SIGGRAPH 2007: Sandbox Tournament Series

Well, 40 hours of open gaming and somewhere around 7000 players later, the first ever SIGGRAPH tournament series has come to a close.  The gaming area was constantly full of people socializing, relaxing, blowing off steam, or avoid boring sessions their bosses told them they should attend.  I think we've created a SIGGRAPH fixture... and more than one player said we ought to do this at GDC too...

So, here are the results from our final three tournaments.

First, in one of our most hotly contested events, Team Exile (Mike Wakid and Matt Acree) were victorious in the Gears of War Execution Tournament, winning the right to choose from Xgaming's finest arcade peripherals when they defeated the formidable team of William and Josh in 3 straight rounds.

Then, our top Super Stardust scorers from the week of open play found themselves unopposed and scored 2,932,452 points on level 4 to win their own pair of Xgaming peripherals.

Finally, in our most raucous event, several rounds of David Jaffe's multiplayer masterpiece Calling All Cars resulted in Nick Cooper of Crystal Dynamics again taking first place and winning a Xbox game, while STS CAC high scorer Kevin Freet (who scored an astounding 67 points in a 5-minute match earlier in the week) took second and also won a Xbox game.

We also handed out a hefty stack of t-shirts left over from the 20th annual Bruce & Carmi SIGGRAPH Party, and freely distributed Sandbox proceedings on thumbdrive and CD to many happy attendees.

This week has been an absolute blast for me, and I look forward to SIGGRAPH 2008 and a continued presence of social tournaments throughout the event!

Thanks to everybody who made this possible, including but not limited to Dr. Drew Davidson at the ETC, Stephen Jacobs at RIT who provided most of the consoles, Janet McAndless of the SIGGRAPH Commitee, Pete Braccio and his contacts at Sony who provided 12 beautiful HD Screens, Microsoft and Ubisoft who donated software, everybody at Freeman who helped me pull this off, and of course all the players and cool people I had the pleasure of meeting all week long.

Thanks for everything!

Eli Neiburger
eliworks.com

The STS rolls on, and today saw the conclusion of some of our most highly contested tournaments.  The competition for the 8 final spots in Guitar Hero was fierce as 6:00 approached, with the 8th place score passing 200,000 points.  After some epic performances, our top seed, Don Kim, emerged victorious over the unquestionably hardcore Nick Cooper to seize the title of the Most Heroic Rocker of SIGGRAPH 2007.  He chose Perfect Dark Zero as his prize in case he ever gets an Xbox.

Then, Wii Tennis Doubles saw some furious swatting, with the ultimate result of Chris Oates and Chris VanderKnyff defeating Alex & Niel to win the xGaming xArcade prize package, which, they were delighted to hear, will be shipped to their homes.

Finally, after some ferocious dogfighting in the skies over London, Daniel Short was victorious in Blazing Angels for PS3, taking home an Xbox game and the unmitigated glory that only winning two matches in a row can bring.

Tomorrow, the STS wraps up, with finals in the amazing Super Stardust HD and Calling all Cars, as well the highly anticipated Gears of War thrashfest which will finally settle which of the permanent fixtures at the Xbox stations are truly the most supreme cogs or locusts of SIGGRAPH.

See you tomorrow!

The SIGGRAPH 2007 STS continues, with our first set of 3 finals wrapping up and the high score contests getting rather brutal as finals approach.

First, today saw our Super Smash Bros Melee tournament, with the hardest of the hardcore SSB players from throughout the conference (all 9 of them) converging on STS central for near-constant grudge matches from 3 PM on.  Our single elimination tournament saw a formidable competitor emerge (Warren) who won all his matches and advanced to the finals, where he defeated Nick Cooper in two straight matches to win his pick from our box of Xbox games.

Then, Rainbow Six Vegas for PS3 brought all 4 of our PS3s together onto one LAN, and 10 minutes later, Ryan emerged victorious with 11 kills in sharpshooter mode, earning him the right to pick from our Xbox game collection as well.

Finally, Big Brain Academy saw two of SIGGRAPH's heaviest brains: Myles Loffler and Joseph Salinas, squaring off in pursuit of supreme intellectual superiority.  It was very close, coming down to the last activity, where Myles failed to reassemble the pattern as specified, handing Joseph the win, 28-25.  However, Joseph, in an admirable display of class (and because he doesn't have an Xbox), offered the prize to Myles.

So, with 6 events still unsettled, and the hotly contested Wii Tennis and Guitar Hero tournament still up in the air, here's our leaderboard as of the end of Day 3:

SUPER STARDUST HD
1. 5,284,295 Raynor Bugayong & Christian Smith
2. 3,644,475 Christan Smith & Nick Cooper
3. 1,889,335 John Cook & Panos Mili
4. 1,245,445 Justin Falgout & Sean Maloedy

CALLING ALL CARS
1. 63 Kevin Freet
2. 42 Mika Little
3. 22 Ronald Estacio

GUITAR HERO: THE 80s
1. 263,821 Don Kim
2. 211,705 Nick Cooper
3. 211,211 Myles Loffler
4. 209,867 Chris Vanderknyff
5. 205,607 Ebbe Hansen
6. 180,325 Kim Riber
7. 168,941 Jason Newman
8. 143,252 Brian Abraham

Check back tomorrow night for more results and updates!

The SIGGRAPH 2007 Sandbox Tournament Series is off to a great start, with well over 2500 open matches played just in the first day.  There were no finals today, but Tuesday will see our Super Smash Bros. Single Elimination Tourney, Rainbow Six Vegas Sharpshooter Finals, and the Big Brain Academy SIGGRAPH Brain Mass Challenge Finals.  Here are our current leaderboards for our high score contests:

SUPER STARDUST HD: LAVE (4 Teams Qualify):
1. 4496490 Raynor Bugayong & Christian Smith
2. 2945365 Christan Smith & Nick Cooper   
3. 1245445 Justin Falgout & Sean Maloedy   
4. 647595 John Cook & Panos Mili   

BIG BRAIN ACADEMY: SIGGRAPH BRAIN MASS CHALLENGE: (4 Players Qualify:
1. 1500g Myles Loffler
2. 1348g Joseph Salinas
3. 1279g Ciro Duran
4. 1066g Francisco Iglesias

CALLING ALL CARS (8 Players Qualify)
1. 39 Kevin Freet
2. 42 Mika Little
3. 22 Ronald Estacio

GUITAR HERO 80's (8 Players Qualify)
1. 211705 Nick Cooper
2. 208528 Myles Loffler
3. 200168 Ebbe Hansen
4. 188012 Chris Vanderknyff
5. 177787 Kim Riber
6. 168941 Jason Newman
7. 143252 Brian Abraham
8. 112532 Greg Donofrio

Come back tomorrow for more open qualifiers, and check here to see if you're still moving on!

OK, The Sandbox Symposium 2007 itself is over, so we've moved all our equipment down to the Sails Pavilion, and we're doing open play on all stations as we gear up for the start of the SIGGRAPH 2007 Sandbox Tournament Series!  We'll be running tournaments with Open Qualifiers Monday through Thursday, from 9 AM - 6 PM, and then we'll have finals for different games each night from 6-7 after most SIGGRAPH sessions have ended.  Here's the full schedule; feel free to comment if you have any questions, or just come see us in the Sails Pavilion.

At the Sandbox Symposium, we like to combine the unbridled joy and adrenaline-fueled excitement of peer-reviewed papers about videogames and game development with the lesser, but still compelling draw of console game tournaments!  This year, in addition to the tournaments we'll be running during Sandbox itself (August 4-5), we'll be running free tournaments for SIGGRAPH attendees all week, featuring some the hottest games on the market.  Come see us Monday 8/6 through Thursday 8/9, from 9 AM - 7 PM in the Sails Pavilion at the San Diego Conference Center and play xBox 360, Playstation 3, or Wii, either just for fun, or for a shot at a great prize from XGaming.

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