Pokémon VGC Is Having Some Growing Pains
Pokémon is the biggest and most profitable franchise of all time. With a 36.5% increase in profits since the year before last, and only growing. With $11.6 billion in revenue last year, you’d think that The Pokémon Company International would be able to keep up with the demand for tournaments for the video game, which is the very core of their franchise.
However, recently that has not been the case. With crucial regional tournaments capping around 300 players, and Championship Point sources being scarce for the VGC. For those who don’t know, Championship Points (CP) are what players need to compete in Worlds. There’s a minimum of 500 needed to get an invite, with first-place regionals only awarding 200CP.
However, as explained later, a first-place finish in said regional event would automatically give you an invite to Worlds.
Regionals have been capping very fast in the past few months, with Barcelona, Spain capping in 30 seconds, and Pittsburgh capping within minutes. Jay TGH, a VGC streamer and competitor from the New England region, had a few things to say about his experience registering for the most recent Pittsburgh regional.
Marcoangelo: “So were you able to sign up and get in for the Pittsburgh Regionals?”
Jay TGH: “No, I wasn't able to get in. So the first day, the first wave, if you want to call it a wave. I wasn't able to register because I have my Google account set up with my Play Pokémon account, and they're linked, and I was logged into the wrong Google account at the time. So I had to log out and log back in, and that was a process. The whole thing took me like 5 minutes to make sure I was on the right account. Then, I was very surprised to see that I had not gotten in. At first, I was just like, this has to be a mistake!”
M: “So the slots filled within minutes.”
J: “Yeah, and they weren't clear. They actually never even said how many spots were open. There were several regionals last season that were up over 600, 700 players. So maybe I shouldn't have assumed that I would just get in easily.”
However, the organizer, Overload Events, did mention the cap but failed to mention it in replies later. Only mention the small number of slots beforehand. You can see in the below tweets that the cap was at 432 for the Masters division.
J: “This was the first wave for signups, and then they opened up more later. They opened up 30-something more for Masters, I think, and those were gone in seconds. The reason why I heard was something about Hori stands.”
The Hori stands did seem to be a significant issue in keeping the cap so low. Overload Events mentioned in a reply that many stands were still being transferred from a pool of supplies at a “Major tournament earlier this month”. They were alluding to Worlds in Japan being part of the issue.
Adrien “ColdingLight” Hurley, commented on the World Championships affecting the regionals.
Adrien Hurley: “The World Championships is an annual event, every year in and out with the exception of COVID. It’s a thing that’s foreseen and planned for. It’s a bit appalling that they can’t run a basic event. It’s really not that complicated.”
Adrien was especially disappointed in TPCi for their handling of regionals this year and had a lot to say. While there are some good things being done to help players get an invite to worlds. There are also some equally puzzling and frustrating decisions resulting in low capacities for major tournaments.
AH: “The winner of a regional gets an automatic invitation to the World Championships, which has never been done before. Let’s give credit where credit is due, that’s a really nice addition. It’s a bit ridiculous that the bar is 500CP, you could effectively win two regionals, and still not qualify. But now with these changes, you don’t have to do that.”
The kicker, pictured above was promised to award more Championship Points if the tournaments reached over 512 players. That’s 30 more points for players placing within 129th-256th in regionals, with no regional so far this year hitting that capacity. However, prizes have increased. So that’s good, right?
AH: “...the prizing beforehand was always terrible. Before it was $2,000, which is pretty minuscule in comparison to the number of people participating at regionals. In seasons prior we had somewhere around 800 player regionals. Imagine every one of those people paying $70 each. That’s just in one division for VGC, not including TCG or GO. Which is more than enough to compensate, it’s a lot of money.”
The current VGC prizes are pictured above, with the first-place Master's division of players taking home $6,000 and 72 TCG booster packs.
Marco: “That’s gotta be on top of travel expenses right?”
AH: “It’s getting rough, people travel to these things. They want us to pay $70+ for this thing, which is more than the game itself. We obviously have to pay for hotel fees, because we’ll be staying there for a few days, and we have to pay for travel expenses. The majority of people are going to be flying, and that’s expensive. Even a cheaper flight like Florida where a round trip could be $200, is still a lot of money. I understand it’s a business and they need to make money, but there’s a fine line between making money and pure greed.”
Imagine paying hundreds of dollars in travel arrangements for a tournament, and registration opens up weeks before the event. It caps within minutes, leaving you locked in with a flight ticket that you can’t get a refund for. That’s been happening to hundreds of people in each regional in the past few months. Jay TGH, had a few things to say about his experience.
Marco: Did you make travel arrangements for the regionals beforehand?
Jay TGH: “I did, yeah. It's one of the few regionals that I would have been able to drive to. Luckily, I didn't have a flight booked or anything. Otherwise, that would have been a pain. Like a real pain. But yeah, I was. I was supposed to drive down with a couple of my local friends. We were going to carpool down and room together, but luckily they were able to find other room arrangements and travel arrangements. The whole thing was just completely unnecessary.
Marco: “Have you heard about a lot of people who made hotel and flight arrangements that didn't get in?”
Jay TGH: “Yeah”
Adrien elaborated on the registration woes further in another interview. Specifically on player caps and signups for regionals closing or becoming full within minutes or seconds of opening.
AH: “Registration is still terrible, it should have been solved two formats ago. Back in the 2022 season, we had problems with regionals. I don’t know if people remember the New Jersey regionals but it was capped at a very low number and people were upset about it! Other regionals had much bigger caps, but there were still caps. This season we had regionals piercing over 500 people in attendance and now these upcoming regionals have embarrassingly low caps at 300 or even as low as 250. Spain recently capped in 30 seconds upon registration! That’s ridiculous! The big complaint I keep hearing is that there is a severe lack of HORI stands. Why can’t they just buy a large sum of these things and open up more registrations? Can’t they have other players bring their own and whatever else to participate in this regional? I feel like the community has solutions, and TPCi is either incompetent or not fast enough to accommodate for this stuff.”
The above image is the HORI stands in question. A powered playstand with two USB ports for an ethernet adapter and a controller, with a charging port to keep the Switch alive in such a long event. For around $40, these stands have been the alleged cause for the player caps at regionals being so low. Many players suggested that organizers let people bring their own, or showed confusion as to how this has become such a huge logistical problem.
Adrien Hurley: “Another one in Sacramento, capped at 300 as well. What’s going on? These other regionals are having the same problem? It can’t be just because of the lack of HORI stands. The world championships in Japan really needed HORI stands. Which is fine, but how many HORI stands do you need? It wasn’t a problem in London’s Worlds. I remember JoeUX9 said something on Twitter about the caps being a low number. But then more regionals opened up, and Peoria was one of them. That had an identical cap, around 300.”
Adrien was right, regionals all over have caps around 300. Right when the growth of the game and its competitive community is at an all-time high. Why is the biggest franchise in the world, and the most profitable of all time, unable to keep up with the demand for tournaments? Specifically for the core game series that made it a phenomenon in the first place! There’s also evidence that when Overload Events opened up more slots, they didn’t have the extra stands for them at all. However, that changed within the next day according to the tweets below.
Overall, this shouldn’t be as big of a logistical issue as it is. Supply issues or not, the low capacity for these major tournaments is stunting an otherwise growing community. Growth that is so large, it has tournaments selling out in minutes. Hopefully, these issues will be solved soon, and the bustling VGC community will be allowed some breathing room.
Disclaimer: The opinions/stories expressed in the blog post are those of the author and are not necessarily reflective of the platform or its affiliates.
Article Sources:
Marcoangelo (2023a, September 3). Interview with Jay “ TGH_sr” on PokémonRegionals. personal.
Marcoangelo (2023b, September 5). Interview with Adrien “ColdingLight” Hurley on Regionals. personal.
Pokémon Video Game Championship Points. Pokemon.com. (n.d.). https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/pokemon-events/pokemon-tournaments/earn-championship-points-vg
Pokémon World Championships. Pokémon World Championships | Pokemon.com. (n.d.). https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/pokemon-events/pokemon-tournaments/pokemon-world-championships
Pokémon Regional Championships. Pokemon.com. (n.d.-a). https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/pokemon-events/pokemon-tournaments/regional-championships
Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). List of highest-grossing media franchises. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises
Rees, L. (2023, August 23). The Pokémon Company made $11.6 billion from licensed products in 2022. pocketgamer.biz. https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/82243/the-pokmon-company-made-116-billion-from-licensed-products-in-2022/
