from DT | MaxKiNG and the Down Tilt team
Well here it is, the end of the year is finally upon as and it’s time to look towards 2021. For the past few weeks we have been collecting data via surveys, chats and round tables to discuss the future of Down Tilt and how we can best help our fighting game community. In this post we are going to cover some of the key points that you, the community, have given us feedback on.
Note: All survey and face to face/Discord responses are anonymous and players will not be referenced in the summary below
“In the end we received close to 20 submissions on the survey, this paired with conversations face to face and via Discord has given us a ton of feedback to begin planning for 2021”
We are going to breakdown the responses and have some overall local responses from MaxKiNG and the team (DT) on the survey. They are broken down into: General, Pricing, Payouts, Tuesday Night Fights, Roadside Rumble, Monthlies and Stream. There is a bit to get through so let’s begin:
General
In this section we wanted to gauge frequency of attendance and what events people are coming to and why, as well as how is the overall organisational structure of Down Tilt. From the breakdown we concluded the following:
Roadside Rumble, of course, is a our largest event and the one people are most eager to participate in it.
Tuesday Night Fights, is also maintaining good numbers and there is an overlap of players which is great to see.
Monthlies have a low overlap rate, we know that not all the RR/TNF players come to monthlies.
Players also attended Smash Sessions, Sunday Sesh and Online Rumble. Due to the lower numbers and interest for now we will be putting Sunday Sesh, the only current event from those listed above, on hold as we look at other ways for the community to engage.
Players are extremely happy with TO’s, every score being on the higher end of the graph (see below). We always know there is room to improve but thank the community for putting faith in the DT team.
Overall it was great to know people are wanting to attend multiple events, the organisational side is well received and other comments are just as positive.
“Very good atmosphere, and a very tight knit community with its own feel.”
“Set ups are clean and TO is extremely organized on which set up is for which game.”
“Spare controllers are a blessing, and the TO's actually feel like parts of the community, rather than just "the organisers"“
“We thank you for your kind words and support”
Pricing
Next up is cost and pricing, we have always tried to maintain the line of an affordable event for the player as well as one that can cover the cost of operation. In this section we go over a bit on the pricing and the changes we implemented in 2020.
The biggest change came near the end of the year with the addition of EFTPOS via Square. This has been a long requested addition and we were very excited once we got through all the hoops to sign it up. We have had a huge change from cash to card transactions with nearly 70% of all entry fees being paid on card.
Some of the feedback from players suggest actually paying more (mainly in the case of monthlies). Players have indicated that a higher prize pool gives games more stake and distinguishes them from regular weeklies. We can confirm we are looking at this and will probably be making a decision in the first quarter of the year.
“Higher stakes for higher competition?”
Prizing
Payouts and prizing is up next, since starting Roadside Rumble and our return from COVID-19 restrictions we have made changes in regards to prizing as it works around our numbers. From a statistical point of view since our return we averaged around 8 players a week now hitting around 10 and peaking at 13 so far.
The current payout system ($20 for 1st, $10 for 2nd and $5 for 3rd) was based on the average of 8 and whilst as discussed before with players, anything over is usually kept for upkeep costs such as power, rent, internet and water. Here is some of the feedback from the prizing question:
As you can see the survey shows that over half the survey responses are happy with the current payout structure whilst some are in the middle or opposed. Follow up conversations indicate roughly the same as the survey. One thing we did want to highlight on is the last response:
“Imo 3rd should at least get $10 because they will then get their entry back”
We wanted to highlight this one as we believe it’s important for transparency.
The operational cost of TNF/RR and all DT events is quite more than what all the events combined are making from venue fees, this paired with community requests (EFTPOS, more cams and new gear/games) it can make keeping on top of things costly for us here at Down Tilt.
Smash Attack does have a goal that includes maintaining a consistency with Down Tilt, but for now the decisions being made are purely to keep the doors open and make sure we can get what the community wants.
Now, we know its a lot of gibberish but we want to be transparent here, to organise just $5 for both TNF and RR would be around $40 a month loss on operational which means more out of pocket for organisers. We don’t want to charge more for venue fees but we also want to keep it as fair as possible for all.
Before we move on let’s just touch on the payouts:
Above you can see that majority of the community are happy for any of the payout options and a good quarter is happy to maintain cash. So moving forward we will continue to do cash payouts until we see such a change or large enough community request. Next, let’s breakdown the events:
Tuesday Night Fights
From here we will breaking down some of the communities feedback on tournaments, what games they want to see and more. Let’s begin:
Tekken 7 is here to stay, as the major draw and event that continues to pull in the most numbers we will be continuing with paid tournaments and rankings within Down Tilt.
Players are happy with the current structure of one paid tournament (Tekken 7) and one free (rotating). We did look in to possibly going back to three but with so much overlap in games and delays previously we will be benching this idea for now.
Now let’s breakdown the games:
Moving forward due to multiple issues ranging from YouTube/Twitch DMCA issues and lack of attendance. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and Granblue Fantasy Versus will be going in to the vault. You may see them again in the future but for now we will be benching them from the rotating roster.
Dragonball FighterZ and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike were tied for highest votes for free tournaments so we will be keeping them in the rotation.
Other possibilities for rotation are Power Rangers; Battle for the Grid, Skullgirls and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite.
During January we will be running some taster nights for these games to see how people feel about these games. We will be running Tekken 7 and Street Fighter alongside so people can still play those.
We will also be moving tournament registration to Smash.GG, this means players will be able to pre-register for events moving forward. Payments will still be conducted onsite but we are looking at online payments.
And that about covers it, besides probably this. We some changes coming around February we will be renaming Tuesday Night Fights to Highway Havoc. This change represents a new era and year for what has been a great rise in other games amongst the local fighting game community.
Roadside Rumble
There is no doubt that Roadside Rumble is the event Down Tilt is known for, thanks to that hard work of all those involved from Down Tilt to Umami Gaming and the community it’s been awesome to see the community still thrive despite the year we have had. Like the Tuesday Night Fights breakdown, everything has been conciliated and we will go over the dot points:
One of the biggest requests was to bring an extra game or side event, following the survey both Smash Melee and Rivals of Aether came out the two clear winners. Starting with Roadside Rumbles return on the 7th of January, Melee will be an optional side event for those who have paid venue fee to attend.
Next up is one of the bigger discussions, Best of Five, earlier in the year and especially when we had low player numbers Bo5 was there to give players a bit more but as we are hitting double digits again a bit more regularly we have decided to make some changes. Moving forward Bo5 will be played from Top 6/Winners Semis, we will continue to monitor times for the event and make any changes necessary.
As with Tuesday Night Fights, from Friday’s (or as close as possible), events and pre-registration will go live on Smash.GG and social media to help engagement and inform people of events.
And that’s its really, overall event satisfaction seems in a really good spot and we are eager to roll out the changes starting at Roadside Rumble #33.
Monthlies
Overall monthlies feedback stayed relatively simple due to the lower feedback numbers and attendance from most. There are a few points to highlight again from previous conversations and things we have touched on before so we shall go over them quickly here:
Higher pot fee to inform of the difference from a weekly and a monthly ranking match. Keep payout structure but charge more for a higher/larger pot. As mentioned before we will monitor this and discuss a bit more before diving in on a change like this.
There is the avenue of having a couple of extra tournaments (similar to the recent boxing day event which ran 4 from 12pm - 5pm). Here are the results:
A Street Fighter 3: Third Strike paid tournament added to the roster of Smash and Tekken
Dragonball FighterZ, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle or Melee for a free side event.
Again we will confirm any changes for the new quarter and maybe run some trials as timing is a key issue for us as we want to accommodate those who travel.
Monthlies have had a huge boost since Tekken 7 had a bit of rise up North and the always hungry and eager South players keen to play. A huge shout out to those who do travel to our events and continue to support us.
and finally, Stream
This section was to gain some insights ranging from who watches, to why they watch and what they would like to see. We were happy to see the numbers that came across, community engagement and retention is always key and it’s great to see that even when not attending players were checking in from home.
The main things that we wanted to keep an eye out on though was content, why people watched, what they wanted to see and what could we do the stream to improve, let’s break it down:
One of the biggest requests is caster cams, this is something we are saving towards (see venue fees), are looking hopefully being able to roll out soon. We are happy with the technical aspect of the stream and will continue to find ways to improve it.
“Does the current layout include our Twitch names? A lot of our players have started streaming and I think it would be nice to have the extra bit of exposure”
Over the COVID period a lot of the scene started streaming and we agree it would be great to help out and get some exposure. We will be looking in to ways to get this information across to those watching both for those playing and casting, if possible.
As with any layout change, its a process, worked on very hard by UG | Jai2go (twitter here) who has to find the time to work on it.
Since implementing Streameta this year, we have seen a huge growth in process, performance and quality. We highly encourage those who run any form of tournament to utilise this amazing service.
And that’s about it really, wasn’t much to cover here. Again we fill we have done really well to nail down our stream and put a lot of work to make it very high quality as well as the VODS on YouTube.
And that covers it, we know it was a bit of a read but thank you for taking the time to read over. If you have anymore questions please join our Discord (here), follow us on Twitter (here) or use the Contact Us part of the site to touch base.
This year has been hard and we couldn’t have done it alone, so we want to take sometime to thank a few people:
UG | Jai2go
Jai’s amazing work from the stream layout to the weekly results has been an amazing asset to the community and we cant thank them enough for their work. If you want amazing PR work or just to work with someone who is passionate about fighting games please follow them on Twitter or check their streams here.
UG | Gerald
Another constant figure head in the community and overall great guy, we want to give Gerald a huge shout for their dedication. Having lost his way with Smash for a while Gerald still came to events to help cast. Casting is a long and hard task and not everyone can do it but Gerald would still come and put up his hand to hold down the fort which meant a lot to the team. Check him out on Twitter here.
Tournameta
The amazingly brilliant architect behind Streameta. Since implementing Streameta this year, as mentioned before, we have seen such a huge increase in quality and performance from our stream and its ease of use and set up has been amazing. Check them out here and check out Streameta here
Another Computer Store
Something awesome to come out of 2020 was the support of Another Computer Store here in Launceston. From offering PC repair services to organising equipment and helping us out we can’t thank them enough for their support and encouragement this year.
Launtel
Launtel have been great, from helping us get set up to the clear information they provide to help us troubleshoot any problem and the support they provide has been excellent. Alec and the team at Launtel have been nothing but amazing and we thank them for their service.
and of course, the Down Tilt community
We wouldn’t be here without you all, from all of us thank you. A huge thank you too to our regular attendees. You are the ones who keep tournaments running by constantly attending events and supporting the scenes. We appreciate those who bring consoles to use and all those who have participated in commentary or stream running this year! We also want to say a huge shout out to all the players who have taken time out to teach someone else something more about any game, this really is what keeps us all getting better!