2:49 p.m. - TAKE MY CASH, PLEASE! 

“The best things in life are free, but you can save it for the birds and bees, I want money.” – Paul McCartney, pre-Wings

One recurring theme of this blog seems to be that I’m not a knowledgeable man, a fact I’m reminded of when business models are being discussed. I couldn’t tell you about black and red, financial plans, PR, or what have you, but I know this—money is good. 

Maybe I’m a little biased, but I like being given money. Receiving money makes me happy because I can spend it on toys and snacks and all kind of good stuff. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but I like getting it more than not getting it. I want money! That’s what I want. 

Apparently sensing this capitalist streak in gamers worldwide, Upper Deck Entertainment has adopted a policy of giving it away in bunches. Now, you all know that we’re giving $40,000 to the winner here. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t. But UDE is finding entirely new ways to give away the cold, hard cash. Check this out. 

In a joint initiative from OP Program Manager Scott Elliott (who threatened to thrash me if I didn’t list him first) and European OP manager Ann Van Dam, Upper Deck announced yesterday that four prizes of EUR250 would be handed out to those competitors who finished highest in PC Amsterdam with mono-lingual, non-English decks.

Why would they do this? Put bluntly, they want players to buy cards in their home languages. It’s pretty difficult to sell a game in a language the players don’t understand, so UDE wants the French playing in French so more French can get involved. Were you a Frenchman, upon seeing English cards, how excited would you get about playing? 

Now produced in French, Spanish, German and Italian, Vs. System is spreading its wings, moving outward as it reaches for the four corners of the globe. (In case you weren’t counting, that was three clichés in one sentence. I’m almost ready for professional sports). If the whole world is playing, Upper Deck will do just fine, but first, we have to get established. People stick around when you throw money to the masses. 

Now, were I a player in this tournament, assuming I’d come armed with the confidence that I’d do well, I’d have done everything I could to get my hands on those foreign cards, but I’m apparently in the minority. Exactly four players—Dai Bo, Raphael Lo Moro, Yannick Saus, and Gianluca Bradamante—managed to get their decks together in such a way that they qualified. In other words, if any of them had finished 283rd, they’d still have taken home some cash for their efforts. 

Elliott is enthused about the future. “We want players buying cards in their home languages and think that this should help inspire them to do so. As long as they do, we’re going to continue supporting this initiative.” Me, I’ve got some elementary school French textbooks buried in my mother’s basement somewhere. I may have to go prospecting when I get home. 

12:15 p.m. - MMM . . . POTATO CHIPS

One thing that’s really impressed me this weekend is the advances that have been made to the feature match pit. It’s not just the aesthetic, though everyone seems to agree that it’s looking better than ever. No, the real improvements have been made in the tech department. The man most responsible for this is Eric Bess.

Before I get to Eric, you need to understand my perspective on all this. When it comes to technology, I’m shockingly similar to Homer Simpson. I’m pudgy, balding, and when confronted with techno-code talk, can’t help but think, “I wish I was at home with a big bag of potato chips . . . “ I can’t help it. If having obvious attention deficit issues isn’t enough, I also know absolutely nothing about the world of 1’s and 0’s. Baseball? Sure. Movies? Absolutely. Technology? Potato chips.

Mmm . . . potato chips.

Of course, that’s why the rest of the staff doesn’t let me get close to the electrical sockets. That’s Eric’s job. Originally hired as the Organized Play Manager for Latin America, Bess’s computer wizardry first reared its head when he found out that the original plan was to contract out the design of tournament software for Vs. System. Eric suggested that he’d be able to put it together, and his job description began shifting gears. He was sent in full reverse when, a day before PC Indy, Jeff Donais informed him that he’d need to program the plasma screens being used in the feature match area.

Bess spent that entire weekend working on feature match programming, and that allowed his imagination to run with ideas for implementing the desire to constantly improve on things. With suggestions from co-workers helping to bring things together, the decision to get constant score updates on the plasma screens during feature match play started coming together. Eric finished his programming just prior to his flight to Amsterdam.

Now, for my fellow techno-idiots, here’s a layman’s explanation of how this all works. Eric has taken some old Microsoft technology called Tablet PCs and programmed it to interact with the plasma screens. Whenever a player gains or loses endurance, they use a stylus and the pad’s touch screen technology to note the change, with said note immediately being noted on the screens up above. In other words, the player’s endurance total, always up to date, is displayed from a vantage point in the pit where every spectator can follow along. Considering how important endurance totals can be to tactics later in the game, the information is crucial.

Bess isn’t done, and he plans on filling empty pit time with trivia questions and fun facts as his next development. Listening to him talk about this stuff made me realize the fundamental difference between us. For me, technology is a boring means to an exciting end. For him, the means are exciting. I’ll stick with the potato chips.   

11:33 a.m. - IRONING OUT THE KINKS 

10:38 a.m. - COFFEE AND ACCEPTANCE

We’re back underway with round 13 in full swing outside the Metagame.com headquarters here at Schiphol Airport. It’s still pretty amazing to consider our surroundings. When you walk through that door leading from the tournament hall to the terminal, it’s almost like entering a holo-suite.

Production designer Jerry Rubin has done a remarkable job putting this place together. You enter the feature match pit and feel like you’ve time traveled to 2050. Wolverine and Sabertooth, each stretching over twelve feet long, hang overhead, preparing to rip one another apart. Cyclops stares down at all comers from behind the side events desk, Thor adorns the PC scorekeeper table, and the room is flooded by an amazing lighting scheme that’s kept the walls moving from minute one.

Of course, the scenery is the icing on the Pro Circuit’s cake. Nothing makes you feel like you’ve arrived more than playing a feature match in the pit. The Ben Seck and I, still on North American time, both got here before 8 a.m., an hour before we were scheduled to work. Of course, being gamers forced merely to watch during the big tournament, we need to get a few games in to get our fix. As we went to sit down at table one to play, Ben pointed out that we could choose a more central location to draw a crowd that would criticize our every move. He then pointed out we could do it in the pit. How could I refuse?

Now, you need to understand that presently, I am bad. Not bad-means-good bad, just bad. Awful. Inept. There are a dozen or so other, more colorful adjectives that would describe my game accurately, so when we attracted some twenty observers, including match judge Justin Gary and match reporter Tim Willoughby, I got torn to shreds on each and every play. That’s what we call a learning process, and it’s a rite of initiation for all gamers. Frat guys have paddles, Klingons have pain sticks, and gamers have the barbed tongue. Surviving the initiation is painful, but gives one a sense of fulfillment. Ben and I are the lucky ones—we took our licks on the biggest stage in the world.

Check out the Day 1 PC: Amsterdam Blog here!