The Truth About MLG

[Icy Black Deep]

When Capcom turned them down, MLG came to us

Well yeah, but no to the rest.

MLG didn't pick up fighting games just to shit on them. Yeah they have VC money, but they aren't going to just blow it to screw with TYM. There's no way entry fees paid for the prize pool, never mind the venue, and I can't believe playing the same half-dozen commercials over and over again puts them in the black. So it's pretty much a given that they lost money running the tournament, and they probably expected that. Their goal was surely to start building things, and unfortunately for everyone involved the outcome is rather the opposite.

I can only echo the remarks about what happened to the people involved when they were running MK9? A lot of the rest sounds kind of consistent with things being run by people who have never seen a fighting game tournament before but come from the world of competitive shooters (people who tend to, in my experience, take themselves very seriously). Although my mind was a little blown by the Smash streamer's comment that "Our broadcast team is a lot of first timers, myself included being the producer."

 

[MorbidAltruism]

I was honestly laboring a bit of disdain towards MLG; however, the reality of the situation is that mistakes happen. It was a poorly run event, hopefully it does not happen again. I am willing to forgive and forget. I actually enjoyed certain aspects of the stream not pertaining to Injustice. The Crew Battle in Melee was legendary.

 

[Shaazzyam]

Well yeah, but no to the rest.

MLG didn't pick up fighting games just to shit on them. Yeah they have VC money, but they aren't going to just blow it to screw with TYM. There's no way entry fees paid for the prize pool, never mind the venue, and I can't believe playing the same half-dozen commercials over and over again puts them in the black. So it's pretty much a given that they lost money running the tournament, and they probably expected that. Their goal was surely to start building things, and unfortunately for everyone involved the outcome is rather the opposite.

I can only echo the remarks about what happened to the people involved when they were running MK9? A lot of the rest sounds kind of consistent with things being run by people who have never seen a fighting game tournament before but come from the world of competitive shooters (people who tend to, in my experience, take themselves very seriously). Although my mind was a little blown by the Smash streamer's comment that "Our broadcast team is a lot of first timers, myself included being the producer."

I've heard from some people that it was easily the worst tournament they have ever attended...

I'm sure they didn't intend for it to be ran that way but it's hardly an excuse.
I mostly agree with what you're saying and from a person attending it wasn't probably as bad.. . But as a stream monster, my butt is pretty sore right now.

 

[mutantmagnet]

I don't know why the FGC still support MLG.

"I would say fighting games are the one I would point to where they would prefer nobody watches," Sepso said. "We're way too big for the fighting game community. They don't want to touch us at all. We're like big, commercial, and ugly, and they don't want us screwing up their good thing."

Read the interview with the main man of mlg, the president Mike sepso.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-02-24-cracking-the-code-on-eSports

You misread that. The previous sentence was

"There's also a cultural resistance to growth in some genres,"

So his next statement is that the fighting game community doesn't even want people to watch their games if it means adopting some or all of the corporate culture that is part of the package when dealing with MLG. Considering some of the responses that have existed since MK9 was announced as part of MLG he isn't wrong.

There is cultural resistance and there should be otherwise we'll be saying it's 100% ok to have commercials between each match and lots of dead air time. MLG has every right to make money but they need to give everyone a compelling experience in return to give them the CPMs and entry fees.

 

[ReddChief]

MLG tournament being garbage and the FGC players being treated differently NO WAY who would ever thought.
I thought MLG was trolling the FGC but then no it's just the stream monsters who watched but now i see the players was too,
that's some bull sorry you guys had to go through that.

 

[Mortal Komhat]

To be 100% honest, though...he actually is right lol. I see way too much anti-MLG within the FGC.

LBSH, the hate is warranted. After that clown shoes performance past weekend, it's not about us hating them, it's about them being too incompetent and intransigent to run a proper event.

 

[Zoidberg747]

LBSH, the hate is warranted. After that clown shoes performance past weekend, it's not about us hating them, it's about them being too incompetent and intransigent to run a proper event.

Not really. They screwed up this weekend really bad but MLG was arguably the best thing that ever happened to MK9. People need to calm themselves and give MLG another chance, we don't want to throwaway good opportunities due to one poorly ran event.

And before anyone says no grassroots tournaments have been that bad, people talk about UFGT 8 like it was pretty damn close, but then look how awesome 9 was. (I might have got those numbers wrong).

 

[DevilMaySpy]

Not really. They screwed up this weekend really bad but MLG was arguably the best thing that ever happened to MK9. People need to calm themselves and give MLG another chance, we don't want to throwaway good opportunities due to one poorly ran event.

And before anyone says no grassroots tournaments have been that bad, people talk about UFGT 8 like it was pretty damn close, but then look how awesome 9 was. (I might have got those numbers wrong).

9 and 10*

 

[THTB]

Not really. They screwed up this weekend really bad but MLG was arguably the best thing that ever happened to MK9. People need to calm themselves and give MLG another chance, we don't want to throwaway good opportunities due to one poorly ran event.

And before anyone says no grassroots tournaments have been that bad, people talk about UFGT 8 like it was pretty damn close, but then look how awesome 9 was. (I might have got those numbers wrong).

Exactly. Tournaments have fuck-ups, and oftentimes unexpected issues arise. This was the case with MLG. Before I heard about what was really going on, I was really in awe as to how poorly the tournament was handled. But now there's some clarification of some of the big issues, I don't just feel bad for the FGC there. I feel bad for MLG as well. Granted, they still had issues arise that were their fault, but it happens. Grassroots tournaments have been there, too.

I think MLG deserves another shot. Like it's been said, MK9 was phenomonal when MLG picked it up. Instead of jumping on the hate bandwagon, we should be trying to give feedback on what they could do for the next MLG.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Eh, that's a biiiiit of a stretch. Let's hold off on the conspiracy theories. Bad tournaments, poor organization during events and favoritism does happen. Not everything is some nefarious master plan, especially when you factor the costs from both sides.

Exactly. Tournaments have fuck-ups, and oftentimes unexpected issues arise. This was the case with MLG. Before I heard about what was really going on, I was really in awe as to how poorly the tournament was handled. But now there's some clarification of some of the big issues, I don't just feel bad for the FGC there. I feel bad for MLG as well. Granted, they still had issues arise that were their fault, but it happens. Grassroots tournaments have been there, too.

I think MLG deserves another shot. Like it's been said, MK9 was phenomonal when MLG picked it up. Instead of jumping on the hate bandwagon, we should be trying to give feedback on what they could do for the next MLG.

Mah man, x2.

 

[FinalBoss_FGC]

Let's be real here, did you really expect the same courtesy as CoD players get?

 

[DevilMaySpy]

Let's be real here, did you really expect the same courtesy as CoD players get?

I expected to be treated like a human being, not livestock.

 

[FinalBoss_FGC]

I expected to be treated like a human being, not livestock.

Well yeah, that's the thing tho.
They probably looked at this as "doing us a favor", sadly.

 

[EGP Wonder_Chef]

I expected to be treated like a human being, not livestock.

Maybe they heard Pig was there and got confused?

 

[EGP Wonder_Chef]

Dunno if it's been posted in here yet btw, but Fly Amanita from Melee had EXTREMELY similar experience as us, he just tweeted about it:

https://twitter.com/MasterOfCaribou/status/481217002644590592


EDIT: His full experience:

Spoiler

1. 
   Friday, June 20
   
   I arrive at the venue around 11:00am. Check-in goes smoothly and I wait for the hall in which the tournament will happen to open, which is scheduled to happen around 12:00pm. That happens roughly on schedule, I go in, and the hall looks very nice and spacious. The Melee area didn't have an overwhelming number of set-ups, but certainly enough to run a pretty large tourney in three days. I warm up there for a couple hours and then go to the area where the matches featuring the pre-qualified players are set to happen, which was on the opposite end of the rather large hall. However, I head back to the area where the open bracket will occur around 2:15pm, because play is scheduled for that to begin around 2:30pm and I hadn't heard anything from any TOs from where I was. I didn't know if Melee announcements would be audible on the other end of the venue, so I was playing it safe. Not too long afterwards, an official of some sort prohibits people from playing casuals on the set-ups and has everybody vacate the immediate area about the Melee stations, so I hope that matches will start being called soon.
   
   Time passes and nothing happens. Over the course of the next 60-90 minutes, I walk around and ask multiple groups of smashers in the area if they have any clue about what is going on. The answer is always "no". Players on the opposite end of the venue waiting for the big name matches do not know, either. Meanwhile, we are still prohibited from playing on the Melee stations. A couple hours after we were initially forced off the stations, we are finally allowed to get back in and play casuals, but still haven't heard anything about the tourney. I eventually learn from KoopaTroopa that MLG was experiencing difficulties with their online bracket. I'm not certain of the details, but it seems like it was something along the lines of MLG having server issues and not being able to update the bracket because of it. Koopa himself heard this not from a tournament organizer, but from the streamer Chibo. Regardless, there evidently wasn't a back-up plan, so all we could do is wait. I go to eat and tell Koopa to call me if matches start being announced. I return shortly afterwards and nothing has happened. Finally, around 6:30pm, matches are ready to be called.
   
   Around the time that matches start being called (I don't recall if this was a little before or afterwards), people not playing matches are again told to leave the area. Based on what I observed, and later heard while talking to one of the security workers, it seemed to be fire code-related. The amount of space we have seems ample to me and would have been a dream at Apex 2014, but I'm not a fire code expert, so I won't complain about the call. However, while outside of the Melee area, it is difficult to hear the announcer. The evident unfamiliarity of the Melee announcer with the Melee scene leads to some pretty ugly name mispronunciations, most of which are merely harmless and funny. There is at least one player who is DQed because he didn't understand their pronunciation of his name, however. Meanwhile, matches for one of the games located near Melee are being called, and the announcer for that and the announcer for the Melee matches are frequently overlapping and rendering each other incomprehensible from the location I am at, which was about as close to the Melee set-ups as I was allowed to be. I eventually hear from another player that there is a monitor displaying the matches which have been called, so I start referencing that after a while instead of trying to understand the announcer. Allow me to emphasize that I never heard about this monitor from a TO of any sort, but rather another player who happened to be standing around, and my only assurance that said monitor was actually up-to-date came from other players.
   
   Around 8:40pm, I see my first match show up on the board. My opponent is very on top of things and I find him quickly, so we go over to the station on which our match is called and get ready to play. He tells me that he thinks there needs to be a referee watching the match, so he goes to find one. This is the first time I had heard anything about a referee. A referee comes over, but tells us that our match isn't scheduled to start until 9:00pm, so we should do handwarmers for 15-20 minutes until then. We play friendlies for a bit, the match is called a little after 9:00pm, a referee shows up, and we finally play the set.
   
   Afterwards, I go over to the other side of the venue, on which the crew battle is scheduled to take place at 10:00pm. Both crews get all their by members ready by around 10:30pm. At this point, I'm not sure if the people running the open bracket are aware that certain players will be unavailable for matches during that time, so I return to the open bracket area to talk to them about it. The official I speak to indeed said that they didn't have the crew battle in mind, and that there actually would have been a conflict involving Colbol coming up, so I make sure they were aware not to DQ him. I don't think this ultimately mattered since I believe that heat/wave/whatever-it's-called was delayed until tomorrow. After about half an hour of pre-crew battle and hype and preparations that I personally wasn't very appreciative of (although I can understand the appeal to spectators), the crew battle starts around 11:00pm. It ultimately ends a little after 1:00am. Saturday's matches are set to begin around 10:00am, so players in the crew battles and other competitors who were spectating it couldn't reasonably expect to get a great deal of sleep unless they skipped some meals and limited their socializing. I personally got around 5.5 hours of sleep and I wasn't exactly partying all night.
   
   
   Saturday, June 21
   
   On Saturday morning, I want to be at the venue quite early. I have a suspicion that the staff will try to be very on top of things due to how little was accomplished the day before, so I get up around 8:40am, quickly go through the morning routine, eat a small breakfast, and arrive at the venue around 9:45am. As I walk into the hall, I hear Melee matches being called. This confuses me since the tourney was scheduled to start at 10:00am, but since I don't hear any threats of DQs, I assume that nothing has actually started yet, which turns out to be a correct assumption. Right around 10:00am, the referees are waiting for the matches to be called and I'm hearing DQ warnings by around 10:05am, if I recall correctly. I text one of the people on the verge of being DQed who hasn't arrived yet to make him aware of the situation and he hurries over, but gets there only after he and several prominent names had been DQed. After enough complaints, the staff reverse the DQs and have the matches involving said players transpire. All of my matches on Saturday went pretty smoothly, but that wasn't the case for everybody. For example, Zhu and Shroomed had to play each other; they both showed up, Shroomed wanted to run to the restroom, and Zhu was fine with this. Shroomed comes back, they start the set, and Zhu wins game 1. However, as Shroomed tries to start the next game, the referee declares that the set has finished, and that Shroomed had been DQed for the first game of the set due to arriving late, and that Zhu's single round victory brought the set count to 2-0. Zhu himself doesn't like this and wants to play out an actual best of 3, but the referee refuses. There was also an incident where Fiction and Westballz started playing a set in the pools portion of the tournament, and Fiction won game 1, but a referee told them their set wasn't supposed to start yet and the one game Fiction won wouldn't count, even though that round occurred on what I believe was a streaming set-up and was widely viewed at the venue, so there wasn't any reasonable doubt about the outcome of said game. Lastly, S2J and Colbol played a set, Colbol won, but there wasn't a referee around at the time; when one did show up, he told them the set they played didn't count and they would have to play again. I am told that S2J found this ridiculous and forfeited. While this might all seem to be the players' fault to an extent, allow me to remind you that I myself had only ever heard about the referees in the first place since my opponent I had on Friday was aware of them; I personally had never heard anything about them and I suspect many other players didn't, either. Pretty much the only things we had actually heard from TOs in general at this point were matches being called. Leaving that topic, doubles matches begin around 7:30pm. The doubles event is announced to not be an official part of the MLG tourney and is run by Sheridan instead. It seems to go pretty smoothly, and, in spite of the aforementioned announcement, it is featured on the main Smash stream for a bit.
   
   Sunday, June 22
   
   As I am no longer in the tournament, I only arrive on Sunday to spectate. Melee top 8 starts around 3:00pm, if I recall correctly. The sets are good and everything goes pretty smoothly. However, there is a pretty big downtime between all of the sets. Between breaks, commercials for spectators, and some interviews before and after sets, the tournament doesn't finish until around 8:00pm. I won't complain about this too much since I understand that MLG wants to appeal to viewers at home with some of the extraneous content and also has monetary incentives to play a ton of ads, but as a person at the venue, I would have rather had more time to spend hanging out with some of the distant travelers and other people after the tourney, so I would have liked it if everything finished earlier. I won't press it much since whether this is bad or not varies by the individual and is largely debatable.
   
   
   
   Concluding thoughts
   
   Allow me to enter more subjective territory for a bit. Personally, I think the biggest recurring problem was a lack of communication with the TOs. I rarely saw SolidJake, and I am told he was mostly around the part of the venue where the pro pools were being played rather than the open bracket, which I can't personally verify. Regardless, the meat of the Melee event was largely being handled by people not familiar with the Melee scene, and we were frequently left in the dark about what was happening, especially on Friday. I was talking to a Brawl player who went to the Brawl MLG events about MLG Anaheim and he initially blamed the players for many of the issues (barring the Friday internet issues), but he later said that AlphaZealot was constantly on the mic making sure everybody was crystal clear about what was going on; we had no such luxury this year. There were evidently other issues, but I'm not informed enough to give much meaningful insight into them.

 

[CCVengeance]

Does every MLG employee have social anxiaty?
How can you run an event without properly comunicating with the players?

 

[Skellington]

Who honestly calls in a bomb threat at MLG?

 

[EGP Wonder_Chef]

Who honestly calls in a bomb threat at MLG?

Maybe they heard @SonicBoomBrad was there and got confused?

 

[haketh]

Who honestly calls in a bomb threat at MLG?

Do not doubt the immaturity of people.

 

[CCVengeance]

Who honestly calls in a bomb threat at MLG?

''16Bit better make it to Grand Finals, or the venue will be nothing but flames and ash!"

 

[sinosleep]

Well yeah, that's the thing tho.
They probably looked at this as "doing us a favor", sadly.

It doesn't help that half the people here think they are which enables them to do the same. I truly do not understand the amount of slack they're being cut here. If it was MLG's first go round with the FGC I could understand, but it's not.

 

[FCP/EMP SCAR]

How do u fuck up a tournament that was being planned months before??, As far as I know every other tournament was run smoothly with no issues, but ours was just fuckery all over, not to mention security was being a total bitch, not letting us through to even coach our teammates when they were up on stream, one security guard begin to curse me out and give me some sob story about how he makes 10$ an hour, god you don't know how much it took for me to restrain from punching this asshole in the face...everyone spent a shit load of money to attend this event for injustice, and was treated like shit while others went on with no authority fkn with them for stupid reasons.

 

[Compbros]

How do u fuck up a tournament that was being planned months before??, As far as I know every other tournament was run smoothly with no issues, but ours was just fuckery all over, not to mention security was being a total bitch, not letting us through to even coach our teammates when they were up on stream, one security guard begin to curse me out and give me some sob story about how he makes 10$ an hour, god you don't know how much it took for me to restrain from punching this asshole in the face...everyone spent a shit load of money to attend this event for injustice, and was treated like shit while others went on with no authority fkn with them for stupid reasons.

Smash and KI had known problems which pretty much mirrored IGAU's. Starcraft started way later than it should've, dunno about CoD.

 

[Vulcan Hades]

As far as I know every other tournament was run smoothly with no issues

There's been plenty of tweets from EG/Capcom guys complaining about the disaster that was Killer Instinct.

Smash was the least pathetic but it was still delayed due to the same reasons. The incidents affected everyone in the FGC not just the Injustice community.

Maybe you were referring to the COD tournament. Then in that case you are right. It seems like only the FGC tourneys had huge problems. Every time I tuned to watch some COD everything was running very smooth, non-stop stream action + interviews before an ad showed up. No delay or apparent problems whatsoever for the rest of MLG. edit: Forgot about StarCraft. Yeah apparently they had problems too (related to internet issues mostly) but still a lot of delay for them.

 

[FCP/EMP SCAR]

Smash and KI had known problems which pretty much mirrored IGAU's. Starcraft started way later than it should've, dunno about CoD.

But still all I have to say is fuck the security officials, and whoever gave them the order to detain us like that, while others in the same area went about their business...shit runs me hot everytime I think about it, fuck em all.