World Beyblade Organization by Fighting Spirits Inc. World Beyblade Organization Beyblade Communities Australia

Official vs unofficial WBO tournament

Aug. 15, 2019  10:02 AM
 
Hi everyone, 
I appreciate that there are a lot of Bey fans on this site but can we discuss why it’s beneficial to host an official Bey tournament if the attendees are generally just Facebook members and usually not members/contributors/ranks on the WBO site? I’m wanting to organise a Comp this year on the Gold Coast and it seems that the WBO makes it so difficult to make an official event even though the comps are free to enter, no prize reimbursement and all based on volunteer time. Other comps throughout the state are simply unofficial because there are too many hoops to jump through when all we want is to let our kids (biggest Bey fans) to enjoy a good comp.

Please enlighten me.
Aug. 15, 2019  10:08 AM
 
The only reason I can think of is to get more people aware of ur tournament.

There used to be rewards and a point system to get free beys after participating enough in tournaments, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing anymore.

I’m pretty sure that in the rules there’s something about having to pay money to the WBO using your paypal when you host a tournament under their name as well.

If I’m going to be very very very honest, it’s a lot easier to just do it on Facebook. Idk if it’s still a thing, but with the tournaments here there used to be a thing where you had to submit tournament brackets, and spreadsheets.
Aug. 15, 2019  10:37 AM
 
As someone who has tried multiple times, the main issue is mostly that, especially for Australia, mostly older players are the only ones that use Forums. While I love this site, used it for years, that's exactly it, I've used it for years. I know the UI, I know the website well, and that means I can navigate it, keep up and have been through my fair share of rule breaking and following. This doesn't lend itself well to a new generation (and parents) used to Discord, Facebook, Twitter and many other modern social media networks from a marketing perspective, and it certainly doesn't help get new hosts. While older, experienced players can use this site as a hosting platform as we know the process, that process is still long AND needs enough players who also use the site, and for a area like Australia with a low experienced active user count, that means even if I were to try to make an event, no one will see it in a time frame close to other users and overall fast enough to matter. For countries who survived MFB era or managed to pick up quickly at the start of Burst, they keep running, but Australia's scene died before MFB as an era did, and that left pretty much only myself to pick up the pieces, and those pieces kept slipping through my hands until the Facebook page I made suddenly caught attention.

The tournament entry cost to the site and the strict processing standards only make this key issue worse, as it means anyone willing to learn the system and go through the process have extra steps just to be a host. Meanwhile Neko Cards just provides a space and prizes and lets me run the event how I like with advertising going through Facebook, and I was passionate and experienced enough about the game to run it pretty close to how they do it here.
Feb. 26, 2020  5:44 PM
 
im sorry to read that they dont do reimbursement. Im trying to become an official organizer and these worry me. You can keep doing unofficial tournament
https://worldbeyblade.org/Announcement-T...de-org--15
Maybe that link help you!
Feb. 26, 2020  9:05 PM
 
(Feb. 26, 2020  5:44 PM)klarac Wrote: im sorry to read that they dont do reimbursement. Im trying to become an official organizer and these worry me. You can keep doing unofficial tournament
https://worldbeyblade.org/Announcement-T...de-org--15
Maybe that link help you!

We currently don't offer reimbursement, but we also do not currently charge entry fees due to a very complex issue with our PayPal account that we have been working to resolve. I don't have an exact timeline for you, but we would like to begin offering reimbursement and charging entry fees again soon when it becomes possible to do so.

And although the above posts are a bit old now, I do want to mention: we hear the complaints loud and clear and have been thinking about how to best address them and similar issues others have raised for some time now. You can expect changes throughout 2020 and beyond to address these types of things and many more.

That said, the WBO will always enforce some level of quality, standards, requirements on anyone who wants to host an official WBO event; that's what makes it possible for users to understand tournaments posted on our website are legitimate, competitive, and run by people who have a strong understanding of the game, how to run an event, and how to organize a tournament. We also believe deeply that we are all stronger together and that the game becomes more meaningful when played within the context of a global unified community. Doing so enables the comparison of players and exchanging of ideas locally, nationally, and internationally through the use of a consistent ruleset. We also recognize however that there is many ways of playing Beyblade and are cognizant of the fact that we need to find a way to be more accommodating in this respect too.

We do not want the process to become involved to be too difficult either. It definitely is in some ways currently, but as of late we have at least been able to become much more responsive to prospective Organizers taking the Organizer's Quiz (thanks in large part to kjrules17), so I feel that the process likely does feel much easier because of that than it did back in August when some of these posts were made.

In any case, my point here is that there has been some tough problems the WBO has been dealing with over the past year or so and in the process of trying to solve them we have been thinking very critically behind-the-scenes about how we can be better and how the WBO can offer more value to all Beyblade fans (those who use the WBO and even those who don't currently) in a way which is sustainable for an entirely volunteer-based not-for-profit organization. We hope to have more to say about this soon.
Feb. 28, 2020  8:35 PM
 
Kei thanks for your response!
Apr. 26, 2020  9:48 AM
 
Only just noticed but thanks for the response Kei. I'll try my best to get people through the system even if I can't (store I host with for beyblade events doesn't want to deal with an external system for the time being). Glad to hear the processing is going faster, I had to wait a while last time only to not have passed and did not fill me with confidence back then.
Apr. 29, 2020  11:55 PM
 
(Apr. 26, 2020  9:48 AM)Giraton Wrote: Only just noticed but thanks for the response Kei. I'll try my best to get people through the system even if I can't (store I host with for beyblade events doesn't want to deal with an external system for the time being). Glad to hear the processing is going faster, I had to wait a while last time only to not have passed and did not fill me with confidence back then.

You're welcome!

We hope to become more accommodating for people/stores/etc who don't want to fully go through the WBO's systems or use our rankings in the future, but it is a complicated problem to solve. We want to be more open and want the WBO to be a hub for all Beyblade events on some level, but we also need to make sure:

1. That what is being posted is verified on at least some basic level or explicitly labeled as not being an official WBO event so that there is no confusion between it and official WBO events.

2. That there is some value to allowing it for us. Maintaining and improving this website/platform isn't free for us, so if external communities/stores/organizations want to use it to advertise their event they would be benefiting from it on many levels given the amount of traffic we get (especially if the design of the site is optimized to emphasize events even further). If we have no financial support it becomes harder for the website to continue existing and improving.

Right now I would say our focus with regards to Beyblade tournaments specifically is on improving the process for official WBO events, building a community on the WBO, and becoming a WBO Organizer. However, we definitely have our eyes wide open to becoming more open to all types of events in an effort to unify the global Beyblade community further.
Apr. 30, 2020  10:49 PM
 
Im just excited for tournaments to come back. i miss gatherings chose a bad time to get back into the game. or good depending on how much i can put into getting gt beys i dont have XD