Anime needs an EVO of it's own in the West

[Qispichiq]

Talking to people in the chat, I've figured that really, outside of Arc Revo in Japan, Anime fans have nothing to go to other than as side events for Capcom, Midway, and Namco-dominated tournaments. Smash, due to it's isolation from the FGC for a long time made it's own EVO, Apex, and I feel we should do the same, but not out of some false supremacy of our community, but because THERE ARE TOO MANY ANIME GAMES! I mean we don't even know if anything passed Xrd is getting into Evo 2015, yet Persona, BB, AHLM!!!!, and UNIEL have communities that would gladly go to Evo for them just for side tournaments. This is why I suggest we have a big event in addition to EVO to get all of the love for all Arc and French Bread games in one big tournament. Problem is, I have no TO experience, nor a venue, so I need the help of the community to make this happen. Please reply so I can see how much of a support base we can get on board and fill free to provide any skills you can have to help.

[Admiral Ryokugyu]

Couple ideas might be kick starter others would be asking to make sure what game to stream or not is ok with Arc System and other companys and last but not least compile location and systems and last but not least prize money and prizes

[Nobus3r1]

I kind of started thinking the same thing once I saw the release schedule for this year.  UNIEL then P4A:U then AH3:LM then Xrd.  Realistically EVO 2015 starts with USFIV, UMvC3 (-_-) and whatever version of Smash Nintendo wants to be there.  From there it's safe to assume that Injustice and KoFXIII won't be coming back.  I would say the same for Tekken given that games dismal attendance but I'm not ruling out them paying Evo off again to keep their game in the rotation.  Similarly while it would disappoint me it wouldn't surprise me to see Killer Instinct back in 2015.  Additionally Mortal Kombat X has an early 2015 release date so it's probably safe to assume that it's getting a slot whether it deserves it or not.  To me the real elephant in the room is ChronoPhantasma.  In short is it going to yield a better and better attended tournament than some of the other anime games that might replace it?  I don't know one way or another with regards to that but the sad conclusion that I'm coming to is that there are 3-5 deserving anime games for at most two slots with the more like allotment being just one.  That sucks.  Compare that to a possible anime only lineup and you get something like (please don't jump down my throat if I've missed something):

 

Main Games:

Guilty Gear Xrd

Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax

BlazBlue: ChronoPhantasma

Under Night In-Birth: EXE Late

 

Side Games:

Arcana Heart 3: Love Max

Guilty Gear XX AC+R

Melty Blood:Actress Again Current Code (most current version?)

 

To me, that lineup is enough to populate at least a very solid two day or possibly three day (with team tournaments) event.

[Syklone]

OP you already know most of us have been waiting for something like this. Anime hasn't been doing the best at the capcom dominated majors. So it's only smart for us to make our own tournaments. I also agree on the west coast for location because the anime scene is a bit bigger and better than it is out here. If we all worked together and planted a fee seeds of waifu love ❤ we could make it happen. You have a lot of support on this, and hopefully you'll host it cause I'm much too broke right now :3

[sinder]

You make a kickstarter and ill donate

[Setsuna]

This has been brought up before and CEOs own Alex Jebailey WANTS to hold an Anime EVO however there comes complications, the first issue was waiting on the games to all be out before holding it (Guilty Gear Xrd being the awaiting game) next is timing. Off the top of my head theres a major event almost every month for the first months of the year (?) so it's hard to really advertise a anime only event that may conflict with another major being held. 

[Synyster17]

not only do i agree with Setsuna's statement but i also don't think enough people will show up. i think that to hold a major you would need alot of people willing to come out. lots of people do for evo but idk if they all can make it for something else when they have other plans as well.

[Errol]

my opinion is that EVO is not a capcom event or a mortal kombat event or anything. It's a fighting game event. The biggest games are what the biggest games are. 

 

I don't know if there is any major that limits its audience like that... I dunno. 

[Qispichiq]

not only do i agree with Setsuna's statement but i also don't think enough people will show up. i think that to hold a major you would need alot of people willing to come out. lots of people do for evo but idk if they all can make it for something else when they have other plans as well.

Maybe not for the first one, even EVO started somewhere. But EVO gets 300+ people every time they put an arcsys game on the main roster so I think if the community, and if we really wanna shot high arcsys and Atlus with their pot $$$$$, really tries it can work.

 

 

Off the top of my head theres a major event almost every month for the first months of the year (?) so it's hard to really advertise a anime only event that may conflict with another major being held. 

November and August are revealingly free, we could do a late summer or early winter time

 

my opinion is that EVO is not a capcom event or a mortal kombat event or anything. It's a fighting game event. The biggest games are what the biggest games are. 

 

I don't know if there is any major that limits its audience like that... I dunno. 

That's not the point, the point is, EVO only puts one arcsys game on the roster every year if that, but Arc has 5 series that have lively scenes. I fell like this belittles the communities that don't make it into EVO that year so I want to give those guys something to look forward to other then EVO if their game doesn't get in.

 

In other news I made this nice logo last night out of excitement, I wanted to go with the name "Ragunaroku", Katakana transliteration of Ragnarök, due to how much Japanese love putting German stuff in their games

I've also looked at some venues, but yes we do need to figure out timing and attendance number estimations, anyone who can help calculate this feel free to add to the thread

[Syklone]

You'll be the TO? I'll donate as well if you get up a kickstarter. Should also try to get this on a few news sites as well. I'll try to help with that too. Trying never hurts and it's just like you said we have to start somewhere and there is alot of anime games out this year. If we don't make an anime tournament this time we may never have another chance as good as this one.

[Poultrygeist]

This is an awesome idea.  Set up a kickstarter and I'll donate for sure.

[Dusk Thanatos]

Community agreement has been that you go to NEC for anime, for the most part. There's been an agreement for a while now that people will do their best to make it to NEC over any other EC major (hell, over any other non-EVO  major), particularly if you're a WC player -- at least from what I've been seeing.

[Nobus3r1]

my opinion is that EVO is not a capcom event or a mortal kombat event or anything. It's a fighting game event. The biggest games are what the biggest games are. 

 

I don't know if there is any major that limits its audience like that... I dunno. 

Sort of.  It's becoming more of a convention than a tournament.  Also if a game can have shit attendance one year, get dropped from the card and then buy their way back onto the card then it's not about having the best and biggest games it's about money.  I don't think I was that unreasonable in my analysis of what Evo 2015 is likely to look like.  I'm not really talking about anime vs. Capcom.  I'm talking about anime vs. games with suspect fan support but better financial backing.  Being realistic there are three (based on combination of past performance and anticipatory hype) anime games that could conceivably make Evo in 2105 in Guilty Gear Xrd, BlazBlue: ChronoPhantasma and Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax.  IMO every one of those games would out draw and out hype another year of Killer Instinct (which will almost certainly return due to a combination of money talking and a second season of DLC characters) and yet it's highly likely that only two of them are going to make it.  At that point it's IMO not really about the 'biggest games' but about the games that bring the TOs the most money.  And god help us if Tekken Tag Tournament 2 gets another shot...

[r0b0t]

Talking to people in the chat, I've figured that really, outside of Arc Revo in Japan, Anime fans have nothing to go to other then as side events for Capcom, Midway, and Namco-dominated tournaments. Smash, due to it's isolation from the FGC for a long time made it's own EVO, Apex, and I feel we should do the same, but not out of some false supremacy of our community, but because THERE ARE TOO MANY ANIME GAMES! I mean we don't even know if anything passed Xrd is getting into Evo 2015, yet Persona, BB, AHLM!!!!, and UNIEL have communities that would gladly go to Evo for them just for side tournaments. This is why I suggest we have a big event in addition to EVO to get all of the love for all Arc and French Bread games in one big tournament. Problem is, I have no TO experience, nor a venue, so I need the help of the community to make this happen. Please reply so I can see how much of a support base we can get on board and fill free to provide any skills you can have to help.

 

I was thinking this exact same thing. I went to NEC in 2012 cause I felt like guilty gear would get that "main game" treatment there, and thanks to St1ckbug it did, for the most part. That being said it was still in the side hall, very crowded low celings hot, and while that did not detract from the games being played or the tournament as a whole I still could not help but feel like my game was definitely a side game.  So i pretty much swore off playing +r once I heard about Xrd, because I do not want to spend 300$ in air fair to go to side tournaments any more.  

 

 

But then I got to thinking even when the new Guilty comes out it will only get main game treatment at so many majors while EVO will be a coin flip as to what Anime game gets the Anime slot. I thought to myself very recently how awesome would it be to have a Animie Fighter Major! But looks like your ready to do something about it which I think is awesome. In terms of scale I would not call it the EVO of anime fighters while I do not want to underestimate the community the first Anime Major you throw will probably be as some sort of loss. But if a kickstarter raises enough funds you can budget the even to break even!  Also I do not know this would happen right away but I would not bet on sponsors jumping on board right away, although with enough hype they might, but they would probably like to see your Anime tournament formula work first before investing in it.

 

Either way it looks like there are several people thinking the same thing you are, "we need an anime fighter major" And with the right resources and money and people I think we can all put something together. 

 

One more thing maybe see if an experienced TO for anime fighters like St1ckbug may be able to help or give you some advice, or even join forces.

 

 

And lastly, if there is a kickstarter for this or one is made later id be glad to donate a few bucks. I think you would find several people on dustloop would be willing too, but first i think you should pin down a few items related to costs, #1 venue #2 console rental #3 monitors And licenseing fees to stream the games should the devlopers require it. Or maybe they let you for free for publicity. And there is probably a lot I am not thinking of cause I have never TO'd before.

[Spellbound]

I'd donate for sure and would travel to it if it were to be in the states

[destruction_adv]

I'd donate, but I'm probably unable to really travel. I'd like to though.

[TAI-X]

If you're serious about doing this, PLEASE hire an event coordinator that knows what they're doing to avoid a Dashcon-like situation. It NEVER works out when a bunch of inexperienced and overzealous nerds who underestimate the difficulties of event planning try to arrange these things all by themselves.

[Setsuna]

November and August are revealingly free, we could do a late summer or early winter time

November is the month right before NEC and for most students it's around the time they're grinding out studies or final projects/finals etc etc and August is the month right after EVO. Money is a big issue to pretty much most of the FGC IMO there would be conflict of interest between NEC and EVO if put around those dates and I don't think anyone would want to miss those.

The thing with an AnimeEVO that I remember Alan (?) mentioning in the hotel room at a major this year was that it's hard to convince players to ignore x event to come to the anime event because of how tight tournament scheduling is. Whats to stop us from just all attending the major within the same time frame and just supporting the games really well in numbers (whether they be side games or not) there instead of trying to establish those kind of numbers at our own event. I don't remember the full details of that discussion, I think it was during Final Round but it was something a long those lines I believe ?

OP you live in Florida (according to your location) ? You should ping Jebailey about it, he's expressed great interest in doing it, considering you're in the same state it might be a good idea to catch up on what his plans are as well.

[Qispichiq]

OP you live in Florida (according to your location) ? You should ping Jebailey about it, he's expressed great interest in doing it, considering you're in the same state it might be a good idea to catch up on what his plans are as well.

Yeah I do, and I'm going to try to do this as I trust jebailey more then me to know how to run a tournament. What's his contact information?

 

If you're serious about doing this, PLEASE hire an event coordinator that knows what they're doing to avoid a Dashcon-like situation. It NEVER works out when a bunch of inexperienced and overzealous nerds who underestimate the difficulties of event planning try to arrange these things all by themselves.

Oh of course, I'd at least run a few locals beforehand if I did it myself

 

One more thing maybe see if an experienced TO for anime fighters like St1ckbug may be able to help or give you some advice, or even join forces.

And lastly, if there is a kickstarter for this or one is made later id be glad to donate a few bucks. I think you would find several people on dustloop would be willing too, but first i think you should pin down a few items related to costs, #1 venue #2 console rental #3 monitors And licenseing fees to stream the games should the devlopers require it. Or maybe they let you for free for publicity. And there is probably a lot I am not thinking of cause I have never TO'd before.

I already calculated all that and have a pretty solid idea of venues from asking around. I'd say 50 set ups minimum are pretty good if this was a true major. I didn't know you rented setups for tournament however, so I'll look into that

 

You'll be the TO? I'll donate as well if you get up a kickstarter.

I'll be the "host" but I think it should be left to someone with more knowledge than me

[EXonestar]

Idk if this is actually 100% true but aren't Anime games mainly Side tourneys because of the inconsistency of the player turn out?

Don't the numbers alway fall short around the anime games?

 

 Whats the stop us from just all attending the major within the same time frame and just supporting the games really well in numbers (whether they be side games or not) there instead of trying to establish those kind of numbers at our own event.

I agree with Setsuna - whats stopping us from literally attending an event that has anime FG's as a side tourney and turning it in to a main game by showing people the amount of people that support this game.

I mean if BB/P4A/AH3 was a side tourney but got like top 4/5 in relation to  "most players to attend" , wouldn't the event organizers take that as a sign to be like "this game shouldn't be a side tourney"?

 

P.S. not against the Anime EVO thing. But if numbers are low or quite random on side tourneys , making a bigger tourney may not be the answer. Firstly you got to get more people to travel. Which is hard. Life,Family,Work and some are just more online talk than physically showing up at events, sadly.

[Setsuna]

Yeah I do, and I'm going to try to do this as I trust jebailey more then me to know how to run a tournament. What's his contact information?

On Twitter (https://twitter.com/CEOJebailey) and on his Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Googlemyname?fref=ts). He's pretty good about replying to anything, he's always busy with something tho so don't be surprised if it's somehow missed

Idk if this is actually 100% true but aren't Anime games mainly Side tourneys because of the inconsistency of the player turn out?

Don't the numbers alway fall short around the anime games?

 

I agree with Setsuna - whats stopping us from literally attending an event that has anime FG's as a side tourney and turning it in to a main game by showing people the amount of people that support this game.

I mean if BB/P4A/AH3 was a side tourney but got like top 4/5 in relation to  "most players to attend" , wouldn't the event organizers take that as a sign to be like "this game shouldn't be a side tourney"?

 

P.S. not against the Anime EVO thing. But if numbers are low or quite random on side tourneys , making a bigger tourney may not be the answer. Firstly you got to get more people to travel. Which is hard. Life,Family,Work and some are just more online talk than physically showing up at events, sadly.

Pretty much this

I'm not opposed to an AnimeEVO myself, I'm pretty sure we all want one as much as the other guy it's just not as easy to plan out as just wishing for it with the issues stated above.

[Qispichiq]

Update: Jebailey has expressed he still has interest in making an ANIMEVO:

[Nobus3r1]

Idk if this is actually 100% true but aren't Anime games mainly Side tourneys because of the inconsistency of the player turn out?

Don't the numbers alway fall short around the anime games?

 

From what I've seen it sometimes seems like a self fulfilling prophecy.  [Games gets marginalized so people don't show up] x N

From my recollection the last few times that an anime game has been a main Evo game they've been around in the middle of the road attendance-wise with BlazBlue: ChronoPhantasma and Persona 4: Arena being such examples.

[Dusk Thanatos]

Part of the issue (and this gets explained every time there's a topic like this) is that tons of the anime scene players are students with low budgets that can't afford to pot monster events, and it's not like tons of non-students aren't in the same boat.

 

It's called the poverty scene for a reason.

[Qispichiq]

Part of the issue (and this gets explained every time there's a topic like this) is that tons of the anime scene players are students with low budgets that can't afford to pot monster events, and it's not like tons of non-students aren't in the same boat.

It's called the poverty scene for a reason.

That seems like all the more reason to do it. If players can't afford to go to every major they should have one major specifically for their community, and EVO. If you're not capcom chances are your community has at least two games with large communities that aren't going to be there. This is especially true about Anime. Imo there are three tournaments that should be in any FG community member's agenda: the community's EVO, your local major, and EVO. I understand there are people who can't afford to even fly out to one but if we give threatment to whatever game isn't at evo as a main game, we could reel in players that don't play the game at EVO. This year for example would probably less Xrd players as they would choose to go to EVO, but then we get a surplus of AH3, Persona, BB, Melty, and UNIEL players to make up for it as then EVO is off their calenders