I was trying to mine some data to make a statistical argument in favor of my army seeding idea. I was getting close to something like a 5-8% increase in the odds of a non Tau/Eldar Army winning a 4 round tournament. I was basing this on the approx 70% win rate of Taudar versus the 50% or less for armies that don't include either.
Torrent of Fire had a nice article about the numbers from Nova, but I wanted some for later events. This got me exploring the site a little more. I originally understood ToF to be online engine for running tournaments, but apparently it's also a knowledge base for winning tournaments. And they sell the data to players. For $9 a month you get access to tournament players statistics like win rates and armies they uses. Plus they have articles on how to win tournaments and such. They guarantee a 200% increase in your win rate.
This leaves me a little queasy. I know that not everyone is a fan of Stelek, but back at the begging of 5th edition he did a lot to jump start 40K's competitive community. Part of how he did that was by being open about how to build list and play to win tournaments. Disseminating all that knowledge that used to just be hoarded by the top players was really good for the game.
With Stelek checked out on 40k, fewer people are doing that anymore. I would have no sense of the top 40K meta if my regular opponent wasn't one of the top tournament players in the country. And now we have a site offering to sell that knowledge. That is what the blogging community is here to disseminate in the first place.
Anyway, I won't pay for someone else's analysis of 40K. I also think allowing players to pay for the competitive advantage of accessing other player's statistics is wrong. If that data was available to everyone, that's fine. Selling it; not cool.
They're free to sell the secrets to winning the stock market too. Doesn't mean that it's worth buying...
ReplyDeleteIt's mostly the paid access to tournament data that I'm concerned about. You can do a lot with that raw data and decent analysis skills. It should be getting put to use in creating better tournaments, not so that people can scout opposition.
DeleteIt would be like if Wizard of the Cost hid the winning MtG pro tour deck lists behind a pay wall. Either everyone should have access, or no one.
I think it would be like that if the state of the game in Warhammer 40k was as sophisticated as that of MtG, but where conclusions are only as good as the premises, I don't think anyone is going to get much mileage out of Torrent of Fire for a long while. It's a good start though, and making stupid people pay for misinformation is a good sales tactic, oddly.
DeleteThanks! You made me blush.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like TOF a lot. It is a business tho...
I'm not saying they can't be a business. The tournament app is a good product. This other stuff they are selling is bad for the hobby. In.any serious competitive environment this wouldn't fly. In CCGs this type of one sided scouting is bad sportsmanship and can get you banned from competitive events.
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