>>36187703VGC:
1) Remove the cost to go to tournaments, get rid of the cash prizes, have fewer "big" tournaments but make them more meaningful, and go back to the "win an invite to Nationals/Worlds." Yes, I know they want it to be an e-sport with real cash prizes, but I used to only go to one or two Regionals a year. I don't go to enough to earn enough CP to go to Worlds now; back in the day I at least had that one in a million if-I-get-lucky-I-might-place-high-enough-to-get-an-invite chance. Now it's just not worth it to pay more than I paid for the game, just to enter a tournament where I could have basically the same battles as on Wifi and know there's no chance of me getting enough CP to go anywhere. The proof is in the pudding too. Back when it was free, you'd show up at the 2010 or 2011 NE Regionals and see 1000+ people. Now you go to a Regionals and get 128 entrants in Masters, maybe. And why would you get more? You can play the same games for free at home on wifi, and there are tournaments all the time so they're not special occasions that you'd plan a mini-vacation around and travel four hours with friends to go to.
2) Make a fast animations mode in game for tournaments (like how holding A in the 3DS Fire Emblem games makes the animations go faster) but always on. Don't get me wrong, the animations look great, but a quick look at Showdown shows you could play a set of three VGC games in maybe 15-20 minutes with fast animations. This would mean turning a 12 hour or multi day tournament into a 6 hour day trip. If a tournament runs from 10am to 4pm, you could get up at 4:30am, leave the house at 5:00am, get there at 9am, participate, leave at 4pm and be home by 8pm; no need to book a hotel. This would save TPCi money since they wouldn't need to book venues for multiple days, nor hire staff for as long, and it would save the players money on hotel costs. Again, even if I stay at a Days Inn, that's an 80$ barrier to entry.
