Pi
Smash Hero
Thank you Plank, it was my first national and I'm glad for that
I had a great time, I improved more in that weekend than I have in any given months of playtime
The venue was amazing, there was no hurt for TV's (just short of the 1 tv per 2 person ideal)
The transportation from airport to venue was great, no hassle there
You gave more than enough time to plan for me to make it out there, and I really appreciate all the work you put into making this a wonderful experience for all who came out.
I wish that I could have made it to more of your tournaments, but even so this one was amazing, PP's, AXE's, Armada's and Hax's performances should serve as inspiration to all up and coming, established, and veteran players that we're playing a game where anything can happen, where YOU can make anything happen.
With all that said, I would also like to add that I am deeply sorry for how things turned out with the prize money. We got a chance to briefly touch on the subject of the disappointing turnout, and while I expected that it was smaller than you expected did not realize how much of a snowball effect it would cause.
I am disappointed in our community moreso than ever now, we like to compare our game to other games, claim it as underrated, praise it for it's depth complexity and ever evolving metagame and deny any claim that it's dying or fading away, but with *POUND*5 being the successor to the biggest melee tournament in history and having such a significant drop in attendance it really makes me question the direction our game is heading in.
I fully understand that our game is just that, a game, but I thought that as a community, our feelings toward it transcended those of other 'games'. 10+ years melee has been around, many of you have been playing it almost just as long as it's been out, granted, not competitively. But I thought that would hold some merit as far as dedication goes. *P*5 was announced over half a year in advance, Plank put in major work to see that there was no issues as far as housing goes, we had the venue all day and all night, ample TV's, the location was great as far as food goes, it wasn't crowded, I thought he did an amazing job putting together an 'underground' tournament. And this wasn't the first one either.
Now after all this, when **** hits the fan, he's a criminal? A bad guy? People are talking about suing him? It's disgusting. First of all if you didn't attend pound5 you are seriously in no position to voice your opinion on the situation, seeing as how you're part of the reason why it happened. I'm not saying you were obligated to go to the damn tournament, but it was most certainly within your ability to attend, you chose not to for reasons that I really don't care about, but the point is that you chose not to.
Am I saying that the people who trained hard for this tournament to win, and did just that, don't deserve their money? No, of course not. It's perfectly acceptable for them to expect to get paid for their talents & hardwork, but no one should have been relying on the prize money because nothing is guaranteed, so not receiving prize money from this tournament should not put anyone in a position worth suing over, much less suing one of our own.
Plank took a risk with this tournament, not something I agree with, but he did.
A risk that was not to benefit himself, but he did it for the community, he put together what he anticipated would be the largest (or close to it) tournament to date. And if you would just for a second imagine what it must have been like for Plank to see the marks he set not be met by a community who's general laziness, or lack of motivation, or whatever you want to call it, is becoming ever more apparent I think you might feel a touch of empathy.
Look back to the *pound* series, and ask anyone who attended and everyone, if not the vast majority will comment on how great it was. I've never heard a negative opinion on the overall experience of the pound series, or any national, regional, or local tournament for that matter. Because for most of us, when we go to these tournaments, it's not to win money. We're going because we enjoy playing the game, hanging out with people who share our common interest, learning, challenging ourselves to become better, getting to spend time with people who excel at this game and hear them talk about it. Hang with friends we've made through the game that we haven't seen in a while, catching up, having fun.
At least that's the way it is for me, and in my opinion the way it should be.
Now don't get me wrong, I have every intention of becoming the best melee player. I'd much rather win than lose, but that doesn't mean that I don't take away just as much from losing as I do winning.
I'm going for, as most people are, the experience and the social aspect of hanging out with the smash community.
*P*5 ran me $600+, and while I wish it could have been cheaper, I don't regret any dime I spent there because it was amazing.
Thank you plank, and shame on ya'll for turning your back so abruptly to someone who's put more work into this game & community than 99% of you can claim to.
I had a great time, I improved more in that weekend than I have in any given months of playtime
The venue was amazing, there was no hurt for TV's (just short of the 1 tv per 2 person ideal)
The transportation from airport to venue was great, no hassle there
You gave more than enough time to plan for me to make it out there, and I really appreciate all the work you put into making this a wonderful experience for all who came out.
I wish that I could have made it to more of your tournaments, but even so this one was amazing, PP's, AXE's, Armada's and Hax's performances should serve as inspiration to all up and coming, established, and veteran players that we're playing a game where anything can happen, where YOU can make anything happen.
With all that said, I would also like to add that I am deeply sorry for how things turned out with the prize money. We got a chance to briefly touch on the subject of the disappointing turnout, and while I expected that it was smaller than you expected did not realize how much of a snowball effect it would cause.
I am disappointed in our community moreso than ever now, we like to compare our game to other games, claim it as underrated, praise it for it's depth complexity and ever evolving metagame and deny any claim that it's dying or fading away, but with *POUND*5 being the successor to the biggest melee tournament in history and having such a significant drop in attendance it really makes me question the direction our game is heading in.
I fully understand that our game is just that, a game, but I thought that as a community, our feelings toward it transcended those of other 'games'. 10+ years melee has been around, many of you have been playing it almost just as long as it's been out, granted, not competitively. But I thought that would hold some merit as far as dedication goes. *P*5 was announced over half a year in advance, Plank put in major work to see that there was no issues as far as housing goes, we had the venue all day and all night, ample TV's, the location was great as far as food goes, it wasn't crowded, I thought he did an amazing job putting together an 'underground' tournament. And this wasn't the first one either.
Now after all this, when **** hits the fan, he's a criminal? A bad guy? People are talking about suing him? It's disgusting. First of all if you didn't attend pound5 you are seriously in no position to voice your opinion on the situation, seeing as how you're part of the reason why it happened. I'm not saying you were obligated to go to the damn tournament, but it was most certainly within your ability to attend, you chose not to for reasons that I really don't care about, but the point is that you chose not to.
Am I saying that the people who trained hard for this tournament to win, and did just that, don't deserve their money? No, of course not. It's perfectly acceptable for them to expect to get paid for their talents & hardwork, but no one should have been relying on the prize money because nothing is guaranteed, so not receiving prize money from this tournament should not put anyone in a position worth suing over, much less suing one of our own.
Plank took a risk with this tournament, not something I agree with, but he did.
A risk that was not to benefit himself, but he did it for the community, he put together what he anticipated would be the largest (or close to it) tournament to date. And if you would just for a second imagine what it must have been like for Plank to see the marks he set not be met by a community who's general laziness, or lack of motivation, or whatever you want to call it, is becoming ever more apparent I think you might feel a touch of empathy.
Look back to the *pound* series, and ask anyone who attended and everyone, if not the vast majority will comment on how great it was. I've never heard a negative opinion on the overall experience of the pound series, or any national, regional, or local tournament for that matter. Because for most of us, when we go to these tournaments, it's not to win money. We're going because we enjoy playing the game, hanging out with people who share our common interest, learning, challenging ourselves to become better, getting to spend time with people who excel at this game and hear them talk about it. Hang with friends we've made through the game that we haven't seen in a while, catching up, having fun.
At least that's the way it is for me, and in my opinion the way it should be.
Now don't get me wrong, I have every intention of becoming the best melee player. I'd much rather win than lose, but that doesn't mean that I don't take away just as much from losing as I do winning.
I'm going for, as most people are, the experience and the social aspect of hanging out with the smash community.
*P*5 ran me $600+, and while I wish it could have been cheaper, I don't regret any dime I spent there because it was amazing.
Thank you plank, and shame on ya'll for turning your back so abruptly to someone who's put more work into this game & community than 99% of you can claim to.
After weeks of trying to get money back/barter with the hotel I regretfully am faced with informing everybody that there is not going to be any prize money at this time from *Pound*. The hotel was rented out on a sliding scale of rooms rented and that would lower the cost of the venue. I got a really amazing place in a convenient location because we expected MORE entrants. We budgeted so we would be still fine with COMPARABLE entrants. However with over 100 entrants less for melee and like 60 less for brawl, being short those funds/hotel rooms really screwed everything. I'm taking a slight hit myself for even hosting the event.
I still held some hope even through the event the funds I collected in person would be enough to at least PARTIALLY pay people out and give them SOMETHING for their performance. However so many people cancelled their rooms or no-showed the weekend of the tournament that it dropped the room rental down below the threshhold and I got charged EVEN MORE (the money I planned on paying entrants).
The place was crazy expensive but everything would've been fine with a more expected turnout. This mixed with people cramming into rooms (I saw a ton of rooms with extra people in them. More people=less rooms rented=more money I have to pay to hotel=less prizes).
I had to rent out a certain # of rooms to fulfill my contract, and once I rented these rooms I tried to bribe people to get into these rooms for cheap and use that money to help fund the tournament.
With Pound 4 being so successful and the biggest downfall being the distance of travel between the hotel and the airports, and with the new venue being right next to an airport with the venue INSIDE the hotel, along with all the promotional deals, we expected such a larger number than what we got.
This is why there was no internet at the venue and why I went out and got my own PA system for 1/5 the price of the venue PA system. I knew coming into it that prizes were going to be tough and maybe smaller but the room cancellations the weekend of the venue was really the nail in the coffin. There were over 30 cancellations the last week and I had bought out the difference of rooms (had to because of my contract) and so even with the 90 rooms I was forced to purchase it still came up short and cost even more money.
I am at least glad everyone had a good time while they were there before I had to drop this bomb..... I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this. The event was overall just not successful at all on a financial level. I really apologize again and I know it won't do justice, and I know I'm going to get tons of **** for it but there is absolutely nothing I can do at this point.
So....I'm sorry again...I never expected this and when I saw it slightly starting to happen I tried my hardest to get more people to come and to find alternate ways to make money, but to no avail. I'm probably not going to really log back in to check this much because I already know the backlash I will get and it will just make me feel worse so I'll just leave it at that.
I guess thats the best I can do as far as this post goes...... I had to let everybody know, hopefully my friends realize that this was just a horrible misjudgement/sequence of events, but I definitely do expect people to be pissed, clearly I would too, but there is nothing that can be done at this point so all I can do is say "I'm sorry" like a broken record.
so....
I'm sorry