A record of the KAC11th DDR disqualification situation
(A Japanese version and Chinese version of this writing is also available.)
[0. Introduction]
The KONAMI Arcade Championship saga is not over yet. The hurdle of legitimately joining into the 11th of this official rhythm game tournament has been increasing over the years, not only players are further practicing and becoming more skilful for more competitive matches, but the Japanese company has been setting up a notoriously hostile gaming environment to foreign players, despite appealing to English speaking players in their latest Pro League DDR tournaments, and involved non-Japanese players in their BeatmaniaIIDX counterparts. The latest event, as a result of a series of tragic incidents, once again demonstrated how overseas players suffered from the inevitable dilemma between passion for the game and the unreasonable requirement to fully comply with the tournament rules.
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Content
[1. Overview of the latest events]
[2. The complicated situation of locked game features behind different paywalls]
[3. A series of irreversible changes that lead to disqualification]
[4. The discriminated situation of playable contents in overseas regions]
[5. What’s next?]
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[1. Overview of the latest events]
After the previous debate regarding the unreasonable requirement for finalists to be fluent in spoken Japanese, as of 29 Aug 2023, official tweet has stated that they “did not set up a prerequisite for participant entry on spoken Japanese proficiency”, and all relevant clauses were removed from the rules of all game titles on the official KAC website. However, there were still doubts about further conspiracies that could essentially disqualify foreign participants to stop them entering the finals. Unfortunately, this actually happened.
On 9 Nov 2023 Asia time, despite of being the top scored player in the online preliminaries, former KAC Champion Chris (CHRS4LFE) announced on twitter that he, together with another three North American players (HAMBONES, MARQQQ and NAT8), who got the top scores in the online preliminaries, were all disqualified. He has attached all email records with Konami staff asking for legitimacy of their entries, and revealed that they all got disqualified “in accordance with the entry requirements”.
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[2. The complicated situation of locked game features behind different paywalls]
Since late 2005, KONAMI has introduced a physical card called “e-amusement pass” as the medium for a player to access his game data, substituting the previously used magnetic cards. These cards are registered to a KONAMI ID. As of today, all BEMANI games store game data on the e-amusement services, which are accessed through the KONAMI IDs. On registering a new KONAMI ID, players must select a region of their residence, and it cannot be changed once the account is created. Certain game features could only be accessed by save data that is linked to a KONAMI ID located in Japan, especially for the purchase of PASELI, so a majority of players had chosen Japan as the region of residence for their KONAMI IDs.
PASELI, a form of electronic currency which KONAMI introduced in 2010, is used for purchasing KONAMI game contents. Each PASELI is equivalent to 1 Japanese Yen, and PASELI could be charged through KONAMI ID, using a supported credit card. In Japan, PASELI is widely used as a payment method not only for KONAMI games, but for other arcade games as well, being an option aside with public transportation payment methods such as SUICA or PASMO. Outside of Japan, PASELI payment on the game cabinet is not an option due to compliance requirements in different countries and regions.
Not all credit cards were supported for the purchase of PASELI, and overseas users struggled to charge PASELI for the e-amusement basic course, which is a monthly subscription to unlock game features such as changing the handle name, rival settings, skin and appearance changes, detailed score analysis, etc. As in the case of DDR, vital functions such as early / late timing display, skin changes, combo display layer below the chart layer, etc. were periodically locked behind the basic course subscription, hence behind the PASELI paywall.
Alongside with the introduction of PASELI as a payment method in Japan arcades, one credit was no longer fixed at 100 yen, which is equivalent to one single coin, and different game modes with different pricing could be designed. Since then, the 100 coin pricing had slowly turned into a “light mode” placement, with certain game features removed or game contents reduced. For instance, with a fresh account without any PASELI unlockable features, the light mode in DDR only gives limited high-speed mod scaling (per 0.5, compared to per 0.25 up to 4.0 in standard mode), got the combo display layer on top of the charts (hence blocking the notes at times) and does not provide access to the extra stage (where there are more than 20 extra exclusive songs still locked as of today, more locked songs stayed in the extra stage for years prior to the previous version of A20+). All these nerfed features are available in the standard mode, which only PASELI payment is accepted to get into the mode in Japan, and other overseas regions got other coin pricing as a substitute.
PASELI is also required for payment of e-amusement cloud content, including PC client rhythm games such as BeatmaniaIIDX INIFINITAS, DDR Grand Prix, Sound Voltex (cloud version), etc. as well as their corresponding subscription (to play the game) and song packs. These purchase items are all registered to the corresponding KONAMI ID. In recent versions, there are linked contents between the consumer version and their arcade counterparts. On purchasing certain DDR Grand Prix song packs, using the same save data, these songs will also be playable on the arcade version as early access. Usually it would take about a whole year before these early access songs become playable to all players.
In addition, there was once a feature for players to transfer all save data on any e-amusement pass to another KONAMI ID, which the feature was removed as of January 2023. Therefore, as of today, once you have a save data stuck in one KONAMI ID by any reason, there is no way to transfer the save data to another KONAMI ID, except writing an email to KONAMI ID customer service to delete the existing KONAMI ID, which would lead to removal of all purchased content with that KONAMI ID.
A short summary to this point:
-e-amusement pass carries player data.
-PASELI is widely used only in Japan, but game features are locked behind the PASELI paywall worldwide.
-KONAMI ID registers the e-amusement pass, as well as managing PASELI purchased contents. Older players tend to have their KONAMI IDs region set in Japan to gain access to game features. Registered cards on a KONAMI ID could not be transferred by normal means.
-PASELI purchase is not available for non-Japan KONAMI ID accounts.
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[3. A series of irreversible changes that lead to disqualification]
Prior to KAC6th, there was not any restriction to the registered area of the KONAMI ID for any KAC participant. Starting from KAC6th, there is a clause in the rules stating that participants had to use a KONAMI ID which registered region matches with the actual region of residence, or they would risk disqualification.
https://p.eagate.573.jp/game/kac6th/detail.html?id=ddr&group=overview&lang=ja
With the understanding that long playing users tend to have their KONAMI ID located in Japan, and there is no way to change them, the only way to comply with the new rule is to create another KONAMI ID, setting the region accurately, and then transfer their e-amusement pass registration to this new account during KAC period. This has been the method most overseas players used til the 10th KAC.
With the function of transferring e-amusement data across accounts being removed in January 2023, this method is no longer available for 11th KAC. The situation for the majority of players are: they got their main save data stuck in their Japan KONAMI ID, and need to create another save data registered under the KONAMI ID of the accurate region, solely for the purpose of complying to KAC rules. One of the participants, NAT8, was disqualified because the KONAMI ID region setting did not match with the actual region of residence.
Things seem to be settled with this method, but there are songs only unlockable by registering into KAC, and it would take a few months or even further until these songs get unlocked for players who haven’t registered or unlocked during the online preliminaries period. This created a dilemma for overseas players who wanted full access to all game contents: either they do not register with their main save data, making them not accessible to the KAC unlockables until they get unlocked, or they register and play them to unlock on their main save data, while grinding the online preliminary match scores on the sub save data. They would give the explanation that they took this latter route for the sole reason to gain access to the KAC unlockables, but unfortunately this also strikes the disqualifying conditions.
In the 2nd line of disqualifying conditions, it writes, “Entry with multiple KONAMI IDs”, which is exactly referring to the current situation of other disqualified players.
To conclude, in order to comply with all the KAC rules, a majority of existing players need to create a new KONAMI ID, start a brand new save data, and only register to KAC with that data. This would also mean that these players will not get access to the KAC unlockables until they get unlocked in the future.
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[4. The discriminated situation of playable contents in overseas regions]
Getting access to all game contents on a game cabinet in legitimate ways is extremely difficult, and might even be impossible in regions. For instance, the latest BPLS3 Triple Tribe event would require players to play on DDR 20th anniversary model (also known as gold cabs), SDVX Valkyrie Model (VM) and BeatmaniaIIDX Lightning Model (LM) to unlock common unlockables, and unlocking efficiency would be reduced to only 10% if not played on the corresponding cabinet. Regions not getting certain cabinets will need 10 times the minimum credits required.
There are no gold cabs as of November 2023 in Asia except for Japan, and there is a whole folder of Golden League songs locked behind the unavailable cabinet, as well as the class and course system. The anniversary league made available to all cabinets in September 2023 was just a glance for all players to enjoy the mode temporarily, and the next league is once again limited to gold cabs.
For other BEMANI games overseas, the situation has been improving over the past few years, with additional modes custom created for overseas players, but the gap of playable contents between Japan and overseas players is still considerable as of today:
-In certain regions, Nostalgia did not get the forte mode. where all players need to play the hard charts for once to unlock the expert charts, compared to forte mode that allow players to immediately unlock expert charts on first play; {13 Nov update: Korea has forte mode available, where Taiwan, Hong Kong do not.}
-BeatmaniaIIDX had premium start locked behind PASELI paywall, and in standard mode players cannot play a portion of charts (leggendaria) without any rare in game items, especially during arena mode (meaning leggendaria charts could only be picked by players in Japan).
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[5. What’s next?]
Players in Japan might not be able to sympathize how different the gaming experience will be without PASELI, but overseas players have struggled for years trying to play the game in an environment close enough to Japan players. While one could easily make a claim that “rules are rules”, the overall changes to the complicated gaming environment forced overseas players into a dilemma, between forfeiting latest game contents with their long carried on game data, and exploring flexibility of the rules that causes minimum effect to all parties.
With this latest pushaway by the KAC operations team, this chaotic situation of the overseas BEMANI gaming environment will continue, and eventually lead to further discussion on the nature of KAC.
“‘Konami Arcade Championship (KAC)’ is a KONAMI esports official tournament for the top player of arcade games. Players winning through the online preliminaries shall compete in the finals.”
https://p.eagate.573.jp/game/kac/kac11/title/ddr/index.html
It turns out that the requirement for players to get into finals does not only require gaming skills, but also the ability to merely comply with very complicated rules that would force players to enter into a dilemma. At the very end, the path that some players chose led them to disqualification, which is tragic.
There are mixed opinions towards the result. Some might raise that this is an official tournament, and the rules are there, which contestants should fully comply with, or just do not get into the finals. Some might suggest that if the rules seem so unreasonable for overseas players, then they should just organize their own tournament with better rules. Some might have gone heartbroken from the official response towards passionate players and call for quitting the game entirely. At this point, hardly any changes would help unifying the global communities towards this current event. It is the future where things could be changed. Are these rules reasonable and serve the purpose to gather a spectacular tournament for the top player? Or is it a mere showcase in the middle of an arcade expo that stops the audience for a minute?
The most important thing of all is to call for changes in some way. No matter you are supporting or against the decision for disqualification, you might want to shout out loud to the organizing committee about your desired outcome:
“Great job for disqualifying the rulebreakers!”
“Shame on you for discrimination.”
“Give us a fair tournament, pull these absurd decisions back.”
Let people know about the existence of the diversified huge community. This might not promise any changes, but that is what a player could do - unite, share the common feelings and desires.
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About
This writing was by Ice, an all-rounded BEMANI player in Taiwan, on 10th November 2023. He was the champion for KACA2011 Guitarfreaks section, and finalist for KAC2012 BeatmaniaIIDX section.
Special thanks to the following fellow users for providing information essential for this writing.
ranatalus (@ranatalus)
Rafraud (@rafraud)
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