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United States47024 Posts
On July 04 2014 09:59 Sufficiency wrote:
Reverting sounds like a terrible idea.
People wants to things "get better" every year. This includes prize money. When you stop having 10 million dollars worth of prize money next year, it will be seen as a sign of decay by the masses.
Now, the die-hard dota fans will watch even if the total prize pool is 3 dollars. But by doing so will more than likely disappoint casual audiences.
I think it's a shitty situation but reverting is pretty much the only thing they can do, really.
The thing is, I don't think this year's prize pool growth came mostly from actual growth in player #s/interest. What really drove this year's contributions up were point sales, which were driven by die-hard fans who are willing to spend $500+ on compendium points, and on speculators with disposable income who spent astronomical amounts of money to get the immortal rewards with the expectation that the immortals will sell for a profit in the long run (people actually did this last year as well, but the way the compendium rewards were distributed last year meant that the profitability of it was so low that the only practical use for it was trying to save some money while trying to get one of each immortal reward, or to pay off your own compendium purchase, rather than profit on any larger scale).
Supposing that the 2nd group actually does turn a profit, that's just going to grow each subsequent year from here on out--we'd have a bubble just waiting to burst. That bubble bursting is going to hurt the scene far more in the long run than reverting next year will (even though that will hurt).
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Off topic, but holy fuck, Ventrillo is a shit program. Having just used it again since Dolby Axon is fucking up and my buddies got tired of it crashing...I really hope I can convince them all to swap to TS3 or keep with Axon, Vent is just utter shit.
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On July 04 2014 10:00 TheYango wrote:
The thing is, I'm skeptical about the sum of money being so large that the #1 team can basically just quit Esports on it. Funneling the best team in the world out of the scene at the end of the year because tournament earnings from there on out are a pittance compared to TI money doesn't feel good to me.
You could say "well they can keep playing"--but it seems really hard to keep the motivation to keep winning when you just pocketed a million dollars and don't really need to win anything in Esports ever again.
I'm not saying that can't or won't happen, but it's kind of an unavoidable thing isn't it? I mean even if it were salaried money, "well they can just retire after 1 season." Pretty dead end argument if that's how you want to run with it. Money is the backbone of any growing industry, and that money has to get to the players specifically for eSports to grow(and to sponsors and advertisers and whatnot, but that's a long side conversation). What can you do about it if some of them decide on a number in their heads that they want to earn and jump ship after?
Cris Carter, a hall of fame wide receiver, has stated on the record many times that his goal in the NFL was to hit a very specific number in his bank account and he would retire that season, and so he did. I'm sure he's not the only dude to have done so. The NFL is still very healthy.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
On July 04 2014 10:00 TheYango wrote:
The thing is, I'm skeptical about the sum of money being so large that the #1 team can basically just quit Esports on it. Funneling the best team in the world out of the scene at the end of the year because tournament earnings from there on out are a pittance compared to TI money doesn't feel good to me.
You could say "well they can keep playing"--but it seems really hard to keep the motivation to keep winning when you just pocketed a million dollars and don't really need to win anything in Esports ever again.
Lol yeah, with my current expenses I could live off of 500k usd for 76 years. Can't imagine the winning team keeping up the motivation to keep playing either, unless playing DotA actually is the thing you enjoy the most out of all the things in the world.
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On July 04 2014 10:00 TheYango wrote:
The thing is, I'm skeptical about the sum of money being so large that the #1 team can basically just quit Esports on it. Funneling the best team in the world out of the scene at the end of the year because tournament earnings from there on out are a pittance compared to TI money doesn't feel good to me.
You could say "well they can keep playing"--but it seems really hard to keep the motivation to keep winning when you just pocketed a million dollars and don't really need to win anything in Esports ever again.
Not to mention next year the price pool will surely be less... so even less motivation to keep playing.
Overall, it would have been much better if Valve saved the money in a trust and only dispense 1-2 million each year. That would have secured them 5 years of price pool and provide long-term stability to the competitive scene.
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Most people's expenses tend to match their income. I would find it very difficult for the top team to win a million and then become very prudent with their finances. You might see ferrari buy a Ferrari or something and then all of a sudden they realize that they are not as loaded as they thought they were.
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United States47024 Posts
Regardless, Valve probably has more detailed statistics on the per-player compendium contribution #s, and will probably make a decision on how to manage next year's prize pool based on that. Anything I've said on the matter is in part speculation with regard to this.
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The community has shown that they are willing to throw almost 40 million at something. if dota 2 continues to grow even 50% which would be a significant drop in growth until next year, thats a lot less of a burden on fans to purchase as much to maintain the prize pool. 12 million people averaging 4 dollars raises more than the 8 million averaging 5.
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I'm not saying stop the discussion, but I do want to point out that 'crowdsourcing' as major funding is something basically nobody has a serious grasp of right now to begin with. So saying Valve is fucking up just seems... misguided? Major businesses are getting in on kickstarter and shit, and pretty much NOBODY knows where this path goes.
At the very least Valve has propped the game up to a point where many major tournaments give great payouts as well, so while 10 million may never happen again, multiple millions is probably on the table for years and years to come.
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Also we're all forgetting. there is a red panda courier for sale. so...
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United States47024 Posts
I wonder how things would have changed if Valve made the immortals unique (i.e. you can't get duplicates like the newer chests) but non-tradeable.
Mostly I'm just interested in how much of that money is legitimate fan interest, and how much of it is people trying to turn a profit selling off all the immortals.
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On July 04 2014 09:53 red_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 09:29 wei2coolman wrote:On July 04 2014 09:04 Sufficiency wrote:On July 04 2014 08:48 Crusnik wrote:Prizepool is out for TI4 http://www.dota2.com/international/overview/I kinda figured it wouldn't be as top heavy this time around since it's 10m, but damn, decent chunk of change for most involved. I feel this is kind of self-destructive. They can't dream to get the same amount of prizepool for next year. This model is not sustain able. I mean, they already took a huge chunk of profit from compendium money. It's not like it's Valves fault that this many people bought into the hype. I really wished they spread a lot more money for the bottom teams, but I guess big #1 prize pool has more hype I guess. Looking closer at distribution... that drop from 1st to 2nd is absolutely absurd... like w0t. 1st $1,000,000 SK Telecom T1 2nd $250,000 Royal Club 3rd-4th $150,000 NaJin Black Sword, Fnatic
Yeah, I'm not exactly defending Riot's approach to it either, the difference is the money earned at World's isn't exactly scene changing. TI's is.
On July 04 2014 10:13 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 10:00 TheYango wrote:
The thing is, I'm skeptical about the sum of money being so large that the #1 team can basically just quit Esports on it. Funneling the best team in the world out of the scene at the end of the year because tournament earnings from there on out are a pittance compared to TI money doesn't feel good to me.
You could say "well they can keep playing"--but it seems really hard to keep the motivation to keep winning when you just pocketed a million dollars and don't really need to win anything in Esports ever again. Not to mention next year the price pool will surely be less... so even less motivation to keep playing. Overall, it would have been much better if Valve saved the money in a trust and only dispense 1-2 million each year. That would have secured them 5 years of price pool and provide long-term stability to the competitive scene.
Why would it be less? I'm not saying it will grow, but what insider knowledge do you have to suggest otherwise? The compendium was such a brilliant way to raise money for a tournament, what's not to say they do cool stuff like that and get casual dota 2 players to want to pitch in on the prizepool whether or not they care about the esports scene.
On July 04 2014 09:47 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 09:28 Crusnik wrote:
Do not play Hard/Unfair bots, moonbutt, they will bend you over and violate you. Hard. If you play vs people, be prepared for Bloodseekers out the ass, Russians love that hero for whatever reason. If you can beat the Hard bot in 1v1 solo, you're probably better than most players up through "High" normal matchmaking, lol.
Okay, seriously. Why are Doto2 bots so fucking good? like holy shit, the AI is good.
On July 04 2014 09:55 Cixah wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 09:47 TheYango wrote:On July 04 2014 09:29 wei2coolman wrote:
I really wished they spread a lot more money for the bottom teams, but I guess big #1 prize pool has more hype I guess.
Looking closer at distribution... that drop from 1st to 2nd is absolutely absurd... like w0t. That's the thing. On the whole the distribution between 2nd and 16th is a lot less top-heavy than last year, but the 1st prize is still wtfffffffffffffffffffff Am I still the only one who's ok with it being this top heavy? Play to win, not for chump change. You had better believe if I had a potential 1million PERSONAL dollars on the line I'd be about that life to win and take every single game over the next 2 weeks as serious as I possibly could. 4.7 million USD, even if your management takes 20% (which is probably too much, but it's what EG and Alliance for sure have to give up) then they are still standing to make 500k+ a person.
That's sort of the problem though, ain't it? So much money that it's hard to keep motivation to keep playing.
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On July 04 2014 10:17 TheYango wrote:
Regardless, Valve probably has more detailed statistics on the per-player compendium contribution #s, and will probably make a decision on how to manage next year's prize pool based on that. Anything I've said on the matter is in part speculation with regard to this.
That's too late.
Overall this is a huge blunder by Valve. Clearly, someone in upper management thought "hey let's do a crowdfunding campaign for the prize money because I know nothing about esports and I think more prizemoney = better!" without putting a cap on the the donations. Now they are in this mess that they set the bar way too high and there is almost no way they can match this in subsequent years. People are going to flip out when they realize next year the prize pool is only 3 million dollars - not because 3 million is too little money, but it is seen as a huge DECREASE due to the high bar the first year set.
Instead, Valve could have saved the money and only dispense (say) 2 million dollars for this year. This will allow this money to be used for 5 years. This is a far better plan because:
1. Avoid backlash. As described above.
2. Secures a stable competitive dota2 scene for FIVE YEARS. That's mindblowingly huge. Events like WCG come and go, but when you have the prize pool set for a lengthy period, it boosts the confidence of the audience, players, as well as investors.
+ Show Spoiler +OK I know having prize pool != scene secured or even tournament secured, but to an average person this will indeed seem that way
Instead, Valve will end this tournament with a question mark - it's almost certain the prize money will be less for subsequent years and it won't be very clear how that will affect the scene and the winning team can essentially retire for the rest of their lives.
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Dota 2 bots have a complete grasp on the attack time and turn time of their heroes, something even pros make mistakes on from time to time. that accounts for most of the laning different honestly. at least to me it does. obviously a bot will back off from unwinnable fights more often than players too though.
Sufficiency i don't think anyone is going to be mad at valve if the crowdfunded prizepool doesn't hit 10 million next year. 5-6 million is realistic as it would mean that 30% of the players bought a single compendium for next year. there will always be speculators that drive up the prize pool hoping for dem rares though.
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United States47024 Posts
Sufficiency, they crowdfunded it last year too and it worked out fine. This year's model was just a simple extension on that--the only difference this year was point sales allowing people to contribute more than the baseline amount--which led to massive speculation on immortals.
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It will be less next year because this is crowdfunded. People are always initially braced with enthusiasm because they had never had a tournament of this scale before. Once they have seen it, it will become colder and there will be more problems trying to secure that fund.
Valve can always match the money - but that's still a HUGE chunk of money. Also, like Yango said, it's not clear how that amount of prize money can even help the scene.
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United States47024 Posts
Instead, Valve could have saved the money and only dispense (say) 2 million dollars for this year.
They couldn't do this because the community would view this as them backing out of their "25% of Compendium purchases goes to the prize pool" promise.
Again, the problem is that point sales blew up way harder than Valve probably anticipated.
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On July 04 2014 10:36 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 10:17 TheYango wrote:
Regardless, Valve probably has more detailed statistics on the per-player compendium contribution #s, and will probably make a decision on how to manage next year's prize pool based on that. Anything I've said on the matter is in part speculation with regard to this. That's too late. Overall this is a huge blunder by Valve. Clearly, someone in upper management thought "hey let's do a crowdfunding campaign for the prize money because I know nothing about esports and I think more prizemoney = better!" without putting a cap on the the donations. Now they are in this mess that they set the bar way too high and there is almost no way they can match this in subsequent years. People are going to flip out when they realize next year the prize pool is only 3 million dollars - not because 3 million is too little money, but it is seen as a huge DECREASE due to the high bar the first year set. Instead, Valve could have saved the money and only dispense (say) 2 million dollars for this year. This will allow this money to be used for 5 years. This is a far better plan because: 1. Avoid backlash. As described above. 2. Secures a stable competitive dota2 scene for FIVE YEARS. That's mindblowingly huge. Events like WCG come and go, but when you have the prize pool set for a lengthy period, it boosts the confidence of the audience, players, as well as investors. + Show Spoiler +OK I know having prize pool != scene secured or even tournament secured, but to an average person this will indeed seem that way Instead, Valve will end this tournament with a question mark - it's almost certain the prize money will be less for subsequent years and it won't be very clear how that will affect the scene and the winning team can essentially retire for the rest of their lives.
I mean they pretty much put out the statement for how much of it was going to the tournament when they started the compendium. They probably didn't anticipate everyone to go full retard on their wallets...
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only tl could take the joy of seeing big prize tournament event ran by one of the literal bastions of good in the gaming industry and predict doom..
I'm gunna go out on a limb here and say they have a grasp on wtf they need to do to make things sustainable.
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On July 04 2014 10:45 Parnage wrote:
only tl could take the joy of seeing big prize tournament event ran by one of the literal bastions of good in the gaming industry and predict doom..
I'm gunna go out on a limb here and say they have a grasp on wtf they need to do to make things sustainable.
gaming industry != esports industry.
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EPT
