RPS in the Media

[Maxamillion]

Sounds great Rosh.
Unfortunately transmission to uk is blocked for copyight reasons!

[B-Pac]

I just watched a documentary called "beer wars." It is about the competition between craft beer and corporate beer.  In it, they discuss how Bud sponsors USARPS.  It's free streaming on hulu right now.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/235712/beer-wars

[B-Pac]

Oh, I should mention that it's at about 37 mins.

[Master Roshambollah]

Nice work, B-Pac! How's the Philly City League season treating you?

I plan on checking out the doc you mention. If you ask me, the distinction between "craft" and "corporate" is something of a misnomer. "Craft" is an approach; it implies that the quality of the final product is of higher concern than making money. It also implies the work of a "craftsman" or "craftsmen" in creating the final product. "Corporate" beer implies American-style lagers which are commonly perceived as flat, boring, uninteresting or just plain bad. In reality, corporate refers to nothing more than the legal structure under which a brewery operates. For instance, if you go to the web site of Bell's Brewery, makers of fine craft beers such as Two-Hearted, you will find the company listed as "Bell's Brewery Inc." This means that, yes, Bell's Brewery is corporate. It follows that their product is corporate beer. Damn tasty corporate beer, though.

This discussion exists in other industries as well. At my current piercing studio (Deep Roots in Seattle) a few disgruntled ex-piercers refer to the shop disdainfully as a "corporate piercing studio." Our shop manager was incensed upon hearing this, exclaiming that we were NOT a corporate type shop. Upon hearing this, I pointed at the business license on the wall for "Deep Roots Inc." The "Inc" means that, despite our manager's protestations to the contrary, our legal business structure is as a corporation.

It's tough to compare an artistic approach to a business structure. And it's easy to fool yourself. Many people opposed Bud Light's corporate sponsorship of USARPS, but are more than happy to support Pabst in their corporate sponsorship of the Philly City League, or Molson for their one-time corporate sponsorship of World RPS. Don't get me wrong; I know exactly what you mean by corporate beer. And Bud Light, PBR and Molson all make it. Don't know where you feel Magic Hat is on the "corporate-craft" axis, but they sponsored Urbanus' first event, the NE Classic. Perhaps a more useful designation would be a two-axis approach: "Corporate/Nonincorporated" vs "Craft/Commercial." You, sir, are a Nonincorporated Craft brewer. Bell's could be termed a "Corporate Craft" brewery. Due to alcohol laws, you won't really find any "Nonincorporated Commercial" brewers, and most large breweries are "corporate commercial."

RPS promoters can be similarly classified. My first event, the 2001 Burning Man Open, was decidedly a Nonincorporated Craft approach. WorldRPS was the first organization to use the sport as a marketing exercise, thus making them the first corporate commercial RPS enterprise. USARPS followed in this mold. The City League might be the rarest of beasts, a Nonincorporated RPS promotion with a hybrid Craft/Commercial approach.

There's an interesting wine documentary called Mondovino that approaches the same thing in the wine world; how mega producers like Mondavi are squeezing out individual wine makers, and how the "corporate" approach limits and directs the palates of the consumer. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing this link!

[Brad Fox]

As Rosh points out "Corporate" is really used as a shorthand for "Mass Market" which is really what we're talking about. If Coors makes an American Lager they want to make it to appeal to the widest possible audience (to maximize profitability) which means that the process is one that works backwards from that result. (Given we want to achieve result Z - we will engineer product Y through excessive research, focus testing, product engineering... etc). Most "Craft" artisans would argue they work forward from trying to make the best product Y possible and THEN try to find out if we can sell it). Both approaches have their advantages (an artisan hard-wood end table will last hundreds of years... but an Ikea particle board end table only costs $20).  

This isn't unique to consumer goods. Pop-Culture (Films, Books, Music) has been driven for decades by the "Blockbuster Media" model - because of scarcity of exhibition and distribution you didn't have to be, say, anyone's favourite film in the multiplex - what you needed was to be the common denominator that a diverse group of people could all agree to go see.

Of course the spread of the internet is really what's turning all these markets on their heads because it's so much easier to access diverse markets. There's more way to reach (and identify) that there are actually thousands of micro-markets instead of big general ones. There may only be 100,000 people in North America who like really bitter Irish Stouts - but that's enough to support a smaller-scale operation since it will be their *favourite* beer. Ditto there's markets for specialty documentaries, and foreign import films, and gothic lolita fetish fiction... etc.

The one thing that I think gets glossed over though is that there are benefits of "Mass Market" approaches that people tend to look over. Love it, or hate it, people tend to forget that the reason that non-offensive homogenous products are popular is often because so much thought has been put into their execution. I've met enough people to know that there's lots of folks who legitimately like Coors Light - and I'm not enough of a egotist to assume that's just because they're stupid, uncultured, swine. I just presume we have different tastes. I have to honestly beleive that if the majority of drinking-age folk in North American would legitimately prefer a small-batch brewed really hoppy IPA - that's what Coors would be making. By the same token, I find it funny that in the same breath people I know will extroll the virtues of some artisan bread-maker or local hipster coffee joint - and then complain how much they hate taking their car to the local garage or dealer (sorry "Craft mechanic") because there's such a fluctuation in quality control, price gauging... etc.

I have absolutely no way to bring this back around to Rock Paper Scissors - but it's fascinating to watch so many industries fragment so quickly - and ultimately great for the consumer. I don't know about down the US - but I can look at something like grocery store bread - and the pressure from craft bakeries has improved the overall available choice and quality in breads across the board in only a couple of years.

Of course being up here in Soviet Canuckistan also means we can't get Hulu... Boo.

[B-Pac]

Nice work, B-Pac! How's the Philly City League season treating you?

Pretty well, Rosh, thanks. Since I won't be able to have as much attendance this year as in previous years, I have a different goal. Unfortunately there is no monetary value to it, but I'll take the self-satisfaction: I'm going for highest points/tournament ratio. As of right now, I'm in 4th place out of the people who've shown up for at least 5 tournaments so far (painful) but I'm just getting warmed up!  Looks like the combo of Paper Tiger and Silly Putty is pretty unstoppable for some reason this year.

Of course being up here in Soviet Canuckistan also means we can't get Hulu... Boo.

I was a little worried about the international capabilities of Hulu.  It's also available on YouTube actually, I just don't have a direct link available at the moment.

I suppose I should apologize for my poor wording. I like the 2-axis approach, however it's still tough to generalize. Personally, I am a legitimate fan of PBR (I guess that happens after a few years of PBRPRPSCLCS), yet they are absolutely fit the commercial/corp approach, yet I can't stand Bud (which uses essentially the same recipe. mental?)  While also loving Brewery Ommegang (localish craft beer company in New York), I can't stand most of Rogue's beer because of their proprietary yeast strain.

To each their own, I guess.

The argument is exactly the same in music.  Just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's not enjoyable.