requested since they had not chosen me to be the main streamer this year (even though I did a good job last year, and showed continued loyalty, I still got demoted to 4th stream). So the time to start Marvel comes; and I break down my standard-definition kit, and set up my high-definition kit... Only to find out that Bifuteki was streaming Marvel.
I was scheduled for Marvel, I was guaranteed it. Bifuteki should not have been streaming it. So I'm told that Marvel will get switched over to my stream. Yet, time passes and nothing gets moved. Bifuteki continues to stream Marvel, burning out the available matches, and I have nothing to run. After 90 minutes of trying to get Marvel on my stream, Joe from RG asks if we can put Killer Instinct on my stream until Marvel shows up; and I say fine, because I'm sick of the dead air. Eventually we say "screw it", Bifuteki ****ed me over, and we finish off Killer Instinct on my stream.
If the gossip I've been hearing about Jaxel is correct
The "gossip" you hear about me has to do with Winter Brawl last year. BigE got pissed off at me, and threw me under the bus for not streaming Tekken. Why didn't I stream Tekken? Because of poor scheduling. The genius who scheduled Winter Brawl last year had EVERY 3D fighting game starting at the EXACT same time. Now, I know that Namco cares about Tekken the most; so I prioritized them for my stream. Which means, before the tournament, during casuals, I ran Soulcalibur; this way when the tournaments start, I could do Tekken. So the tournaments start; I am running the Soulcalibur tournament, I don't remember who was running Tekken. I ask if the Tekken guys are ready to put Tekken on my stream, they tell me no.
So I start the Soulcalibur tournament on my stream. Now, I've been going to BigE events for a decade, and for a decade, they have ALWAYS been run piss poor, with terrible scheduling. But I run Soulcalibur, so once we get started, we run fast (we often start late, because of BigE's terrible registration systems); but this time we started on time. Now the Soulcalibur community has been a part of the BigE events for a long time, we used to be his biggest draw. But after 2009, we didn't matter anymore. Normally we would run pools on Saturday, then the main stream gets the finish off finals on Sunday. However, the schedule is always ****, so the Soulcalibur players sit around for hours on Sunday until I'm eventually told to just run finals on my stream to clear up the schedule.
The Soulcalibur community has been dealing with this at BigE events for many events. And for several events already, we decided "**** that"; we're not waiting for Sunday, we'll run our finals on my stream on Saturday and call it a weekend. We always asked BigE first and he always said fine. So its Saturday night; I've still not been given any Tekken to stream, and we are just about done with the ENTIRE Soulcalibur tournament, half way through finals. This is the point they come up and tell me "its time for Tekken". And I'm like "uhh... no; we're in finals". So we finish up Soulcalibur, and then during the last 2 hours of the night, I stream some Tekken pools.
The next day, I have NOTHING to stream. I asked if they had any Tekken to stream, they said no. As I said, the schedule was genius. So I start running side events; which I have been doing at EVERY BigE event I have ever streamed for years. Sometimes its Virtua Fighter, sometimes its Eternal Champions, etc... This time its Windjammers. Business as usual; poor scheduling has me running out to find something, anything to stream. Windjammers was at least super hype. But seriously, if you're running tournaments for a decade, and they are still run like **** after all that time; then your problems will never be fixed.
So of course Namco is mad at BigE, because they are a sponsor and they wanted more stream time for Tekken. So what does BigE do? He throws me under the bus; rather than admit his own mistakes, he says I chose to stream Soulcalibur out of my "love for the game", and screwed Tekken. He passes this BS off to the Tekken community, and to Namco itself (potentially ruining my existing relationship with them). Did I chose Soulcalibur over Tekken? No, I chose FINALS over POOLS; it didn't matter what game it was, its more important to stream finals than a pool. If it was Marvel and Street Fighter, I would have made the same decision. Then of course, BigE claims that I stream "some random game" instead of Tekken, without permission. Even though I asked if we could run a Windjammers tournament because I was getting a lot of requests for it. He said fine, and the signup form was on the OFFICIAL REGISTRATION TABLE... without permission?
![[TSON]](/data/avatars/l/114/114196.jpg?1360761019){kind=avatar}
