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I think this is a very interesting idea, and I'd love to see it implemented.
One way to get around the problem of smurfing accounts is to require a mininum number of games played to particpate. Maybe 150 ladder games played or so. This would also help protect the n00bs who don't know any better (who think because they're rank 1 in silver that they stand a chance).
As far as the legalities it looks like as Skeyser pointed out that Bliz is essentially already doing these sorts of tournaments on WoW and has already worked out the legalities of it in its tournament agreement:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/legal.xml
I think plenty of people would be interested in particpating, even if they knew that they were very unlikely to win just for the fun of the tournament. Having a little money on the line helps to spice things up!
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I think it's a great idea, I really don't know who minds playing some games for a dollar but overall it sounds great, competition would be fierce, more motivation. The only slight downside I see it would be a bit confusing with paypal info etc, but I do think it's the right way to go, StarCraft in general doesn't get much attention besides in Korea so that way prize pools are funded by the players often, but I think it would be fun and competive. If a buy-in of 2 dollars is alot for you, then I don't know... But I do think it's a step in the right direction.
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i don't like this idea at all,
i dont like the comparison with poker either.
poker is about money (or at least about something to win, could also be who cleans the dishes or whatever) -
starcraft in my opinion is about about the game itself, not about getting money or something else to win -
i also dont think that the argument of losing money like
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.
i think we all agree we play starcraft for fun. the hardcore pro players are able to earn some money "just for playing" the game. thats fine with me, i also like the e-sports stuff with tourney, sponsors etc. im also okay with poeple making their living just by playing the game.
BUT
i think adding a system like this, would be something like gambling.
the majority ones who will suffer (lose money) are the not so good players who will lose their money. thats how the big poker industry works and thats how the indusrty behind sc2 will work OF we would have such a system implemented. it will destroy the community as how it is now or at least will split them apart
people who want to earn some money with the game are able to do so right now and even more after the release of the game, so if that could be an intention for this system , theres just no need if you are good enough at the game AND are able to talk to the right people the right way
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Implementing something like this would probably get SC2 banned in several countries just like poker sites. Honestly, even though I would love to see something like this, the chances are next to nil that it would ever happen.
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What if the money incitament was removed? I think having tournaments for all levels of players in itself will be an incredibly nice feature.
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On June 19 2010 01:51 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2010 23:48 Full wrote:
This is gambling. Just because its a game of skill and not luck, does not make this something other than gambling. It's definitely not gambling in the US. This is common practice for local LAN tournaments here and tons of kids do it (kids that are not old enough to gamble). The only difference would be that the transactions are handled online. But changing the method of payment in this way does not change the nature of the business.
Hate to break it to you Tyler but every legislative body would call it otherwise and unfortunately they don't care what we think. If Blizzard takes any rake, even the smallest fraction of the buy-in and Blizzard profits from it. They'll be all over it, wanting a piece of the pie. When you globalize something like this you ought to be very careful. It's okay to have a game of poker with your friends back at your place as long as know one knows about it. You think they have any idea of what we do at a LAN? Nope. It's small scale.
Sure, we have buy-ins. However, there is no 'real' profit. Whatever money comes in goes right back into the system. The revenue generated goes right back into the system for the next tournament. In other words, it's non-profit.
To repeat, the government(s) wouldn't care what we think. It would be labeled as an illegal gambling activity and as such, the Gaming Commissions would shut it down. It's fine to have a card game back at your place with your friends as long as no one else knows about it. It's still an illegal practice. You put something out in the open like this where Blizzard would be making pebbles off of it and every government in existence would be all over it.
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There are probably two main incentives for playing Starcraft:
- to win
- to be creative and have fun
Introducing paid tournaments would put more emphasis on the first incentive. People will argue that this is going to make players better, but it's also very likely that it's going to make them dirtier, cheesier, and more stereotypical than ever. Eventually, the creative part of the community will have to move on to other games, if that happens - just as it was with the rise of BW.
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8748 Posts
On June 19 2010 20:40 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2010 01:51 Liquid`NonY wrote:On June 18 2010 23:48 Full wrote:
This is gambling. Just because its a game of skill and not luck, does not make this something other than gambling. It's definitely not gambling in the US. This is common practice for local LAN tournaments here and tons of kids do it (kids that are not old enough to gamble). The only difference would be that the transactions are handled online. But changing the method of payment in this way does not change the nature of the business. Hate to break it to you Tyler but every legislative body would call it otherwise and unfortunately they don't care what we think. If Blizzard takes any rake, even the smallest fraction of the buy-in and Blizzard profits from it. They'll be all over it, wanting a piece of the pie. When you globalize something like this you ought to be very careful. It's okay to have a game of poker with your friends back at your place as long as know one knows about it. You think they have any idea of what we do at a LAN? Nope. It's small scale. Sure, we have buy-ins. However, there is no 'real' profit. Whatever money comes in goes right back into the system. The revenue generated goes right back into the system for the next tournament. In other words, it's non-profit. To repeat, the government(s) wouldn't care what we think. It would be labeled as an illegal gambling activity and as such, the Gaming Commissions would shut it down. It's fine to have a card game back at your place with your friends as long as no one else knows about it. It's still an illegal practice. You put something out in the open like this where Blizzard would be making pebbles off of it and every government in existence would be all over it.
Eh it doesn't really matter what the legislative bodies would call it. If anything, it'd be up to judicial bodies. And of course the legislative bodies do care what we think since we elect them. The other thing they care about is what big businesses think. So we're covered either way, not that it matters.
Gambling isn't entirely illegal, either. Even if it is labeled as gambling by whatever judge hears the case, it doesn't automatically mean that it can't exist.
Every game and competition that funds an event with entry fees is not considered gambling. They're not all too small to be noticed, either.
Even if the line gets very blurry here, for whatever reason, Blizzard is not without the power to fight in court. Of course, this would have to be a pretty important thing to Blizzard to use those kinds of resources on it, but it's possible.
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as OP said, you won't HAVE to play in those tournaments. These would be for just those who wish to play for the money/pride. And yeah, I love the idea. It will attract even more people. A lot more people with put in the effort to get better and better having another motivation to work for. Though it will have its downsides because people will be losing and doing weird stuff, I think that overall it's going to help the growth and development of the community.
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I think Blizzard, and more specifically Activision are trying to find ways to monetize in exactly the way you mention. That's why they're working so hard to limit player smurfing as well as limit regions (to avoid issues with international trade laws here).
For those who are worried about better players beating up on lesser players: In poker, the money automatically stratifies players. Why would a good player waste 6 hours of his time to win a $10 tournament? In the same vein, why would a bad player waste his money on a high stakes tournament he has no shot of winning? I don't see a need to have separate tournaments for each bracket. Just have different levels of buy-ins and maybe add a skill cap for the lowest one or two tourneys (for the casuals :V).
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Of course it would be up to the courts, but that's that other problem: I don't think Blizzard would want to tie resources into this kind of legal battle. It would be a lengthy process and who knows what the opportunity cost could be.
The major problem is what Blizzard would be raking in and who would collect.
I for one, love gambling. As much as I would want to see a feature like this implemented, it just isn't feasible at the moment.
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United States47024 Posts
On June 19 2010 14:15 Alternity wrote:I think this is a very interesting idea, and I'd love to see it implemented. One way to get around the problem of smurfing accounts is to require a mininum number of games played to particpate. Maybe 150 ladder games played or so. This would also help protect the n00bs who don't know any better (who think because they're rank 1 in silver that they stand a chance). As far as the legalities it looks like as Skeyser pointed out that Bliz is essentially already doing these sorts of tournaments on WoW and has already worked out the legalities of it in its tournament agreement: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/legal.xmlI think plenty of people would be interested in particpating, even if they knew that they were very unlikely to win just for the fun of the tournament. Having a little money on the line helps to spice things up!
This.
Those who keep saying this is like gambling, it already exists in other non-gambling games, WoW and Magic: The Gathering being the ones already mentioned. MTGO has a reasonably similar way of handling small 8 person draft tournaments (you basically use in-game tickets to buy into a draft, but the tickets convert directly to the value of $1 USD, so the difference between that and this system is basically one of semantics).
If handing out real cash is the issue, then there are plenty of ways Blizzard can handle small tournament rewards without actually using cash rewards (Blizzard Store credit, etc.).
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Seriously guys, Starcraft is not a game of chance and therefore does not count as gambling.
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On June 20 2010 00:07 figq wrote:
There are probably two main incentives for playing Starcraft:
- to win
- to be creative and have fun
Introducing paid tournaments would put more emphasis on the first incentive. People will argue that this is going to make players better, but it's also very likely that it's going to make them dirtier, cheesier, and more stereotypical than ever. Eventually, the creative part of the community will have to move on to other games, if that happens - just as it was with the rise of BW.
This.
It's a fine line, and I could be wrong, but if pay-to-play tournaments were readily available 24/7 then for far too many players for my liking the whole game suddenly revolves around winning as opposed to having fun. Often times winning and having fun are one in the same, but not always, and in those not always scenarios I really really want Bnet to focus on fun over profit.
I am not opposed to having semi-regular pay tourneys, even weekly ones, but having them available at all times is not good in my book.
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Starcraft 2 cannot ever be maphack proof so while its a nice idea it would never be fair.
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On June 20 2010 04:22 figg wrote:
There are probably two main incentives for playing Starcraft:
- to win
- to be creative and have fun
Introducing paid tournaments would put more emphasis on the first incentive. People will argue that this is going to make players better, but it's also very likely that it's going to make them dirtier, cheesier, and more stereotypical than ever. Eventually, the creative part of the community will have to move on to other games, if that happens - just as it was with the rise of BW.
Well I dont think it would make players that way. Because we wouldnt be playing in them all the time. It would be just like a tournament. It would be like the way progamers play in BW right now. Tournaments dont limit creativeness, alot of the times they increase it by making players play at a higher level than they did before, let it be with stronger mechanics or very solid build orders(creative).
These tournaments would not make players more robotic, it would just be another tournament that has easy access. Do tournaments now make players robotic? I dont think so, they just play how they would play in a tournament and that wouldnt change with this.
And I dont think creative players would end up leaving, I just think they would end up having to back up their creative play with some stability like you would have to anyway.
On June 20 2010 04:22 Plethora wrote:
This.
It's a fine line, and I could be wrong, but if pay-to-play tournaments were readily available 24/7 then for far too many players for my liking the whole game suddenly revolves around winning as opposed to having fun. Often times winning and having fun are one in the same, but not always, and in those not always scenarios I really really want Bnet to focus on fun over profit.
I am not opposed to having semi-regular pay tourneys, even weekly ones, but having them available at all times is not good in my book.
The focus on the game is winning. Ever watch Day9? And thats where the fun comes from. I mean if playing in tournies makes you think you have to play standard it is your own fault. The tournament is not limiting you, you are limiting you.
And having tournies all the time, I mean I dont think its "feasible" and borderline bad.
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hmm well since it will be hosted on bnet and by blizzard, blizzard will be able track your IP address and stuff. so they could have it where when you register, you tell what computer or IP address you will be playing on, an for the rest of the tournament you can only play from that IP. Blizzard could also check the highest rank ever achieved from a certain IP address.
I really don't know anything about this type of stuff, but wouldn't that help prevent smurfing so you could have tournaments for players not as good.
If this idea won't work, please tell me why.
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On June 20 2010 04:16 crimsonsentinel wrote:
Seriously guys, Starcraft is not a game of chance and therefore does not count as gambling.
Unfortunately it does in this case. Anytime you wager money on something with an unknown outcome, it is gambling. In particular wagering on almost any game is gambling. The word gambling has just come to mean things with random chance, but it isn't exclusively that.
There is no way this is going to happen. There are soooo many legal problems. Technically it could happen (if a bunch of things were implemented and it got really complicated), but it won't.
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yea it is really really cool idea but i don't think it will ever happen =(
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EPT
