The World Beyblade Organization, and my history with Beyblade
Last week, I announced that I would return to the World Beyblade Organization committee, and consequently, to helping lead the community that I began building all the way back in 2003.
Back then, I had quickly become frustrated by the incredible lack of information available about my new favourite obsession — Beyblade! I had started playing with counterfeit Bey available at my local corner store, but trashed them all after I competed in an official Beyblade tournament in 2002, determined to play by the rules.
(I came in second place with a terrible customization.)
I knew there must be more depth to this game than met the eye, but websites at the time tended to built on “MSN Groups” that stole erroneous information from each other ruthlessly, and a few pretty bad fansites. The best of the bad was Street Beyblade, where I met many friends that I still know today.
But in 2003, I launched the Beyblade website Off the Chain, which continued until its death to be the most popular Beyblade website in the world. It was unique in that it focused almost exclusively on the competitive aspect of the Beyblade toyline, rather than the anime and its characters.
A banner from the Off the Chain website.
Between then and the site’s closing in 2005, it amassed a community of thousands of active members, and I ran two tournaments in its name at Anime North.
And then I vanished. Personal circumstances at the time made running a website untenable, and they had become severe enough that devoting any attention to a game wasn’t possible. And anyway, the Beyblade toyline had been inactive since even before Off the Chain closed. There was little of worth left to say.
But by 2007, my personal situation having stabilized, Beyblade was on my mind once again. I was shocked to discover that many of my old friends had reemerged on a weird collection of forums. We eventually all coalesced onto a site called Beyblade Forums, but I found myself frustrated by the administration, even after having been made an admin myself.
I knew I could do better.
So in 2007, I created Beywiki, a website with both a forum designed to attract those who played and love Beyblade in the past, and a wiki that would house information about every Beyblade ever produced, so that this information would never be lost.
Beyblade Forums was quickly abandoned and closed.
Sadly, the only image I could find of Beywiki has these awful red and green squares on top of it. But you get the idea.
Things went smoothly. Many people from the old community returned, and we even managed to snag some new members. It grew slowly, but everyone was having a great time.
And then in the spring of 2008, we were all blindsided by the announcement of Metal Fight Beyblade. Beyblade was coming back, this time with a new feature many of us had dreamed of: full metal attack parts.
The initial prototypes of Metal Fight Beyblade.
This changed everything. To celebrate, I returned to Anime North to host my first Beyblade tournament since 2005, Beyblade’s Not Dead! Here’s a video:
The event was an immense success, but behind the scenes I was working on realizing a long-held dream: an international tournament sanctioning body for Beyblade.
Hasbro’s official Beyblade tournaments were poorly run, only allowed American Beyblade parts, used terrible American BeyStadiums, and were limited to Bladers under 13 years of age — a constant source of frustration for some of Beyblade’s most devoted fans.
I had made half-hearted attempts at this before, but with the knowledge that another Beyblade series was launching in Japan — and would therefore inevitably hit worldwide in about two years — I felt more than ever that this was something that could be accomplished.
And it happened. In 2008, I relaunched Beywiki as World Beyblade Organization, complete with an ELO-based ranking system that Bladers could use to track their tournament performance online. Volunteers could also run their own ranked tournaments and build their own local communities.
And at Anime North 2009, I hosted my first — and last — ranked tournament for the WBO, Beyblade War Room:
Hosting Beyblade War Room was one of the greatest moments of my life. Legendary members of the community traveled from so many different places to make it to this event. We spent the entire weekend playing Beyblade, and it was amazing.
I even got to reminisce with other longtime community member Spinster, who I had met during the OtC days:
I had no idea that this would be the final major event I would host before I left the World Beyblade Organization.
Just a few months later, I was offered a job by MEGA Brands, Inc. — makers of Mega Bloks and, at the time, their own spinning top project Battle Strikers — after they noticed the work I had done for the Beyblade community.
Making the decision to leave the WBO was heart-wrenching, but it was always the right decision. It allowed me to build a career in marketing and move to Montreal, where I’ve met many incredible people, including my brilliant girlfriend:
(What’s this post about, again? Oh …)
At that time, I also sold all of my Beyblades, convinced I would never return to the Beyblade community. I thought my role was done.
Despite this, the community never forgot about me: the WBO hosted Brad Day on the day between both the WBO’s anniversary and my birthday, December 4th, for three years.
For their final Brad Day celebration, they tracked down a ton of people who I had been close with in the Beyblade community, including someone I met on a Beyblade EZ-Board months before I ever owned a real Beyblade.
This remains one of the kindest things that anyone has ever done for me, and the continued respect and gratitude that WBO members who joined after I left the community have shown towards my work is an immense honour to me.
Fast-forward to early 2015. The WBO was immensely active through the boom of Beyblade: Metal Fusion overseas, and continues to host ranked events worldwide, but Beyblade had entered a hiatus once again, and activity was (and continues to be) relatively low.
And then … another revival.
Beyblade had already been on my mind for a very long time, and I had been considering jumping in once a new series was released. And that’s exactly what I did.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the great things the WBO could do now that Beyblade was coming back. I wanted to bring all of the knowledge I’ve gained from working in marketing and studying different types of gameplay back to the organization that made it possible in the first place.
I am very, very thankful that Kei and Kai-V, those who had been entrusted with the WBO in my absence, are happy to have me on board.
It’s impossible to summarize over a decade of insanity in such a short blog post. But Beyblade has been one of the cornerstones of my life since I discovered it. I would not know most of the amazing people I know today if not for Beyblade.
The World Beyblade Organization is one of the most ambitious, generous, and friendly fan communities on earth — I really encourage you to check it out and sign up.
If you’re interested in starting a local Beyblade community, please contact me directly via this blog.
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