Why do you dislike watching competitive pinball?

+1 to what @Slamtilt said. I am glad this was not broadcast.

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Im not entirely convinced thatā€™s necessary. I feel like there is enough talent available within each region that we wouldnā€™t need a dedicated team to go all over the place. Not to mention that the sponsorship to support the endeavor would be nearly impossible to capture.

Some of the better streams out there have a mix of people in the booth from all over the country. I would pay money to be able to call a round with Greg Dunlap at every tournament. Steven Bowden Was basically born in a broadcast booth. There are far more examples of people who do an excellent job, but I pointed out those two for the sake of example.

This is where my earlier point about standardizing things comes in; if you can set the expectation and come to a consensus on how things are to be done based on internal and external feedback, you donā€™t have to scramble to find people to make a decent broadcast. Even if you donā€™t have ā€œa-listā€ (sorry b-list booth peopleā€¦ suckers) you can meet with the team pre-broadcast and give a rundown of what to do, what to expect, etcā€¦ something like this may also help to groom not-so-experienced commentators into being phenomenal commenters. The same could be said of producers and the overall production itself.

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Banner not enough for you? Lol

And all this time I was blown away by how mega supportive everyoneā€™s wives/significant others were. (Iā€™ll be needing that number, too Karl. PM me.)

LOL, LMAO and LMFAO donā€™t pay this statement justice . . . I need something BIGGER than LMFAO :slight_smile:

You do an incredible job, and obviously should be at the top of anyoneā€™s list.

This isā€¦an interesting suggestion. I bet there are a few people each event who would payā€¦$100? $50? to be in the booth for a round.

Ive spent a lot of time in the booth, and at either PAPA19 or PAPA20, I was with Greg and he just made it so easy. He was awesome to work with. I was basically saying I loved it so much, Iā€™d pay to do it again hahaha. It is an interesting thing to consider! You pay US ago work! :wink:

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Of course, it would be pitched differently, like buying a VIP pass for the event.

$200 gets you: entry to the tournament, and a guaranteed round of live tournament commentary in the booth with pinball champion Bowen Kerins!

I donā€™t

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Hahaha. I was referring to the streaming, organizing, software side of things. :slight_smile:

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Yes, but the decision not to follow that match was made before it began when one couldnā€™t* have known it was going to be a poor game. Just because a process had a good outcome doesnā€™t mean itā€™s a good process.

* Ok, maybe people here are thinkin they knew ahead of time what was going to happen in that match and they didnā€™t want that on camera. IF thatā€™s what people are implying but not saying then I agree it may not be the best example. But there are plenty of times groups are chosen based on relatively random things like ā€œWe showed that machine a lotā€ or ā€œI know that person so letā€™s follow themā€ instead of the best matches or any coherent storyline.

I can definitely agree with this point of view.

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Iā€™ll also say that the PAPA crew in general does a very good job of trying to follow captivating games. The Belsito run from a few years ago rings a bell. I know there are runners that are on the floor trying to keep up with those things, and we keep those notes. Your point is still very valid though and well taken.

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I would love to do commentary and think I could be pretty good at it. I just canā€™t bring myself to not play. Haha

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Thatā€™s always my problem! I think announcing would be a bunch of fun, but darn if I donā€™t want to compete!

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I dunno, Iā€™m interested enough in it that I would probably be willing to skip playing a tournament to be selected as a co-commentator on something.

I spend more time than Iā€™d like to admit watching old broadcasts of things during lunch breaks. Currently working through the Pinburgh 2012 quarterfinal groups.

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How about one or two great commentators doing it remotely from home? There could be a couple players or spectators on location texting with the commentators to deal with logistics as needed. It would still be good to give commentators some compensation if possible, but wouldnā€™t need as large of a budget since there is no travel.

Itā€™s a good thought and itā€™s been discussed. There are multiple issues:

  1. the technical aspect making sure that the stream is completely in sync. Instead of dealing with a single output latency, now you you have two to three to handle and that can get messy fast.

  2. you introduce new lines of error/breakdown into the system. If someoneā€™s internet goes out, mic breaks, computer fails, etcā€¦ you leave the other person hanging and if there is no other person, you get silence.

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Qualifying and finals of a tournament at my house yesterday. I think Scott V (main commentator) did a great job. I wanted to have one other person as more of the rules nut, but all those that we had in attendance were playing. Iā€™d love to hear peopleā€™s thoughts.

Thanks!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/206397217

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/206398304

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Scott was smooth! He reminded me of Jim Nantz. Professional. The stream itself was one of the most professional streams I have seen outside of a couple of the major papa events. The only thing I would add is during the finals is have a total score for each player after each game. That way if I have to step away or Iā€™m doing something else and look back at the screen I can immediately determine whatā€™s going on within the game. For example your final game on Tron went down to ball three and it wouldā€™ve been great to do the math to see who needed what just by looking at the screen. But Iā€™m really picking needles out of a haystack. It was a tremendously impressive stream.

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