What Happened to Orbits' Dopest Competition?

A little over two years ago, I wrote a post that highlighted "Orbits Dopest!", a competition put on by Orbits Playing Cards. While there were prizes along the way, the grand prize was a sweet $10,000 to be given at the end of the year -- 2023 -- to the best cardistry video of the year.

The contest itself was simple, at least in terms of what you had to do. To enter, using an Orbit deck you'd post a cardistry video on Instagram and tag it with #ORBITSDOPEST. That was it! Each month, a winner would be selected by Orbit and they'd win the monthly prize, then finally a grand prize. Nice, right?

While my Sybil Cut game is strong, I am not a cardist, never have had ambition to be a cardist, and know my skill limitations -- I had zero intention of entering this competition. Did I consider practicing more? Yeah! Do I still actually want to learn more cardistry, for video purposes? Heck yeah! Do I care enough to compete in a cardistry competition? Not slightly. But that doesn't mean I wasn't interested! And yet... I personally forgot about it.

Let's put a quick pin in that thought, we'll get back to it.

Fast forward to a few days ago, @theorbitdeck posted a ... blog post, captured in the form of still images, on Instagram. Why they didn't use their blog is beyond me, but hey, to each their own.

You can view the original post here, or scroll below where I've retyped the entire thing word-for-word in case the post is removed. It's a gem alright, coming in at nearly 1900 words, and covers a large swath of topics.

Chris, the mastermind behind Orbit Playing Cards, really opened up during this post and detailed his take on the implosion of the Orbits Dopest competition. His raw, unfiltered transparency laid bare a mix of personal, structure, and potential community challenges that ultimately derailed the contest. After re-reading it a couple times, here's the main gist of it in the order that I think flows best (for a summary):

• Personal Struggles and Priorities
  • Chris candidly shared how becoming a new dad and dealing with financial pressures sidelined the contest. Orbit, it turns out, isn’t the behemoth many assumed; it’s a one-man show for the most part.
    
    
• Design Flaws in the Contest
  • The monthly winner format inadvertently discouraged submissions of groundbreaking moves, as entries not chosen often disappeared. This flaw stifled momentum and alienated participants.
    
    
• Cardistry's Decline on Instagram
  • Chris observed a sharp drop in cardistry content engagement, which he attributed to changes in Instagram’s algorithm and a possible decline in creator motivation. This impacted both the art form and Orbit’s sales.
    
    
• The State of Cardistry and Playing Card Brands
  • The demand for playing cards has dwindled, creating a "card recession." Chris detailed how this economic shift has affected the industry, including Orbit's business model.
    
    
• Future Ideas and Community Involvement
  • Chris pitched a pro-cardistry initiative, envisioning sponsorships akin to the skateboarding scene from the 70s / 80s. He invited feedback, showing a genuine desire to learn and rebuild trust with the community.

First off, respect to Chris for baring it all. That level of vulnerability is rare. But let's not gloss over some hard truths.

My initial question is quite literally "how can you offer a $10,000 prize, without having the $10,000?!" I get it though, he planned to line up the income stream from the V9s to fund the prize, and maybe in a perfect world that would have worked. But even so, that's promising something you don't currently have and that's just a big miss.

I'm empathetic to the whole "life gets in the way" aspect of things. I'm also not a stranger to brands doing giveaways, winning, and not receiving the prize -- by no exaggeration, I'm still waiting on close to 50% of the giveaway prizes I've won over the years. Some have even been from larger brands, but most are smaller.  The reason I say this is that, in addition to venting, the majority of "giveaways" require no actual effort from anyone. If I don't receive a deck that all I had to do was "drop a comment and win," guess what? I don't care.

Now, if I had to practice cardistry for 6 months and post a bunch of cardistry videos to my Instagram account -- which is not the focus of my account -- and then the prize just disappeared... well, yeah. I'd be a bit upset about that one.

That said, the pro-cardistry idea is intriguing. A dedicated revenue stream to reward creators could breathe new life into the art form and help brands like Orbit regain relevance. However, execution is everything. Without proper planning and support, this too could spiral into another well-intentioned fiasco. Honestly though, I'm not sure why this hasn't been done yet?

The question remains: can the cardistry community rally once again? Or, has it really declined to the point of just being a past fad? Let me know your thoughts here!

Here's the full re-typed post from Chris; the paragraph formatting is my own, but the words are all his:

Yo community,

Chris here. Orbits Dopest Competition imploded in a perfect storm. I'm going to be 100% transparent about it. First I'd like to thank the community for keeping the pressure on me about this. It's super important that you speak up and stand up to card brands. Never stop doing this. Keep us all accountable.

Orbit started in 2012 with me teaching card technique that I had personally developed. In 2015, against all odds, the first edition Orbit deck was funded on Kickstarter. I was blown away. The brand began to take shape and rose to levels I could have never dreamt of. Around the covid years I started to notice a significant drop in cardistry on Instagram, maybe due to the changes with the algorithm. Maybe cardists got tired of their videos not being seen and interacted with. Peer feedback is super important in an art like ours.

That online crowd participation was massive and now I see great cardistry with no comments on the video. I know you guys make cardistry because you love it and not for the comments but it definitely feels good to have the community have your back.

During this time I noticed a drop in sales even though for years prior we saw a steady rise in success. I took it personally. I thought this showed disapproval for Orbit. I couldn't understand what was happening especially with so much I've done for the community throughout the years. We've had small contests and Free Orbit Friday for years but I wanted to bring something bigger to the table. A $10k cash prize. I thought that would inspire the community to go through their gems that they never released. This was a Hail Mary attempt to bring the hype back to cardistry and also bring the party back to Orbit. I obviously also have to think about the business side of things because Orbit feeds my family but taking care of the community would also help Orbit. Everybody wins. This has always been my philosophy - Do everything in your power to take care of the community, not because this equals more money but because it creates a welcoming family vibe where everybody is valued and they know they are.

This is what I would have wanted in a brand when I first started studying card technique. I thought a year long competition would be dope and it definitely was for a few months. I think the structure of the contest was flawed to begin with because it discouraged people who dropped a move they've been working on, only for me to choose another move. What I should have done was select 12 moves in the span of a few months instead of one winner per month while discarding previous entries. I'm definitely not as good as you all are with cardistry but because of editing all the Orbit Jams and being part of the community for so long, I know what good cardistry looks like. I wanted all my selections to be top tier. In the first few months there were so many incredible entries and I received backlash almost immediately for selecting one move and not other moves. I was confused and felt guilty every month. Then I started seeing moves being submitted that were posted for other contests.

Once I fully understood what was happening I realized that I had to pick previous entries. I went back to promote 3 dope videos to be winners but they were deleted/archived. I'm assuming it was because those moves were sacred and they worked so hard on them only to not be chosen. I understand if that's why they were deleted. So the contest itself lost steam partially by the design of it. It was my fault, not yours.

A few months into the contest, my daughter was born and I underestimated how expensive babies are. I also underestimated how little free time I would have after becoming a dad. So there I was, sleep deprived for about half a year, confused about how to move forward or even properly identify what was going on with the Orbits Dopest Competition. And it paralyzed me from addressing it while I focused on my family.

Regardless of how big you think Orbit is, I basically do everything on my own. I don't have a giant team. I used to have a big team when the demand for cards was at it's peak. I've got help from Daniel on the art side of things but the entire business is on my shoulders as well as being a new dad. It all took so much time and attention and I was extremely burnt out. I didn't know how to move forward and it felt like the entire community started diminishing that year. I definitely could/should have handled it more tactfully but I'm human and humans make mistakes. Again, I didn't understand what was happening so I didn't know how to address what was happening. None of this was malicious, just poorly managed and misunderstood.

I hope you can forgive me. I love the cardistry community so incredibly much. There was a massive delay with the V9 Orbits that was out of my control which halted the next Orbit Jam. The smaller release decks make decent money but nothing compares to the main numbered editions. I was counting on that deck, the entire structure of my business is built around the numbered editions. It's been so strange to watch the demand for cards diminish over the years. I don't think brands will ever admit this publicly for fear of damaging public perception of their success and reputation but I've talked to a lot of other brand owners and they're all feeling the heat of the card recession. This is why you're seeing way less cards being produced while being printed with companies who will charge less than USPCC. I don't blame other brands for doing this, they're doing their best to stay in business. I've got so much respect for other card brands and it hurts to see them all equally being hit.

We're all cool with each other and our competition is friendly. There's only one brand I don't get along with for personal reasons. There were some distasteful remarks that were said by the brand owner about the brand's own supporters that only me and one other person heard and it really got under my skin because I want you all respected even when the cameras are off but that's for a different conversation. The reason why I'm telling you all this is so you fully understand what's happening behind closed doors. The demand for cards dictates almost everything us brands do for contests. I can't speak for other brands but for Orbit, I always spend tens of thousands of dollars on building the art and campaigns for the next 3-5 decks. usually about a year in advance. There's a careful ecosystem when it comes to a business.

Money made by the brand needs to be reinvested to build onto the next year of the brand. It's not like I pocket 100% of the money earned, that's not sustainable. The demand for cards declined drastically in 2023 and it continues to drop.

I looked up the Google search trends on the word "Cardistry" and it matches my sales graphs by the year almost identically. The V9s should have come out in 2023 which would have easily covered the prize money but because they were delayed, literally everything else was delayed along with it. I had runway built for the next year and the rug was pulled out from under me. I had to choose taking financial care of my family and giving them my attention over the contest. I think any good dad in my position would have done the same. Demand for cards hasn't died, but it has taken a huge hit. And because of that, the entire ecosystem is disrupted. Is this short term, is this long term?

Nobody knows for now. Long story short, we ran out of cardists, funding, and overall demand. I felt that the design of the competition discouraged people from submitting new material. It's a multifaceted answer to the "What happened to Orbits Dopest?" question. Which is why it's been so difficult to fully understand and explain what happened. So now that we know what happened, how would you like me to move forward? If it were up to me I'd want this contest to pick up where it left off. I don't want this contest to disappear. When the V9s drop I'd like to reactivate this contest. The current winners are still in the winner circle. I know this is unusual but I know this could work. Since day one I've known I'm nothing without you all. I never let the success make me forget that the most important thing is this community. Furthermore, after giving away thousands of decks over the years there have been a few people that never received their prize. If that's you, please email me at [support at theorbitbrown.com] so we can rectify this.

I hate knowing that some people never got their free decks. I won't be able to sleep at night until I know everybody received their prizes. None of you should ever feel timid about speaking to me. I'm just a dude. I respect all of you and all of your concerns.

I also had an idea to start pro-cardistry. Think of it like when skateboarding began to go pro in the 70s and 80s and skaters could make money from sponsorship deals if they were good enough. The idea is to make a deck specifically for pro-cardistry and all the profits from that deck would be put into an account specifically for video payouts. So you could make a couple hundred bucks per dope video you make with an Orbit deck that's under 90 seconds. What's dope about this program is any brand could do it, you wouldn't be tied to a contract. You could make a living off of making cardistry videos.

What does Orbit get out of it? We want two things.

1. We want cardistry to go viral again like it used to in around 2019.

2. We obviously want more attention on our brand. Essentially, the more success Orbit achieves, the more we can give back to the community with events, jams, giveaways, and sponsorship programs.

If this is something you'd be interested in, let me know in the comments.

So enough from me, I'd like to hear from you. What would you like to see happen with Orbits Dopest? I welcome any and all criticism. I truly love you all so much and I'm quietly working behind the scenes to bring the the hype for cardistry back. I don't want cardistry to die and I don't want Orbit to die. V9/V9ps are in full motion and I can't fucking wait to show you what we've done.

Chris

Ps. sorry for making you binge read through all of this. This was long as hell but I wanted to be thorough.

Peace