I second this. Both from the predictions people were able to make from the pre-ordering thread, and also because Dan was actually at our states event, and said he thought we would enjoy next years game…
I haven’t gotten a chance to say this yet, but thank you Dan and the rest of the RECF for all you do for us, especially this year, with all the hard work that went in to making this season happen.
Thanks Dan, I appreciate you saying this unequivocally. I’ve been asked this question a lot, and I haven’t been sure how exactly I should/was allowed to respond.
I should mention that the staff of people that I’ve been running things with on Wednesdays and Thursdays have been amazing, and I really do think that LRS is gonna be something special.
I will say though, I’m pretty sure you’ve spent much much more resource-wise on the LRT system than you have on LRS - lol. I think the entirety of your LRS dev team is a high schooler and the friends that he asks for help sometimes.
I anticipated that this was the case. I do wonder, what is the need for flying referees out? My system works fine regardless of where in the world a Referee is located. Does it have anything to do with coordination/event support?
Thanks for replying and giving some context on where the money goes. I figured that staffing was a large part of it, but it helps see how much has to go into every aspect of this event.
I would also like to note, I didn’t mean imply that you were doing this to “line your pockets,” I know that you guys work hard to put on all these events and I appreciate everything you do. I was just trying to say that without some transparency with respect to the costs, it could appear as if the goal was lining your pockets; I guess I didn’t communicate that clearly.
Hi Taran,
Of course you are the only dedicated “paid” person that is developing LRS. But think about the meetings you have with RECF staff on the LRS system. That person is also “working” on LRS. And of course we had to have an implementation review with DOROs and have to train the RSMs and review the network bandwidth with questions with IT, etc. We also have the support questions which you got a taste of this weekend but will continue to grow. So the cost for the “Dev Team” isn’t that high but the cost to roll out this better version of LRS is more than just the cost of the development.
To the community:
Deciding how to allocate our resources are the types of questions / analysis I get paid for. Let’s use Virtual RAD as an example. There was a real development cost for software, Robot Event changes and the game manual development. There was also training of the RSMs and the costs to update Accounting, registration, etc. And there was Marketing costs. By themselves, they all seem small (except the actual development cost was significant which I think most of this community understands). But when you add all these small costs together, it becomes a real number. And as CEO, I have to decide if the registration fees will cover the costs or if we will get sponsors or grants to offset the costs. And if we can’t cover the costs, do I kill the program or keep it because it supports our mission. And if I don’t keep it, where do I use those resources instead. Or do I get rid of resources, which may lower costs but will also impact the user experience. So on the surface, it looks like we are charging a lot of money but there are lots of real costs behind all our programs.
@Foster Feel free to jump in! lol
i am looking forward to new game reveal. i hope it is a lift game. that would be cool
I think you missed the quotations over “paid” there
New games are always great to see, plus the production on them is usually amazing. Always something to look forward to ngl
I second this
i wouldn’t recommend talking about your pay or anything like that here
I think that a game centered around flying discs would be a very cool way to engage students in a challenge!
Perhaps something like Frisbee Frenzy!
Probably smart, I get carried away sometimes when talking about stuff.
… Ultimate Ascent…
as far as I see it frisbee frenzy is inevitable. light, simple game peices, complicated field, few peices so probably swing game… sounds like shooting to me. and what better to shoot than discs?
A good game next season
I’m not involved in planning Worlds, but having run my 20th remote event a couple days ago I can definitely see the appeal of having people together in person. Every person who joins remotely presents new opportunities for something to go wrong. I’ve had volunteers’ audio or video fail, I’ve had my home internet abruptly lose 90% of its bandwidth for no reason, heck, I’ve had key volunteers lose power in the middle of the day (more than once, actually – that’s springtime in Appalachia for you 
). Fortunately nothing completely derailed any of our events, but there were a couple of times where stuff going wrong could’ve easily put us an hour or more behind schedule if not for some luck.
And that’s just at our 20ish-team qualifiers – for an event the size of Worlds, with many more volunteers, the potential for stuff to go wrong is not insignificant.
Flying volunteers out is expensive, but having everyone in the same place puts more stuff that could go wrong in the hands of the RECF rather than the gods of Murphy’s law.
Thanks, but I’ll pass. There are a mind-numbing number of details and nuances in running an organization the size and sprawl of RECF. Just the concept of running a multistate / multicountry payroll / Human Resources is mindboggling on it’s own.
You did a good job on detailing what’s behind the scenes, and from running software project teams for decades it’s never cheap and you did a good job in covering that.
As always I’m impressed that you show up to these discussions, I’ve poked both Tim Cook on Apple boards and submitted queries to Larry Ellison from Oracle and I never hear back 
When can we expect the finical statement for the 2020 fiscal year to be published you the website? @Foster
Foster doesn’t work for the RECF last time I checked. Maybe you meant to mention @DanMantz?
Technically he does cause he’s an Event Partner, but yes, he’s not specifically employed by the REC Foundation. I see your point.
I am too! I honestly was not expecting Dan to show up to this topic. The REC Foundation has always been criticized for their lack of transparency, but it’s great to see the literal CEO of the RECF show up to a forum thread an hour after it was posted.