World’s Greatest Shmup Player Tournament?!

durias · Post by **durias** » Tue May 15, 2007 5:02 pm

What are you doin' on June 9th and 10th? Maybe you vie for the title of World’s Greatest Shmup Player. Check it out: http://www.the2bears.com/?p=1025

Kinda short notice to really get all those who should be representin' out to Wisconsin but...

DEL · Post by **DEL** » Tue May 15, 2007 5:41 pm

Its that Twin Galaxies "World's" Greatest thing again

. Please re-title it "Midwest's Greatest" and have fun.

durias · Post by **durias** » Tue May 15, 2007 5:44 pm

DEL wrote:Its that Twin Galaxies "World's" Greatest thing again . Please re-title it "Midwest's Greatest" and have fun.

Good point.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue May 15, 2007 9:00 pm

if i didnt live on the other side of the world id go there and play the piss out of em.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue May 15, 2007 9:15 pm

I sure hope their "world's greatest shmup player" can score higher than this, for example.
Seriously.

Kyper · Post by **Kyper** » Tue May 15, 2007 10:44 pm

Got a nice little plug for Shoot the Core in the PR, neat!

Also, is that DoctorKamino dude who did those Youtube reviews the same person who created this tourney? I find that to be an interesting tidbit of info heh.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue May 15, 2007 11:04 pm

The World’s Greatest Shmup Player Tournament is the creation of shmup fan and collector Chris “Kamino” Kamin.

Kyper wrote: Also, is that DoctorKamino dude who did those Youtube reviews the same person who created this tourney?

That would be a funny coincidence.

lawnspic · Post by **lawnspic** » Tue May 15, 2007 11:29 pm

What's the shmup lineup (if it was in my face im sorry, just to tired to read today)

colour_thief · Post by **colour_thief** » Tue May 15, 2007 11:50 pm

Kyper wrote:Got a nice little plug for Shoot the Core in the PR, neat!

Also, is that DoctorKamino dude who did those Youtube reviews the same person who created this tourney? I find that to be an interesting tidbit of info heh.

TO Invasion++;

postman · Post by **postman** » Tue May 15, 2007 11:59 pm

Some more info:

1) Yes, it's the same guy from the videos........

2) The game list won't be revealed until the compo, this way nobody has an upper hand.........

3) It sounds like a really fun time - they rented the bar out for an after party on Saturday and the people are all really cool so far.....more info on the Team Fremont forums......

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Wed May 16, 2007 1:12 am

colour_thief wrote:
Kyper wrote:Got a nice little plug for Shoot the Core in the PR, neat!

Also, is that DoctorKamino dude who did those Youtube reviews the same person who created this tourney? I find that to be an interesting tidbit of info heh.
TO Invasion++;

Bahahahaha.

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Wed May 16, 2007 4:20 am

Hey all,

I'm Dan from the Midwest Gaming Classic, and I just wanted to clarify some stuff so that everyone knows why we did this in this way...

About the title of "World's Greatest Shmup Player", the idea behind this is to create a completely new style of tournament that has not ever been done before. Almost exclusively, video game tournaments rely on the highest scores alone to determine the winner. We wanted to do something a little different, and create an actual competition where how you played really mattered, and not how long you could play a game.

The rules (which are linked now properly, sorry about before if anyone was looking) were made to create a tournament much like the pinball tournaments -- one pinball player may play an OUTSTANDING game in one game once in a great while, but are they really the best pinball player because they could do it once? No. They have to do it consistently.

That was the theory behind the creation of a pinball tournament where the goal was to consistently play really great games across a number of tournaments. The people that created that tournament were Roger Sharpe and Steven Epstein, who also officiate our pinball tournament and who I spoke with great length about how to do this.

To put it simply -- this is a completely different style of tournament than what most people are used to. Each competitor will play on various games to qualify. There will be five games that they can play. The top 9 qualifiers move on into head-to-head rounds. Scoring points in each game is really important, as you only get either until one credit is out or until the game is over, at which point you get a bonus based on how many lives you still have left. It pits everyone head to head like that, and what should emerge in the end is the best *consistent* shmup player in the tournament.

So, now after all that, back to why we are calling it the World's... Well, we are the only one that we know of currently holding a tournament anything like this, and we are doing it across the entire genre. The World's Greatest Shmup Player Tournament needs to happen somewhere because as I'm sure you all agree, shmups need more people to learn about them and play them so that more are made, and I think this is a great way to get some attention for it. Maybe we don't get as many people as we would like this year, but I'll say this right now -- we have already invested thousands of dollars into the infrastructure for this tournament, and we intend to continue it and grow it into the future. As the competition gets fiercer in future years, I can guarantee that we will continue to up the prize package to meet the level of competition that we have.

As was mentioned, we also worked with Twin Galaxies to get their approval for the competition. If you think that some of their scores are low, take a look at how to get listed and by all means, beat them! Twin Galaxies has been holding all video game records since the early 80s, and is looked at by many in lots of countries as the official scorekeepers.

Finally, it was important to get the help of a great site and person like we got with Shoot the Core. Roger didn't just get a plug from us about the tournament, but he was also very involved with writing the tournament rules and making sure that everything made sense.

As for the games in the tournament, those will not be revealed until the competition itself starts on Saturday. The games that will be used in the final rounds will not be revealed until those rounds are ready to start. Again, this is to ensure that we crown the most consistent player as the best, not the one who is the best at any one particular title. These games have been picked, and only myself and one other person know what they are. All that I will reveal about them is that they were picked from a huge collection of shmups and will be played on five different consoles, spanning all generations of gaming.

Sorry about the late announcement of this by the way -- getting the specifics completely nailed down took us the better part of a year, as we have worked for about nine months in really putting this together and nailing down all of the pieces of it. I definitely believe that it will be something truly new and unique, and I hope to bring a lot of attention to what is my own favorite genre of game too, the shmup!

If anyone on here has any questions or comments, please feel free to ask and I will try to answer them on here, or you can email me at loosen at goatstore dot com. Thanks!

durias · Post by **durias** » Wed May 16, 2007 4:38 am

goatdan wrote:...one pinball player may play an OUTSTANDING game in one game once in a great while, but are they really the best pinball player because they could do it once? No. They have to do it consistently.

That was the theory behind the creation of a pinball tournament where the goal was to consistently play really great games across a number of tournaments.

Nice. I really like that. Tournament poker grew exponentially when they made a similar shift and I can see a shmup tournament benefiting in the same way. Some of the best poker players are NOT the ones you see on TV, for instance. But the best/richest ones win consistently, regularly, and hardly ever rely on one big game--although it helps.

goatdan wrote:Sorry about the late announcement of this...

It'd be great to see a cross-section of players (e.g. from different countries) represented eventually. I can imagine making the tournament could be a real challenge for our colleagues overseas. I'm considering going but I'm just a few states away.

That's why the best of us (which is does not include yours truly) need to be sponsored. Grin. Coke? Where are you? Microsoft? C'mon!

PFG 9000 · Post by **PFG 9000** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:45 am

I'm going to be at the Midwest Gaming Classic, but I don't think I'll enter this tournament. My shmup skills are fairly crap compared to most of the regulars here, and I'm generally bad at anything I haven't played before...which is a lot of games. But I'll definitely watch the tournament while I'm there.

Sonic R · Post by **Sonic R** » Wed May 16, 2007 12:02 pm

Welcome Goatdan!

Goatdan is head of the Goat Store which has done some Dreamcast homebrew.

Great fellow to deal with.

Nice to see you here at shmups.com!

postman · Post by **postman** » Wed May 16, 2007 2:43 pm

For those who can't make the event, I'll have huge coverage of it on Shootthecore shortly afterwards. I hope more people from the shmup community can make it, we can consider this the largest shmupmeet yet!

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Wed May 16, 2007 2:56 pm

durias wrote:Nice. I really like that. Tournament poker grew exponentially when they made a similar shift and I can see a shmup tournament benefiting in the same way. Some of the best poker players are NOT the ones you see on TV, for instance. But the best/richest ones win consistently, regularly, and hardly ever rely on one big game--although it helps.

Exactly. Everything that we do at the show is to help promote various parts of gaming, and we want to raise the awareness level of shmups. Besides that, the nice things about shmups is that unlike any other genre, the skills of a player transfer over relatively easily from game to game. There are some that players are better at, of course, but it is all a very similar control scheme -- move the ship, shoot at stuff, dodge bullets. There isn't really another video game genre that lends itself to this sort of thing so well, and that is why we decided to do this.

Like I said, a lot of really big hands helped to shape this tournament to ensure that it would go off without a hitch, and would be set to grow even bigger and better in the future. I expect nothing else

goatdan wrote:It'd be great to see a cross-section of players (e.g. from different countries) represented eventually. I can imagine making the tournament could be a real challenge for our colleagues overseas. I'm considering going but I'm just a few states away.

I really do understand this difficulty, however the other way that I look at it is that we need to have this *somewhere*, and we decided that we would spend the time and money to do it. We have had overseas people fly into the show the past three shows that we have done, and we intend on continuing to grow as a show for a long time, so I hope we can do that

That's why the best of us (which is does not include yours truly) need to be sponsored. Grin. Coke? Where are you? Microsoft? C'mon!

I agree! Who knows, maybe we can get this to be that big in the future? You might think that sounds crazy, but you never know...

Sonic R wrote:Goatdan is head of the Goat Store which has done some Dreamcast homebrew.

Not to split hairs, and I know that some people think I'm crazy for this, but there is a very real reason that I say this and you'll have to just trust me... We do Dreamcast independent games, not homebrew games. For instance, Cool Herders, which we did, is headed to the DS!

Also, I don't know if many people listen to Team Fremont on here, but I was interviewed by them a while ago when I first broke the shmup tourney rules (but we were still working on the final details, so again it took a while to get it announced)... in that same interview, I talked about a new Dreamcast shmup we're working on called Dal Force. I'm hoping to have a demo or beta copy at the MGC because it is an absolutely amazing
game!

Sonic R · Post by **Sonic R** » Wed May 16, 2007 3:52 pm

goatdan wrote: Not to split hairs, and I know that some people think I'm crazy for this, but there is a very real reason that I say this and you'll have to just trust me... We do Dreamcast independent games, not homebrew games. For instance, Cool Herders, which we did, is headed to the DS!

I am sorry

I can refrain from using the word "homebrew".

My wife and I enjoy the Goat Store indie DC games! I am huge fan of Typing of Fury!

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Wed May 16, 2007 4:09 pm

goatdan wrote:
goatdan wrote:It'd be great to see a cross-section of players (e.g. from different countries) represented eventually. I can imagine making the tournament could be a real challenge for our colleagues overseas. I'm considering going but I'm just a few states away.
I really do understand this difficulty, however the other way that I look at it is that we need to have this *somewhere*, and we decided that we would spend the time and money to do it. We have had overseas people fly into the show the past three shows that we have done, and we intend on continuing to grow as a show for a long time, so I hope we can do that

I can't find a non-driving travel option (from Detroit Metro) that isn't $300. Got any ideas?

Is it true every hotel in the area is already full?

goatdan wrote:Also, I don't know if many people listen to Team Fremont on here, but I was interviewed by them a while ago when I first broke the shmup tourney rules (but we were still working on the final details, so again it took a while to get it announced)... in that same interview, I talked about a new Dreamcast shmup we're working on called Dal Force. I'm hoping to have a demo or beta copy at the MGC because it is an absolutely amazing
game!

That was the one with the 4-player@same-time stuff, right?

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:58 pm

DJ Incompetent wrote:I can't find a non-driving travel option (from Detroit Metro) that isn't $300. Got any ideas?

No, however I don't think that driving would be that bad if that is an option for you. I usually go to Pinball at the Zoo in Kalamazoo, and I drive there and back in the same day. Detriot is only about two hours beyond that, and it would save you a hotel as you could leave at 7 in the morning and show up at the event around 2:00, keep a hotel for the night, and drive back the next night, ending about midnight.

There may be bus options that are cheaper, but if you have the option, I would personally drive.

Is it true every hotel in the area is already full?

Every hotel in the direct surrounding area is full, however if you look at our site, we have three options that are relatively close (20 miles away) that are good too. There are a few things going on that weekend, and we filled up our block which was as big as last year two full months before we filled it up last year!

We're trying to work out a way for anyone who comes in to be able to car pool or go in together on a cab to get to the show, but I'm not sure exactly how we can do that right now.

Again, next year -- we'll have more rooms, I promise

That was the one with the 4-player@same-time stuff, right?

Yes sir, and it is as good as I described it as, I swear

I'm a huge shmup fan myself, and I honestly haven't been as addicted to a shmup since the original Raiden as I have been to the alpha version of Dal Force

NTSC-J · Post by **NTSC-J** » Wed May 16, 2007 9:13 pm

Why can't you just call it 'America's Greatest Shmup Player Tournament'? At least 95% of the world records for shooting games are held by Japanese players and I highly doubt most will feel like showing up to your event, so calling it 'the world's best' is both dumb and racist. Twin Galaxies doesn't know shit in terms of the official scores for these games and the attitude that they're the only ones that matter in terms of score-keeping is ridiculous. The scores recorded by Gamest and Arcadia are all judged accurately at participating arcades throughout Japan and should be recognized by Twin Galaxies.

If you want to hold a world-class tourny, it makes sense to put it somewhere with the greatest concentration of high-level players and the midwest is not that place. It's like if I were to step outside, yell at the top of my lungs "hey guys, let's do a hundred meter dash to see who's the fastest fuck in the world!" and determine that record by the four people that participated.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Wed May 16, 2007 9:37 pm

NTSC-J wrote:It's like if I were to step outside, yell at the top of my lungs "hey guys, let's do a hundred meter dash to see who's the fastest fuck in the world!" and determine that record by the four people that participated.

Haha.

Honestly the midwest doesn't seem to be the best place to hold a shooter contest in America, but it's your contest and hope it's successful enough. A rename would be a good idea.

DJ Incompetent · Post by **DJ Incompetent** » Wed May 16, 2007 10:18 pm

Rob wrote:
NTSC-J wrote:truth
truth

*grabs popcorn, takes a seat*
*sips a looong pull of Killians*

yyyep

I wonder if that was a long hard debate in their offices. Postman had to know, right?

Anyway, thanks goatdan for hittin' me back. I'll mail ya up if I have anything else to ask. This thread's about to go places...

durias · Post by **durias** » Wed May 16, 2007 10:22 pm

This thread's about to go places...

You're welcome. Grin.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Wed May 16, 2007 10:25 pm

NTSC-J wrote:stuff.

why dont we just call shmups.com "the official world record site for shmups", just ask malc to put it up on the first page, itll hold just as much punch as TG...

and dont get too hung up on the name of the tournament, its just to get some interest into the event im sure.
who the hell would come by if it was "regional shmups championship - THIS WEEKEND!"

im sure the organisers are well aware that the world stretches further than the boundaries of middle north america...

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:15 pm

sven666 wrote:
NTSC-J wrote:stuff.
why dont we just call shmups.com "the official world record site for shmups", just ask malc to put it up on the first page, itll hold just as much punch as TG...

and dont get too hung up on the name of the tournament, its just to get some interest into the event im sure.
who the hell would come by if it was "regional shmups championship - THIS WEEKEND!"
im sure the organisers are well aware that the world stretches further than the boundaries of middle north america...

Yes, thank you. I was actually about to post basically the same thing.

First off, like I said before, I believe there should be a shmup championship, if nothing else than because I think that the genre is one of the great ones out there, and a world championship draws attention to it. I fully realize, and fully realized before making the announcement that there is much more to the world than North America, however no one else has done a tournament in this style format for shmups ever, and I think it will be a hit. As I said, we worked strongly with people that created the pinball world championship, and the whole concept is to make this into a style of tournament that is competitive play, and that is held all over the place. Check out the site http://www.pinballrankings.com/ to see how while there is a world championship every year (held in Pittsburgh, which the argument could be made isn't a center for pinball the way a place like Chicago is) plays into that. I would *love* to get this to start a "best ranked Shmup players in the world" type deal, and grow from there.

As the person above stated, the idea behind the name is to attract people and get attention for it. We do not want this to be buried at all. In the US, as I'm sure many of you know, most publishers have completely forgotten about the entire genre, and it would be great to make them realize that it is still around, and that there is still a market for a good shmup. We could name it the "Midwest" or the "Wisconsin" shmup championship, but then people in the media wouldn't care as much about it, and when they asked where the world ones were held, there wouldn't be an answer. Thus, no news about the tournament before or afterwards.

As for holding the tournament elsewhere -- guys, I am by no means rich. The GOAT Store is a hobby of love, not of profit making. We've done it for five years as a hobby, not as a profit venture. The Midwest Gaming Classic is the same way. We hold it because we believe in furthering gaming, and especially noticing and appreciation games and genres that are not usually spotlighted.

If you want to complain about it and say that it is stupid and that it is worthless, if it fails I'm sure that we won't decide to hold it again, and everyone can go back to the way that it was before. If it succeeds, I can guarantee that we will continue to re-invest directly into it, to make it something that is worth it for the best players from around the world to travel to. This past year, PAPA gave out $36,000 in prizes. I want nothing less for this tournament than to do that. This first year is an experiment -- one which is costing me personally thousands of dollars to do, and which we need more people to play in than I'm sure we'll get this year in entries. But if it works, I can guarantee that we will continue to re-invest in it.

If you want to support us, I think that this could really lead to a lot of attention for the genre, and I will be happy to help anyone else hold similar tournaments anywhere else in the world. Perhaps in the near future, there will be a Japanese version of the tournament, and if that happens I would be happy to have the North American version, and find a way to have the top qualifiers meet to determine the winner.

But it's gotta start somewhere. That's all that we're trying to do

Post by **Icarus** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:20 pm

Haha, don't worry about it, goatdan. While NTSC-J appears to have forgotten to take his medication (just kidding, NTSC-J ^_-), his points are valid, and I agree with some of the other comments by other posters, as well.

If this thing works out, perhaps it'd be a good idea to start looking for interested parties in other countries and setting up a network so you can have a true "world championship", perhaps by running events near-simultaneously across the globe (timezone restraints permitting), and recording all results in a master database? The intarweb makes things easier that way.

goatdan · Post by **goatdan** » Thu May 17, 2007 1:23 am

Icarus wrote:Haha, don't worry about it, goatdan. While NTSC-J appears to have forgotten to take his medication (just kidding, NTSC-J ^_-), his points are valid, and I agree with some of the other comments by other posters, as well.

If this thing works out, perhaps it'd be a good idea to start looking for interested parties in other countries and setting up a network so you can have a true "world championship", perhaps by running events near-simultaneously across the globe (timezone restraints permitting), and recording all results in a master database? The intarweb makes things easier that way.

No, like I said -- that's already in the cards. What the WPPR ( http://www.pinballrankings.com/ ) does is exactly what I would like to do with this type of tournament too. The biggest tournaments are weighted in that, but even small regional tournaments matter. It has worked wonderfully for pinball, and we sat down with them like I said to plan this whole thing out to try to grow it for the future.

With any luck, that is just what we will do.

If anyone else has a tournament that they would like to hold using the same type of rules, I will be happy to share them with anyone, and attempt to help tweak them if necessary. Just ask! Like I said before, we do this for a hobby, and I truly do find this stuff fun, so email me if you are interested, and I would be glad to have others like this start up, and perhaps we can start a world ranking thing sooner than later

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Thu May 17, 2007 1:49 am

Damn. I was kind of thinking about going to the Midwest Gaming Classic, but I didn't really feel like taking time off work and driving 6 hours each way to go there. If I knew this was going to be there, I would have definitely given it more consideration.

OTOH, I do have a couple vacation days left I need to burn sometime before June 30...

I wish there was some public transportation to get there. I know I can take the Amtrak from Toledo to Chicago, then maybe up to Madison or something, but AFAIK I'd still end up needing a car to get to the actual event anyway.

NTSC-J · Post by **NTSC-J** » Thu May 17, 2007 4:40 am

sven666 wrote:and dont get too hung up on the name of the tournament, its just to get some interest into the event im sure.
who the hell would come by if it was "regional shmups championship - THIS WEEKEND!"

You're right, such an epic name will pull in the hordes of shooter players that would otherwise stay at home if this was merely a "national" tournament.

I think if TG would like to retain some form of integrity they would either call it "US Finals" or hold events in other countries. I know basing it in the midwest is most convenient for the people running it, but honestly, is there even one decent arcade in that whole region? I'm willing to wager that the best, most shooter-packed arcade is some podunk bowling alley with a Neo Geo 2-slot, an Ultracade cab, and a Wyvern Wings cab with a dodgy two-player joystick with buttons that make a crunch sound when you push em.

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World’s Greatest Shmup Player Tournament?!

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