The Final Frontier: Game Fixing

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Janecka
I'm surprised I haven't seen the word sponsorships (unless I missed it above). In our dirt poor sport with a mild (mild as in Grand Canyon) wealth gap, money isn't cash, its sponsorships. The bragged about amounts of cash for sign on and victory bonuses would pay for a basketball star's weekly poker night.

Throwing the game, the ones I know of, weren't to win, or gain tournament advantage, they were to gain or maintain sponsorships when throwing the game was beneficial to one team and not detrimental to the other. When there's no money and piss poor prizes (relative to the entry and paint costs), the real prize is a long term sponsorship.

Its funny. We're such neophytes at, well, everything - public exposure, venues, prizes, PR. In other words, all the positives about major league sports. We're damned excellent at all the negatives though.

Lost opportunties.

Janecka

In all of my 18 years involvement in Paintball and having direct and indirect knowledge of games thrown (probably around 25), I have never known one game to be thrown for sponsorship purposes, it has ALWAYS been done for tournament position advantage.

And I would hardly think Pure Promotions adoption of Huntington Beach as a venue could be described as 'neophyte' and neither can its attendant promotion on at least 7 TV networks, multiple media outlets, fly leafleting, poster placement and so on.

The prizes on offer are directly related to the income stream PP generates and a considerable proportion of that monies is quite rightly diverted back into promo and so.....we can't have it all, all at once and for the most part - your post is so full of holes, it looks like Colonel Custer just after the Little Big Horn.

Pure Promotions has redefined what PR, Public exposure, media promotion etc are all about when it comes to paintball and maybe it ain't as sophisticated as NFL or NBA but if we had left it to the likes of Jerry Braun and Co, we'd still be in the woods in Orlando.
We as a sport are evolving and as such, things take time but to describe our present state of affairs as you have is not only wrong but also hints at something deeper going on.

 

[Liz]

Sponsorships can and do come into it Pete, and I've been at tournaments (ones I know you were at too) where this has happened. Team A and team B are both under the same sponsor's banner. Team A needs to win with a clean max to get through to the next round/take a trophy home, team B has no chance. The sponsor would then lean on team B to make sure team A gets a full clean score sheet, ensuring that at least one of their supported teams goes through/gets on the podium.

You could argue that this case is for tournament position advantage, but the pressure has come from the sponsor not the team who would be helped. And sponsorships can be gained or lost on one tournament result, a much bigger financial gain to many teams than most tournament prize packages.

 

[Janecka]

Paul, you guessed right, the problem never left. Just ask my wife.

And I know your point is more towards the omerta surrounding throwing games. But a shallow perspective (I nominate me) would suggest that it isn't talked about because its too embarrassing. We talk about cheating and what we get away with because its a criminal thrill. But throwing a game swings the audience meter towards the WWE spectrum, towards the Don King and great major league baseball scandals of decades ago, and we don't talk about it.

Cheating is power. Throwing games is, well, business.

Liz, you actually described one situation I knew of locally. Since we don't have universal professionally paid players at our top levels, they need sponsors. To find and keep them, they need to produce.

But what if they were paid? Would we see an increase in the possibility that the team's owner required the game to be thrown to make a killing in Vegas, or throw the game to pay off a debt? Probably far fewer instances would occur at least at that level because the motivator, sponsorship, is replaced by a much more detrimental result for losing -- getting fired.

Just like cheater software, this won't come to light until names are named.

Janecka

 

[Baca Loco]

Where's Paintball's Joe Valachi? I wouldn't hold my breath. As cheating in the play of the game can be (and plainly has been) rationalized and to a large extent normalized I don't see how game fixing could ever attain similar status. What else could you possibly do that is more contrary to the spirit of competition and the essence of sport than to pre-arrange the outcome before a game is played?

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Baca Loco
Where's Paintball's Joe Valachi? I wouldn't hold my breath. As cheating in the play of the game can be (and plainly has been) rationalized and to a large extent normalized I don't see how game fixing could ever attain similar status. What else could you possibly do that is more contrary to the spirit of competition and the essence of sport than to pre-arrange the outcome before a game is played?

Pre-program your marker to fire illegaly before a ball is even shot ?

 

[Baca Loco]

Originally posted by Robbo
Pre-program your marker to fire illegaly before a ball is even shot ?

Black is black and white is white so in that respect I don't disagree, Pete, but I still think it's of a completely different order of magnitude. All the assorted "in the play of the game" cheats are intended to give an unfair advantage and consequently improve the chances of winning. With game fixing there is no game, no uncertainty, no nothing except a going through the motions farce.

If you want to debate which is the greater threat to the game I would say the gun cheats are because of their ubiquity at this point.

I just thought the whole game fixing issue was an interesting one I've never seen discussed and, you know, my inner anarchist must also be an iconoclast so how could I resist?

 

[Gyroscope]

There are to structural problems that cause game fixing to be attractive. One is that teams without a chance to prevail continue to have an impact on who will, and the other is that tournament paintball is a vehicle for selling products, not a sporting competition.

OK, it is also a sporting competition, but that is not why paintball companies put money into it. And the sport is not the main thing. Look at any tournament from 1000 feet up and you can see what the priorities are. The reason that major league podium placements matter is that it influences what people buy. Just ask AKA.

I think Janecka has it right about the criminal thrill to advantage garnering cheating. There is also direct pleasure center reward for that type of cheating. Wiping gives extra play time, gun cheats make your gun more effective than other players' guns. Game fixing doesn't seem to tap into the limbic system the same way. It seems like it only gives coldly calculated rewards, and indirect ones. That makes it seem like something that could be stopped. It is hard to legislate against direct pleasure, but easy to make structural changes that alter the incentives for dishonest behavior.