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On December 15 2010 04:58 DreamSailor wrote:
Also worth noting is the amount of time for 64 players to play, then the 32, then the 16 all the way to the winner actually takes an absurdly long time. A game can be anywhere from 8 minutes to 45 on average. You could potentially be playing a lot hours for ~200 bucks.
The whole point is most top players do that for $50... This way they would be playing for a lot more money for their time. Would you rather spend say 8 hours to get $50 or 8 hours to get $200 but it cost you $10 to enter?
Thats the idea.
Also, since SC2 is not a game of chance the rules for gambling are a lot different. This is similar to an entrace fee to getting into a bar rather than paying $10 to play poker. Laws distinguish between say paying $10 to take a spot in a poker tournament or paying $10 towards a prize pool for a baseball tournament.
The really big problem is doing this with blizzard. I have to read the EULA but that might prohibit the pay to play for a huge prize pool type tournament, although you never know...
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On December 15 2010 05:08 -Archangel- wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 01:57 UltraVires wrote:On December 14 2010 16:45 Hot_Bid wrote:
You're missing the point of why people play SC2. Sure, a small minority play with money as a motivator, but the vast majority (99%) play for fun. Most of the big names play these buy in tournaments that probably net them $10/hr (and that's if they win) because they'd be playing anyway, not because they feel it's +EV or something.
Thus, a buy-in scene is just not sustainable when the bulk of the people buying in can just play the dozens of other tournaments without buyins. The difference in experience of playing in a $10 buy in tourney vs a free-to-enter tournament is nothing to the average player. What does a buy in get you? In poker the experience of playing in a big tournament with high stakes is pretty fun. You even have a small chance to go really far if you're lucky. In SC2 for an average player paying $10 to play maybe 1, 2 Bo3s with 0% chance to cash? That just won't be worth it. Entry fees are fine when you're actually paying for an experience that nobody else can provide (MLG, etc) but for a regular online tournament, it's just not worth it. You're right that most people play SC2 just to have fun. But that's exactly the point -- monetizing SC2 with a gambling system would go a long way toward making it more of an esport and less of a "fun hobby." And it would get a lot more people playing seriously. How many people would take poker seriously if no money were involved? And how many more people would take SC2 seriously if money were involved? + Show Spoiler +High five for UM law and posting in this thread instead of studying for torts! On December 14 2010 17:00 vOdToasT wrote:
Buy in tournaments would be pretty awesome if the top 50% or top 25% got money, imo.
Let's say you have a 10$ payin with 64 people. That gives 640 dollars. You could easily pay the top 50% (the higher you placed, the more you would get, naturally) I agree with this. If only top 3 got paid, HotBid is right, almost everyone would have no chance of winning. But if top half get paid, that changes everything. I'm pretty bad, but I'd pay to enter something like this: $10 entry fee, 64 players17-32 get their $10 back 16-9 get $15 8-5 get $25 3+4 get $40 2 gets $60 1 gets $120. If you get past the first round, it's a break even proposition. One might ask why someone would pay $10 for the chance to win $120 at most in a 64 man tournament. The margins are much higher in poker tournaments. But as people have already pointed out, poker involves more luck than SC2. So it's easier to predict how well one will do in an SC 2 tournament than in a poker tournament. And since there's less risk, the reward can be correspondingly smaller. + Show Spoiler +This is a big assumption, I realize. There's still plenty of luck in tournaments based on who enters and how the brackets turn out. But SC2 def involves less risk than poker. Another key to making this work would be to set up something like Poker Stars. One reason I don't bother with free sc2 tournaments is that it's a hassle to enter, schedule, etc. If I could log on, click to pay $10, and be playing the tournament within 15 mins, like a sitngo style online poker tournament, I'd be much more likely to play. If it comes down to picking between a weekly $10 tournament and a weekly free tournament, however, HotBid is again right, a gambling system would probably fail. Chuck Norris approves of this message.
Great idea in theory however you forget paypal fees, or electronic transaction fees, the more payouts you have the more you loose to paypal fees so I think maybe top 16 or 8 payout would be more effective, because your 640 prize pool quickly becomes $600 past transactions.a top 50% payout is not viable however a top 25%/12.5% is.
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On December 15 2010 04:52 orotoss wrote:
Unfortunately, I don't see this kind of thing ever happening for Starcraft 2. Considering how many legal issues surround poker sites (especially in the US), this kind of thing would be waayyy too risky for Blizzard to do. It may be possible to do it in other countries with less stringent gambling laws, but I doubt Blizzard would even bother.
I just don't see how a video game tournament has anything to do with gambling. Unlike poker, it does not involve betting of money and is independent of random events that are out of the players' control.
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Germany150 Posts
as i said, you shouldn't cash out/in after/before every tournament, rather you should cash in, be able to paly as many tournaments you like, and cash out whenether you want, but then the cash out fee is the problem of the player.
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make b.net like pokerstars for video games IMO 
but in all seriousness, it would be awesome if there were buy-in tourneys, i wouldn't hesitate to throw my 50 or 100 bucks or whatever in to play, even if it was against some of the top players in the world. and it would motivate people to practice more and actually get better if they knew there was some money in it, and some low stakes tourneys that weren't just littered with professionals. Also, it would probably attract some seriously talented players who don't currently play SC2, simply because money will always attract the best.
also, its a great idea, but i SERIOUSLY doubt the actual viability of it. between blizzard and the anti-online gambling govt. of the united states, i highly something like that would be ever be allowed to be implemented. I mean, they are passing laws to make it harder to gamble online, why would they ever allow this and set a precedent?
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I really like this idea, and I think its an idea that everyone has had at some time or another.
Many states have strict anti-gambling laws however, so strict that this would count as gambling.
In order to do this legitimately they would have to deny service to people who live in say, Texas. Naturally its as easy as lying about which state you are from to dodge this issue when you make an account for the tournament service. The tournament service is really the big issue here. If someone is willing to invest the time to create a place where people can host their tournaments they will likely be rewarded for their effort by the players.
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On December 15 2010 05:24 AnAngryDingo wrote:make b.net like pokerstars for video games IMO but in all seriousness, it would be awesome if there were buy-in tourneys, i wouldn't hesitate to throw my 50 or 100 bucks or whatever in to play, even if it was against some of the top players in the world. and it would motivate people to practice more and actually get better if they knew there was some money in it, and some low stakes tourneys that weren't just littered with professionals. Also, it would probably attract some seriously talented players who don't currently play SC2, simply because money will always attract the best. also, its a great idea, but i SERIOUSLY doubt the actual viability of it. between blizzard and the anti-online gambling govt. of the united states, i highly something like that would be ever be allowed to be implemented. I mean, they are passing laws to make it harder to gamble online, why would they ever allow this and set a precedent?
because this isn't gambling... you aren't betting money on a game of chance. You are paying for the chance to participate in a tournament.
This is the same as: buy-in MTG tournaments, buy-in sports tournaments, buy-in etc...
This is NOT gambling, as you are not putting your money up in a game of chance that has a % chance of you getting more money back.
This IS you paying for the services offered, which give you the chance to compete based on your skills, to see if you deserve a prize, very different.
If this was considered gambling you would have A LOT less sports tournaments for money, since a lot of the smaller ones are buy-in tournaments.
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On December 15 2010 05:30 Insanious wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 05:24 AnAngryDingo wrote:make b.net like pokerstars for video games IMO but in all seriousness, it would be awesome if there were buy-in tourneys, i wouldn't hesitate to throw my 50 or 100 bucks or whatever in to play, even if it was against some of the top players in the world. and it would motivate people to practice more and actually get better if they knew there was some money in it, and some low stakes tourneys that weren't just littered with professionals. Also, it would probably attract some seriously talented players who don't currently play SC2, simply because money will always attract the best. also, its a great idea, but i SERIOUSLY doubt the actual viability of it. between blizzard and the anti-online gambling govt. of the united states, i highly something like that would be ever be allowed to be implemented. I mean, they are passing laws to make it harder to gamble online, why would they ever allow this and set a precedent? because this isn't gambling... you aren't betting money on a game of chance. You are paying for the chance to participate in a tournament. This is the same as: buy-in MTG tournaments, buy-in sports tournaments, buy-in etc... This is NOT gambling, as you are not putting your money up in a game of chance that has a % chance of you getting more money back. This IS you paying for the services offered, which give you the chance to compete based on your skills, to see if you deserve a prize, very different. If this was considered gambling you would have A LOT less sports tournaments for money, since a lot of the smaller ones are buy-in tournaments.
something tells me that our government would consider this online gambling. i think this might be more viable in a country like south korea, where starcraft is already accepted and ingrained into society.
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On December 15 2010 05:30 Insanious wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 05:24 AnAngryDingo wrote:make b.net like pokerstars for video games IMO but in all seriousness, it would be awesome if there were buy-in tourneys, i wouldn't hesitate to throw my 50 or 100 bucks or whatever in to play, even if it was against some of the top players in the world. and it would motivate people to practice more and actually get better if they knew there was some money in it, and some low stakes tourneys that weren't just littered with professionals. Also, it would probably attract some seriously talented players who don't currently play SC2, simply because money will always attract the best. also, its a great idea, but i SERIOUSLY doubt the actual viability of it. between blizzard and the anti-online gambling govt. of the united states, i highly something like that would be ever be allowed to be implemented. I mean, they are passing laws to make it harder to gamble online, why would they ever allow this and set a precedent? because this isn't gambling... you aren't betting money on a game of chance. You are paying for the chance to participate in a tournament. This is the same as: buy-in MTG tournaments, buy-in sports tournaments, buy-in etc... This is NOT gambling, as you are not putting your money up in a game of chance that has a % chance of you getting more money back. This IS you paying for the services offered, which give you the chance to compete based on your skills, to see if you deserve a prize, very different. If this was considered gambling you would have A LOT less sports tournaments for money, since a lot of the smaller ones are buy-in tournaments.
That's the best comparison yet. People enter into buy in MTG tournaments with cash prizes every week in every state, both online and off. And MTG is def more a luck based game than SC2. You shuffle a deck of cards, draw cards, etc. There's none of that in SC
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On December 15 2010 05:32 AnAngryDingo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 05:30 Insanious wrote:On December 15 2010 05:24 AnAngryDingo wrote:make b.net like pokerstars for video games IMO but in all seriousness, it would be awesome if there were buy-in tourneys, i wouldn't hesitate to throw my 50 or 100 bucks or whatever in to play, even if it was against some of the top players in the world. and it would motivate people to practice more and actually get better if they knew there was some money in it, and some low stakes tourneys that weren't just littered with professionals. Also, it would probably attract some seriously talented players who don't currently play SC2, simply because money will always attract the best. also, its a great idea, but i SERIOUSLY doubt the actual viability of it. between blizzard and the anti-online gambling govt. of the united states, i highly something like that would be ever be allowed to be implemented. I mean, they are passing laws to make it harder to gamble online, why would they ever allow this and set a precedent? because this isn't gambling... you aren't betting money on a game of chance. You are paying for the chance to participate in a tournament. This is the same as: buy-in MTG tournaments, buy-in sports tournaments, buy-in etc... This is NOT gambling, as you are not putting your money up in a game of chance that has a % chance of you getting more money back. This IS you paying for the services offered, which give you the chance to compete based on your skills, to see if you deserve a prize, very different. If this was considered gambling you would have A LOT less sports tournaments for money, since a lot of the smaller ones are buy-in tournaments. something tells me that our government would consider this online gambling. i think this might be more viable in a country like south korea, where starcraft is already accepted and ingrained into society.
If they consider video game competitions gambling, they would have to consider all other forms of sports competition gambling. In fact, sports have more elements of randomness such weather condition, player injuries, poor refereeing decisions, etc. In Sc2, players have control over everything besides spawn locations and scv pathing while building structures.
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I think this is a great idea and honestly it seems like around here we've all been very "spoiled" by being able to watch pros stream (for free) to get lessons from them (on the cheap unless its idra of course  ) and also were all allowed to atleast try to play in some of the tournys that happen occasionally but the majority are invite only or only have high tier guys in them at all. It seems like everyone wants this to be free but to have people playing high level all the dang time theres eventually gonna have to be a way to get more cash rolling around and I think the OP did a great job thinking about this similar to poker. I'd gladly pay 5 bucks every week to enter a tourny to help get this game and our community farther a long and more fat and happy ^^ Great thread Steven (and yeah there are tons of things that will slow this idea down if everyone would want to get it going but i mean comon, who the fuck is smarter than our community as a whole, i mean really? lol)
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Alright, let’s just assume some of us set up a website that runs tournaments like this, first you would need a few things in order to make it run effectively:
1) One (or more) people who simply update brackets, that is all that they would do... as soon as it is reported who wins (with replay from both players attached) then the brackets get updated. Would have to be done by hand in order to deal with complaints (so and so lied, etc...)
2) Streamers, people want the tournament experience and being streamed is part of that, not to mention everyone will want to watch the finals of the bigger prize pool games ($20 / $50 buy ins) since the finals will 99% of the time be between two named, talented players.
3) Web designer(s) who will run the website, make sure the code works correctly, and that everything is running perfectly.
Depending on the scale of amount of tournaments it will depend on how many of each roll there is... guaranteed you will need 1 bracket updater, 1 web designer, and at least 2 streamers.
Now whether you pay the streamers or not... they might get paid on a flat fee (something like stream games for us and get $100/week as long as you stream X number of games or more). People want to be casters, and well... if they can get paid to do it.
As well, the cost for the website and bandwidth, as well as having VoDs made available, etc... means there is a daily cost to running something like this.
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So then you would need to decide no number of players per tournament 64, 32, or 16? I would go with 64, just to make the prizes seem more significant but that’s just me...
64 player tournaments:
$5 buy-in: = $320/tournament
Now to decide on how much prize money? I would say $230, this gives $90 to cover: paypal costs (~$8 on $200), streamer costs (~$15), profit (~$67/tournament)
Then, what’s the prize distribution: $120/$55/$30 then $5 for places 4 – 8.
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$10 buy-in = $640/tournament
Prize Pool: $510, costs (paypal = ~$16), streamer (~$15), profit (~$99)
Then prize distribution: $275/$125/$60 then $10 for places 4- 8.
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$20 buy-in = $1,280/tournament
Prize pool: $ 1,100, costs (paypal = ~$35), streamer (~$15), profit (~$140)
Prize distribution: $650/$300/$150.
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$50 buy-in = $3,200/tournament:
Prize pool: $ 2,700, costs (paypal = ~$85), streamer (~$15), Profit (~$400)
Distribution: $1,600/$750/$350
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Then well... depends on how many tournaments you run means how much you can make, and if this can become an actual business... that you run with a few people and let it grown. Possibly hiring someone to do coding for you so that you can have: self-updating brackets, easily searchable tournament brackets, a way to be able to say paypal to the site $50 and get $50 in credits to enter tournaments to keep pay-pal fees down, etc...
For a single person... if you can run a single $50 buy-in tournament a week, that’s about minimum wage if you take $400 from the pay ins for yourself...
Obviously if this gets running for real, you can cut the profit taken per tournament down... if you run 1 tournament then it costs a lot to do so, but if you run say 500 tournaments then the cost is cut way down due to scale but ya.
This is an idea that could work, as long as its ok according to the EULA... since its not gambling there should be no problems concerning gambling laws, its just Blizzard sending you a cease and desist letter that you don’t want.
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Would take a lot more work and research to see if it’s do-able but if it is, would be an amazing opportunity for both SC2 and those involved.
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I think that the OP has some interesting points. It would definitely make StarCraft tournaments more enjoyable and more fun to participate in, because the prize-pool would be significantly higher. I would enjoy it if tournaments were using this kind of format.
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On December 15 2010 04:43 Metalwing wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 03:25 Deckkie wrote:On December 15 2010 03:18 Metalwing wrote:So, let me understand this clearly. You're proposing a new reason for creation of new people who cheese their way to tournament finals or turtle up in an island base, as if the number of people playing lame games is not enough. Joining a tournament with free signups is good. It allows casual gamers to join tournaments and play like they want to. But when people invest in something, they will do anything to win. Cheesing, turtling up in island bases, stupid allins for the sake of winning odd games will happen just more and it's just the opposite of what people want. In poker, people bluff other people, and it's always funny and enjoyable to see people getting bluffed by jack high or anything like that. But, in Starcraft, people do all sorts of lame play like Thor Drops, stupid cheeses, turtling up at island bases. I don't know about everybody, but I hate people doing this. Yes, pulling off a good cheese is good too, and people laugh at it as well. But, if cheese happens in every single game of a particular matchup (cough, TvZ, cough), it's not. I don't know about you, but neither NewDawn, nor IdrA (nor ret nor NesTea) deserved to get eliminated by the stupidest plays from lesser skilled players (yes, I really think that mvp is not nearly as good as IdrA and most of the TvZ strats are ridiculously stupid. Even if mvp is really better than IdrA, i don't think anyone would disagree with the skill comparison between NewDawn and bitbybit or NesTea and rain). I just want to see what people think about this: Poll: Do you really want more lame play after GSL Season 3Yes (10) 91% No (1) 9% 11 total votes Your vote: Do you really want more lame play after GSL Season 3 (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
For the second reason why i think this would be a bad idea: Because casual gaming will be ruined so hard. I don't think that really 1024 out of 1024 people who join go4sc2 cup really do it because of money. Actually I would hardly believe that even 24 out of 1024 people join that for money (particular example is particular, again). And, yes. I'm one in a thousand. You can easily say that "Yeah but we can make tournaments skill level restricted.". I neither know that you already know this, nor give a fuck: Some people are so underrated or purposefully lose in the ladder for the sake of staying in lower leagues. And those people will chobostomp the people who is really silver level and wants to join a tourney and have fun with people of the same skill as him. Your idea is the e-sports equivalent of making basketball courts in the streets pay to play. Poll: Would you pay to play at a basketball court?Yes (12) 86% No (2) 14% 14 total votes Your vote: Would you pay to play at a basketball court? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
So much anger. i dont how this is the same as paying to play basketball. Betting on basketball games is something that happens (same thing as this will do). And its stupid to say that players shouldnt use particular strats like cheesing. Cheesing helps the game develop and it is, should, and always will be a part of the game! Who is talking about 1- Cheese is evil and it should be punished? What I mean is, cheese would not be a problem if it wasn't the most viable strat in some matchups or races and easily punishable for others. 2- Betting on basketball games? I was actually talking about paying for a basketball court for playing it. Let me be more clear. You pay 10 bucks to the owner of a basketball court in the street, you play 1 hour, after that 1 hour finishes, you leave. Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 03:29 xOff wrote:
@metal I have actually bet on basketball games all the time :D
I understand where you're coming from, but its a whole new experience playing with risk as opposed to playing with nothing on the line. You are correct when you said there will be mass cheesing, but even in GSL there is mass cheesing with money on the line. Exactly, this is what I'm saying. Even when the money on the line is not their very own money, people cheese this hard. If it's also their own money, people would cheese more.
If u dont like cheese u really shouldnt play sc imo.
and why would u talk about paying for a basketball court??
to get this straigth u do pay for the basketball court and some people do bet on playing the game. just as the OP said. If u mean paying for the court in the sence that you need to pay 10 dollar buy in and there is only 9 dollar going in to the price pool ... dude ... go plat some poker.
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Buy-ins would only work if there was a chance for every participant to win.
As long as nothing stops a top 200 player from participating in a buy-in tournament, there is no point in hosting one. Even in an 8-man tourney, it makes more sense for a top player to play in low buy-in tourneys - its better to have a 80% chance to win a 10$ buy-in tourney, then to have a 12% chance to win a 25$ buy-in tourney.
Buy-in would work (For me) if there were, say, a tourney website that ran a thousand 8-man tourneys at the same time, with players being randomly assigned to them. Unfortunately, it would still mean that anyone below diamond would have no hope of winning - and I can't see you getting enough people willing to pitch in 10$, or even 5$ to get the system to be so popular that top players wouldn't collect 95% of the prizes.
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Didnt Jinro write a great topic about this a while back?
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I've been thinking about bringing this up for a while, but you did, so now I don't have to XD...
I think this is actually a great idea...
Imagine if the GSL Open had a registration fee... The prize pool would be huge! [Bigger than it is now XD]
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I think a lot of you a missing one of the main points of the post. The ideal situation would be that, as a mid-diamond player, you're not going to be entering at 5$ buy-in tourney against Huk/Idra, because they will be playing $25 dollar buy-in tourneys with 5 times the prize pool. Thus you actually have a chance of getting far in the tourney rather than playing 1/2 rounds and getting knocked out by someone who far out skills you.
Huk/Idra won't want to steamroll 5$ buy-ins if there's a far bigger prize at some other tourney during the same time. In theory they could, but it would just be a waste of their time.
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I dont think that many players will participate if like top 8+ only gets payed out
Thats what i like about poker gettin ur money back in the early beginning of a tournament
And also why not doing stuff like 1v1 with money etc...
And everywhere i would add cents tournaments/games ,cuz ppl ALWAYS play different if theres money on the line even if its just a few cents and it makes more fun
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The thing is, this system can only be enforced by blizzard themselves.
Sit n Go structures work well with poker because there is a higher 'luck' factor involved. Meaning, no matter how good you are at poker, the worst player in the world can still beat you on occasion.
In Starcraft, its 90% skill. If 10 people continuously sign up for a tournament, 2 people will consistently win. Those other 8, would need to become legitimate degenerates for this to work. On paper, this would work out for a little while, until people realized they are pretty much just donating, and they never get the opportunity to win. That's why I said this could only work with the assistance of Blizzard.
Blizzard would have to enforce the hidden MMR to be in place, with a game minimum. People with 100+ games are allowed to enter Sit n Gos and they will automatically matched up against people within +-100 points of them, for example. So, people would more or less be winning a little over 50% of the time.
So, if you're interested in making this idea work, you need to get blizzard going on it.
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EPT
