QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Wait are you saying that all those dahbomb parody accounts on twitch are really you, this is something they would say.
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Jaxel- On the big Tournament Organizers in the Fighting Game Community
- Thread starter A Pretty Panda
- Start date
Wait are you saying that all those dahbomb parody accounts on twitch are really you, this is something they would say.
Off topic but I wonder why people were distrusting of the man in the first place. The amount of shit he got for announcing the VxG was insane
Lost Fragment
Obsessed with 4chan
There's a lot of history of people coming into the FGC out of nowhere and underdeliving after making big promises. Plus Triforce has been associated with it for a long time.
I don't think there are many people worried about that now. Pretty obvious the guy has a lot of money to throw around and isn't going not pay winnings or whatever. My beef is VxG is they foster drama for the sake of promotion and I'm not down with that. Shit is like OBS, but with money.
Understood.
Because the last person that came out of seemingly nowhere and promising big money was John Nelson. He hasn't paid the RevaLAtions 2012 money out yet (https://twitter.com/Dios_X_Reloaded/status/349068778321096704), fucked over Team Hori (Tatsu, AndyOCR and Warhawk) the year before and no one can find him now. Fanatiq tried defending him when people telling others not to support it by making it sound like people were just jealous of the money John was able to payout.
When shit hits the fan like that, the sponsors he got will be hesitant to do anything with the FGC, if at all. John Nelson isn't the first either.
Shoutouts to the KoF Community for walking out on the event, also never refunded their entry fees.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Hey, I know that guy!
Have to deal with his shit here in Colorado while trying to get the local FGC going, but he just overclouds everything we do...
Recon does a damn fine job clouding stuff up too.
Spirit of Jazz
Banned
I'm really not understanding the pro Jaxel slant here, especially in the OP which still doesn't include Viscant flat out refuting the shit he said about evo pay outs. I know Jaxel's done a lot for streaming in the community and his productions are generally top notch, but the whole thing reads as massively bias and something that should have been brought up in a place where Big E could respond directly.
Also I think it's pretty funny that some people were giving Renegade shit for 'unsubstantiated' generalising some of the smash community despite posting he'd run events where Smash set-ups were a headache to get in the first place and then ended up getting stolen. When at the same time they were fine with Jaxel saying everybody in the capcom FGC shit.
Also I think it's pretty funny that some people were giving Renegade shit for 'unsubstantiated' generalising some of the smash community despite posting he'd run events where Smash set-ups were a headache to get in the first place and then ended up getting stolen. When at the same time they were fine with Jaxel saying everybody in the capcom FGC shit.
I think the biggest mistake was posting here at NeoGAF, where creating an account is not straightforward, and the people getting accused of wrongdoing can't really defend themselves because of that fact. Not a good look.
I don't know Jaxel personally, but I respect the work he put in for the community. He's one of the few who streams VF5 which gets little love from the community for whatever reason (Sega did us a huge favour by releasing it outside of Japan). I also liked that he streamed Windjammers, a game I never played before but thoroughly enjoyed watching. It's just sad that I now know the circumstances in which it was streamed. I thought he was streaming it because why not?
I'm of the mindset that once money is involved within a community--any community--things get complicated quick. It's just what happens when a community grows. But I also believe that TOs aren't motivated by money since there's no money to be motivated by.
I would really like Big E to be able to explain himself, because not addressing a problem will only make things worse in the long run. This stuff might blow over, but people will never forget a slight. There's enough drama in the FGC, and we don't need more.
I don't know Jaxel personally, but I respect the work he put in for the community. He's one of the few who streams VF5 which gets little love from the community for whatever reason (Sega did us a huge favour by releasing it outside of Japan). I also liked that he streamed Windjammers, a game I never played before but thoroughly enjoyed watching. It's just sad that I now know the circumstances in which it was streamed. I thought he was streaming it because why not?
I'm of the mindset that once money is involved within a community--any community--things get complicated quick. It's just what happens when a community grows. But I also believe that TOs aren't motivated by money since there's no money to be motivated by.
I would really like Big E to be able to explain himself, because not addressing a problem will only make things worse in the long run. This stuff might blow over, but people will never forget a slight. There's enough drama in the FGC, and we don't need more.
irfaanator
Banned
I think panda needs to update the op w/ the new information that jaxel put out in the previous page.
Off topic but here's the John Nelson stuff http://forums.shoryuken.com/discussion/167166/john-nelson-tournament-legacy-and-team-hori/p1
They have probably already copy/pasted it into their stock response folder.
R
Retro_
Unconfirmed Member
I agree. Glad that misconception is cleared up.
Still the VxG thing seems pretty shady
I don't want to say I'm "Pro-Jaxel" in this, but to me his words hold real weight through how much he's sacrificing to say them. He's essentially committing social suicide within a community he clearly poured alot of himself into, so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt until explicitly proven wrong.(as we was by SweetJohnnyCage and now Sixfortyfive on previous pages)
and the Viscant thing isn't in the OP because his comments don't really have anything to do with the central point of his posts. Yes we know his figures were wrong on Evo payout. That's besides the point of what he meant with that comment. He meant to illustrate the huge disparity between MLG and Evo payouts, which still exists even with the correct figures. So calling attention to Viscant's comments adds nothing to the conversation.
I think neogaf is better than SRK, which would obviously be biased against him and what he had to say. I mean he states he's already banned on SRK for defending his software when Wizard complained about it being the cause for bugs on the site. (Which I have no problem believing. Seen that kind of behavior from Wizard first hand both on the site and in the IRC channel.)
at least Neogaf is a bit more neutral. and Shouta seems to be making an effort to get people that do want to say something approved accounts
Sega did us a favor? They ensured VF's failure outside of Japan by not releasing timely ports.
Account creation aside neogaf is pretty much a neutral ground. Shouta is also moderating this conversation very well and clearing account creation for TOs. There is possibly no better place for him to air this out and have an even argument like the one going with SRK being what it is.
SweetJohnnyCage
Member
First off, thanks admins for approving my account! Been wanting to get on GAF for a long time.
I'm going to be very blunt. I haven't read the entire thread, I've just been tagged a few times on Twitter and Facebook in regards to this issue. I'm not here to argue with anyone, but I will be very blunt in how I post. It's just how I am. Sorry if I offend anyone, and I hope you'll all still want to come to East Coast Throwdown in the future.
To Jaxel:
If you had come to ECT5, you would've noticed that there was physically no room for a 5th stream. We had Spooky, Bibiquadium (anime), Deadly Bison Entertainment (secondary) and Kombat Network streaming. When hotels are charging you hundreds of dollars per connection, logistically speaking, it makes no sense to have a 5th stream when SCV and Tekken had small numbers even with JDCR being flown in since he won Final Round. Take a look at some pictures of the event. The entire pre-function area was filled. We had to put Anime, Tekken, and SCV in that area. Vampire, ST, and Deadly Bison's Setup went in the sidehall of the prefunction area. And even then, it was packed. It was so full that we physically can not fit in that space next year without being even more of a fire hazard that we already are.
No one is getting ballrooms for free. Hotels are in the business of making money and we run our events in major cities. Eric runs his by 2 sports stadiums. You think he gets it for free? Come on man. We have to deal with unions to do almost anything in these ballrooms. That alone costs money.
I don't like your attitude, so I choose not to work with you. I think you have a giant sense of entitlement. That's the vibe you give off, and a lot of people think so. Your stream looks beautiful, but I just don't care for you as a person. You rub me the wrong way. If another TO asks me, "What do you think of Jaxel?" I say, "He has a good stream, watch the Break weeklies. As a person, I don't care for him". One major thing that infuriates me is the amount of ways you ask for donations/money. One of the first things you see on 8WR is a banner that says "You don't want to make Viola cry!" and saying to help support the site and become a premium member (only if they have Adblock installed). The banner above that asks people to become premium members. So no matter what, they're being asked to give you money. If I turn off Adblock, I get full page banner ads that clash with the theme of your site, detracting from the content. I understand sites need money to run, I really do. I host ECT's site, I know how it works. But the way you do things is a bit intrusive for my tastes. Your Xsplit tool's biggest button is a donate button.
Not sure if you were the one who asked this, but no TO is going to open their books for one simple reason. No matter what number we say we make in profit (which 90% of gets recycled back into next year's down payment and to start the next event), it'll be too much for someone. If it's $10, they'll say you should donate it to a pot. If it's $10,000 we'll be called thieves. I don't know where people come up with these giant numbers of $30,000. If TOs were making that much money, why would we work regular jobs? Why would I still have $35,000 in student loans? Why would I be driving the same car since high school that now has 174,000 miles on it? As much as I love my Jeep, I'd rather be driving something a bit newer.
I can't speak for everyone in the community. Hell, I can't even speak for a lot of other TOs. But I'm sorry you feel like you got blackballed, but you did it to yourself with ECT at ECT4. First off, the tip/donation jar just annoyed me, but I didn't want to be a dick and ask you to take it down. The event was running really well so I decided to focus on the bigger picture instead. You also made some snide comments on Twitter about Deadly Bison Entertainment sucking up your bandwidth when they weren't even streaming. They did the salty suite, nothing else that year. That was the second thing that made me not want to work with you anymore. We told DBE back in September of 2012 that if they were up for it, we wanted them to stream secondary. They do a great job, and they're really funny guys that we enjoy working with.
I also didn't like how you asked if you could be the main stream ECT5, even after Spooky had been announced as our streamer at NEC when I spoke on stage. His banner, along with Kombat Network were also featured on our site at that time as well. At that time, I had told you that Spooky was main stage, DBE was secondary, but we wanted you to be the 3D stream, which you happily agreed to, and you never asked for any amount of money, or even a hotel room. Would we have covered your hotel room? Probably not since we have to pay for Eric's 2 rooms, Larry and his wife's room, Rolando's room, and Team Spooky's room. That right there is over $1500 in sunk costs, and when we're literally paying for ECT out of our own weekly paychecks, that's a big amount for us to sink.
I didn't like how dismissive you were of Tekken pools at Winter Brawl while you took 3 and a half hours to stream SCV Top 8. I asked you at 6:00pm when we started pools if you were able to stream Tekken. You said you were in Top 8 of SCV and could stream when done. I said ok, no problem, we'll keep moving with pools. 2 hours later, we're done with the first two pools, and you're still going with Top 8. I check in with you on where you are, and all you say is you're doing Top 8. 90 minutes later when we're almost done with the final pools, Top 8 finishes and you stream 4 or 5 matches of Tekken. When one of the TOs asks you to stream a sponsored game (and I'm not even saying myself, Hubbs asked you as well, and he's partially in charge of WB), you should really do it. I've never worked with someone else who would tell someone in charge that they couldn't stream a sponsored game over a game that was not sponsored and had less entries. That was the final straw for me wanting to work with you.
I know nothing of the VxG business. This is the first time I'm hearing anything to that effect. The only ones I knew who were streaming were Bifuteki, and I thought Spooky was doing something as well. You were never on any of the sponsorship decks that we received, but I'm almost positive Bifu was. I never heard your name thrown around by Rolando or anyone involved with VxG. But again, I don't know what goes on behind closed doors with VxG, so I'll just let that rock.
===
Sorry for the giant wall of text, but I only plan on posting in this thread this once. I hope that clarified some of the story from our perspective. Thanks for your time.
I'm going to be very blunt. I haven't read the entire thread, I've just been tagged a few times on Twitter and Facebook in regards to this issue. I'm not here to argue with anyone, but I will be very blunt in how I post. It's just how I am. Sorry if I offend anyone, and I hope you'll all still want to come to East Coast Throwdown in the future.
To Jaxel:
If you had come to ECT5, you would've noticed that there was physically no room for a 5th stream. We had Spooky, Bibiquadium (anime), Deadly Bison Entertainment (secondary) and Kombat Network streaming. When hotels are charging you hundreds of dollars per connection, logistically speaking, it makes no sense to have a 5th stream when SCV and Tekken had small numbers even with JDCR being flown in since he won Final Round. Take a look at some pictures of the event. The entire pre-function area was filled. We had to put Anime, Tekken, and SCV in that area. Vampire, ST, and Deadly Bison's Setup went in the sidehall of the prefunction area. And even then, it was packed. It was so full that we physically can not fit in that space next year without being even more of a fire hazard that we already are.
No one is getting ballrooms for free. Hotels are in the business of making money and we run our events in major cities. Eric runs his by 2 sports stadiums. You think he gets it for free? Come on man. We have to deal with unions to do almost anything in these ballrooms. That alone costs money.
I don't like your attitude, so I choose not to work with you. I think you have a giant sense of entitlement. That's the vibe you give off, and a lot of people think so. Your stream looks beautiful, but I just don't care for you as a person. You rub me the wrong way. If another TO asks me, "What do you think of Jaxel?" I say, "He has a good stream, watch the Break weeklies. As a person, I don't care for him". One major thing that infuriates me is the amount of ways you ask for donations/money. One of the first things you see on 8WR is a banner that says "You don't want to make Viola cry!" and saying to help support the site and become a premium member (only if they have Adblock installed). The banner above that asks people to become premium members. So no matter what, they're being asked to give you money. If I turn off Adblock, I get full page banner ads that clash with the theme of your site, detracting from the content. I understand sites need money to run, I really do. I host ECT's site, I know how it works. But the way you do things is a bit intrusive for my tastes. Your Xsplit tool's biggest button is a donate button.
Not sure if you were the one who asked this, but no TO is going to open their books for one simple reason. No matter what number we say we make in profit (which 90% of gets recycled back into next year's down payment and to start the next event), it'll be too much for someone. If it's $10, they'll say you should donate it to a pot. If it's $10,000 we'll be called thieves. I don't know where people come up with these giant numbers of $30,000. If TOs were making that much money, why would we work regular jobs? Why would I still have $35,000 in student loans? Why would I be driving the same car since high school that now has 174,000 miles on it? As much as I love my Jeep, I'd rather be driving something a bit newer.
I can't speak for everyone in the community. Hell, I can't even speak for a lot of other TOs. But I'm sorry you feel like you got blackballed, but you did it to yourself with ECT at ECT4. First off, the tip/donation jar just annoyed me, but I didn't want to be a dick and ask you to take it down. The event was running really well so I decided to focus on the bigger picture instead. You also made some snide comments on Twitter about Deadly Bison Entertainment sucking up your bandwidth when they weren't even streaming. They did the salty suite, nothing else that year. That was the second thing that made me not want to work with you anymore. We told DBE back in September of 2012 that if they were up for it, we wanted them to stream secondary. They do a great job, and they're really funny guys that we enjoy working with.
I also didn't like how you asked if you could be the main stream ECT5, even after Spooky had been announced as our streamer at NEC when I spoke on stage. His banner, along with Kombat Network were also featured on our site at that time as well. At that time, I had told you that Spooky was main stage, DBE was secondary, but we wanted you to be the 3D stream, which you happily agreed to, and you never asked for any amount of money, or even a hotel room. Would we have covered your hotel room? Probably not since we have to pay for Eric's 2 rooms, Larry and his wife's room, Rolando's room, and Team Spooky's room. That right there is over $1500 in sunk costs, and when we're literally paying for ECT out of our own weekly paychecks, that's a big amount for us to sink.
I didn't like how dismissive you were of Tekken pools at Winter Brawl while you took 3 and a half hours to stream SCV Top 8. I asked you at 6:00pm when we started pools if you were able to stream Tekken. You said you were in Top 8 of SCV and could stream when done. I said ok, no problem, we'll keep moving with pools. 2 hours later, we're done with the first two pools, and you're still going with Top 8. I check in with you on where you are, and all you say is you're doing Top 8. 90 minutes later when we're almost done with the final pools, Top 8 finishes and you stream 4 or 5 matches of Tekken. When one of the TOs asks you to stream a sponsored game (and I'm not even saying myself, Hubbs asked you as well, and he's partially in charge of WB), you should really do it. I've never worked with someone else who would tell someone in charge that they couldn't stream a sponsored game over a game that was not sponsored and had less entries. That was the final straw for me wanting to work with you.
I know nothing of the VxG business. This is the first time I'm hearing anything to that effect. The only ones I knew who were streaming were Bifuteki, and I thought Spooky was doing something as well. You were never on any of the sponsorship decks that we received, but I'm almost positive Bifu was. I never heard your name thrown around by Rolando or anyone involved with VxG. But again, I don't know what goes on behind closed doors with VxG, so I'll just let that rock.
===
Sorry for the giant wall of text, but I only plan on posting in this thread this once. I hope that clarified some of the story from our perspective. Thanks for your time.
Karsticles
Member
Thank you for the thorough explanation.
notworksafe
Member
Psh, Recon can't even beat us weak New Mexico players in Marvel. Rough weekend for CO
The one thing I got out of SweetJohnnyCage's post, is that Jaxel probably dealt with what he thought was (and very well could have been, who knows) mistreatment/underappreciation by being very passive aggressive in response to later requests. That passive aggression likely made an already tenuous situation even more unstable. If nothing else, this means that Jaxel wasn't really acting as the consummate professional he claimed he was.
The other thing I got was that if the amount to which SJC didn't like Jaxel showed up that much in his post, it was probably 100x more apparent in real life. Which also probably means that SJC's attitude towards Jaxel was likely shared by other key members in what's undoubtedly somewhat of a clique centered community. Regardless of how that impression was formed, once it *was* formed, Jaxel probably never had the chance to get treated fairly ever again.
I don't think either party really comes out 100% clean here. Jaxel obviously pissed a lot of people off at some point, and somewhere probably violated community social norms (in the TO community) that gave people a negative impression. That's on Jaxel. The TOs however, probably should have cut Jaxel off a long, long time ago if they didn't like him to this extent. Keeping him around/having him do stuff that can be seen as beneficial, while preventing him from accessing any of the benefits that the other streamers received is kind of a dick move - even if Jaxel allowed it to happen to himself.
The above being said, I really wouldn't be surprised at all if BigE did in fact throw Jaxel under the bus in the Namco/Tekken thing. If you have a pissed off sponsor who wants blood, throwing them the name of someone who you don't really like in the first place can make all the sense in the world to some people.
The other thing I got was that if the amount to which SJC didn't like Jaxel showed up that much in his post, it was probably 100x more apparent in real life. Which also probably means that SJC's attitude towards Jaxel was likely shared by other key members in what's undoubtedly somewhat of a clique centered community. Regardless of how that impression was formed, once it *was* formed, Jaxel probably never had the chance to get treated fairly ever again.
I don't think either party really comes out 100% clean here. Jaxel obviously pissed a lot of people off at some point, and somewhere probably violated community social norms (in the TO community) that gave people a negative impression. That's on Jaxel. The TOs however, probably should have cut Jaxel off a long, long time ago if they didn't like him to this extent. Keeping him around/having him do stuff that can be seen as beneficial, while preventing him from accessing any of the benefits that the other streamers received is kind of a dick move - even if Jaxel allowed it to happen to himself.
The above being said, I really wouldn't be surprised at all if BigE did in fact throw Jaxel under the bus in the Namco/Tekken thing. If you have a pissed off sponsor who wants blood, throwing them the name of someone who you don't really like in the first place can make all the sense in the world to some people.
Psh, Recon can't even beat us weak New Mexico players in Marvel. Rough weekend for CO
He's gonna get so much shit when we see him on Thursday...
He's been wanting to stay low when it comes to doing tournaments. Too much drama with him and the OGs, yet the guy that everyone wanted to boycott STILL makes better events that us. Go figure.
MotherOfGod.jpg... I used to visit this site all the time. In an attempt to make something similar (THE FRAMES!!!) and investing in FrontPage at the time (fresh into high school) it eventually became the impetus to my programming career.
Shouta
Member
Frankly speaking, Viscant's ranting shouldn't be worth discussion or attention. He spun the MLG comments to make Jaxel look bad. Regardless of Jaxel's facts being off, his greater point is still valid. MLG is a better proposition when it comes to cash.
Go back and read Jaxel's post in context and even with the correct payouts. It doesn't change a thing.
.
You're welcome.
Even though it seems you don't intend on posting again in the thread, I figure I'd respond to a few points.
Thanks for explaining why you feel this way about Jaxel as well. It's good that we can hear this, not only because it gives us a bit of insight but I hope that it provides Jaxel with something to think about in regards to his own actions.
This is on Jaxel and he's apologized for it on the last page.
My question for you, is how did you communicate with him? Was it simply and blunt "We can't have you stream at ECT because we're out of space?" Or did you explain the situation in full like you did now? I'm just wondering what the situation was like.
He didn't say anyone did other than Big-E and I'm certain he can respond to that.
So if you don't like him asking for donations, what do you think of Sp00ky and Arturo talking about folks subscribing to their channels on twitch or youtube on stream? That's even more direct than a single banner on a webpage for folks that adblock.
And you don't necessarily have to open your books all the way as a TO. But there's a certain lack of transparency with how much it costs to run these events and the process behind it. A lot of TOs don't discuss that sort of stuff so folks have to work off assumptions. One could easily discuss a case scenario with made up conditions and venues to illustrate the point and then point out unforeseen circumstances that can occur and how much they could possibly cost.
So what about what Jaxel said about not getting a schedule for what to stream and him having a 4 hour empty block? How about his comments that the Tekken guys said he should go ahead with something else instead of them?
From a viewer's perspective WB7 looked like it had scheduling issues all around. As I recall, SFxT didn't even get any pools shown at all when they were supposed to because of several issues with another streamer. So I can't say Jaxel's comments aren't credible on that front.
I agree.
Neither party is 100% clean in this situation. Jaxel's general conduct needs to reflect his own view of himself more. If he considers himself a professional, he'll need to take the professional steps to ensure that he gets the proper payment for the work he does and to be assertive in his dealings so he doesn't get walked on by others.
The other folks need to communicate more clearly and be both diplomatic and professional. Some of these problems can be fixed by taking the time and clearly explaining the situation and ensuring that proper understanding is achieved. In other cases, it may be more than that.
In a community as small as the FGC is (relatively anyway) there really isn't room for these silly beefs. It hurts the community a lot. Ultimately, it's better to let this stuff get aired out and then talked about so folks can come to an amicable agreement and then strive to better the community. If it's kept quiet, then nobody can be the voice of reason and the involved will hold onto their pride or stances and just let it get even worse.
Never mind that Sega released every game outside of Japan except for Final Tuned and 5R. The point is that we got Final Showdown thanks to community efforts and Sega being gracious enough to give it to us, despite VF not being very popular. There was a Sega Cup in the US a few months ago, and there's gonna be one in Europe. I don't know if I would call that "ensuring failure," but I do wonder why more people don't play VF despite Sega's efforts as well as players' efforts to promote it.
Sorry for the off-topic post, everyone. I had to respond to this.
Renegade_Civil-War
Neo Member
No TO is going to reveal their balance sheets because as soon as you show you have money, people will start asking for it.
It's also a competition thing. If you throw open the doors and invite everyone in, someone will have a much easier time trying to undercut you if they wanted to do so.
While I'm confident even against competition, too much competition can drag down attendance and viewership.
What I can and will do is draw up a hypothetical cost estimate using real quotes in a metropolitan area that currently does not host any major tournaments. It may take me a couple of days though. I'm thinking D.C. for the expensive quote, St. Louis, and maybe something like OKC.
It's also a competition thing. If you throw open the doors and invite everyone in, someone will have a much easier time trying to undercut you if they wanted to do so.
While I'm confident even against competition, too much competition can drag down attendance and viewership.
What I can and will do is draw up a hypothetical cost estimate using real quotes in a metropolitan area that currently does not host any major tournaments. It may take me a couple of days though. I'm thinking D.C. for the expensive quote, St. Louis, and maybe something like OKC.
Shouta
Member
Stigma of it being to hard to play + 3D fighters being not as popular + Folks just don't like change (in a lot of different ways).
Those are the 3 big reasons currently. That's aside from the aesthetics and release timing issues though.
But Sega's support in the last year or so has been impeccable. The VF5 tourny at Evo last year, Sega Cup in April, and then a European Sega cup coming up in August is far more support than we've gotten from a lot of other game companies.
Right. As I said, I can understand why TOs would be apprehensive about showing their balance sheets. A hypothetical scenario on how much it would cost based on area and other factors to include would be enlightening and the next best step to clearing this issue up in the general community. Heck, you could make it into an article for everyone to read.
Renegade_Civil-War
Neo Member
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. This spectre of "TO's making off like bandits" needs to end.
I forgot all about last year's Evo tourney. Are they doing another one this year?
Shouta
Member
Considering they did Sega cup, likely not. It'd be nice but that's a lot of money on Sega's part.
SweetJohnnyCage
Member
Going against my own convictions and posting again haha.
I spoke with Jaxel via Facebook back in January when he came to me about streaming main stage at ECT5. I then messaged him in the first week of March saying,
"March 4
10:15am
John Gallagher
Hey Jaxel,
Since we have 15 official games this year at ECT, we aren't going to have enough room to include you as a streamer. We need to use the space for more setups for Vampire Savior and possibly Skullgirls. We'll put 3d on the main stage for a few hours on Saturday and stream finals as usual on Sunday. Perhaps when we move the venue for ECT6 we can get you in there again, but for now, we're going to have to forego having you stream for us.
John
March 4
4:42pm
Jason Axelrod
No worries man, I understand.
Sent from Mobile"
That was the last communication I've had with him up until now. I was tagged in a tweet when someone asked him if he were streaming SC at ECT5. Yadda yadda, that's squashed now as I see.
Being transparent is what we already do. If someone comes up to me and asks how much a ballroom costs, this costs, that costs, I'm very open with them. I'll tell you right now we paid $4250 just for the space this year, but we also paid $500 for the screen, another $500 for wires/cabling (even at a MASSIVE discount since we're friends with the owner of a cabling company), $1500 in rooms, the pallets that Mad Catz had delivered we were charged for, $1000 for a single 10Mb internet connection (which we sneakily split using a 4 port switch that we hid under the stage to save and extra $3000). So that's $7750 right there. JDCR's plane ticket was $1300 (he won Final Round, the prize was sponsored by The Fall Classic, which we run). $9000 so far. I'm still paying off the $8000 I spent in systems & monitors from last year. That's more of an investment that benefits us long term, so I don't exactly count that. Oh, we also pay $500 for an additional power drop in the ballroom to avoid blown fuses like at ECT3. There's other small costs that I'm sure I'm forgetting, which rounds it off to $11,000+ or so. And that's just costs.
Our profit isn't as easy as "Add up the venue fees" as some say. We also spend a few hundred in food and drinks over the weekend for staff. Let's not forget PayPal's near 3-5% on registrations (it's a % on the total transaction, which includes the $10 entry that contributes to the prize, which we then cover ourselves as to not cheat people out of money). Our hosting is about $150 a year with domain service.
Now take all the time we put into the event beforehand. We work our regular jobs, plan ECT during those jobs (I'm just now catching up on backed work from before Final Round), as well as after those jobs at night. Staff meetings, skype meetings, floor plans, power plans, all that goes on for months before the event. Add up all the hours we put into it, combined with the 60 hours of no-sleep from Friday to Monday morning, and we're paid less than minimum wage at the end of the weekend.
I spoke with Jaxel via Facebook back in January when he came to me about streaming main stage at ECT5. I then messaged him in the first week of March saying,
"March 4
10:15am
John Gallagher
Hey Jaxel,
Since we have 15 official games this year at ECT, we aren't going to have enough room to include you as a streamer. We need to use the space for more setups for Vampire Savior and possibly Skullgirls. We'll put 3d on the main stage for a few hours on Saturday and stream finals as usual on Sunday. Perhaps when we move the venue for ECT6 we can get you in there again, but for now, we're going to have to forego having you stream for us.
John
March 4
4:42pm
Jason Axelrod
No worries man, I understand.
Sent from Mobile"
That was the last communication I've had with him up until now. I was tagged in a tweet when someone asked him if he were streaming SC at ECT5. Yadda yadda, that's squashed now as I see.
Being transparent is what we already do. If someone comes up to me and asks how much a ballroom costs, this costs, that costs, I'm very open with them. I'll tell you right now we paid $4250 just for the space this year, but we also paid $500 for the screen, another $500 for wires/cabling (even at a MASSIVE discount since we're friends with the owner of a cabling company), $1500 in rooms, the pallets that Mad Catz had delivered we were charged for, $1000 for a single 10Mb internet connection (which we sneakily split using a 4 port switch that we hid under the stage to save and extra $3000). So that's $7750 right there. JDCR's plane ticket was $1300 (he won Final Round, the prize was sponsored by The Fall Classic, which we run). $9000 so far. I'm still paying off the $8000 I spent in systems & monitors from last year. That's more of an investment that benefits us long term, so I don't exactly count that. Oh, we also pay $500 for an additional power drop in the ballroom to avoid blown fuses like at ECT3. There's other small costs that I'm sure I'm forgetting, which rounds it off to $11,000+ or so. And that's just costs.
Our profit isn't as easy as "Add up the venue fees" as some say. We also spend a few hundred in food and drinks over the weekend for staff. Let's not forget PayPal's near 3-5% on registrations (it's a % on the total transaction, which includes the $10 entry that contributes to the prize, which we then cover ourselves as to not cheat people out of money). Our hosting is about $150 a year with domain service.
Now take all the time we put into the event beforehand. We work our regular jobs, plan ECT during those jobs (I'm just now catching up on backed work from before Final Round), as well as after those jobs at night. Staff meetings, skype meetings, floor plans, power plans, all that goes on for months before the event. Add up all the hours we put into it, combined with the 60 hours of no-sleep from Friday to Monday morning, and we're paid less than minimum wage at the end of the weekend.
That was awesome, thank you very much.
Shouta
Member
That's what NeoGAF does to you man. It's like an Akuma vortex but you're playing T,Hawk, have no meter, and can't jump.
Ah, I see. Nothing to that could really be misconstrued in your message to him. That's on him to feel like there was a connection. He's admitted he was wrong though.
As a general comment, I probably would've worded it a bit more softly. In particular, forego is a bit of a strong term to use. I've met a lot of folks in my professional career that felt it had a slightly negative connotation. I make it my policy to correct my own errors if I think someone is misunderstanding what I'm saying. At least, that is until I know they're intentionally misunderstanding me.
That's more than enough information to shut most folks up. Thanks for the information! A lot of TOs also publish entrants as well and folks can figure out how much is coming in on their own based on that. Don't even need the line item breakdown in this case. =P
A Pretty Panda
fuckin' called it, man
I ran out of characters in the OP, now links to renegade's initial post.
Yeah. This is the definition of passive aggression on Jaxel's part. Given the massive explosion in the OP, having this sort of reaction on a direct conversation is anything but straight up.
If you have problems with people, you need to be upfront about it. Jaxel missed an opportunity here to directly ask you if this had anything to do with the recent drama. Instead he feigned acceptance of your response, and apparently brooded until he made this post.
It's nice that you're trying to make this a constructive conversation and all, but breaking things down this far seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
Also, "innocuous" means "not harmful/offensive."
Shouta
Member
brain fart, I'm tired and I'm doing work here too. I'll edit it. =P
And it may seem like a stretch but you'd be surprised that how you phrase an idea or the tone of your message can often cause a lot of problems. It's more noticeable when dealing with folks in an international setting but it happens even when folks speak the same language. It's not to lay any blame on SJC's feet but as someone that does this kind of organizational and managerial work, it's something that I thought might help him with any future interactions.
Sometimes you HAVE to be sure that the other person got the message you wanted to transmit.
EDIT: meh beaten
Fair points. I'd be a liar if I said I never misunderstood someone's intentions.
Looking forward to Shouta's huge breakdown of the Jaxel's main post and replies.
Shouta
Member
I'd be here until Evo 2014 if I did that. That's just too much work.
I've already mentioned a lot of things he can do better in the thread though. Be assertive and don't let folks walk over him, act more professionally when it comes to his livelihood by doing the proper things like get contracts, communicate better, etc. I hope he takes a step back and looks at the situation and reflect on his own issues.
R
Retro_
Unconfirmed Member
Thanks for taking the time to come back and educate us all a bit more on the subject
Thanks for this, it's what the thread needed which is hard numbers and more in depth perspective about tournament organization.
Sega's recent support has been very good- no doubt about that. Unfortunately though, for most of the lifespan of VF5, there was no way for people living outside of Japan to play the most current version of the game, no? Recent support won't change the fate of a game people have already made up their minds about. ASW games have the same problem- console releases lag behind arcade releases to the point where non-Japanese players will never be on even footing competitively, so why bother?
itsyaboyrolando
Neo Member
Hi, also thanks to Gaf for adding me on here. I know myself and my organization VxG has been the topic of many popcorn-chomping discussions but it's cool i at least have access to respond in some cases.
This one is short and sweet. Just want to make it known that our decision not to go with Jaxel as a streamer isnt what it seems. When we first started looking for a streamer, Jaxel was one of the name that was suggested to us. We already had bifuteki, and had room for one more. However, as everyone know by now, we are sponsored by Capcom which is huge for our caribbean gaming community. That said, we really did not have need for a 3rd stream so the tourism board asked me to cut our streaming budget to maximize the sponsorship value received from Capcom. While the tourism board is happy to invest A LOT of money for VxG every year from now on, they also want to encourage to become self-sustaining as well. So anyway, point is, we could not afford to fly in Jaxel based on what tourism board dictated.
I didnt contact jaxel directly (was busy with another big event in St. Maarten at the time) but a mutual associate of ours, triforce, did tell Jaxel he is welcome to come and stream, but he has to cover his own flight. I said i would even try and house him myself (since i cant use VxG's budget), but he said he couldn't not afford it at this time. Which i respect. but the offer still stands, if say someone buys him a ticket, yeah he can happily stream at VxG.
So thats all there is. There was no influence from Big E for sure as he has no contact with the tourism board anyway. I mean think about it, how much flak had some trolls given us for going with Bifuteki, and we still have him as main streamer?
Peace out guys, see yall at VxG aka Da Beach!
This one is short and sweet. Just want to make it known that our decision not to go with Jaxel as a streamer isnt what it seems. When we first started looking for a streamer, Jaxel was one of the name that was suggested to us. We already had bifuteki, and had room for one more. However, as everyone know by now, we are sponsored by Capcom which is huge for our caribbean gaming community. That said, we really did not have need for a 3rd stream so the tourism board asked me to cut our streaming budget to maximize the sponsorship value received from Capcom. While the tourism board is happy to invest A LOT of money for VxG every year from now on, they also want to encourage to become self-sustaining as well. So anyway, point is, we could not afford to fly in Jaxel based on what tourism board dictated.
I didnt contact jaxel directly (was busy with another big event in St. Maarten at the time) but a mutual associate of ours, triforce, did tell Jaxel he is welcome to come and stream, but he has to cover his own flight. I said i would even try and house him myself (since i cant use VxG's budget), but he said he couldn't not afford it at this time. Which i respect. but the offer still stands, if say someone buys him a ticket, yeah he can happily stream at VxG.
So thats all there is. There was no influence from Big E for sure as he has no contact with the tourism board anyway. I mean think about it, how much flak had some trolls given us for going with Bifuteki, and we still have him as main streamer?
Peace out guys, see yall at VxG aka Da Beach!
Shouta
Member
Good to have you on board, Rolando.
Thanks for the clarification on the situation with Jaxel. It seems like it was basically out of your control and as he was the second person to be signed on, it would naturally mean he was the first person to be cut if you were faced having to cut someone because of budget constraints.
I hope the event goes well for you man!
Thanks for the clarification on the situation with Jaxel. It seems like it was basically out of your control and as he was the second person to be signed on, it would naturally mean he was the first person to be cut if you were faced having to cut someone because of budget constraints.
I hope the event goes well for you man!
Professor Beef
Banned
Unrelated to Jaxel's rant, but I would cut Bifuteki and give the spot to Jaxel if only to drastically improve the quality of the stream.