World Beyblade Organization by Fighting Spirits Inc.

Were any of the beys on the shelf competitive by any chance?

(Feb. 12, 2012  10:37 PM)Cookies^^ Wrote: [ -> ]Were any of the beys on the shelf competitive by any chance?

They are probably the same ones in stock/available anywhere else in that shipping district...

(Feb. 13, 2012  4:09 AM)Hazel Wrote: [ -> ]

(Feb. 12, 2012  10:37 PM)Cookies^^ Wrote: [ -> ]Were any of the beys on the shelf competitive by any chance?

They are probably the same ones in stock/available anywhere else in that shipping district...

This location has smaller variety because this is the first place everyone thinks of to shop for new Beyblades. My local K-Mart on 4th ave & 8th st has more variety than Times Square.

I am disappointed they don't at least have a stadium in there for play... It would help sales IMO.

And yeah, a beyblade boutique should be better cared for than what you've described. Shame.

How do you even set up a Toys R Us tournament?

(Feb. 16, 2012  12:04 PM)SonKohan Wrote: [ -> ]How do you even set up a Toys R Us tournament?

You don't. Hasbro gets in touch with Toys 'R' Us's PR department and requests for a promotional gathering of customers on _____ day and TRU delivers.

Thanks for the answer... But are there any scheduled for the time being?

(Feb. 16, 2012  12:12 PM)SonKohan Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for the answer... But are there any scheduled for the time being?

Not that I know of. I would suspect after the World Championships if there are any.

(Feb. 12, 2012  12:01 AM)Kei Wrote: [ -> ]

(Feb. 11, 2012  11:57 PM)Kai-V Wrote: [ -> ]I doubt they will let many people at all attend the tournament just as spectators ...

I would be shocked if they didn't allow as many people in as possible. Why would they not? The championship is being used not only to determine who the "best" Blader in the world is, but to promote the game itself, right?

Okay, I guess I was wrong :\ :

Veronica Wrote:Thank you for waiting for my reply.

The Beyblade World Championship will be a closed event with extremely limited space. Regrettably, this will not be open to the public and tickets will not be available for purchase.

Thank you for your understanding.

I sent an e-mail to Hasbro Customer Service just for fun to see if I could get any information out of them, and this is what they told me. Highly disappointing. I can't believe they'd throw away the opportunity to promote Beyblade (including their upcoming "innovations") in such a huge way by closing the championship to the public like this.

Wow, is Hasbro really this carping stupid?

How do you throw away such an opportunity? How is that not a commercial goldmine in every way possible? Paying for extra space will only mean more for parents, which will make up the costs as well.

Even what they did during the original Beyblade was better than this, with the public championships in Florida and the promotion of HMS (notably Dark Leopard).

(Feb. 16, 2012  10:06 PM)GaHooleone Wrote: [ -> ]How do you throw away such an opportunity? How is that not a commercial goldmine in every way possible? Paying for extra space will only mean more for parents, which will make up the costs as well.

Yeah, if they chose the Corus Quay building knowing that it doesn't have enough space for an event like this ... I don't know what they were thinking. Apparently there is going to be some sort of online coverage, but that just isn't the same.

They could have opened the event to the public, which would have likely drawn much more news coverage of the Beyblade brand in Toronto and brought more people to the championship. They could have sold merchandise at the championship, they could have promoted their new "innovations" (BEYWHEELZ, Destroyer Dome, etc.) ... but no.

Does anyone know if the 2004 championship was completely closed to the public?

Hasbro knows that they do not have a well-run tournament organization, with all of the crazy terrible mistakes that have been made all over the world. If I were them, I wouldn't let anyone in to see it either.

Instead, I would run a completely boring low key event where essentially I took each competitor pairing to a studio-like room so that the two kids can battle each other in front of 7 cameras with no one else around - Exactly like their promotional videos.

At the end of the day, one of the kids would be left undefeated and that kid gets the crown. Hasbro doesn't care who it is as long as they have footage that they can use to promote the product line.

What a travesty this whole thing has been from the beginning...

You've summed it up perfectly.... Honestly, we should write to them before they consider doing it again, if they are aware how badly things have been done, then perhaps there's even a tiny chance of them listening, as much as I doubt it... That said, they could have sought advice from Takara or something, I mean, it must take a concerted effort to screw things up that badly...

(Feb. 16, 2012  10:13 PM)Kei Wrote: [ -> ]Does anyone know if the 2004 championship was completely closed to the public?

From my understanding it was opened to the public. But as far as where the matches were taking place that part was off limits.

(Feb. 16, 2012  10:13 PM)Kei Wrote: [ -> ]

(Feb. 16, 2012  10:06 PM)GaHooleone Wrote: [ -> ]How do you throw away such an opportunity? How is that not a commercial goldmine in every way possible? Paying for extra space will only mean more for parents, which will make up the costs as well.

Yeah, if they chose the Corus Quay building knowing that it doesn't have enough space for an event like this ... I don't know what they were thinking. Apparently there is going to be some sort of online coverage, but that just isn't the same.

They could have opened the event to the public, which would have likely drawn much more news coverage of the Beyblade brand in Toronto and brought more people to the championship. They could have sold merchandise at the championship, they could have promoted their new "innovations" (BEYWHEELZ, Destroyer Dome, etc.) ... but no.

Does anyone know if the 2004 championship was completely closed to the public?

The 2004 Championships were completely open. They did a single elimination pool for all the country champions until they determined a single winner (Noland). The rest of the country representatives were pooled into the open tournament with every other Beyblader that came (there was a 256 player cap, but they didn't even make that) to play for a chance to compete against Noland for the title.

It was a modified version of double elimination, much like the way I opted to run it at Beyblade War Room.

They are most likely using the Chorus building as a method of cutting costs and easier set up for broadcasting. They really got lucky with the venues in 2003/2004 for the US and they also charged admission ($15). The problem was these tournaments were not advertised well in the first place. Had they had proper advertising, in tournament sales, and an admission fee, they could have stretched for a larger venue. Also, keep in mind, insurance is probably the biggest factor, too. They have insurance already for their building and company so it's not an issue, but doing it elsewhere is very costly.

Is it really luck ? They are making even more money out of Metal Fight Beyblade than they did with Bakuten Shoot Beyblade.

(Feb. 18, 2012  12:05 AM)Deikailo Wrote: [ -> ]They are most likely using the Chorus building as a method of cutting costs and easier set up for broadcasting.

...

Also, keep in mind, insurance is probably the biggest factor, too. They have insurance already for their building and company so it's not an issue, but doing it elsewhere is very costly.

This is understandable, but by closing the event to the public completely, it seems as if they're doing what's convenient for themselves rather than showing any concern for the actual people who buy their product.

Broadcasting something online is much easier than hosting a real event with hundreds of spectators, and so is using the Corus Quay Building (which obviously isn't suited to hosting an event on the scale we all expected if they're not allowing any spectators), and potentially using Nelvana employees who know very little about the game as judges. It's very selfish, especially when you consider what Kai-V said above. Considering all of this, it leads me to deeply question Hasbro's motive behind hosting this championship. It obviously has nothing to do with truly crowning the "best blader" in the world, or taking it as an opportunity to celebrate the Beyblade hobby, or even build any real excitement for the future ...

Make MFB suck so people play BeyWheelz instead?



I guess the reality is "the bare minimum."

It's promoting product. Plain and simple.

Besides that, Beyblade isn't really a spectator game. Most Beybladers don't want to watch, especially in a Hasbro stadium.

Kei, I think you are under the impression that Toronto is some sort of Beyblade capital that has a massive Beyblade community. There isn't much going on there, buddy.

Sure, Toronto has no massive Beyblade community ... Even if that were true, we got an email from someone in Québec who wanted to go watch ...

(Feb. 18, 2012  4:41 PM)Kai-V Wrote: [ -> ]Sure, Toronto has no massive Beyblade community ... Even if that were true, we got an email from someone in Québec who wanted to go watch ...

I can understand if they sold tickets like any other sporting event. I'd pay $10 and come up to see it, which if you get 100 people (parents/kids), it can cover a large portion of hotel costs.

Hopefully, they host another World Championships and this is just a pilot.

(Feb. 18, 2012  4:35 PM)Deikailo Wrote: [ -> ]It's promoting product. Plain and simple.

Besides that, Beyblade isn't really a spectator game. Most Beybladers don't want to watch, especially in a Hasbro stadium.

Kei, I think you are under the impression that Toronto is some sort of Beyblade capital that has a massive Beyblade community. There isn't much going on there, buddy.

It is, and that's why it's so selfish of them to not allow spectators. They're only doing it so that they can say they did it, and so that they can shoot some nice footage to use in the future. They want full control over everything; if they allowed spectators, it would involve actually putting in the work to make other people (ie. Beyblade fans) happy.

Most don't, that is true. However, there was nothing stopping them from having a "Last Chance Qualifier" or something of that nature prior to the championship or using the event to preview their upcoming "innovations".

You are mistaken. At the WBO, our dozens and dozens of tournaments over the past four years have always been open to the public to both spectate and participate in. This sort of thing is fundamental. What purpose would there be in closing an event? As a fan-organization, we want to promote the hobby, as well as the ability to make connections with people. The theme of TAKARA-TOMY's Beyblade Asia Championship 2011 tournaments was "BEYBLADE unites the world". They took pride in the ability for Beyblade to bring people of different walks of life together to play Beyblade. From my perspective, it seems as if Hasbro is implicitly discouraging this by closing the event to the public. Yes, they're bringing together a few Bladers from around the world together, but what good is that if they all are simply brought into a small room with close to zero spectators (and therefore, close to zero excitement)? They'll be able to connect with each other, but in addition to this, there's such a huge opportunity being lost to bring even more people together if spectators had been allowed.

It just does not make any sense to me that they would close an event like this, especially when you consider that none of their events (including the US National Championship) leading up to this were closed to the public. It has nothing to do with me believing that Toronto is the "Beyblade capital" or that thousands of people would show up if it were open to the public; it has to do with Hasbro honouring part of what makes Beyblade so fun–meeting people–and doing what's good for their customers, not for themselves.

(Feb. 18, 2012  5:20 PM)Deikailo Wrote: [ -> ]Hopefully, they host another World Championships and this is just a pilot.

Indeed, but if this World Championship is a "pilot", what was the 2004 championship, which was open to the public?

Actually, I consider their United Kingdom qualifier exactly the same : close to the public. It got very mediocre advertisement, and surely that was done to avoid having to control a too large crowd.

Kei, these are two different series. Honestly, their organized play was much better this time around, but their restrictions are what is killing them in the end. Nobody here even knew about the championships.

Today, JesseObre, Pockyx3 and myself made our way over to the Toys R Us at Sherway Gardens in Toronto for one of the many tournaments they were hosting across the country. The turnout was surprisingly large (or "full" should I say, given the 32 participant limit)! Here's a few photos I took with my cell phone. I apologize for the quality:

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The Canadian champion, Luqman, is the kid on the right hand side in the orange plaid shirt in of each of the above two photos. After the tournament, players were given an opportunity to play with him ... JesseObre busted out Death Quetzalcoatl TH170WD and defeated his Flame Byxis 145(?)WD with ease. Not fair LOL.

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Lovely shallow "Gravity Perseus" stadiums (not sure what the actual name of this stadium is).

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Second place on the far left, first place to the right. Both of them used Earth Virgo GB145BS in the finals, which was not surprising, given the other options they had presented to them.