EPT
With all the - generally negative - talk about micro transactions that exists today, I was once again reminded of how the Poker industry manages to essentially charge you for every tournament you play, every hand you win, and yet nobody minds.
First, let me clarify what a Sit'n'Go is:
A poker tournament with no scheduled starting time that starts whenever the necessary players have put up their money. Single-table sit-and-goes, with nine or ten players, are the norm, but multi-table games are common as well. Also called sit n' gos and a variety of other similar spellings.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sit_and_go#sit_and_go
Back then, nothing much was really known about how the new Battle.net would work - in fact, they hadn't even announced divisions yet. So in light of how much more we now know, I want to revisit the idea.
Basic Idea
Currently, the Bnet servers will host a game on any map in the database as soon as a player creates or tries to join said map. When that game fills up, a new map is hosted and the process is repeated.
The Sit'N'Go system would work the same but for tournaments. At any given time, there would be at least one tournament for each supported buyin level (in each division) waiting to fill up. As soon as one does, a new one with the same settings would open up.
Like so:
Platinum - 1v1 - 32 man - 1$ (12/32)
Platinum - 1v1 - 128 man - 0.5$ (50/128)
Platinum - 2v2 - 16 team - 1$ (15/16)
And so on, for each division.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/FrozenArbiter/SC2/SnG.png)
The Pokerstars Sit'n'Go lobby
Of course you could have free tournaments, or qualifier tournaments where the winners advance to bigger end of the month tournaments (for instance, at the end of the month you could have a 20$ buyin tournament, and you could hold a bunch of 2$ qualifier tournaments throughout the months for everyone who doesn't want to pay 20$ to play).
The Monetization
So, how would Blizzard make money from this? They would take a cut from every tournament - the so called "rake".
Rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game. It is generally 5 to 10 percent of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount, but not only can this percentage be anything, there are other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake. Some cardrooms will not take a percentage rake in any community card poker game like Texas hold 'em when a hand does not have a flop. This is called "no flop, no drop".
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(poker)
Let's say you pay to play a 1$ tournament with 128 entrants - they take 0.05$ from each entry fee, and the rest goes into the prize pool. This is obviously a tiny amount of money, but it will add up.
Concerns
All the money will go to the best players
One concern back then was that the money would go only to the top players, that in a game of almost entirely skill (unlike poker, which has a large luck element in addition to skill), the bad players would not have enough incentive to play (and by so doing, essentially "feed" the economy by padding the prizes for those with a realistic chance to win).
With the divisions, you could easily make the majority of tournaments closed to a single division - Gold only, Platinum only, and so on and so forth. Perhaps it should only be closed in one way (i.e if a bad player wishes to get a shot at playing with the best, just for the experience, he should perhaps not be stopped from doing so, while if a really good player wants to play with the copper guys.... well, it doesn't seem in line with Blizzards philosophy really).
Of course, a good player could buy a second key or play on a copper friends account, but if you are moved up after winning X tournaments, well, that would eventually get expensive.
Do you want it to be like Formula 1 where people have to buy a seat in a car?
Otherwise, it's not just a zero sum game. You mention a rake. People are going to lose money overall from playing Starcraft 2. That's bad. There should be money to be won. Not money to be lost.
Otherwise, it's not just a zero sum game. You mention a rake. People are going to lose money overall from playing Starcraft 2. That's bad. There should be money to be won. Not money to be lost.
People are going to lose money overall from playing SC2 no matter what you do, short of making the game free.
People lose money from WoW overall.
People lose money from having an internet connection overall.
It's so obvious. Do you want Starcraft 2 to be a sport or not? It's not entertainment which you pay for. It's not supposed to be gambling either.
But it IS entertainment which you pay for, unless you download the game.. WoW has a monthly fee, this isn't even like that - this is an optional fee that you can choose to pay. Even if you don't want to pay, free tournaments can easily run around the clock, simultaneously with the pay-to-play ones.
Esports should copy chess, not poker.
Chess tournaments frequently have entrance fees.
I don't feel this would mesh with Blizzard's mentality of family-friendly and also would probably violate quite a few laws here or there as it's not as if the game is only marketed to 21+ year olds.
Is it a neat idea? Yeah. But it doesn't make sense for Blizzard to automate / host it.
Is it a neat idea? Yeah. But it doesn't make sense for Blizzard to automate / host it.
They already host WoW tournaments with a buyin, this is not very different.
Closing thoughts
I support Blizzard making money from SC2, I just want it to be from new features that benefit me - not by monetizing things that were once free.
Here's a few more copy-pastes from the old post on this topic:
Sponsors are not possible/unlikely to be possible simply because the coverage is non-existant, especially in terms of live coverage.
Sponsors work better for big, scheduled tournaments with plenty of coverage - something we could easily have alongside these pay to play tournaments.
I don't actually think it is gambling, as it's a skill game. If you offered 1on1's for money I COULD see the point, but in this case it's just paying to play in a tournament, which happens all the time at LANs.
Ok I think that's what I wanted to cover in this, I'll give it a read through to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Poll: Would you be interested in this?
Yes, I would play (619)
70%
No, I would not play (257)
29%
Yes, but not as described (please elaborate) (14)
2%
890 total votes
No, I would not play (257)
Yes, but not as described (please elaborate) (14)
890 total votes
Your vote: Would you be interested in this?
(Vote): Yes, I would play
(Vote): No, I would not play
(Vote): Yes, but not as described (please elaborate)
.
?
