Why Did We Make the Vette?

by Crazy Ivan

I got this question the other day at HQ and it wasn't the first time I'd heard it: "Why did you guys even make the Vette?"

For those who aren't in the know on this one, the Vette was a stiff, notoriously difficult jammer that came out in series 4.1.  Of course, when I hear this question, it's not only about the Vette.  The Vette might be the toughest jammer of all time, but it has some competition.  Before the Vette came out, the question was "Why did you guys make the Zoot Suit?", and before that it was "Why did you guys make the Candy Corn?" and way back when I first started with Myachi, it was "Why did you guys make the Neo?"

As much as it pains me to admit it, these are all legitimate questions.  Why would we purposely make Myachis that were tougher to jam with than they needed to be?

The answer, of course, is that we wouldn't.  We would never purposely make a Myachi that was tough to jam with, but on occasion, we've been guilty of accidentally doing so.

I think that we can all agree that the majority of sacks are great jammers (especially if you compare them to the Vette), so the percentages of tough fabrics is really low.  But they're still out there and that often leads people to wonder why we don't just stick to the proven fabrics like corduroy and suede.

The interesting thing is that if we were inclined to take that advice, we never would have known that corduroy and soft-suede could be such good jammers.

Back when I first started with Myachi, the model "bad Myachi" was the water proof Neo.  It was a terrible jammer unless it was drenched so a lot of people wondered why we didn't just stick to the proven fabrics like microsuede.  At the time, I was too new to the game to know the answer myself, so I asked Myachi Man.

He explained then that the only way to get better was to evolve.  We have to experiment with fabrics or we'll never find the great ones.  When we find one that stinks, we can cross it off the list and never use it again, but once in a while you find a diamond in the rough.

I don't believe that this answer satisfied me at the time, but over the years it's come to make a lot more sense.  The first corduroy that I can recall was the Fudge Stripe.  It was an awesome sack but it wasn't a great jammer.  When we went back to the corduroy for the Fire Flower, I had my doubts.

Of course, this turned out to be arguably the best fabric of all time and now the vast majority of new series sacks are made from it.  The introduction of that fabric back in 07 changed the game.  And had we been of less adventurous spirit, we might have started using nothing but corduroy from that point forward.  After all, it was a proven fabric that game in a gazillion designs.

And if we'd done that we never would have found the soft-suede that Pakisacks made famous.

In retrospect, an occasional Vette is a small price to pay for discovery.