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If you read my post, you would see the suggestion for the tournaments to be tied into your division. You are a bronze player? You'll play Bronze tournaments.
You are a platinum player? You'll play platinum tournaments.
Anyone who wants to play competitively will not be below diamond league. Casual gamers do not want to gamble money on a video game. To them it is not an esport, it is a game to play solely for fun. No one would be playing tournaments for money at that skill level, and like I also said in my post, even the mid tier US players would stop playing tournaments once they realize the reality of their situations and skill levels in comparison to professional players.
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I think that a system like this has too much potential for abuse - smurfs, hackers, etc. It would be frustrating for honest players and the last thing I want is the SC2 ladder to become farcical. I love the idea though, I just think incentivizing automated tournaments with money has insurmountable problems (beyond gambling laws). Imagine the headache Blizzard would have if there were hackers, smurfs, and teams winning countless automated tournaments. No amount of profit from the rake would be worth the time and effort spent quelling motivated hackers and cheaters.
Instead, make the tournaments free to play with prizes other than money - perhaps points that contribute to eligibility for an end-of-ladder-season tournament, where cash and other prizes are offered to the winners. Just no achievements, please.
EDIT: An entire page of posts popped up while I was sorting out my thoughts. I just want to clarify that I'm all for tournaments with a buy-in, they're a perfect fit for the competitive nature of SC2. They would just have to be scarce (by that I mean once or twice a week) and reserved for only the top players. That kind of implementation would leave the least problems for Blizz and the community and still have the benefits for competitive players. And like other posters have said, casual players really wouldn't want to play in a tournament with a buy-in anyway.
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Sweden33719 Posts
The lower tier competitive gamers will never win and they will stop playing because they will be embarassed by their winrates and lack of success and they will be burning money so they will be forced to quit. Do you think if any of the US/Euro tournaments required a sign up fee that a more than negligible amount of people would participate? Imagine if that micro/macro tournament cost $20 to enter and had a larger prize pool. Do you think even teams like Root or VT would participate? They probably would but after constantly losing to superior US/Euro/Asia players they would probably abandon the game all together very quickly, since there will be no more free tournaments and they would have no chance of getting past a line up of massively better players.
Which is why my example buyins weren't 20$ but 1$ or 2$.
On June 18 2010 10:39 c.Deadly wrote:
I think that a system like this has too much potential for abuse - smurfs, hackers, etc. It would be frustrating for honest players and the last thing I want is the SC2 ladder to become farcical. I love the idea though, I just think incentivizing automated tournaments with money has insurmountable problems (beyond gambling laws). Imagine the headache Blizzard would have if there were hackers, smurfs, and teams winning countless automated tournaments. No amount of profit from the rake would be worth the time and effort spent quelling motivated hackers and cheaters.
Instead, make the tournaments free to play with prizes other than money - perhaps points that contribute to eligibility for an end-of-ladder-season tournament, where cash and other prizes are offered to the winners. Just no achievements, please.
This sounds ok as well, but then they don't make any money from it :<
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I just don't feel like there will be any incentive for people to play in these after a while, at first sure, before the reality that they are incredibly disadvantaged compared to their opponents sinks in. In poker its different, if you play ten hands with a poker pro you can probably get lucky enough to win at least 2, but if your a mid-high ranking diamond player someone like FrozenArbiter (Jinro) could destroy you in TvT for instance ten times in a row pretty easily.
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On June 18 2010 08:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
On top of this, the fact that a given game is zero-sum does not require that nobody makes money off of it, only that the totality of the money entering the game does not exceed the totality exiting it.
The majority of people who pay to enter these tournaments will lose money, but this does not mean nobody will be able to make money off of this.
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I dont like the idea, just because I think it would make hacks more common. With money on the line people will try to cheat and there will be more hackers, inside and outside of these tourneys effectivly ruinning the game. Also the best players would almost always win, not enough luck. Sure you could break it by divsion but then people smurf and what about low diamond players they have no chance against high diamond players. Sit in go's are great but leave them in poker where they belong
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On June 18 2010 10:30 PokePill wrote:
I'm almost positive if someone other than a moderator posted this, the responses would be completely different.
I was thinking that too... Suddenly people support Blizzard monetizing their game... wow the world went upside down.
On June 18 2010 10:32 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2010 10:18 Zanez.smarty wrote:
Terrible idea for any number of reasons that you mentioned.
I suppose it could be optional, but then you NEED to pay money to be someone in the SC community. It also means you need to have a credit card of some sort to play SC2, instantly alienating a chunk of the community.
World of Warcraft. Also, it wouldn't be the only form of tournaments, the big tournaments would be the same as the ones now - the weeklies, the invitationals, OSL/MSL/TSL/HDH type events. Think about it, a 16 man 1$ tournament is gonna have a first place prize of 8$ - that's hardly going to make headlines. Show nested quote +
You already mentioned that this is esports, not gambling. Making an argument that buying SC2, paying for internet and paying the monthly fee for WoW are equal is just wrong... By paying monthly fee and paying for SC2 as a game, you know that the money you spend is going towards the games development, the developers, the company that made the game and will make future games. Paying a tournament fee that goes towards the winners isn't going directly towards the game. This is not Poker.
You are paying for entertainment. A part of the fee would go to Blizzard. I do not see the problem. Show nested quote +Now I am not saying that this concept is bad... because it would definitely push the game in a positive direction. But to have these things automated, running all the time and and having tiny prize pools is wrong for the direction of the game.
As has been said, eSports really should be about gaining money, not losing money. This would ONLY work if the game SC2 was free itself, like these poker sites.
You are losing money by buying the game... You are losing money everytime you pay for another month of WoW. Again, I don't see the problem. Majority of todays succesful online poker players are 19-20~somethings in college. No, it would be about both - and this is entirely optional. Why? It isn't gambling. Show nested quote +
If you want this game to be a serious spectator sport it should be supported by the spectators. When do football players pool their money together at the beginning of the series? It should be about sponsorship and spectating primarily. Some websites could run things like this just fine, occasional tournies would be cool and such, but Blizz should not implement this as part of their game or in Battle.net 2.0 or anything.
Why? There are tonnes of tournaments with entry fees in ANY sport. Show nested quote +
I think the biggest thing I don't understand about this poll tho... is how people can support Blizzard earning money here? People scream and whine and bitch every time there is any possibility of the game being monotized... premium maps for example. Seems pretty hypocritical of you people to hate the concept of Blizzard earning money, then support this idea...
Because they are providing a service I want, and I recognize that it costs them money to do so. Providing cross region play? Does not cost them. Show nested quote +Then there's the fact you say Starcraft 2 is a "skill" game and there's very little luck, that only promotes the idea that no one would want to play competitively. Professional players will dominate all tiers of play and the money will always trickle down to the elite players, as in not a single US player would get a stable income from this because all the elite euro and asian players who train 8 hours a day with teams will destroy and feed off of the inferior US players.
Blizzard wants to monetize their platform by targeting casual gamers, casual gamers are not going to be playing ladder at all down the road because of how extremely competitive the 1v1 ladder already is in their eyes, and they are definitely not going to want to gamble money to have no chance of beating people who "train" all day. There will be NO ONE using this, even after it is initially a success and people are using it.
If you read my post, you would see the suggestion for the tournaments to be tied into your division. You are a bronze player? You'll play Bronze tournaments. You are a platinum player? You'll play platinum tournaments.
As I said, Paying for the game is not remotely similar to "losing money". When I pay for a product I know that the money I pay is going to the retailer, the shippers and the company that made the game. World of Warcraft subscription fee goes towards the development for the game... as does the money for my copy of SC2... To say that is similar to this system (in which money goes to the guy who clobbered my ass) is wrong on so many levels.
The amount of money won or lost really is not a matter of debate... Any small amount will "Make Headlines"
There are indeed tons of sports with entry fees in every sport... but they are not put on by things such as the NFL... or the NHL or anything. They are all very small events and anything that people "pool money" together at the beginning is considered a "bet". SC2 shouldn't be about betting. Blizz owns the rights to this game and everything it does... it could and SHOULD allow this kind of thing to occur... but it should not make it itself... and DEFINITELY not until a TON of details are worked out. As it stands, good players could and would invariably work their way into the lower leagues in order to win easy money. There would be no way you could have a fair Bronze Tournament, because every time there would be a Diamond Level player there... someone logging on a Bronze account, or someone who somehow threw their games to get there.
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This would be the funnest thing ever. Constant money running through sc2 would bring an even larger crowd then their already is.
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Which is why my example buyins weren't 20$ but 1$ or 2$.
The amount of money is irrelevant. If $2 is so low that professionals won't bottomfeed (which isn't the case, they sludge through 8 hours of zotac cups for a shot at $100), you will have the second tier of pros bottomfeeding, or the semipros bottomfeeding. In a perfect world, where you can play against players EXACTLY your skill level and who aren't cheating, it's possible people wouldn't mind gambling $1 or $2 to play. The fact of the matter is, that that is an impossibility. It won't work.
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I'm not sure people are understanding what Arb hasn't said. Sure, overall, the larger better rated players will win the money. But the larger, better players aren't going to win tiny fifty cent 18 man gold tournaments. They won't even bother. It's the same thing with poker, if you go on pokerstars or fulltilt, you don't see Mike the Mouth at a 5 cent sit and go, or even a 1 dollar 2800 man tournament. The majority of people who play in those tournaments, ARENT GOOD AT POKER AT ALL, they just want to play because the money makes the game more competitive, it has more energy, excitement, emotion overall, most of the time they know they're not going to win, and are dissapointed if they lose, but overall they come back to the game with more of a fervor to be better, to be smarter, and to win. I think if that kind of attitude were brought to starcraft two, it would not only pique more interest, albeit not much, but it would make the skill level of the game skyrocket. Hacks, etc, aren't going to be much of an issue if the game is run from B.Nets server, since most hacks in SC1 were p2p, you were allowing the hacker to send information and take information from your computer with no security at all. If the carrier of the signal sent to the server is too big on bnets end, they're going to know there's a hack. If you monitor your bandwidth use on starcraft 2, there's a basic constant baudrate that flows through, no matter what's happening. Just my two cents.
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As long as I can play cross realm with friends and chat without being nickel and dimed for it (ie microtransactions to "unlock" aspects of online play that used to be free) I could care less how blizzard monetizes tournaments.
I think your ideas FA are very legitimate and well put. I wouldn't mind seeing this sort of thing on bnet so long as there were fun free stuff included for those of us that don't view our gaming experience as something to gamble money on.
And it is gambling, where the connection of gambling with games of chance got made I haven't the foggiest, chance and gambling have nothing in common.
Betting on the outcome of an event = gambling, regardless of the chance or skill level involved.
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Haha this is an awesome idea.
But online gambling is illegal in US, so would be interesting to see whether this is counted as "gambling" or not. It is, after all, a game of skill - but so is poker.
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On June 18 2010 10:53 Kaal wrote:
I'm not sure people are understanding what Arb hasn't said. Sure, overall, the larger better rated players will win the money. But the larger, better players aren't going to win tiny fifty cent 18 man gold tournaments. They won't even bother. It's the same thing with poker, if you go on pokerstars or fulltilt, you don't see Mike the Mouth at a 5 cent sit and go, or even a 1 dollar 2800 man tournament. The majority of people who play in those tournaments, ARENT GOOD AT POKER AT ALL, they just want to play because the money makes the game more competitive, it has more energy, excitement, emotion overall, most of the time they know they're not going to win, and are dissapointed if they lose, but overall they come back to the game with more of a fervor to be better, to be smarter, and to win. I think if that kind of attitude were brought to starcraft two, it would not only pique more interest, albeit not much, but it would make the skill level of the game skyrocket. Hacks, etc, aren't going to be much of an issue if the game is run from B.Nets server, since most hacks in SC1 were p2p, you were allowing the hacker to send information and take information from your computer with no security at all. If the carrier of the signal sent to the server is too big on bnets end, they're going to know there's a hack. If you monitor your bandwidth use on starcraft 2, there's a basic constant baudrate that flows through, no matter what's happening. Just my two cents.
I think this is a bad argument.
Fish play poker because they DON'T KNOW that they are going to be losing money in the long run. They think they are purely gambling and want that big score. Fish play poker because they believe it is entirely luck and there is only a marginal aspect of skill and they always have a chance.
Yes, the better players aren't going to be playing low stakes but what you have is a legion of TwoPlusTwo.com posters grinding out the micro stakes stealing all the money from the fish so they can donate it to low stakes players when they move up and so on. The fish keep playing because they think they have a run of bad luck.
Casual gamers know there are people that play video games all day and aren't playing for competition, they are playing for fun. They are not stupid enough to gamble for something they know they are not going to win at, and the one's that do will quickly learn their lesson.
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There are other fundamental problems of abusing the system as well. It would be impossible to regulate and governments will be all over it. Such a system would take ages to implement. Sorry, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. You could ban the players from the said countries where it isn't legal. Surely they will find ways around it. You still face a big problem in government intervention and regulation. Hackers would have huge incentive to crack such a thing as well.
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On June 18 2010 10:53 Kaal wrote:
I'm not sure people are understanding what Arb hasn't said. Sure, overall, the larger better rated players will win the money. But the larger, better players aren't going to win tiny fifty cent 18 man gold tournaments. They won't even bother. It's the same thing with poker, if you go on pokerstars or fulltilt, you don't see Mike the Mouth at a 5 cent sit and go, or even a 1 dollar 2800 man tournament. The majority of people who play in those tournaments, ARENT GOOD AT POKER AT ALL, they just want to play because the money makes the game more competitive, it has more energy, excitement, emotion overall, most of the time they know they're not going to win, and are dissapointed if they lose, but overall they come back to the game with more of a fervor to be better, to be smarter, and to win. I think if that kind of attitude were brought to starcraft two, it would not only pique more interest, albeit not much, but it would make the skill level of the game skyrocket. Hacks, etc, aren't going to be much of an issue if the game is run from B.Nets server, since most hacks in SC1 were p2p, you were allowing the hacker to send information and take information from your computer with no security at all. If the carrier of the signal sent to the server is too big on bnets end, they're going to know there's a hack. If you monitor your bandwidth use on starcraft 2, there's a basic constant baudrate that flows through, no matter what's happening. Just my two cents.
Its not the same as poker because there is so much more skill and less luck involved in SC2. Say I am Idra, White Ra, QXC, whoever, I play around with it for awhile find the highest level where I win 90% of tourneys and just play at that level forever and just roll in the cash. If Mike the Mouth joins a 1$ 18 person tourney i put his odds at 25% max. People at that level of poker just play so stupid it is so much luck. That is why pro players dont play in in those low level tournies. Also unless blizzard is going to be hosting some like 200 dollar buy in the Idras of the world are going to be play in whats there... the same 5 dollar buy in
I dont know why we are even talking about this... It will never happen just for legal reason
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My first thought is that because of the nature of the pay-to-win tourney model, even if, say, United States laws rule that this sort of setup is not gambling, the ESRB might not agree. I doubt Blizzard would run the risk of having the parent-police ESRB jacking up their rating to AO just to make some money off of SnG's.
My second thought: the only real way to equalize the playing field is to hold tourneys at different money levels ($1, $5, $20). If you provide the same prize for winning a bronze-level tourney as you would for winning a plat-level tourney, then the system could be abused by creating new accounts. Given a sufficiently difficult bracket, it becomes a much better idea to shell out $60 for a new account if it increases your prospects of winning exponentially. The only way to protect the lesser players is to make playing against them unprofitable (or have less expected value).
My final thought is: my friend in law school agrees that putting money on the outcome of a game (be it a game of skill or chance) is gambling. Period. The US probably won't like that as a result.
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FA already acknowledged the different buy-ins. It is gambling and in many places it would get shutdown without going through the proper process, i.e. gaming commissions and the like.
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Oh. another thing. The problem is, this kind of thing might not be entirely legal in the US of A, so I think Blizzard, being an american company, might choose to forgo any thought at this kind of thing.
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On June 18 2010 10:42 FrozenArbiter wrote:
This sounds ok as well, but then they don't make any money from it :<
Assuming you mean Blizzard - they also wouldn't have to put as much money into the infrastructure, secure exchange of money, and troubleshooting billing issues. I edited my post to reflect that I'm all for buy-in tournaments, just as long as they're not automated like you described, and not on such a huge scale.
Automated tournaments would be cool too, I just feel they need a different incentive.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On June 18 2010 11:03 Kaal wrote:
Oh. another thing. The problem is, this kind of thing might not be entirely legal in the US of A, so I think Blizzard, being an american company, might choose to forgo any thought at this kind of thing.
We'd have to find out how other games do it then, I can't imagine there aren't any pay-to-play chess tournaments or MTG tournaments around.
I think fantasy sports were written out of the ban specifically because they argued it was a game of skill - we'll see, I don't really know enough about the legality of it all.
My final thought is: my friend in law school agrees that putting money on the outcome of a game (be it a game of skill or chance) is gambling. Period. The US probably won't like that as a result.
Maybe I'm naive, but shouldn't there be a distinction between paying to play and actively betting on a game?
I.E If I play a bet-game vs someone for 50$, then I'd consider it gambling.
If I pay 50$ to play at a LAN tournament, 40$ of that money going to the prize pool and the rest to the organizer, I don't consider that gambling.
Would it legally be gambling? How does it work for all the countless LAN events/small tournaments that charge for this, are they simply too small for anyone to care about?
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