AGDQ 2015 Feedback

2015-01-27 02:11:27 pm

Like it or not, GDQ has become in a way, a convention for speedrunners. It's the single largest organization of speedrunners and given that we're spread out across the globe, it's a great opportunity for runners and hell, the twitch fanbases, to get to meet in person.

I'm not a huge fan of having an attendance cap for the sole sake of limiting the event size... although with the infrastructure and reservations made there's definitely a limit. Something like raising the cost to attend for non volunteers/runners would be something I'd be in favor of (Or if there is no cost, implementing one), and having the price be something that would naturally curb attendance. If we find that there's a lot of people being turned away, we should ABSOLUTELY be exploring options to make it even larger for future events. Growth is great, chaos is not.

The infrastructure (Venue, support staff, tech crew) can all change from event to event, and we shouldn't bury our heads in the sand and say "One thousand only!" when there are 2,000 folks who want to be there and we have the sufficient means to support it. If we have more folks who want to go than we can reasonably accommodate, we should probably try to expand our resources as a community.

If crowd scent is an issue, maybe we should contact Procter and Gamble and see if we can secure a sponsorship from them? We could get Secret and Old Spice trial samples for the event.

Like it or not, GDQ has become in a way, a convention for speedrunners. It's the single largest organization of speedrunners and given that we're spread out across the globe, it's a great opportunity for runners and hell, the twitch fanbases, to get to meet in person.

I'm not a huge fan of having an attendance cap for the sole sake of limiting the event size... although with the infrastructure and reservations made there's definitely a limit. Something like raising the cost to attend for non volunteers/runners would be something I'd be in favor of (Or if there is no cost, implementing one), and having the price be something that would naturally curb attendance. If we find that there's a lot of people being turned away, we should ABSOLUTELY be exploring options to make it even larger for future events. Growth is great, chaos is not.

The infrastructure (Venue, support staff, tech crew) can all change from event to event, and we shouldn't bury our heads in the sand and say "One thousand only!" when there are 2,000 folks who want to be there and we have the sufficient means to support it. If we have more folks who want to go than we can reasonably accommodate, we should probably try to expand our resources as a community.

If crowd scent is an issue, maybe we should contact Procter and Gamble and see if we can secure a sponsorship from them? We could get Secret and Old Spice trial samples for the event.

TheMG2

2015-01-27 02:17:52 pm

Making it more expensive for people to attend (runners especially) is a bad idea. GDQ gets a large amount of international attendees and they have to pay way more in terms of travel than other people. Raising the costs is a BAD idea.

dangodofthunder

2015-01-27 02:19:24 pm

TheMG2, it's not a great solution, but IMO, it's a better solution than turning people away due to an arbitrary cap. I don't think either are GOOD ideas, but if GDQ gets to the point of "We have to curb how many people are coming", there's really no solution that'll make... anyone happy.

kariohki

2015-01-27 02:36:38 pm

waifus are laifu

Larger conventions, specifically thinking about Otakon here, have used attendance caps in the past. Granted they have license to an entire convention building, but they've grown enough that they have to move. So I think it ties in between finding a viable space vs how many people are projected to come. Since you gotta talk to the hotel months in advance, usually before any registrations. What if say they expect 2000 people, but only 1000 sign up? Would that not end up raising the attendance cost somehow afterwards or necessitate finding a cheaper venue?

It is right that there isn't a everyone happy solution for everyone, just one that works best for the majority of the group.

dangodofthunder

2015-01-27 02:42:32 pm

So, forgive me if I don't know some of the finer points of the pricing model for attendance at present. I haven't gone to a GDQ event but hope to go to SGDQ 2015.

Do runners get cheaper/free admission compared to those just spectating? If not, if we keep the price for runners the same, it'd help us to keep the international runners while maybe removing a few folks from the overall pool of attendees. Considering the runners are the primary focus on the event and what drive donations, I don't think it'd be unfair or unreasonable to give them a discount or 100% free admission while making others pay. Those with desired skills (Such as tech crew) may also be incentivized in this kind of manner.

There's definitely a limit based on the resources available, but does it make more sense to keep prices low and keep an arbitrary cap, or have the price at a point that'll naturally limit who'll attend the event? If we know what we can accommodate prior, I think it's better to base pricing on that rather than telling folks "too bad, try again in six months"

So, forgive me if I don't know some of the finer points of the pricing model for attendance at present. I haven't gone to a GDQ event but hope to go to SGDQ 2015.

Do runners get cheaper/free admission compared to those just spectating? If not, if we keep the price for runners the same, it'd help us to keep the international runners while maybe removing a few folks from the overall pool of attendees. Considering the runners are the primary focus on the event and what drive donations, I don't think it'd be unfair or unreasonable to give them a discount or 100% free admission while making others pay. Those with desired skills (Such as tech crew) may also be incentivized in this kind of manner.

There's definitely a limit based on the resources available, but does it make more sense to keep prices low and keep an arbitrary cap, or have the price at a point that'll naturally limit who'll attend the event? If we know what we can accommodate prior, I think it's better to base pricing on that rather than telling folks "too bad, try again in six months"

CBenni

2015-01-27 02:49:09 pm

Reducing the cost for runners has been discussed and discarded in the past, since then, the pressure onto people to get their runs into AGDQ is too large and theres so much saltiness ...

philosoraptor42

2015-01-27 02:49:42 pm

Dapper as fuck.

Quote from dangodofthunder:

Do runners get cheaper/free admission compared to those just spectating?

Nope, everyone pays the $50 registration fee currently. Being a pretty low amount, I think you'd have to up it quite a bit before it starts deterring people.

TheMG2

2015-01-27 02:50:02 pm

Quote from CBenni:

Reducing the cost for runners has been discussed and discarded in the past, since then, the pressure onto people to get their runs into AGDQ is too large and theres so much saltiness ...

Actually, I'm pretty sure mike said he would think about doing it for next gdq.

dangodofthunder

2015-01-27 02:56:41 pm

CBenni, I wouldn't blame runners for being salty when there's financial elements incorporated. I'm not trying to say "These are all great ideas", but it's more of trying to balance the growth of GDQ with the reality that there's only so many bodies that can attend these events. I'd imagine a good portion of the runners who don't get selected are part of the couch/commentary crew, so to quickly chuck a suggestion into the air, Runners/Couch Crew maybe get the discount. I dunno. You want to limit the size of the event, but you don't want to do anything that'd force a runner to be completely unable to participate due to solely financial reasons...

And maybe it does go up a good deal, Phil. I don't know if that'd be horrible... it's certainly not without its share of problems. But, what if the price goes up to 150 without a change in the amount of people who reserve? That's 3 times the amount of money that is available from registrations, which might mean we can get a larger venue.

Oh, and something that I also thought of just now... I love the fact that the runs are on youtube, but I know a lot of 'em were being uploaded during the event. I think it might be better if the uploads are all done after the event, so people don't go back to watch recordings when the live stream is still going on.

CBenni, I wouldn't blame runners for being salty when there's financial elements incorporated. I'm not trying to say "These are all great ideas", but it's more of trying to balance the growth of GDQ with the reality that there's only so many bodies that can attend these events. I'd imagine a good portion of the runners who don't get selected are part of the couch/commentary crew, so to quickly chuck a suggestion into the air, Runners/Couch Crew maybe get the discount. I dunno. You want to limit the size of the event, but you don't want to do anything that'd force a runner to be completely unable to participate due to solely financial reasons...

And maybe it does go up a good deal, Phil. I don't know if that'd be horrible... it's certainly not without its share of problems. But, what if the price goes up to 150 without a change in the amount of people who reserve? That's 3 times the amount of money that is available from registrations, which might mean we can get a larger venue.

Oh, and something that I also thought of just now... I love the fact that the runs are on youtube, but I know a lot of 'em were being uploaded during the event. I think it might be better if the uploads are all done after the event, so people don't go back to watch recordings when the live stream is still going on.

CBenni

2015-01-27 02:59:31 pm

Quote from TheMG2:

Quote from CBenni:

Reducing the cost for runners has been discussed and discarded in the past, since then, the pressure onto people to get their runs into AGDQ is too large and theres so much saltiness ...

Actually, I'm pretty sure mike said he would think about doing it for next gdq.

Oh, I wasnt aware of that. On the one hand, it seems fair (runners put more effort into it etc), at the same time, the argument above applies. Then again, I wont pick a side in that discussion, as I am not going to be able to attend an event any time soon.

frozentreasure

2015-01-27 05:44:48 pm

Quote from dangodofthunder:

Like it or not, GDQ has become in a way, a convention for speedrunners.

Putting it in a defeatist tone like that really limits the discussion that can be had on it.

The fact of the matter is that no matter what speedrunners view it as, it's not a convention and doesn't have nearly enough resources to operate as one. Trying to grow the event to meet current or expected demand for it is almost certainly going to end in failure, be it this year, next year, or so on.

Having said that, if GDQ is dead-set on continuing to grow, it should still take a year to settle itself. Considering kirbymastah said the attendance cap for this AGDQ was almost met, there is literally no reason to try and expand for next year's event. If they keep it at ~1000 attendees, not only can organisers get a chance to work within a known boundary, but if the demand for it does grow to the point that they sell out of tickets, they just need to keep track of the unique visitors to the "Whoops, we're sold out!" page. If an extra 1500 people suddenly want in and miss out on going to the event, there's evidence of demand for the next year.

Quote from dangodofthunder:

If crowd scent is an issue, maybe we should contact Procter and Gamble and see if we can secure a sponsorship from them? We could get Secret and Old Spice trial samples for the event.

Having to say "our attendees don't stink because we got free samples!" or "hey guys, you need to wash yourselves because we have a sponsorship" seems unnecessary; it should be enough to say "if you want to attend our event, have clean hygiene like any reasonable adult should be doing in their normal lives". If I was watching the stream having not read a thread like this talking about how there was a body odour issue and heard even a generic "we're sponsored by Old Spice's Wild Scents collection" or something, I would ask myself why that's the case, realise the reason, and be entirely turned off to the idea of going to the event myself.

[quote="dangodofthunder"]Like it or not, GDQ has become in a way, a convention for speedrunners.[/quote]

Putting it in a defeatist tone like that really limits the discussion that can be had on it.

The fact of the matter is that no matter what speedrunners view it as, it's not a convention and doesn't have nearly enough resources to operate as one. Trying to grow the event to meet current or expected demand for it is almost certainly going to end in failure, be it this year, next year, or so on.

Having said that, if GDQ is dead-set on continuing to grow, it should still take a year to settle itself. Considering kirbymastah said the attendance cap for this AGDQ was [i]almost[/i] met, there is literally no reason to try and expand for next year's event. If they keep it at ~1000 attendees, not only can organisers get a chance to work within a known boundary, but if the demand for it does grow to the point that they sell out of tickets, they just need to keep track of the unique visitors to the "Whoops, we're sold out!" page. If an extra 1500 people suddenly want in and miss out on going to the event, there's evidence of demand for the next year.

[quote="dangodofthunder"]If crowd scent is an issue, maybe we should contact Procter and Gamble and see if we can secure a sponsorship from them? We could get Secret and Old Spice trial samples for the event. [/quote]

Having to say "our attendees don't stink because we got free samples!" or "hey guys, you need to wash yourselves because we have a sponsorship" seems unnecessary; it should be enough to say "if you want to attend our event, have clean hygiene like any reasonable adult should be doing in their normal lives". If I was watching the stream having not read a thread like this talking about how there was a body odour issue and heard even a generic "we're sponsored by Old Spice's Wild Scents collection" or something, I would ask myself why that's the case, realise the reason, and be entirely turned off to the idea of going to the event myself.

Cronikeys

2015-01-27 07:20:04 pm

@presjpolk, dangoofthunder, doicm
reminder agdq is partially funded by pcf (or another charity next year) and that extra things like the smash/casual room or people watching a projector do not raise any funds

less attendees = lower cost = more money for charity, right?

I mean it's to the point where it currently could just be a gaming convention (e.g. https://twitter.com/chuggaaconroy/status/554023129904054272) supported solely by registration fees, but I'd prefer it stay marathon-focused.

romscout

Edit history:

romscout: 2015-01-27 07:57:24 pm

2015-01-27 07:53:52 pm

that Metroidvania guy

Quote from dangodofthunder:

I would have found it less insulting for my gift to be rejected for being too hard to explain or not gaming related than for it to be accepted and simply be a line item on the donation prize to make it seem longer, despite no attention or talk being given to it all during the GDQ stream. Especially considering that there are individuals who modify the same blaster and resell it for 75 dollars plus shipping. From what I've heard, AGDQ 2015 was extremely desperate for donation prizes of any sort, but if we donate a prize, it at least deserves a mention on stream, and ideally that mention on the stream would occur during that actual donation window. I am almost certain that my donation prize, which was of relatively high value compared to others, drove absolutely no donations this year. And with that being the case, what was the point of me donating?

We definitely went over prizes beforehand and determined which ones were fit for the marathon; there were plenty of rejections. Yours was deemed very worthy of being included, and I'm sorry it was not mentioned on stream as often as you would have liked. One of the improvements we will be making is having more prominent prize-related prompts for hosts, and this is something we will be working with the prize coordinators to make sure it is executed well.

As for the progress of your prize being sent out, Sent should have emailed you a short time ago with the address of the winner. The hold up here was that we needed to wait on the winner to reply to us. In the future, we will make sure to send out emails to the prize donors as well as the winners when we draw prizes, just to let them know that they should be anticipating an address to ship to soon. This process, along with every other prize-related task, will be significantly improved next time since we have people dedicated to streamlining everything as smoothly as possible. Again, I'm sorry that you feel your prize did not get the love it deserves, and there were faults on our end that contributed to this. We are committed to fixing this though, and we should be running into much fewer problems with prizes in the coming years.

Quote from Napstrpsx:

The couch/crowd cam threw lots of us for a loop. I was really confused when I saw the Tropical Freeze opener because it made it look like that's all the room there was.

^ The response to this criticism has been pretty stiff... if you aren't able or willing to change the physical layout, consider something different with the camera. There's a subtle, but significant difference between how Tropical Freeze looked vs. Battleblock Theatre on stream. It helps if it's more ambiguous how many people are in the crowd. Maybe have 2+ camera angles depending on how many people there are.

I apologize if we did not make this clear earlier, but we definitely are going to be primarily focusing on how to better include the crowd with camera work and stream layouts. It's definitely a valid concern for people to have, and we want a good fix just as much as anyone else.

The physical layout is something that is dependent on the venue since we have to conform to their space. As of right now, we're looking into ways we might be able to alleviate some of the separation between the runners and the couch (while keeping it logistically sound). As a lot of changes would likely require purchasing new equipment, we want to make sure that we are completely sure about how we are going to use the space before we decide to change anything.

Quote from Billnye_Fan:

As far as conference space costs, the reason I am confused is because of a previous post by Mike stating that offers of $10,000 - $20,000 for the week were being made by the hotels. This was in a reference post of where the Hyatt's prices were $75,000. Now when Mike said the budget from PCF is 1:7 from last year, I am interpreting that for every 7 dollars raised, 1 dollar of that goes towards reinvestment (which is a very good rate).

Also the budget post you are talking about, is that the SGDQ2014 spreadsheet that showed AGDQ2014 and SGDQ2014 revenue and expenses? I saw that one. Since there are no conference room rental costs and no sponsorship/PCF income/reimbursement figures I can only assume that spreadsheet only shows expenses from Games Done Quick LLC. What that spreadsheet does show is that total costs for the year (both marathons) was around $58,000.

No one expects the exact amounts of pay for each person. Just the total amount across everyone would clear up a lot of this confusing. Right now me (and a few others) see $140,000 from pcf, $33,000 from what was in the "bank", and unknown amounts from sponsors while no mention of LARGE increase in costs. Like I already said the expenses for the whole year last year was $58,000 and the impression that the rental of the room was $20,000~. Now this would make sense if the rest was used for wages. However, what really causes the confusion is the talk about attendance fees. You all say that as costs rise the attendance fee will rise. Why? I'm clearly not understanding something correctly. Is the budget from PCF restricted only to wages and building rental? Because to me it looks like either you are charging the attendees for profit or you are not negotiating correctly with pcf and getting taken advantage of.

I want to stress this isn't a witch hunt or anything like that. People understand that in business the largest expense is wages/salary. We also know you need to make a profit so you can purchase your own equipment so pcf doesn't own every thing, but isn't that is what the ad revenue and sponsorship money should be used for? Ad revenue alone from last year was $40,000. How much of a budget will there be for next year? Can some of these ideas that will require some funding be feasible? There are a myriad of ways to help improve the marathon but no one knows what kind of budget there is.

Disclosing the overall budget for staff salaries is not something we feel we can do at this moment because it leaves the ability for people to start guessing individual salaries. Once again, doing this treads into the realm of personal privacy.

While I do not recall ever saying that “as costs rise, the attendance fee will rise”, this is perhaps something that would have been a more realistic view a year or two ago before the introduction of sponsorship possibilities. In our current state, the goal is to not raise attendance fees for the coming year. Registration fees were previously used to cover costs and build savings as good business practice; it makes covering costs up front for future events easier, leaves emergency money in case we lose sponsors or unexpected costs come up at the last second (like with last SGDQ), and allows us to make significant improvements to the event in the future as opportunities arise without having to increase fees for attendees.

Registration fees for upcoming events will be used to cover expenses that improve the experience for everyone. While we do not have the full budget finalized yet, some possibilities/ideas include having a 24/7 shuttle service for easier access to the airport, shopping centers, or restaurants, buying extra cameras/equipment to deal with the room layout issues brought up in this thread, contributing to upgrading a venue when sponsors can’t cover the entire cost, setting up food voucher programs for attendees, or other improvements suggested by staff or the community.

When we decide everything that we want to spend money on for upcoming events, we will be fully transparent and post the budget again, before registration even goes online. We will welcome community feedback at that time. We value being open and honest with the community that makes these marathons as amazing as they are, and want to share information that will help improve everything without infringing on anyone’s privacy.

Quote from Edenal:

I still have not fully understood if the staff are being payed by PCF or Games Done Quick LLC.

All of the contracted GDQ staff (including Mike) are paid by PCF, as Games Done Quick LLC is not currently equipped to handle a payroll.

Quote:

Event growth issues

We are not opposed to the event growing further, and are looking to increase the size of the staff so that we can handle more people easier. However, in our current situation, we have no choice but to guess the potential attendees for the upcoming marathon, set an upper limit (determined both by the venue space and the number of rooms we can possibly reserve with the hotel) and roll with it. We do not feel the need to go out of our way to stunt growth, but will inevitably have an attendance cap of some kind. The discussion of taking further measures to control the size of the event will probably not happen unless we reach numbers that rival actual conventions.

Quote:

Runner discounts

Runners are seen in the same light as other volunteers who give their time to work the event, and there are even people with normal attendee badges who contribute with commentary or help out in a variety of ways. We feel it is a fundamentally bad idea to give runners special treatment for attendance. Again, we do not seek to increase attendance fees this year, so we do not see this being a huge issue moving forward.

[quote="dangodofthunder"]I would have found it less insulting for my gift to be rejected for being too hard to explain or not gaming related than for it to be accepted and simply be a line item on the donation prize to make it seem longer, despite no attention or talk being given to it all during the GDQ stream. Especially considering that there are individuals who modify the same blaster and resell it for 75 dollars plus shipping. From what I've heard, AGDQ 2015 was extremely desperate for donation prizes of any sort, but if we donate a prize, it at least deserves a mention on stream, and ideally that mention on the stream would occur during that actual donation window. I am almost certain that my donation prize, which was of relatively high value compared to others, drove absolutely no donations this year. And with that being the case, what was the point of me donating?[/quote]

We definitely went over prizes beforehand and determined which ones were fit for the marathon; there were plenty of rejections. Yours was deemed very worthy of being included, and I'm sorry it was not mentioned on stream as often as you would have liked. One of the improvements we will be making is having more prominent prize-related prompts for hosts, and this is something we will be working with the prize coordinators to make sure it is executed well.

As for the progress of your prize being sent out, Sent should have emailed you a short time ago with the address of the winner. The hold up here was that we needed to wait on the winner to reply to us. In the future, we will make sure to send out emails to the prize donors as well as the winners when we draw prizes, just to let them know that they should be anticipating an address to ship to soon. This process, along with every other prize-related task, will be significantly improved next time since we have people dedicated to streamlining everything as smoothly as possible. Again, I'm sorry that you feel your prize did not get the love it deserves, and there were faults on our end that contributed to this. We are committed to fixing this though, and we should be running into much fewer problems with prizes in the coming years.

[quote="Napstrpsx"]The couch/crowd cam threw lots of us for a loop. I was really confused when I saw the Tropical Freeze opener because it made it look like that's all the room there was.

^ The response to this criticism has been pretty stiff... if you aren't able or willing to change the physical layout, consider something different with the camera. There's a subtle, but significant difference between how Tropical Freeze looked vs. Battleblock Theatre on stream. It helps if it's more ambiguous how many people are in the crowd. Maybe have 2+ camera angles depending on how many people there are.[/quote]

I apologize if we did not make this clear earlier, but we definitely are going to be primarily focusing on how to better include the crowd with camera work and stream layouts. It's definitely a valid concern for people to have, and we want a good fix just as much as anyone else.

The physical layout is something that is dependent on the venue since we have to conform to their space.  As of right now, we're looking into ways we might be able to alleviate some of the separation between the runners and the couch (while keeping it logistically sound).  As a lot of changes would likely require purchasing new equipment, we want to make sure that we are completely sure about how we are going to use the space before we decide to change anything.

[quote="Billnye_Fan"][spoiler]As far as conference space costs, the reason I am confused is because of a previous post by Mike stating that offers of $10,000 - $20,000 for the week were being made by the hotels. This was in a reference post of where the Hyatt's prices were $75,000. Now when Mike said the budget from PCF is 1:7 from last year, I am interpreting that for every 7 dollars raised, 1 dollar of that goes towards reinvestment (which is a very good rate).

Also the budget post you are talking about, is that the SGDQ2014 spreadsheet that showed AGDQ2014 and SGDQ2014 revenue and expenses? I saw that one. Since there are no conference room rental costs and no sponsorship/PCF income/reimbursement figures I can only assume that spreadsheet only shows expenses from Games Done Quick LLC. What that spreadsheet does show is that total costs for the year (both marathons) was around $58,000.

No one expects the exact amounts of pay for each person. Just the total amount across everyone would clear up a lot of this confusing. Right now me (and a few others) see $140,000 from pcf, $33,000 from what was in the "bank", and unknown amounts from sponsors while no mention of LARGE increase in costs. Like I already said the expenses for the whole year last year was $58,000 and the impression that the rental of the room was $20,000~. Now this would make sense if the rest was used for wages. However, what really causes the confusion is the talk about attendance fees. You all say that as costs rise the attendance fee will rise. Why? I'm clearly not understanding something correctly. Is the budget from PCF restricted only to wages and building rental?  Because to me it looks like either you are charging the attendees for profit or you are not negotiating correctly with pcf and getting taken advantage of.

I want to stress this isn't a witch hunt or anything like that. People understand that in business the largest expense is wages/salary. We also know you need to make a profit so you can purchase your own equipment so pcf doesn't own every thing, but isn't that is what the ad revenue and sponsorship money should be used for? Ad revenue alone from last year was $40,000. How much of a budget will there be for next year? Can some of these ideas that will require some funding be feasible? There are a myriad of ways to help improve the marathon but no one knows what kind of budget there is.[/spoiler] 
[/quote]

Disclosing the overall budget for staff salaries is not something we feel we can do at this moment because it leaves the ability for people to start guessing individual salaries. Once again, doing this treads into the realm of personal privacy.

While I do not recall ever saying that “as costs rise, the attendance fee will rise”, this is perhaps something that would have been a more realistic view a year or two ago before the introduction of sponsorship possibilities. In our current state, the goal is to not raise attendance fees for the coming year. Registration fees were previously used to cover costs and build savings as good business practice; it makes covering costs up front for future events easier, leaves emergency money in case we lose sponsors or unexpected costs come up at the last second (like with last SGDQ), and allows us to make significant improvements to the event in the future as opportunities arise without having to increase fees for attendees.

Registration fees for upcoming events will be used to cover expenses that improve the experience for everyone. While we do not have the full budget finalized yet, some [b]possibilities/ideas[/b] include having a 24/7 shuttle service for easier access to the airport, shopping centers, or restaurants, buying extra cameras/equipment to deal with the room layout issues brought up in this thread, contributing to upgrading a venue when sponsors can’t cover the entire cost, setting up food voucher programs for attendees, or other improvements suggested by staff or the community.

When we decide everything that we want to spend money on for upcoming events, we will be fully transparent and post the budget again, before registration even goes online. We will welcome community feedback at that time. We value being open and honest with the community that makes these marathons as amazing as they are, and want to share information that will help improve everything without infringing on anyone’s privacy.

[quote="Edenal"]I still have not fully understood if the staff are being payed by PCF or Games Done Quick LLC. [/quote]

All of the contracted GDQ staff (including Mike) are paid by PCF, as Games Done Quick LLC is not currently equipped to handle a payroll.

[quote]Event growth issues[/quote]

We are not opposed to the event growing further, and are looking to increase the size of the staff so that we can handle more people easier. However, in our current situation, we have no choice but to guess the potential attendees for the upcoming marathon, set an upper limit (determined both by the venue space and the number of rooms we can possibly reserve with the hotel) and roll with it. We do not feel the need to go out of our way to stunt growth, but will inevitably have an attendance cap of some kind. The discussion of taking further measures to control the size of the event will probably not happen unless we reach numbers that rival actual conventions.

[quote]Runner discounts[/quote]

Runners are seen in the same light as other volunteers who give their time to work the event, and there are even people with normal attendee badges who contribute with commentary or help out in a variety of ways. We feel it is a fundamentally bad idea to give runners special treatment for attendance. Again, we do not seek to increase attendance fees this year, so we do not see this being a huge issue moving forward.

the1stpkmnfan

2015-01-27 08:18:29 pm

Snowboard Assassin

While I got a refresher on the bonus stream from this year, I'm beginning to see why people don't stick around for the Bonus content. It's fun, yes, but it doesn't last very long and burns out quickly. It would be a shame to cut it out completely, but again, even I don't want to see the tech people and runners feeling exhausted after one week.

If Bonus Streams were to be excluded from futher GDQs, I wouldn't be too upset about it. The stream is nice, but there isn't much that I'd be willing to stick around further for. Everything I'd want to see is in the main GDQs and it works out.

It also seemed like a majority of people weren't up to do a Bonus stream, even if they kept the show alive.

Countneko

2015-01-27 08:33:08 pm

Quote from the1stpkmnfan:

While I got a refresher on the bonus stream from this year, I'm beginning to see why people don't stick around for the Bonus content. It's fun, yes, but it doesn't last very long and burns out quickly. It would be a shame to cut it out completely, but again, even I don't want to see the tech people and runners feeling exhausted after one week.

If Bonus Streams were to be excluded from futher GDQs, I wouldn't be too upset about it. The stream is nice, but there isn't much that I'd be willing to stick around further for. Everything I'd want to see is in the main GDQs and it works out.

It also seemed like a majority of people weren't up to do a Bonus stream, even if they kept the show alive.

I'd argue the reason people didn't want to do Bonus stream is because speedruns weren't allowed, and it ended so soon because of hotel issues. They had to clear out the stream room that night, rather than the next day.

dangodofthunder

2015-01-27 09:21:05 pm

@frozentreasure: I don't think it's defeatist. I don't think it's a BAD thing. Does it mean that there's some room for something that's an actual con dedicated to the art of speedrunning? Something with a marathon, maybe a charitable focus, but with a focus on runner/runner and runner/viewer interaction? Sure! There definitely is. But until something like that pops up, it's going to be focused at the GDQ events. I think a larger event, with more energy and excitement, will drive more donations than a tiny band of hyper-focused runners. Nostalgia and pure skill are big parts of why the GDQ events can raise so much money, but part of it is an infectious energy that has to come naturally.

@romscout: Understood. I sort of hope that a Warhammer 40,000 game makes it to the next speed run, I have a cosmetic modification for a replica Bolt Pistol. If GDQ wants folks that can help with streamlining, please let me know. Thanks for taking so much time to read all of our arguing and stupidity.

doicm

2015-01-27 09:32:04 pm

A larger convention has panels, booths, fan events, presentations, networking, cosplaying, fanboys/girls ...I guess it entirely depends on the convention. I see the GDQs more as a week-long event where lots of people with similar interests (speedrunning) gather together and play video games. I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of someone hosting individual panels or showcases on their speedruns (although I tended to see that in the practice room the one time I went to SGDQ). However, I don't see it as a convention because I don't see the amount of organization going into what is above for normal convention things by the organizers themselves. There are individually set up tournaments or other events by attendees, but nothing largely organized as to qualify it as a convention IMO.

Then again, I haven't been to really much of any conventions to say I'm qualified to speak on this matter. Maybe others can chime in on this.

dangodofthunder

2015-01-27 09:37:15 pm

I'm certainly not qualified, but I would consider a "convention" to have extensive social aspects for interaction. Maybe that's just me. I think there's portions of the community that would rather see GDQ have a laser focus on just raising as much money as efficiently as possible, with the social elements, and the space/staff resources to anything that ISN'T that being a waste.

GVirus

2015-01-27 10:11:41 pm

The path of the righteous man...

Well I guess I'm late to the feedback party but I'd like to say my pros and cons regarding the event but then again I don't feel like this is my place seeing as it was my first GDQ and, consequently my first year as a volunteer. I'm pretty those who know me know exactly what I'm talking about.

jape

2015-01-27 10:21:38 pm

It's a feedback thread you can give your feedback. People have posted without having gone to any of these. Just say what you want Smiley

Cool Matty

2015-01-27 10:35:31 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Quote from Countneko:

I'd argue the reason people didn't want to do Bonus stream is because speedruns weren't allowed, and it ended so soon because of hotel issues. They had to clear out the stream room that night, rather than the next day.

I do want to clarify this, since it was a rumor going around at the event for some strange reason:

1. The hotel didn't change things up on us, we knew and agreed to the "get out" time before the event.
2. The hotel already had another event booked for the main rooms the day after we left, so they needed us out by 5PM.
3. We have enough equipment and TVs that we can't tear down in one day anymore. Especially timing moving trucks and also dealing with much of the volunteers leaving, we have to start a day earlier than we used to.

So they didn't kick us out, or anything close to it, for anyone who thought that.

GVirus

2015-01-27 10:51:24 pm

The path of the righteous man...

Quote from jape:

It's a feedback thread you can give your feedback. People have posted without having gone to any of these. Just say what you want Smiley

Alright I will write something when I'm not as tired and come back to post my impressions!

Countneko

2015-01-27 11:04:50 pm

Quote from Cool Matty:

Quote from Countneko:

I'd argue the reason people didn't want to do Bonus stream is because speedruns weren't allowed, and it ended so soon because of hotel issues. They had to clear out the stream room that night, rather than the next day.

I do want to clarify this, since it was a rumor going around at the event for some strange reason:

1. The hotel didn't change things up on us, we knew and agreed to the "get out" time before the event.
2. The hotel already had another event booked for the main rooms the day after we left, so they needed us out by 5PM.
3. We have enough equipment and TVs that we can't tear down in one day anymore. Especially timing moving trucks and also dealing with much of the volunteers leaving, we have to start a day earlier than we used to.

So they didn't kick us out, or anything close to it, for anyone who thought that.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Just, previous to the event, I'd heard the bonus stream was supposed to last 24 hours ,which is why I'd thought something had gone wrong.

[quote="Cool Matty"][quote="Countneko"]
I'd argue the reason people didn't want to do Bonus stream is because speedruns weren't allowed, and it ended so soon because of hotel issues. They had to clear out the stream room that night, rather than the next day. 
[/quote]

I do want to clarify this, since it was a rumor going around at the event for some strange reason:

1. The hotel didn't change things up on us, we knew and agreed to the "get out" time before the event. 
2. The hotel already had another event booked for the main rooms the day after we left, so they needed us out by 5PM.
3. We have enough equipment and TVs that we can't tear down in one day anymore. Especially timing moving trucks and also dealing with much of the volunteers leaving, we have to start a day earlier than we used to.

So they didn't kick us out, or anything close to it, for anyone who thought that.[/quote]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Just, previous to the event, I'd heard the bonus stream was supposed to last 24 hours ,which is why I'd thought something had gone wrong.

Naegleria

(user is banned)

2015-01-27 11:08:28 pm

The only thing I heard about bonus stream is that it was supposed to be non-speedrunning content.

It ended up being mostly speedrun content somehow. The mario party 2 crew was waiting for all the planned speedrunning content to be over, then we setup for mario party 2, but there was even more planned speedrun content so we ended up doing 20 turn. What was with all the speedrunning content?

Reiska

2015-01-27 11:36:33 pm

I think I more or less agree with dangodofthunder that AGDQ should focus solely on the charity fundraising aspect of its portfolio, even perhaps to the exclusion of all other elements, for the sake of efficiency.

I think there's a place for a SpeedGamesCon or something of that nature, for sure - perhaps that's not an ideal name, but the idea would be an actual convention dedicated to the art of playing games at their skill peak, whether that peak is time-based or score-based (for games where speed isn't applicable e.g. shmups) or whatever - but I don't think AGDQ is necessarily the place for that event, for a number of reasons (proximity to MAGFest being a big one, as well as the greater internet community's concerns about the cost efficiency of marathons).