Some drama took place at this year's Super Battle Opera, where the team from Kuwait and one of the squads from the USA had to play in a pre-tournament match to decide who would be allowed to compete in the actual tournament.Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition
Tougeki 2011 Championship Tournament zero-round match
Due to an error on the part of Tougeki, an unintended Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition tournament zero-round match was held between TWFIGHTER (Hsien/Banana Ken) (USA) and WHITE TOWER Q8 (GANNOON/NOX2) (Kuwait). The loser of this match was thereby unable to participate in the main tournament.
We would like to express our sincerest apologies to the player unable to participate in the tournament.
Tougeki is extremely regretful for any disappointment and distress felt by TWFIGHTER and his organizer Emotiongear of Planet Zero as a result of our error.
All the staff at Tougeki will do all we can to ensure that such an unfortunate mistake does not occur again.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Tip from SF4Maniac, Rafael2487 and neoWhite.
atleast this can stop the constant blaming of PZ. but the way i hear it Planet Zero has a history of doing these types of mistakes so theres probably more to ramble on about
(That's crud - 'ok, you two compete to see who deserves to be here'....smh)
Off topic but were the results of the Daigo vs 50 kumite ever posted?
SBO can EAT A GOD DAMN PEEN. Hopefully, America will boycott SBO next year by not going to the qualifiers.
SBO should, at the very least, compensate some of the airfare to get to Japan. It's not cheap to fly across the Pacific. These guys had the impression (and the trust in the SBO staff to not screw up) that they had a spot in the tourney. Mistakes happen. Fine. We're all humans. Most people aren't going to protest about it or hold any grudges. However, they need to make it right to these two IMO.
They apologise for hsien's team its ok.But they didn't apologies for not showing all the top8 for a 20$ pay per view stream.They didn't apologies for not showing one USA or european team?
@1
You stupid? Why would they do a FREE stream when they sell the tournament on DVDs? They obviously make good money from it since they've been doing it for some years now, I've been happy purchasing the SFIII DVD's since 2007 and SF4 DVD's since 2009 and havent regretted it.
WHy would they do a double elimination? because you're used to watching the American tournaments huh? It obviously works for them so they will stick with it, double elimination is stupid...you lose then you go to a losers bracket and have a 2nd chance of winning? BS! If you lose, you're out...plain & simple. Oh, its not fair because someone might lose randomly? Well train enough so that crap doesnt happen. kthnxbye
SBO is one of the worst international tournaments for the way it's run adn complete disrepect for international players that enter.
But the fact of the matter is SBO is a wakeup call that America is still below par, bottom of the barrel when it comes to Fighting Games of any kind.
Japan > Europe > Canada > Kuwait > USA
America has been in the dumps for who knows how long and SBO continues to reiterate the fact.
@7
You travel half-way around the world, spending thousands of dollars out of your own pocket to be told that you don't actually have a spot in the tournament, and that you'll have to do battle with another team who has every right to be in the top 32 to get a placement that you should already have.
I'm sure you'd be just fine with it.
At least USA still has Marvel and Mortal Kombat, lol.
lol at europe & canada being better than US. US and Euro are dead even honestly.
So basically...Daigo and Iyo get a spot from some unnannounced 'late qualifier' and some other team who already qualified has to has to go home because of it? That is disgraceful, utterly disgraceful. If people want SF to be taking seriously as a competitive sport then they're going the wrong way about it. Rules are rules, it doesn't matter what your name is.
@1
"1. free livestream + coverage FFS
2. double elimination
otherwise SBO will become less and less interesting. it's no fun just looking at tournament results."
3. Play on consoles, even Godsgarden has made the switch.
*Trollface*
@25
I don't know if you ever even heard of how SBO runs before SF4 came out, but all games included in the lineup, have always had a Last Chance qualifier for at least 1 spot.
Which usually is a capped 64team tournament.
In saying that, Daigo team, had to win their way through a bracket, filled with strong players that didnt qualify, in order to make it into the main tournament.
Im not saying SBO didnt f*** up, cause they did, and I think they should do something more than just an apology too.
Just get your facts straight before boasting ur patriotism.
@17
Right...because it has nothing to do with the scenes being completely different, or the tournament structures being completely different. It's that one is better than the other. Sure. Even though the results only read that way in Japan, and not every other country that holds their tournaments in different formats.
So basically:
"We screwed up, you paid thousands out of pocket to participate, we aren't refunding you."
Wow, **** those guys.
f-ck SBO
They made 2 foreign teams compete for a qualifier to qualify.
BUT Iyo and Daigo qualified as the 33rd team.
SHADY AS F-CK.
Also, for a tournament this size, why not do double elims? Random as f-ck.
Add to the fact that this sorry ass tournament has horrible streams and charges for it. Spooky has godlike streams and he doesn't charge any for it.
F-CK SBO. Yeah, I'm salty.
I wonder if you'd all still be complaining if they actually won their match :'(
@18
Still, what is the difference? If you play and lose what does it matter? You could put them in top 8 as a first match and they lose and they still lost and that's that. So in essence it's the same thing.. you travel all that way, play a single game and you are done. Is it just because the USA lost? Let's all shed a tear I guess. I am sure if they won and advanced instead of Kuwait there would be a completely different tone.
@ #36
Well, I'm not American and not biased - so yes. I would be complaining, for Team Kuwait's sake.
OH but I guess they really needed that last place number to feel a bit better... oh lord anything but NON QUALIFIED. I rather be qualified and lose my first game rather than not be qualified and lose my first game. Give me back my plane fare for losing.
Too late for apologies at this point! SBO organizers should have been more careful considering the scope of the event where international players are participating, not just players from their home country. Just goes to show the "unprofessionalism" of these organizers. What they could have done the least is give back the airfare of team TWFIGHTER and team WHITE TOWER Q8 for such an inexcusable slip up.
i don't see a big deal. they still played 2 games on stage. same as all the American teams.
@37
Bottom line: telling participants who have already earned their placement that they'll have to battle it out to earn what's already theirs is disgraceful. It doesn't matter at what point in the tournament that happens, whether it's the first round or the top 4.
If you think that this is ok, I really hope you never get a chance to run any kind of competitive event.
Well if it was last chance it should have been the last two Japanese teams that qualified also who knows where they would have been placed in the bracket if this never happened.
Im saying change it too a four team round robin format like in soccer that way it doesn't feel like a crap shoot.
to everyone who goes like... 'well all the team usa was eliminated on the 1st round so they suck anyway' , if this so called event is a double elimination tourny... different outcomes may occur!
SBO and GodsGarden saw the potential of a lot of people around the world would watch a tourney event with all their top japanese players, so they sought the idea of money scheme on ppv stream, which i would say is fckd up! did ever Level-Up, Spooky, etc. ask for money to watch their stream... NO!, and since when EVO start streaming their event online did they ever ask for money... NO!, this money racketeering scheme is not good for the fighting community!
and lastly... even SBO apologize on whatever happened there, its still fckd up on what they did and their decisions, cuz the only best term of solutions on their own wrong problem is let team Kuwait and USA in the bracket and let team Daigo/Iyo and Shiro/Neurosis to fight for the last spot instead! ...nuff' said!
It was a mistake and they did apologize for it, it can happen, now get over it...
Yeah this whole Single Elimination comes with a bit a random factor but whatever...
And i lol'd pretty hard at USA should boycott SBO, they lose first round anyway so who cares?
USA gets so many spots while other countries get one. US teams get killed first round every time anyway so why the f@ck does it matter?
You just want a title of "last place" instead of not ranked at all?
This is just something the losers use to let off some steam.
Next time you fly to Japan to qualify where the competition is much higher during qualifications hows that?
Should be thankful they even let US teams go cuz it's basically wasting everybody else's time beside US viewers.
Single elimination is the samurai win or die way, non of this American thinking of trying to cheat your way for a second chance.
SBO should just be SBO, finest of the Japanese players only. Without the other BS teams we could've seen more teams of skilled Japanese players. We already see plenty streams of Japanese vs US players, I'd rather see pure skill rather than chumps trying to random out skillful players.
This feels like it has been handled poorly by the organizers. Of course it can happen, but they could have, don't know, not done the last spot qualifiers the day before the event, considering they had one more team that had already qualified months ago and flown in from the other side of the world?
Whoa a lot of strong views on this. If anything they should be apologising to the WINNERS not the LOSERS. As others above have said, the losers came, played once, lost and were knocked out. So technically, they got eliminated in much the same fashion as in the actual tournament itself. They should apologise to the WINNERS because they have to win 2 sets to get through, instead of just 1 like every other team.
I've had a similar situation in a 5v5 before. I guess sh!t just happens sometimes!
@JustSTFU
#troll partol
Oh damn forgot this wasnt Kotaku. Oh well carry on with your trolling and also you might want to see a doctor about removing your head from your ass. Just a little helpful advice. Even Daigo said he cant stand the way SBO and on a larger scale japanese tournaments are run and how they conduct themselves. He's said as many times in the past that he hopes eventually they'll abandon single elims that make room for gimmicks from other players and random ass victories by players(even as far as glorious Nippon goes) who havent been heard of by anyone even other JAPANESE.
Beyond Kyabetsu, Nemo, Kazunoko looking at alot of the japanese teams that were there I saw some names of players that I had never seen in any other fight community with in japan. Single elim does open the door for a chance that anyone can win but its not nearly thorough enough to say that those that do win are better then those they defeated. Do you honestly think ANYONE believes that Kazunoko and Nemo are better then Fuudo and Daigo? They won ONE match thats all. Mike Ross said it best in EA episode 13 against that troll Nazghoul (hey maybe he's a friend of yours). Anyone can get a fraud win match, doesnt mean they are better. Everyone deserves a salty runback. SBO got exposed as the archaic fossil it is and absolutly NO hype was present at this tournament. And thats coming from someone who wasted $20 to watch the ass that was the ppv stream. Bring on EvoXGod's Garden and bring us a REAL tournament experience Japan. You're on blast!
@ #56 V3N0MB1T3
Classic dick rider is what you are.
The whole world doesn't have to follow what Daigo says.
There are many other tournies w/ many other formats, why the hell should SBO accommodate to your sorry @ss?
You think it's easy to get a blue ticket to be in SBO by random victory? Hell no. They fight the best in their region to pass the qualifiers. Not all tournaments should be like EVO where we have to sit though 3 days and players get or tired and maybe even sick and not perform their best.
Daigo already set up his ideal format at God Garden.
SBO is SBO, aim for perfection, even against randomness. You should've prepared for randomness of each character before hand anyway. Especially SF4, it's a "randomness" game where many characters get 50/50's after knock down. And the player should be prepared either way. Counter picking and exploiting weakness is the US way. Trying to perfect with your character even against the odds, that is SBO.
So stop crying like a little b!tch and when u lose just STFU and go train harder for next year.
Also SBO stream wasn't designed to cash in on the ghetto ass Americans; @ssholes dare complain, u bitches are lucky that they didn't region block US viewers since Americans would always just spam on nicovideo.
Things r expensive in Japan, the stream is targeted at Japanese audience FOR Japanese audience.
Please, don't goto SBO next year and don't pay for Japanese streams so people from the rest of the world don't have to suffer through your b!tching when you lose yet again.
I am sick of this American attitude where we just think we are the center of the world and everybody have to follow and accommodate to us. If you suck you suck, shut up and train harder. Quit blaming the rest of the world every time your puny ego gets hurt.
Why do people even waste their time paying to go to SBO? They don't pay for plane tickets anymore, they don't pay out good money, and it's not even as prestigious as most of the US and European tournaments. Heck, I live in Japan, and don't give a freaking damn about SBO.
I have to agree with JustSTFU, people be hating for no reason. Single elimination is a different style of tournament and people who qualify or go to SBO are completely aware of it. It's not like they're getting blind-sided by the rules when they show up.It's awful that the Planet Zero team didn't qualify and SBO should have refunded their airfare if they paid, but that says nothing about the format or the way they make money off of it. Did you guys ever think that the way video game tournaments are structured in Japan are different from a revenue standpoint? No, of course you didn't because everything in America has to be universally applied to the rest of the world.
@25 1 i'm not american, not even close
2 what 'patriotism' did i spout
3 the team that didn't get to compete qualified just like everyone else and "had to win their way through a bracket" just like everyone else
4 IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE A SPOT THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE GIVEN AWAY ANOTHER SPOT
Regardless of what people try to say to justify this situation, it's just plain wrong. When you're advertised a bill of goods, you should be getting exactly what is advertised. They were being told they had an opportunity to play in one of the biggest fighting game tournaments in the world and paid money out of their own pockets to do so. Being told, after you have arrived, that the circumstances have changed is pretty disheartening and only proves to serve how far off professional gaming is.
You can put this right up there with the likes of those CGS and WEG farces that never paid out prizes; asking someone to pay over $1000 to fly to your tournament that they are not even allowed to participate in is like taking the money out of your pocket themselves.
Why didn't they just re modify the bracket? Do they chisel it in stone or something? Seriously, they don't have the technology for something like that? Just make another spot for USA and have them fight a team that wins the first round. I'm not seeing what was so hard about it. Talk about asinine.
I'll be boycotting SBO streams from now on.
1. free livestream + coverage FFS
2. double elimination
otherwise SBO will become less and less interesting. it's no fun just looking at tournament results.