Question!
One of the reasons why we can organize something like Country Cup or OC Challenges is due to the partners. None of the partners have any say on the set-up of any of the CC/HOC competitions: not on hardware, not on benchmarks, not on duration, not on timeframe and so on. I think it's good, since it gives everyone the opportunity to use whatever he likes.
We're currently putting together a team-based version of the Country Cup. It's pretty similar from set-up but should be longer both in terms of overall timeframe (multiple months) and stage timeframe (more time for each stage). I was wondering how you guys felt about putting a vendor limitation one of the stages of that type of competition.
Note: we (=hwbot) would still be making ALL the decisions regarding benchmark, hardware and timeframe. So, it's not like we'd allow GBT or MSI to have everyone buy their most expensive board for a stage. It would be more something like, ehrm, limiting the CC11 IGP stage to GIGA or MSI boards. The underlying idea being to get the partners involved in OC comps that don't revolve around vendor-only WR attemps.
Feel free to express how you feel about this, but please with argumentation. I know it's easy to shout "hell no", but I'd like to know why you don't want it. Again, the idea is NOT to have the entire competition limited to brands, but just one or two stages, AND that the vendor limitation would not force competing teams to make huge investments to join the stage. No vendor would have any decision-making power; just the ability to see their products being used in a comp.
And no, we don't lose funding if you scream no ...