(Re)Structuring Competitions

Pokémon is known for its many competitions, mostly involving its many different games. More often than not, they have to be structured in some way. And with all of the things that have occurred over the past year, they seem to need to have the capability for restructuring. This structuring and restructuring could be considered to be something unique, and therefore I've decided to bring it up as a discussion in a post.

Whatever the object of the competition, it is likely that the competition would involve certain local or regional stages, which would serve to seek for some of the best in the areas of concern, or at the least assign values to the competitors. Those with excellence and/or the best values would then be able to get into higher-order competitive tiers, which would eventually culminate in the highest tier as a world championship. Along the way, it might be up to the competitors to decide which ones they want or need to participate in, in order to obtain the best and/or optimal results to show what they can do. This structuring is typically invariant and works well for its purposes and of course competitors.

But when things like current conditions come up, then the restructuring part becomes relevant. In the case of last year, the primary competitions couldn't take the sudden onset in the advanced stages and the rest were canned. There was an exception, though: the local semi-official (but still community) main series competitive circuit carried on over the Internet and led to winners being named. Also, Pokémon Go tournaments of the community kind carried on remotely and still managed to produce winners. Looking at the way things went, it seemed that the rigidly structured official competitions suffered more than the loosely structured community ones, for which the latter quickly restructured and adapted.

There is actually another reason why I wrote up this post. This season's Silph Arena for Pokémon Go doesn't have a monthly themed cup this month in favor of "special invitationals", as it's called, and a break for the rest. This is in contrast to last season, which continued to have a themed cup. It is markedly different and thus could be considered to be a "restructuring" compared to last season. In fact, the tail end of the season is likely to have a dynamic (read: structured and restructured) arrangement considering the development of conditions, which means more of that. Evidently, there was something to be considered after last season nearly went awry with its already-planned structure.

Structure is still very much important for something as big as Pokémon (game) competitions, even if that structure may have had to change in some way depending on what happens in the world. The competitions may still present something totally unique whatever the structure may be. And if they can restructure themselves with whatever comes up, that may just be even more unique for all the parties involved.

One year ago: Jelly-Filled Doughnuts

Two years ago: Cosplay: Bunkasai XXI

Three years ago: The Music of Go

Four years ago: Alt+0233 and Its Kin