I'm incidentally going to echo the suggestion that twitch chat be made fully sub-only in the future. It won't eliminate all of the awfulness, no, but at least it'll make the people who are awful keep feeding PCF money. Especially now that Twitch has host mode, the people who want to chat without subbing can certainly find someone hosting the marathon on their own channel with a poverty chat and use that. Heck, I'd suggest that you should have every runner featured in the schedule set their personal channels to host AGDQ for the duration of their presence on-site.
SDA Forum
www.twitch.tv/amvx
Quote from your_name_here:
Quote from AMVX:
Donation comments - some of these where cringe-worthy when read out, but still better they get read out. I do feel that the donation reader should use sound judgement of what should an shouldn't be read. There were a couple of VERY inappropriate comments read out, and a couple that apparently were not read out due to one or two bad words. Just self-edit that comment slightly, if the rest of it is good. The best measure here is common sense.
Having the host filter comments on their own hasn't been very successful in the past. The donation filterers ought to assume that the host won't read the comment before reading it aloud, which is sometimes what happens. Though, sometimes the bad word is "FrankerZ," and it wouldn't exactly be devastating to have it read, and maybe the rules should be a bit more lax wrt the occasional twitch memes.
Either I am mis-understanding you a little, or you're not understanding me correctly. More likely the former. People should never assume in these scenarios, you are right on that. But if you're reading something out loud, and it's written in front of you, then you should be pre-reading it first. Not just for what it contains, but also so you don't stumble halfway cause you reach a word you don't know how to pronounce, or a comma break.
I mean in the terms that whoever is reading the comment should be using their own common sense if a donation comment should be read or not. If the comment is "F**k all you c***s" and it finds it's way to the reader, then obviously they should use their common sense to not read it aloud. If the comment was "I hope you all have a lovely day, and kill the animals" - it gets cringe worthy after a while, because of the meme and hearing it so often, but it should be read aloud.
If the comment was "FrankerZ FrankerZ FrankerZ...and so forth for the next little bit....FrankerZ FrankerZ" - then the reader should use their judgement of how much should be read, when it's acceptable to read it (in order not to cut off the runner or the game), or if that comment has to miss out. It's using sound judgement to read the right comments at the right time. In this scenario for example, the person reading could say "I have a lot of FrankerZ's from X person who donates Y amounnt." It's reasonable judgement. There was a particular comment about Stiv (and the reader or the people filtering probably didn't know the context) that was beyond rude to be read out.
EDIT: It also comes back to what Raelcun wrote earlier, which is sometime the comments seem overbearing because they're all the same type of comments. Variation in these things is nice.
Quote from romscout:
Bonus Stream
ded doggy. We wanted to try a different direction with bonus stream this time, making it less about speedruns and more about wacky games and multiplayer madness like it used to be about, but the community response to this was 99% of people leaving right after the main marathon ended. Between this, the staff being even more burnt out than usual as these events grow and more work is required to make them run, and the increasing need to start tearing down quicker, it seems best that bonus streams be discontinued at future events.
ded doggy. We wanted to try a different direction with bonus stream this time, making it less about speedruns and more about wacky games and multiplayer madness like it used to be about, but the community response to this was 99% of people leaving right after the main marathon ended. Between this, the staff being even more burnt out than usual as these events grow and more work is required to make them run, and the increasing need to start tearing down quicker, it seems best that bonus streams be discontinued at future events.
I suspect the topic of ending the Bonus Stream may need its own official thread.
Give people a chance to argue why and/or how to keep it around.
Explain the problems:
The relative disinterest.
The increasing costs of the event, and of extending the event.
The exhaustion (like from stress and sleep deprivation and bills) of the volunteers and attendees.
Having something else to worry about in an already complex situation.
The general confusion and drama it brings.
You don't want people confused as to if and/or why it is gone, and you don't want people asking "should we or shouldn't we" towards the end of the event.
Make people understand what a liability it is.
If you gotta kill it, kill it good.
What bugged me was the attempt to have a more repressed and professional atmosphere. Everyone noticed. No one liked it. If you want to draw in viewers, why not take a leaf from the book of the last AGDQ? It was a constant party train and everyone loved it. This time, by the end, the donation reader had to call the room out to clap at large donations. People seemed afraid to clap, sometimes. As for these rules stemming from trying to keep people from taking attention from the runner? Boo hoo. It's not about the runners; It's about the event. If it makes the event better, the runners should adapt to that. They can call "serious time" if they need to. But the room was so sterile and unenthusiastic that I never heard any runner call it once. If you show people that seem nervous about how much fun they can have as opposed to going wild and having a good time, people notice. It doesn't lead to an atmosphere that they want to stick around for. Yes, it did improve as the week went on, but it was still rocky. These rules are not helping. Before the people running this marathon took a step back from them, they were driving people away. Please, get rid of them. This shouldn't happen a second time. This should feel like an EVENT in a way that it rarely did this year. People tune in to have fun and take things to the limit. When it seems like there was a limit on that, people notice.
That's the main thing. Other than that...
-donation incentives and prizes
Lesser marathons are able to establish connections to people in the industry and get better prizes. We're pulling above one million every year. You can't tell me that it isn't time to graduate from Perlers. Sometimes you're going to have games where you have to do something like that to make sure there's a prize you can give out that's related to the game, but...c'mon, have some diversity in there. Also, hype prizes and incentives! There was a startling lack of attention given to incentives and prizes. My favorite part of AGDQ was when the bid war between Save and Kill the Animals was at a fever pitch. There was an intensity to it that made me want to keep watching. We need more of that, and less bored people reading scripted ads.
-organization
Some people have commented that there were too few games that were smaller. I disagree. It's just that they were not spaced well at all. Scheduling is a hassle, I know, but the way it wound up was bizarre, worse than any year so far. That's something that hurts viewership. More than that, if you're going to have blocks of games that fit some sort of theme, the viewers shouldn't find that out because someone mentions it offhand on camera. This is something very basic that could draw more attention to certain games that otherwise wouldn't have much attention.
--technical issues
Setup times!
--Commentary
There was a surprising amount of dead air where it seemed like the runner couldn't talk and the donation reader didn't know if he could speak. Conversely, there were times that the runner was very clearly trying to explain a trick and the donation runner would just interrupt him whenever he paused. That's not okay. More communication! Also, the audience and the couch are there for a reason. Make sure they are utilized. Dead air is not what you want.
As for the bonus stream? No one wants it to go. Forums were cluttered with threads about how short and unsatisfying it was this year. You're a business, of sorts, or at the very least, some sort of professional organization. If this is something that keeps people engaged, it's not something you should cut unless you have reasons better than the ones that you've shown the public.
Twitch chat should be open with brief bouts of sub only mode. It's awful. Crude, vulgar, and insulting. Yet...it's like watching football in a crowded stadium. There's a feel to it that can't be replicated. Eliminate that and you'll find that it's a detriment to the event. It helps the event, and we shouldn't lash out emotionally and make a bad decision because of it.
That's the main thing. Other than that...
-donation incentives and prizes
Lesser marathons are able to establish connections to people in the industry and get better prizes. We're pulling above one million every year. You can't tell me that it isn't time to graduate from Perlers. Sometimes you're going to have games where you have to do something like that to make sure there's a prize you can give out that's related to the game, but...c'mon, have some diversity in there. Also, hype prizes and incentives! There was a startling lack of attention given to incentives and prizes. My favorite part of AGDQ was when the bid war between Save and Kill the Animals was at a fever pitch. There was an intensity to it that made me want to keep watching. We need more of that, and less bored people reading scripted ads.
-organization
Some people have commented that there were too few games that were smaller. I disagree. It's just that they were not spaced well at all. Scheduling is a hassle, I know, but the way it wound up was bizarre, worse than any year so far. That's something that hurts viewership. More than that, if you're going to have blocks of games that fit some sort of theme, the viewers shouldn't find that out because someone mentions it offhand on camera. This is something very basic that could draw more attention to certain games that otherwise wouldn't have much attention.
--technical issues
Setup times!
--Commentary
There was a surprising amount of dead air where it seemed like the runner couldn't talk and the donation reader didn't know if he could speak. Conversely, there were times that the runner was very clearly trying to explain a trick and the donation runner would just interrupt him whenever he paused. That's not okay. More communication! Also, the audience and the couch are there for a reason. Make sure they are utilized. Dead air is not what you want.
As for the bonus stream? No one wants it to go. Forums were cluttered with threads about how short and unsatisfying it was this year. You're a business, of sorts, or at the very least, some sort of professional organization. If this is something that keeps people engaged, it's not something you should cut unless you have reasons better than the ones that you've shown the public.
Twitch chat should be open with brief bouts of sub only mode. It's awful. Crude, vulgar, and insulting. Yet...it's like watching football in a crowded stadium. There's a feel to it that can't be replicated. Eliminate that and you'll find that it's a detriment to the event. It helps the event, and we shouldn't lash out emotionally and make a bad decision because of it.
Quote from zeronoin:
Quote from romscout:
Bonus Stream
ded doggy. We wanted to try a different direction with bonus stream this time, making it less about speedruns and more about wacky games and multiplayer madness like it used to be about, but the community response to this was 99% of people leaving right after the main marathon ended. Between this, the staff being even more burnt out than usual as these events grow and more work is required to make them run, and the increasing need to start tearing down quicker, it seems best that bonus streams be discontinued at future events.
ded doggy. We wanted to try a different direction with bonus stream this time, making it less about speedruns and more about wacky games and multiplayer madness like it used to be about, but the community response to this was 99% of people leaving right after the main marathon ended. Between this, the staff being even more burnt out than usual as these events grow and more work is required to make them run, and the increasing need to start tearing down quicker, it seems best that bonus streams be discontinued at future events.
I suspect the topic of ending the Bonus Stream may need its own official thread.
Give people a chance to argue why and/or how to keep it around.
Explain the problems:
The relative disinterest.
The increasing costs of the event, and of extending the event.
The exhaustion (like from stress and sleep deprivation and bills) of the volunteers and attendees.
Having something else to worry about in an already complex situation.
The general confusion and drama it brings.
You don't want people confused as to if and/or why it is gone, and you don't want people asking "should we or shouldn't we" towards the end of the event.
Make people understand what a liability it is.
If you gotta kill it, kill it good.
Iirc, the last 3 GDQ's (AGDQ 2014, 2015, and SGDQ 2014) had relatively shorter bonus streams that maybe lasted a day, two at most. I can understand romscout's explanations for why bonus stream would be cut (although why it is being cut is still a bit sad).
Quote from musical_daredevil:
I was the host during your run and one thing that happened then (and might have happened several other times during AGDQ) was that during most of your run I didn't get any new donations passed to me, either because none came in or they were filtered out. After a few points without commentary, tech signaled to me to start reading about the sponsors which I did until I got a few donations in the queue I could read. That's why your run was a bit heavy on the sponsorships rather than donations.
For the record my comment wasn't aimed at you or my run in particular (to be honest i was focused on the game so i didn't listen much to other things going on -i was just making sure to not interrupt you-, and i haven't rewatched the video since), just a general feel when i was watching the stream.
It's sad to admit, but I don't think Bonus Stream can exist the way it used to due to the size of the event. 2-3 years ago, when there a maybe 200 people tops there for bonus stream, it was simple and easy to discuss amongst each other what you want to do, who goes up next, etc. When you have six to eight hundred... I don't even want to imagine.
We're all aware of how much fun the viewers have watching bonus stream, but let's not forget what bonus stream originally was; a way for the staff, volunteers, organizers, runners, and such to do much more relaxed, eaygoing, goofy stuff on stream and wind down after a, to put it mildly, stressful week. If handing bonus stream becomes a chore, it loses much of it's purpose.
We're all aware of how much fun the viewers have watching bonus stream, but let's not forget what bonus stream originally was; a way for the staff, volunteers, organizers, runners, and such to do much more relaxed, eaygoing, goofy stuff on stream and wind down after a, to put it mildly, stressful week. If handing bonus stream becomes a chore, it loses much of it's purpose.
I have to admit, I didn't watch a lot of runs. The main problem was that the schedule was probably the least interesting of all the AGDQs for me and that a ton of runs that I wanted to watch were at the worst possible times for Europeans. But it was also due to some changes made this year that really killed the fun for me. Yes, I do think you guys jumped the shark with AGDQ this year, but there were also some improvements of course.
Pros:
- I really liked the stream layout for the most part (with one exception, but I'll come to that), it looked as professional as it should look. The idea to occasionally show what runs will be next was great.
- The layout of the website works well and you quickly find the information you want. Donating and looking up incentives and prices isn't complicated to do, which is one of the most important things.
- You once again did a great job showcasing TASing, which isn't that easy in such an event. This years TAS block was even better that the previous one.
Cons:
- I didn't like the amount of separation between runners, staff and attendants, it looked like it created a very bad "two class" atmosphere. Please don't make the runners "VIPs" (I hate this term with a passion), the community shouldn't be like this.
- You really went too far with all the "stop having fun!" -rules. Who cares if people dress up funny or bring plushies, or if people dare to come too close to the sacred couch (now we're back at the previous topic), just take it easy. These new policies probably killed a lot of the classic GDQ atmosphere and memorable moments.
- The room layout was strange. You couldn't see the audience very well and it was sometimes also hard to see the actual runner(s).
- The sponsors shouldn't be in the stream layout IMO (just put them in the room somewhere), but they should especially not be shout out. If you absolutely have to mention them, only do it between runs. This was one of the main things that turned me away from watching.
- The other main thing that ruined it for me was the big deal you made about swearing. I never understood why Americans have so many problems with completely neutral words like "fuck" that aren't even racist, sexist or anything like that. I liked that previous GDQ's didn't care for this a lot, but this one did and I was annoyed by it.
Unrelated to this particular AGDQ:
- Work with an international charity!
Pros:
- I really liked the stream layout for the most part (with one exception, but I'll come to that), it looked as professional as it should look. The idea to occasionally show what runs will be next was great.
- The layout of the website works well and you quickly find the information you want. Donating and looking up incentives and prices isn't complicated to do, which is one of the most important things.
- You once again did a great job showcasing TASing, which isn't that easy in such an event. This years TAS block was even better that the previous one.
Cons:
- I didn't like the amount of separation between runners, staff and attendants, it looked like it created a very bad "two class" atmosphere. Please don't make the runners "VIPs" (I hate this term with a passion), the community shouldn't be like this.
- You really went too far with all the "stop having fun!" -rules. Who cares if people dress up funny or bring plushies, or if people dare to come too close to the sacred couch (now we're back at the previous topic), just take it easy. These new policies probably killed a lot of the classic GDQ atmosphere and memorable moments.
- The room layout was strange. You couldn't see the audience very well and it was sometimes also hard to see the actual runner(s).
- The sponsors shouldn't be in the stream layout IMO (just put them in the room somewhere), but they should especially not be shout out. If you absolutely have to mention them, only do it between runs. This was one of the main things that turned me away from watching.
- The other main thing that ruined it for me was the big deal you made about swearing. I never understood why Americans have so many problems with completely neutral words like "fuck" that aren't even racist, sexist or anything like that. I liked that previous GDQ's didn't care for this a lot, but this one did and I was annoyed by it.
Unrelated to this particular AGDQ:
- Work with an international charity!
Hi I'm Kryssstal
Quote from thief:
4) The scheduling of the game should have probably been after something not so epic. Battleblock Theatre is a hard act to follow, but this really was a downer to watch.
I haven't seen even 1 second of whatever the Marisa run is, but this is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen posted on a speedrunning forum, so thank you for that, one-post-wonder thief-san.
Quote from andypanther:
- The sponsors shouldn't be in the stream layout IMO (just put them in the room somewhere), but they should especially not be shout out. If you absolutely have to mention them, only do it between runs. This was one of the main things that turned me away from watching.
- The other main thing that ruined it for me was the big deal you made about swearing. I never understood why Americans have so many problems with completely neutral words like "fuck" that aren't even racist, sexist or anything like that. I liked that previous GDQ's didn't care for this a lot, but this one did and I was annoyed by it.
- The other main thing that ruined it for me was the big deal you made about swearing. I never understood why Americans have so many problems with completely neutral words like "fuck" that aren't even racist, sexist or anything like that. I liked that previous GDQ's didn't care for this a lot, but this one did and I was annoyed by it.
The whole reason a company sponsors an event is for publicity, they would not sponsor us if we did not advertise them to some extent. I agree, the way we did it perhaps needs to be worked on, but the sponsors have guidelines that we have to adhere to as well.
There have always been rules regarding swearing. This I suppose just comes down to cultural differences, but it's not going to change anytime soon. If we want the marathon to be friendly to as many kinds of viewers as possible, we have to keep swearing to a minimum.
Quote from andypanther:
- You really went too far with all the "stop having fun!" -rules. Who cares if people dress up funny or bring plushies, or if people dare to come too close to the sacred couch (now we're back at the previous topic), just take it easy. These new policies probably killed a lot of the classic GDQ atmosphere and memorable moments.
Alright, people are saying GDQ banned fun enough that I figure I should straight-up ask: where are people getting this from? I read the rules myself and the only thing I saw was a thing requiring you to ask the runner before you fuck around during their run (which is where I think people are jumping off the pier about?). Given things that have happened before (including people who don't even speedrun inviting themselves onto the couch to talk over someone else's run against their wishes iirc) I'm not surprised it was put into place, but people are acting like they couldn't have even asked to mess around a little. And people DID mess around during the marathon, just not in ways that were against the runner's wishes.
It's a patently ridiculous idea, anyway - why are people just assuming the organizers of the marathon would come together and decide nobody should have fun?
Quote from andypanther:
- The other main thing that ruined it for me was the big deal you made about swearing. I never understood why Americans have so many problems with completely neutral words like "fuck" that aren't even racist, sexist or anything like that. I liked that previous GDQ's didn't care for this a lot, but this one did and I was annoyed by it.
To my knowledge for at least the past few years there's been an attempt to ask runners to watch their language a little on stream since they want it to be a family-friendly event. It's not something that was brand new this year.
Hearing the runner from the couch during PC runs was almost impossible from my experience. This makes commentating from the couch really difficult. During Adam's Vice City run no one on the couch could hear him 99% of the time. Because of this I opted to do my run from the couch which led into less than desirable view of the game but that was still better than not being able to communicate with other commentators.
Quote from AMVX:
It's become more about a charity gathering funds by holding a speedrunning marathon, than speedrunners holding a marathon for fun to raise money for charity.
This quote sums up my thoughts perfectly, and I was even commenting on that in a chat yesterday. A good term might be "sold out".
Weegee Time
Quote from Zero:
- Sponsor plugs were very frequent, and because hosts never deviated from script, felt even duller than necessary. More upcoming incentives, pimping prizes, and reading donations compared to sponsor plugs; and perhaps encourage hosts to ad lib a bit when plugging things.
Ad libbing is really important when it comes to sponsorship plugs, especially if they're going to be repeated throughout an event. I would suggest that anyone wanting to do this should listen to a few episodes of This Week in Tech. Listen for Leo Laporte's advertising breaks. He tends to run the same advertisers and there is a general list of bullet points he's hitting each time, but it's not a carbon copy. He has passion for the stuff he's promoting, and honestly if you don't have this quality during a plug, you're probably going to turn people off. He'll also pull co-hosts who have interest or input into the ad, especially when he's talking about Audible.
I'm sure there are other people out there who are really good at this, Leo's just one I'm familiar with. Folks, take a little time to do some research if you're going to sit behind the table and I guarantee it'll improve your delivery.
Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.
Quote from Rakuen:
Quote from Zero:
- Sponsor plugs were very frequent, and because hosts never deviated from script, felt even duller than necessary. More upcoming incentives, pimping prizes, and reading donations compared to sponsor plugs; and perhaps encourage hosts to ad lib a bit when plugging things.
Ad libbing is really important when it comes to sponsorship plugs, especially if they're going to be repeated throughout an event. I would suggest that anyone wanting to do this should listen to a few episodes of This Week in Tech. Listen for Leo Laporte's advertising breaks. He tends to run the same advertisers and there is a general list of bullet points he's hitting each time, but it's not a carbon copy. He has passion for the stuff he's promoting, and honestly if you don't have this quality during a plug, you're probably going to turn people off. He'll also pull co-hosts who have interest or input into the ad, especially when he's talking about Audible.
I'm sure there are other people out there who are really good at this, Leo's just one I'm familiar with. Folks, take a little time to do some research if you're going to sit behind the table and I guarantee it'll improve your delivery.
Honestly that's a trait that is hard to learn. Leo's got decades of radio broadcast experience under his belt. Even his fellow coworkers have remarked, on air, how good he is at "one shot" reads of copy. Many of our hosts haven't done anything like this before. It's annoying to hear a carbon copy, but I don't think we can expect our hosts to suddenly be professionals.
Keeper of TASBot
Pinball machines: My original intent was to have two pins set up to accept donations for PCF and leave them there for the week. What PinballJoe did was above and beyond my wildest expectations, and I am extremely thankful for his contribution. A number of attendees told me that they appreciated having something else to do during downtime and overall I feel like the experiment was an absolute success.
Not everything was perfect; at the beginning of the week, the challenges were far too hard for players who were unfamiliar with the game's rules and it took a while to find a good balance. I am almost completely to blame for the entire concept of speedrunning pinball machines - it was an idea that came out of a phone conversation PinballJoe and I had a few weeks before the event and I confess that it was initially half-baked. By the end of the marathon, though, the concept had crystallized and http://pinsdonequick.com was born. It worked very well to have both a challenge like fastest Super Jackpot for mere mortals and a PAPA-level fastest wizard mode completion challenge.
The jury is still out on having a pinball machine as a grand prize but overall the response has been very positive. On the one hand, PinballJoe's donation of a ~$2,000 USD pinball machine was extremely generous, and far above every other grand prize offered. On the other hand, some people didn't like the idea that they might be stuck with something that might not fit in an apartment, and all of us feared the possibility that someone in a remote hard-to-reach international location would end up being the winner. (...didn't we once receive a donation from some far-off arctic research station?
Next time we may try to work toward offering a New-In-Box pin donated by a manufacturer (Stern or Jersey Jack Pinball or one of the boutique manufacturers) with a fall-back if logistics prevented delivery/acceptance.
TASBot block: I have to say TASBot has developed a life of his own outside of anything I anticipated. Thank you for all of the kind words in this thread. No one has said it here, but while the block was well-received we've had many people approach us and ask us to do a better job at explaining what Tool-Assisted Speedruns are and to show at least one "normal" TAS with good commentary. This was largely missing this year because there were some really big things we wanted to show off and we were limited on time in our block. I had a good discussion with Mike and Romscout at the marathon and we think we can get a bit more time for the TASBot block next time to do a better job of this.
Finally, despite the rather large amount of somewhat negative feedback in this thread I want to remind organizers how much we appreciate what you do. Sure, we'd love for thing x or rule y to be different next year, but make no mistake, this was a great event held in the face of some rather challenging logistical issues and staffing struggles and I appreciate everything staff did to keep everything running smoothly.
Not everything was perfect; at the beginning of the week, the challenges were far too hard for players who were unfamiliar with the game's rules and it took a while to find a good balance. I am almost completely to blame for the entire concept of speedrunning pinball machines - it was an idea that came out of a phone conversation PinballJoe and I had a few weeks before the event and I confess that it was initially half-baked. By the end of the marathon, though, the concept had crystallized and http://pinsdonequick.com was born. It worked very well to have both a challenge like fastest Super Jackpot for mere mortals and a PAPA-level fastest wizard mode completion challenge.
The jury is still out on having a pinball machine as a grand prize but overall the response has been very positive. On the one hand, PinballJoe's donation of a ~$2,000 USD pinball machine was extremely generous, and far above every other grand prize offered. On the other hand, some people didn't like the idea that they might be stuck with something that might not fit in an apartment, and all of us feared the possibility that someone in a remote hard-to-reach international location would end up being the winner. (...didn't we once receive a donation from some far-off arctic research station?
TASBot block: I have to say TASBot has developed a life of his own outside of anything I anticipated. Thank you for all of the kind words in this thread. No one has said it here, but while the block was well-received we've had many people approach us and ask us to do a better job at explaining what Tool-Assisted Speedruns are and to show at least one "normal" TAS with good commentary. This was largely missing this year because there were some really big things we wanted to show off and we were limited on time in our block. I had a good discussion with Mike and Romscout at the marathon and we think we can get a bit more time for the TASBot block next time to do a better job of this.
Finally, despite the rather large amount of somewhat negative feedback in this thread I want to remind organizers how much we appreciate what you do. Sure, we'd love for thing x or rule y to be different next year, but make no mistake, this was a great event held in the face of some rather challenging logistical issues and staffing struggles and I appreciate everything staff did to keep everything running smoothly.
Precursor
Quote from Rakuen:
gthere is a general list of bullet points he's hitting each time
Probably a good idea to do this for the sponsor plugs rather than have a fully written out paragraph, to more or less force each reader to put their own spin on it.
Quote from Melodia:
Quote from AMVX:
It's become more about a charity gathering funds by holding a speedrunning marathon, than speedrunners holding a marathon for fun to raise money for charity.
This quote sums up my thoughts perfectly, and I was even commenting on that in a chat yesterday. A good term might be "sold out".
Ahaha, a charity fundraiser "selling out". That's precious.
I do find it accurate to say, ever since PCF started putting in money to make it happen, that AGDQ is a charity event first. And that's fine. It's had some insane growth, and PCF helps out in a lot of ways to make this manageable. Anyone saying it's become "too professional" doesn't really understand just HOW much time, money and effort that goes into this. It's HAD to become that. Yes, when GDQ started out, it was mostly for fun. Noone expected it'd become this big in just a few years. Without some outside help, it wouldn't even have been able to.
I've lost count on how many times Uyama, SDA, AGDQ and speedrunners in general have supposedly "sold out" by now.
Weegee Time
Quote from Cool Matty:
Quote from Rakuen:
Quote from Zero:
- Sponsor plugs were very frequent, and because hosts never deviated from script, felt even duller than necessary. More upcoming incentives, pimping prizes, and reading donations compared to sponsor plugs; and perhaps encourage hosts to ad lib a bit when plugging things.
Ad libbing is really important when it comes to sponsorship plugs, especially if they're going to be repeated throughout an event. I would suggest that anyone wanting to do this should listen to a few episodes of This Week in Tech. Listen for Leo Laporte's advertising breaks. He tends to run the same advertisers and there is a general list of bullet points he's hitting each time, but it's not a carbon copy. He has passion for the stuff he's promoting, and honestly if you don't have this quality during a plug, you're probably going to turn people off. He'll also pull co-hosts who have interest or input into the ad, especially when he's talking about Audible.
I'm sure there are other people out there who are really good at this, Leo's just one I'm familiar with. Folks, take a little time to do some research if you're going to sit behind the table and I guarantee it'll improve your delivery.
Honestly that's a trait that is hard to learn. Leo's got decades of radio broadcast experience under his belt. Even his fellow coworkers have remarked, on air, how good he is at "one shot" reads of copy. Many of our hosts haven't done anything like this before. It's annoying to hear a carbon copy, but I don't think we can expect our hosts to suddenly be professionals.
Yeah, I totally understand that Matty, and I don't expect it either. I just think having some exposure to what a good, live, plug can be and then trying it out a few times on your own can make a big difference in the approach at air time. We can't all be Leo, but no one should be a robot.
Quote from KennyMan666:
Quote from Rakuen:
gthere is a general list of bullet points he's hitting each time
Probably a good idea to do this for the sponsor plugs rather than have a fully written out paragraph, to more or less force each reader to put their own spin on it.
On the other hand, some might be overly intimidated if they all they have is an outline to go off of. Maybe a middle ground? Have someone who's got a bit of experience record a few samples, transcript it, and then provide these plus the bullet point list to volunteers before the event. Then they have a pertinent example of what to do alongside the sandbox.
Precursor
Quote from lurk:
Quote from Cronikeys:
Is there any sort of discussion that goes into what charity we, as a community, support?
i'd like to echo this question.
The AGDQ charity is going to continue being PCF unless PCF does something that makes GDQ want to break away from them. Like it or not, AGDQ and PCF are closely intertwined with each other at this point. If AGDQ would break away from PCF, so it would also be saying goodbye to all the help they have from PCF to organize the event, help they have gotten thanks to building up this relationship through several years of charity events to their benefit. PCF pays back in kind by having food delivered to the attendees (I think I heard they provided catering pretty much every day of the marathon), paying a salary to the main organizers who devote most of their time to making it happen, and whatever else they do for AGDQ. I'm sure there's more. The event as it is now would be taking a MASSIVE step back without it.
The AGDQ charity is not going to change. Stop asking about that.
Also, don't believe any horror stories about PCF that Reddit cooks up.
Edit: Apparently I do not have all my details correct, speaking as a viewer and not an attendee, so I don't have first-hand information. Even so.
Many words! Handle it!
After reading through the thread, here are some thoughts as a viewer:
- Sponsors. A lot of people are talking about it. I didn't feel their prevalence was a big deal. If anything I would have liked a bit more mention as to what the sponsors are doing for the GDQs, rather than simply saying "check out these dudes". In general I think people are more willing to accept the plugs if they can understand why your partnership exists.
- Layout. It was incredibly professional, suitably so to the size of the event. Obviously there is room for improvement still. I appreciate the need for whitespace, but there was a tad too much for my taste. That said, I prefer what we had this year to the less professional look of the 2014 GDQs. I would have liked to see upcoming donation incentives on rotation too, along with a more accurate prize rotation. (On that note, it wasn't really clear to me what prizes I was eligible for when I donated. I donated 5-10 minutes into some games/blocks, and the tracker did not yet list the appropriate prizes as eligible)
- Donation incentives. They weren't pushed much, and they felt unimportant. There were plenty that I kind of wanted met, but didn't care to donate to because "someone else would". The only reason I knew what was coming up was looking through the list trying to decide where to put my money. It's not an incentive at that point. I also felt like incentives were sorely lacking at the end of the marathon. It would also be nice if there was even something as simple as, asking the runner on stream what their choice for donations was, just to subtly push the fact that these incentives exist. In general I'm also not a fan of "vote for game x or game y", it just seems like it doesn't raise enough to constitute the inconvenience and possible drama to the runners/community.
- Between time. Adding in the inbetween music made such a huge difference in keeping me engaged, especially being as the stream could not hear chatter during this time. Audience cam was kind of fun, but I feel kind of like it's this year's GDQ Monitor. Seeing people milling about and having fun is great. Zooming in on people can be fun, bet the way it was done gets awkward fast. And to be honest, if I were at the venue, it would disincentive me from sitting in the viewing area. I do rather like the idea of having a feed of one of the other rooms. If the goal is to see people having fun, surely watching people playing games is better than seeing people sitting around waiting for the next run, just like the viewers are.
- General experience. Lots of little things have been mentioned that I thought I'd chime in on. Chat is fine without sub mode. Even if it wasn't, I think the overall message has been that it's not really a discussion. I think it would be cool if there was some kind of official host channel though. Creating a degree of seperation should make it a bit closer to the irc, while still being on Twitch. Some people are also complaining about the "hoip" on site, which is silly to me. Are we really complaining about people on site having some silly fun? At the same time as people are complaining about "no-fun allowed"?
- The finale. A lot of the issues here were just situational and unavoidable given the circumstance I think. But I really felt like the marathon went out with a whimper. The OoT run wasn't very hype, and the flow of money coming in was kind of disheartening considering how close to 1 million we were (though obviously, money from external sources and missed donations weren't included, but we didn't really know that). I sat through the entire run at an ungodly hour because I wanted to see the closing, and that was really brief and nowhere near the emotional celebration of last year, we unfortunately didn't even know final numbers. It all made me feel like I'd made a mistake staying up. Which is of course, all very nonconstructive whining, but whatever.
On the whole I thought it was a great event. I ultimately felt more compelled to watch than I did at SGDQ, and it felt like the general level of entertainment was higher and relied less on the hype people/moments than previous GDQs. I'm glad that game selection seems to have opening up a bit more, to incorporate some more things that are less speedrunning focused, but still appealing to a speedrunning community. I think there was some concern what the event would look like considering how large it's gotten, but in general I think it's managed to continue to grow without compromising too much on the values that made the GDQs what they are. I'm also impressed with how well people stepped up to take over for Mike, and it seems like the kind of issues the marathon faced are more or less the same that would have been seen with or without the marathon's head organizer.
- Sponsors. A lot of people are talking about it. I didn't feel their prevalence was a big deal. If anything I would have liked a bit more mention as to what the sponsors are doing for the GDQs, rather than simply saying "check out these dudes". In general I think people are more willing to accept the plugs if they can understand why your partnership exists.
- Layout. It was incredibly professional, suitably so to the size of the event. Obviously there is room for improvement still. I appreciate the need for whitespace, but there was a tad too much for my taste. That said, I prefer what we had this year to the less professional look of the 2014 GDQs. I would have liked to see upcoming donation incentives on rotation too, along with a more accurate prize rotation. (On that note, it wasn't really clear to me what prizes I was eligible for when I donated. I donated 5-10 minutes into some games/blocks, and the tracker did not yet list the appropriate prizes as eligible)
- Donation incentives. They weren't pushed much, and they felt unimportant. There were plenty that I kind of wanted met, but didn't care to donate to because "someone else would". The only reason I knew what was coming up was looking through the list trying to decide where to put my money. It's not an incentive at that point. I also felt like incentives were sorely lacking at the end of the marathon. It would also be nice if there was even something as simple as, asking the runner on stream what their choice for donations was, just to subtly push the fact that these incentives exist. In general I'm also not a fan of "vote for game x or game y", it just seems like it doesn't raise enough to constitute the inconvenience and possible drama to the runners/community.
- Between time. Adding in the inbetween music made such a huge difference in keeping me engaged, especially being as the stream could not hear chatter during this time. Audience cam was kind of fun, but I feel kind of like it's this year's GDQ Monitor. Seeing people milling about and having fun is great. Zooming in on people can be fun, bet the way it was done gets awkward fast. And to be honest, if I were at the venue, it would disincentive me from sitting in the viewing area. I do rather like the idea of having a feed of one of the other rooms. If the goal is to see people having fun, surely watching people playing games is better than seeing people sitting around waiting for the next run, just like the viewers are.
- General experience. Lots of little things have been mentioned that I thought I'd chime in on. Chat is fine without sub mode. Even if it wasn't, I think the overall message has been that it's not really a discussion. I think it would be cool if there was some kind of official host channel though. Creating a degree of seperation should make it a bit closer to the irc, while still being on Twitch. Some people are also complaining about the "hoip" on site, which is silly to me. Are we really complaining about people on site having some silly fun? At the same time as people are complaining about "no-fun allowed"?
- The finale. A lot of the issues here were just situational and unavoidable given the circumstance I think. But I really felt like the marathon went out with a whimper. The OoT run wasn't very hype, and the flow of money coming in was kind of disheartening considering how close to 1 million we were (though obviously, money from external sources and missed donations weren't included, but we didn't really know that). I sat through the entire run at an ungodly hour because I wanted to see the closing, and that was really brief and nowhere near the emotional celebration of last year, we unfortunately didn't even know final numbers. It all made me feel like I'd made a mistake staying up. Which is of course, all very nonconstructive whining, but whatever.
On the whole I thought it was a great event. I ultimately felt more compelled to watch than I did at SGDQ, and it felt like the general level of entertainment was higher and relied less on the hype people/moments than previous GDQs. I'm glad that game selection seems to have opening up a bit more, to incorporate some more things that are less speedrunning focused, but still appealing to a speedrunning community. I think there was some concern what the event would look like considering how large it's gotten, but in general I think it's managed to continue to grow without compromising too much on the values that made the GDQs what they are. I'm also impressed with how well people stepped up to take over for Mike, and it seems like the kind of issues the marathon faced are more or less the same that would have been seen with or without the marathon's head organizer.
The catering thing used to be the case, however it stopped for reasons that I forget.
I'm not opposed to PCF or anything, but a "stop talking about it" isn't really going to help settle things. Some people in the speedrunning community don't feel they really want to support PCF, and saying "too bad" will just create resentment. I think there needs to be a discussion of what PCF does, what it does not do, and what would happen if a different charity was chosen. As long as the facts are being properly presented. Heck, maybe even contact a representative of PCF as long as things can remain civil.
I'm not opposed to PCF or anything, but a "stop talking about it" isn't really going to help settle things. Some people in the speedrunning community don't feel they really want to support PCF, and saying "too bad" will just create resentment. I think there needs to be a discussion of what PCF does, what it does not do, and what would happen if a different charity was chosen. As long as the facts are being properly presented. Heck, maybe even contact a representative of PCF as long as things can remain civil.