Donkey Kong Forum
General Donkey Kong Discussion => General Donkey Kong Discussion => Topic started by: homerwannabee on April 18, 2013, 10:56:52 am
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First off, may I say I am not angry. No I am not angry. More somber than anything else.
OK, it looks as though according to one source the new pricing policy is as follows.
$25 for under two hours of recording time
$60 for over two hours of recording time
OK, and now for my story that I have kept secret until now. In late September right before Twin Galaxies was sold I achieved a score of 1,230,000 on Donkey Kong Junior. I submitted it under the old rules where it was completely free. I waited then for them to verify this score. I waited, and waited, but nothing came of it. A couple of months later I ask the referee what the status was on the score because I heard nothing of it being verified. I was told it was still in his mail that he did not yet get to, and to be patient. I said OK.
So as time goes by I message again in February or March, and it still has not been verified, and I get a new type of message. This time I am told it would cost me $15 because the company has been bought out, and there are new rules now. I am like OK, I could argue that in fact I should be grandfathered in, and in fact if I was petty enough to take something this stupid to court I would win the case because I submitted under the old rules, and you just can't change them on the fly to the person who already submitted under the old rules.
But at this time I was like, OK, whatever I got $500 for breaking two Donkey Kong 3 records, and what is $15? In the end I still come out ahead, and I'll cut them some slack. So I message back that sure I will pay the $15, and do you want me to money order it to you? He then responds to hold off on the payment because that $15 is not final. So I think sure whatever, maybe it will go up to $20 or maybe even $30, and I'll be OK, whatever.
Then the site comes back up after being off line for about 5 months. I notice everyone's record score is up there except mine. George Leutz is up there, and Rudy's is up there, and of course all the other Donkey Kong scores at the Kong Off were there. I let off a little bit of steam because I was excluded in this whole thing, and when someone gets their score verified who never played the arcade game before showing up to the place it sort of hurts, especially when the player who is put ahead of you is not well liked. It made me think if this guy who people tend to dislike gets put ahead of me on a game of equal significance, and maybe even lessor significance, what does that say about me?
A person messaged back on Facebook that they would put my score up in the day. Well a month later, and my Donkey Kong 3 score is still not put up. Now I have to wonder. Am I supposed to pay for my Donkey Kong 3 records as well now? If so, that amounts to a lot of money.
$25 for my DK3 5 man
$60 for my DK3 Marathon score
$60 for my Donkey Kong Junior score
That now equals a total of $145 I may have to pay. At this point in my life my financial situation is not that good, and I may have to make some tough choices. If I am expected to pay for all of this I may very well say screw it, and only submit my 5 man DK3 score. I can afford that.
Again, I am not angry if this is what is happening to me. In fact I would not even post this if I was middle class. I would say screw it, and even pay for the record scores I achieved at the Kong Off II. But this is just to let you know why you may not see a couple of scores up at Twin Galaxies of mine, and maybe you'll even see a couple of these scores at another site. It's not that I am angry at Twin Galaxies. It's just I can't afford to pay the bill.
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Q: What does it cost to submit a score to Twin Galaxies?
A: Players may purchase Twin Galaxies score submissions based on three tiers:
- $25.00 – One (1) score submission or up to Two (2) hours of recording
- $60.00 – Three (3) score submission or up to Six (6) hours of recording
- $75.00 – Five (5) score submission or up to Twelve (12) hours of recording
I didn't see this post before when I brought some of this up on another thread.
There does need to be a little clarification of the three pricing ranges.
Your DK JR score should be $25 because it's (1) score submission.
But, if it's saying that one score submission of 2.5-3 hours falls into the $60 category because it's over the 2 hour limit, that's crazy. $60 for one DK game?
EDIT: If thats the case I would like to see some inbetween pricing ranges between $25 and $60.
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I'd simply make it a 'per hour' fee, maybe scale the per-hour cost down as the number of hours went up, and call it a day.
Going from $25 for a 2hr submission to $60 for a 2hr 5min submission seems kinda odd.
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This should maybe be moved to the main discussion sub forum.
I agree, Dave, the wording seems to be able to be interpreted into two ways .TG should give some examples to clarify what they mean.
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I argee I've been posting about this on my FB.
Just my Dark Tower score and my DKJR Score Thats 120.00
I just need to update my score on Dark Tower it allready lists me as the World Record Holder.
You can not Kill screen a classic Arcade with a great score in Under 3 Hours.
I would like to know how much Geroge L was charged for his Q-Bert game. His game is for 2 Records.
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First, I can understand why they are charging for submissions. They need to pay referees, somehow.
That said, I don't see how you can have a true scoreboard in which you have to pay to be on, for the very reason you state below. Some of the best players will have to make choices about when/if they are going to submit a score. This means, the best scores won't always be represented.
Further, I really hope they are ready for the increased expectations of those who are now paying somebody to look at their score. It dang well better happen in a timely fashion because they are no longer verifying scores out of the goodness of their hearts.
Money is involved and expectations will be greater, as they should.
Paul
That now equals a total of $145 I may have to pay. At this point in my life my financial situation is not that good, and I may have to make some tough choices. If I am expected to pay for all of this I may very well say screw it, and only submit my 5 man DK3 score. I can afford that.
Again, I am not angry if this is what is happening to me. In fact I would not even post this if I was middle class. I would say screw it, and even pay for the record scores I achieved at the Kong Off II. But this is just to let you know why you may not see a couple of scores up at Twin Galaxies of mine, and maybe you'll even see a couple of these scores at another site. It's not that I am angry at Twin Galaxies. It's just I can't afford to pay the bill.
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I don't see how you can have a true scoreboard in which you have to pay to be on, for the very reason you state below. Some of the best players will have to make choices about when/if they are going to submit a score. This means, the best scores won't always be represented.
This, for sure.
I'm certainly no business expert, but it seems like a better and more fair model would be having a "Twin Galaxies Membership." Somebody could pay $x a month or year and can make as many submissions as they want for the duration of their membership. Non-members could submit a score under a slightly more expensive pricing scheme.
Under the current pricing scheme I doubt I'll ever submit a score, even for games in which I know I would be towards the very top.
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I think it would be more reasonable if they only charged fees for scores outside the top 10 in that given game/settings. This would allow for the top scores to be the actual top scores, regardless of social-class or willingness to pay or personal moral dilema, etc.
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You definitely got jacked on the DK3 score, George. That's messed up.
Looks like they added everything from the Kong Off except your score.
Two things:
First, as I understand it, it's $25 for 1 score (of whatever length) -OR- 2 hours of footage (which could entail many different scores on several titles). So put me in the camp that believes your DK Jr. score would cost $25. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that this is how it works.
Second, there is no charge to submit scores that were performed live. Richie said so in the past. They only charge you if they have to watch a submission. So your DK 3 score should be $0 (and should indeed be on the site already). George Leutz' Q-bert score was $0, etc.
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First, as I understand it, it's $25 for 1 score (of whatever length) -OR- 2 hours of footage (which could entail many different scores on several titles). So put me in the camp that believes your DK Jr. score would cost $25. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that this is how it works.
That would be nice if that's how it works, but what if the "1" score is Victor's MC Marathon? Thats when time takes over.
It's like warranties stating 3-year or 36,000 miles "Which ever comes first", they put that stipulation in it, "whichever comes first".
But, some simple clarification is needed because the gap from $25 to $60 knowing a lot of games are going to be in the 2-3 hour range is kind of excessive.
We knew charging was coming, but seeing this calls for the phrase "Sh*t just got real."
(http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/shit-just-got-real.jpg)
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You definitely got jacked on the DK3 score, George. That's messed up.
Looks like they added everything from the Kong Off except your score.
Two things:
First, as I understand it, it's $25 for 1 score (of whatever length) -OR- 2 hours of footage (which could entail many different scores on several titles). So put me in the camp that believes your DK Jr. score would cost $25. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that this is how it works.
Second, there is no charge to submit scores that were performed live. Richie said so in the past. They only charge you if they have to watch a submission. So your DK 3 score should be $0 (and should indeed be on the site already). George Leutz' Q-bert score was $0, etc.
Chris I am not taking anything for granted anymore with them. I thought my Donkey Kong Junior score was going to be for free. They even said ALL scores submitted before they bought the company would be verified by the time the company came into existence. That did not happen.
So based on that I can't take anything for granted anymore. Maybe your interpretation is correct, but I have a feeling it's the other way around.
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TG has to charge money now, I get it. I only play on MAME anyway, so I'll just submit to MARP. However, George, I concur with ChrisP... you're getting screwed.
To reiterate what someone else already mentioned on this thread, memberships are really the way to go. Monthly, yearly, etc.
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George,
I'm going to put it bluntly: You got screwed over big time. There's no excuse that those scores aren't in there.
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you should send em another message about the DK3 score, you really shouldnt have to...but surely its an ommition not a deliberate snub?
8)
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you should send em another message about the DK3 score, you really shouldnt have to...but surely its an ommition not a deliberate snub?
8)
OK, I messaged them again basically asking them if I had to pay for my Donkey Kong 3 scores since they have not been put up on the Twin Galaxies base. Oh, it was a month and a half ago I brought it to their attention, and nothing came of it. At this point I really feel that the only way it gets put up anytime soon is if someone they respect rattles their cage. I guess I could make a Youtube/Justintv video, and rant, and rave, and then make Facebook posts continuing the ranting, and raving. From what I have seen that seems to work better with the new Twin Galaxies, than my method. LOL! ;)
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I got word on my Donkey Kong Junior submission. They want to charge me $60 for it. So it is $60 for over 2 hours, just to let everyone know. I told the person to hold off on reviewing it because financially I am not in the best position at the moment.
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Oh dear.
So it's $25 for any submission *UP TO* two hours, and goes into the next tier if it goes over 2 hours?
This model is not going to work. People will be fine playing for live submissions at the 1up or whatever, but few will be willing to pay the price for a taped submission.
If the "these aren't all the best scores, not everyone submits to TG" problem was big before, it's huge now.
TG's relevance as a scorekeeping entity is officially in big trouble.
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im quite shocked by that, i assumed it would be $25 as it was originally announced as $15 regardless of length...
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They really just need to let the community referee recorded submissions, and put the responsibility for uploading/storing the recording on the submitter (with a stipulation that it has to be up for a minimum of six months or whatever to give everybody who wants to look at it time to look at it). No expense to them, no fee to the players.
If someone contests/disputes the score, THEN they can call in a referee.
If someone wants their submission private, they can pay the fee.
This seems simple, obvious, and very workable.
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Oh dear.
So it's $25 for any submission *UP TO* two hours, and goes into the next tier if it goes over 2 hours?
This model is not going to work. People will be fine playing for live submissions at the 1up or whatever, but few will be willing to pay the price for a taped submission.
If the "these aren't all the best scores, not everyone submits to TG" problem was big before, it's huge now.
TG's relevance as a scorekeeping entity is officially in big trouble.
Back in November 2012, I posted a comment anonymously over at Donkey Blog.
A portion of that comment appears below:
At this point, I can summarize my thoughts on the "new" Twin Galaxies in 3 words:
Dismal failure imminent.
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TG's relevance as a scorekeeping entity is officially in big trouble.
Agreed.
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Its very hard to say you are the "Authority" on Video Game scores when you will not get hardly ANY people to submit scores now. $60 for one game that is 3 hours is quite simply outrageous. Perhaps they need to open up a "If its a Top 10 or Top 5 score then it is FREE otherwise it cost to submit". I read the site and it sure souns like ONE game is $25 or 2 hours worth of games is $25. Oh well. I have 1 score up there and submitted 3 back in the day c'est la vie.....
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Agreed. The problem is the thing (Twin Galaxies) has been monetized. They are now looking to make back the money they paid.
I wonder if they'd be better off with $5 a submission. Is is better to have a bunch of $5 submissions or very few $25 or $60 submissions?
At $60, there better be a guaranteed time frame for score verification. Like, score will be verified within a month or money back.
They really just need to let the community referee recorded submissions, and put the responsibility for uploading/storing the recording on the submitter (with a stipulation that it has to be up for a minimum of six months or whatever to give everybody who wants to look at it time to look at it). No expense to them, no fee to the players.
If someone contests/disputes the score, THEN they can call in a referee.
If someone wants their submission private, they can pay the fee.
This seems simple, obvious, and very workable.
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Agreed. The problem is the thing (Twin Galaxies) has been monetized. They are now looking to make back the money they paid.
Jourdan was saying at the Kong Off 2 that the score verifications were actually a break-even proposition, if that. And I believe it. If you have to pay somebody by the hour to review a recording (and as as a for-profit company, they're not allowed to use unpaid labor), along with all the other overhead on the score stuff in general, $12.50 an hour can't possibly be profitable.
Having to pay refs is one of several problems with treating TG as a business, and how they're trapping themselves into unworkable situations by doing so.
The only way through this particular hurdle that I can see is to turn the verification/referree process over to the community, and get through the "no unpaid labor" problem using the loophole that it's "entertainment" or whatever. Nothing wrong with that, empires are built based solely on the unpaid labor of others. YouTube, for example. It's all user-generated.
The other (bigger), fundamental issue with a for-profit TG is that the market for whatever it is they ARE hoping to profit from (it's not gonna be submissions) is incredibly small.
The competitive classic gaming community, which is really the only sub-community in gaming that gives a flip about Twin Galaxies at all, is not anywhere near large enough to sustain even the smallest of businesses.
This community (TG's market) is literally a few hundred people. That's it. Notice that you see the same few dozen guys everywhere you go, on all the streams, all of TG's scoreboards, the forums, what have you.
They can offer whatever growth model they want, but this community has shown itself, repeatedly, to be resistant to growth, no matter how hard people work to make it bigger, and even when massive opportunities to grow are dropped in its lap.
The King of Kong was this community's shot. There will never be anything else like it. And while it turned out great and achieved massive success, it didn't even double the size of this tiny community, which is a real bad sign of how interesting this hobby is to outsiders. You either get this or you don't, and it looks like most people don't.
I wish them luck, but I just don't see how it's going to work. Flawed as it was, the old organization's structure was at least in line with the economic realities of the hobby, which is that there's no money in it. There really isn't!
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Perhaps my response to the new for-profit TG is more emotional, but there has been many arguments made that shows that there are some real intellectual problems as well. I agree, that without some kind of waiver of price for top 10 submissions that some may not even bother posting their scores. The problem with this issue is that people may not care to have a score posted unless it is in the top 10, and then all submissions will have a reduced or waived fee anyways. Another problem which I am just learning about is that not everyone posts to TG. I think that this problem will only get worse, for even those who used to post will cease for various reasons. It wasn't until I got my killscreen that I learned that about 50 other people had already done it. This actually made is less significant which is why I am pressing for 1M, since less people have done it. So much for 9th place on the MAME score board. It doesn't seem to mean anything anymore. Whatever it used to mean to people has been reduced to a "keep it in perspective", there are so many scores and good players out there that don't submit that it is hard to really know how good you really are compared to a TG scoreboard. I am personally leaving my 505,000 point game there and not posting any more even though I have achieved a killscreen. Heck, I may even request to have it removed. Doesn't matter anyways. I never cared about being known. I liked to play and thought it was fun to post my score. I only stream now to talk with other people who like DK. I will not post any score improvements unless there are several good reasons for it, otherwise it makes no sense to me to pay for it or be involved with the scoreboard anymore. I am already connected with the best donkey kong players in the world, and they are the ones that really seem to care about a good score, a scoreboard doesn't really do anything for you. Anyone who really cares about our personal best are those who we already know, those that aren't don't care as much anyways so why broadcast it on a scoreboard that has and is now becoming more obsolete in what it really means. I mean no offense to anyone who may think differently. Just my first impressions and reactions. I am open to other points of view before I come to more solid conclusions. Maybe I am still upset about the whole thing and not giving it a fair and unbiased approach. We shall see in due time.
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Second, there is no charge to submit scores that were performed live. Richie said so in the past.
I do understand why it's a $0 fee for live events, but that really is giving the big finger to the International part of Twin Galaxies INTERNATIONAL imo :(
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so should we show em how its done and have a community verified scoreboard here for the DK games?
not (entirely) as a snub to TG, just somewhere for people to freely mix it with the TG scoreboard and to maintain accurate standings...
8)
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For DK submission, I would say that:"For a score to be legit, it has to be streamed on twitch.tv".
Honestly, streaming on twitch would be the only requirement for recognizing any DK score. I mean... everyone streams/can stream on twitch without any difficulties. We're in 2013, and twitch is the new live thing!
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I agree with the idea of having our own DK community verified Scoreboard on this forum. We already have the Donkey Kong timeline and the The Official Unofficial List of DK Killscreeners. We can just put together a free community verified Scoreboard on the DonkeyKongForum. We can make a thread for it. Have rules such as it must be streamed live on twitch, although it could be hard to ensure that it is live since someone could just playback their best inp file and stream it as if it were live. Someone can post a score and others can reply to verify and then we can have it officially posted. I can compile the info from the twingalaxies site as a start and start a new discussion in the General section. Is anyone in favor of this? Please note new post. If it takes then that is great, if not then we can just delete the thread. What do you guys say to the Donkey Kong High Score List?
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i would envision this being done as a rolling clone of the TG tracks, only with extra scores added...
all TG game/recording rules would apply, twitch tv would just be the alternative to sending your tape...live or pre recorded is fine...
basically THE donkey kong leaderboards, that would exceed TG for credability and officialness of score/rank...
8)
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It's a great idea, but in all honesty for TG to take any note and change their policy, it would require a new DK Arcade record to be set and then not submitted to TG.
I'd be more interested to hear comments from Richie or Jourdan before worrying about this too much, surely they're keeping an eye on the various forums and are already well aware of how unpopular this decision is, there is a chance they will still change their minds.... i hope they change their minds.
My gut feeling is that if they don't change plans, and quickly, something else will pop up and it will be only a matter of time before that entity trots off to Gunniess with the support of the community and that really will be the end of TG as we know it.
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I am in the process of making the list now. I will be giving credit for the source of the information and including a plug for TG in case there is any problems with the new unofficial, community verified donkey kong score list.
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I'd be more interested to hear comments from Richie or Jourdan before worrying about this too much, surely they're keeping an eye on the various forums and are already well aware of how unpopular this decision is, there is a chance they will still change their minds.... i hope they change their minds.
I agree. It's only been 3 days since TG's initial announcement. Let's give them the opportunity to absorb and respond to feedback from the community, before we run off and form our own country.
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I hope they change their minds too but whatever their change in policy we now have a list on the forum that people can use for fun, in an unofficial way. https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=246.0 (https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=246.0) I made sure to word things well to explain its function.
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An "unofficial" list is a great idea and this was one of the lists I've been meaning to start for a while. I actually made a spreadsheet a couple of months ago with the unofficial top 50. It matches yours pretty much, but I mentioned a few additions in the list thread.
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I guess this means there will never be another Todd Rogers or Don Hayes. Even if a great gamer comes along with the capabilities of taking down hundreds if not thousands of scores, it would cost way too much. In my opinion, this will not be good for competitive gaming.
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Somewhat unrelated, but there is now a poll up on the TG page about what we want to see changed/added:
http://www.facebook.com/questions/10151583739174904/ (http://www.facebook.com/questions/10151583739174904/)
Not sure if it will make a difference in the end, but if you haven't already you should vote.
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Congrats, George! I saw that you posted on FB about how your KO2 scores have finally been put up on TG. Glad you get to save your money!
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Congrats, George! I saw that you posted on FB about how your KO2 scores have finally been put up on TG. Glad you get to save your money!
Yeah, thanks for that. 8) Besides this great community of people the scores are the most important gaming related thing for me. It's the one possession I have that moth, and dust can not corrupt. ;)