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Infusing Cash into Starcraft 2 - Page 5

Forum Index > SC2 General
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jcroisdale
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States1543 Posts
December 14 2010 08:14 GMT
#81
The fish know who they are it wont work. I can tell myself i' ll never win a tourny in SC2 because less variance for me to get lucky and the skill level is more defined.
"I think bringing a toddler to a movie theater is a terrible idea. They are too young to understand what is happening it would be like giving your toddler acid. Bad idea." - Sinensis
mnck
Profile Joined April 2010
Denmark1518 Posts
December 14 2010 08:17 GMT
#82
I think Hot_Bid explained why buy-in tournaments wouldn't work.

What incentive do players with a low chance of winning have to play in a buy-in tournament over a free to play tournament? Not a whole lot I would say. Money would be better spent on offline events such as MLG etc.

I've paid for myself to go to a tournament with some of the best names in Europe, but I went because it was an offline event and I had the chance to meet with the best players and play against them live, not over the internet, this was the incentive to me. This tournament offered something which an online tournament never can, the chance to meet with some of the best players around.
Sure I met MorroW in first round and lost 2-0 in a Bo3, but it was worth it to me because I had the chance to sit behind Madfrog or Socke to watch them play, which was such a nice experience.

If it had been a buy-in tournament I would probably get crushed by MorroW in 2nd or 3rd round and it wouldn't have been any different than joining a CraftCup where it's easy to get to like round 3-4 and meet some of the best players like Dimaga, just to get crushed.

I would never join a buy-in online tournament, but I would join any buy-in offline event I could attend, because they're so different than online tournaments. I've been to three offline tournaments, all of them made me a much better player, but I have yet to win anything, but I don't mind, as long as it's fun and a learning experience. Buy-in online tournaments wouldn't be anything different than a regular free-to-join CraftCup. So why bother paying?

@Munck
klauz619
Profile Joined July 2010
453 Posts
December 14 2010 08:31 GMT
#83
Poker has almost no skill requirements though, people are even allowed to wear masks so it's a glorified guessing game.

Now as for the actual topic, making 50-200$ a day just smashing lesser skilled players in smaller tourneys is surprisingly good money when you add in sponsorship and major tournaments.
njfail
Profile Joined October 2010
United States127 Posts
December 14 2010 08:34 GMT
#84
I have to say, rather than having it as:
"Pay me $10 and I'll put some of that toward the tournament"

I think it should be:
"Pay me $1 and we'll work hard with sponsors to get the rest, even if I have to start skipping lunch, because I love sc2 and I'm devoted to my community"

I have a feeling that if you go with #1, sc2 tournies would become a 'bubble'.
Everyone would be trying to host tournies, to earn themselves a quick buck from the rake in.
The quality of tournaments would degrade as more and more people host tournaments with small buy-ins, until eventually you start to find scammers, taking money then not making the payouts.

You wouldn't google poker and then go the page 10536 and pick one of those sites to play on...you would probably play on one of the bigger sites like pokerstars.com or fulltilt.com, like you mentioned.

[meat of story]
Which brings me to my breath taking conclusion...
Pokerstars.com doesn't make money from the people who play .10 cent tables
(i know, cus I'm the king of $0.10 cent buy-in 360 player hold 'em )
They make money from people who think they're big shots and play in the large tournaments.

So, in my opinion, charging buy-ins like $10, $20, etc is how you want to do it, because you want to make money from your hard work with amateur tournaments. But I guess what I'm trying to say, is you shouldn't be trying to make money off of the 'every day' starcraft player by trying to convince them they have a chance because its a small time tournament.

I don't mean to shamelessly plug this in, but as a reference, at njfail.com, we're working on ways to reward the crappy players that have no chance to win in our tournaments, because there HAS to be people who lose in round 1, or else it wouldn't be a tournament!

So we developed a system where players get "+10 points" for each round of a tournament they play in, +3ish points for posting on the forums, and +10ish points for casting replays for us. There are also 'achievements', where if you do -such and such a thing- in a game, or do -such an such a build- you get +xx points. The largest point holders are rewarded directly, and we hold 'giveaways', where you get 1 ticket for every 10 points you have.
So even if you don't have a chance to win the entire tournament, you still have a reason to play in them.

And the tournaments are free to play in :\

Basically... I think we should keep the money out of it...
Although it boosts competition, it also prevents the average player from getting involved.
LittLeD
Profile Joined May 2010
Sweden7973 Posts
December 14 2010 08:34 GMT
#85
Give it a year and we'll have more little tournaments each weak than visable stars in the sky.

Let it grow, and the cash will follow
☆Grubby ☆| Tod|DeMusliM|ThorZaiN|SaSe|Moon|Mana| ☆HerO ☆
JeanLuc
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada377 Posts
December 14 2010 08:38 GMT
#86
Chess is a game that is closer to starcraft than poker, in that luck is less of a factor and the grandmaster will always beat the noob (whereas in poker, the noob can be encouraged because what he lacks in skill he can sometimes make up for in luck)

Chess is also a game where there are a ton of buy in tournaments!! The way they motivate less skilled players to play in tournaments is by having different sections. This is the way a chess touranment is usually organized

: 10 buy in for all players

OPEN SECTION (any one can enter this section)
Prize pay outs to 1st, 2nd, 3rd

2000 SECTION (players with ratings up to, but not surpassing, 2000 rating can play here)
Seprate prize pay outs for this section, slightly less than the OPEN division

1800 SECTION (players with ratings up to, but not surpassing 1800 can play here)

Separate prize payouts

1600 SECTION (players with ratings up to, but not surpassing 1600 can play here)

Separate prize payouts

UNRATED SECTION (for players with little to no tournament experience)

Smallest cut of prize payout

The thing that makes this work is that chess has an accurate and universal rating system that is effected by every tournament a player enters. Sandbagging does not happen often because (a) prize payouts are smaller for the weaker sections (b) Even if someone sandbags when they win a tournament in the lower section it will push their rating back up forcing them to play higher next time (c) most players are in it mostly for the love of the game, though a little prize money makes for excitement and incentive

In this format weaker players play against competition suited to them, but if they wish they can go up against the stronger players And masters/grandmasters play in a section exclusive to them.
the only thing stopping this from happening for starcraft is the lack of an accurate ELO rating system.
If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth-- you don't deserve to wear that uniform
vOdToasT
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Sweden2870 Posts
December 14 2010 08:42 GMT
#87
On December 14 2010 17:10 arterian wrote:
probably been posted but

poker isn't really the best example, anyone can win in poker with luck


In poker you can always go blind all in and hope for the best.






Kind of like in SC2.
If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid* (*Or: You are stupid for losing to it, and gotta git gud)
Ghad
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Norway2551 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-14 09:00:31
December 14 2010 08:42 GMT
#88
I think the idea is fundamentally sound, but there is a huge catch 22 here.

If there are not enough tournaments going on then the chance for fish to ever win anything will be too low, so they wont play because they don't want to just be eaten by top tier players.
forgottendreams: One underage girl, two drunk guys, one gogo dancer and starcraft 2. Apparently just another day in Europe.
klauz619
Profile Joined July 2010
453 Posts
December 14 2010 08:52 GMT
#89
On December 14 2010 17:42 vOdToasT wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 14 2010 17:10 arterian wrote:
probably been posted but

poker isn't really the best example, anyone can win in poker with luck


In poker you can always go blind all in and hope for the best.






Kind of like in SC2.


Poker doesn't have micro though, just RNG.
sCuMBaG
Profile Joined August 2006
United Kingdom1144 Posts
December 14 2010 08:57 GMT
#90
Starcraft
- headsup and
- 6man SNG

gogogo!!
NotSupporting
Profile Joined February 2008
Sweden1998 Posts
December 14 2010 08:58 GMT
#91
I have been playing both Starcraft and Poker for quite some time and I can tell you that this concept will not work out like it does in poker. The reason the poker economy can stay healthy year after year is the luck factor. When "fish" lose in poker they will automatically blame their bad luck, in fact we are as humans programmed to do this in order to deal with our problems - we find an external thing we can blame. On the contrary when a "fish" wins a big pot he automatically believes it was due to his superior skill and thinking. What this ends up meaning is that the "fish" will keep putting in money into the poker economy without ever realizing that he/she is not good enough to play poker.

This does not work in SC2 because it's more or less completely a skill game (don't get me wrong, poker is as well but not to the same extent). There will be no "fish" in this tournament system because bad people realize that they are bad and therefore they will not put in any money.
jtw1n
Profile Joined September 2010
United States18 Posts
December 14 2010 09:02 GMT
#92
I think there are a few things a lot of people seem to be missing when comparing online poker and sc2 cash tourneys. First online poker is technically illegal across most of the US and these companies get away with it by registering their domains outside the boundaries of nations where its an issue. SC2 would be harder to run like this but very easy to just have online site registered on some island nation which is loose about their IP rights to handle the money distribution for said tourneys and blizzard couldn't touch it. I also think it would be interesting to split tourneys by point/skill levels rather then level of buy in but there would be no way to limit smurf accounts or people who intentionally make their account appear worse than they are. I would definitely be into the idea of money buy in tourneys if I knew I would be playing against similarly skilled players.
Do or do not. There is no try
BritishBeef
Profile Joined November 2010
United Kingdom372 Posts
December 14 2010 09:12 GMT
#93
On December 14 2010 17:31 klauz619 wrote:
Poker has almost no skill requirements though, people are even allowed to wear masks so it's a glorified guessing game.

Now as for the actual topic, making 50-200$ a day just smashing lesser skilled players in smaller tourneys is surprisingly good money when you add in sponsorship and major tournaments.



Well sorry to derail slightly but i think your comments about poker being a "glorified guessing game" is STUPID why do you practically always see the same faces at the final table if its such a guessing game?? Well following your logic damn they just must be lucky everytime!!! yeah .. now how stupid does that sound.. Sorry but i find it absurd when people can't see skill in other things they are not involved in... im not a poker player but im certainly not deluded enough to say a comment like yours.

On topic:

Well i don't know if i would call it a silly idea but me personally i wouldn't pay im all for people trying out in tournaments but i would have a sore pocket.
Triss_Teh
Profile Joined November 2010
United States32 Posts
December 14 2010 09:12 GMT
#94
I don't know if anyone's commented on this but your poll has statistical flaws. One, it shows the current result of the poll before one takes part in the poll, which could influence the opinion of the person taking the poll. And two, you make an opinionated argument for $10 smaller tournaments which influence one's own opinion before taking the poll. And third, the poll is not a representative random sample of SC2 players. Randomness is not accounted for, which could skew the results in some unknown way.
"Starcraft at it's essence is knowing exactly what your opponent is doing and properly reacting to that information." - muck fuffin
ParasitJonte
Profile Joined September 2004
Sweden1768 Posts
December 14 2010 09:16 GMT
#95
This post earns my reward for changing my mind today. I never thought about it like that before.
Hello=)
ultramafia
Profile Joined August 2010
221 Posts
December 14 2010 09:37 GMT
#96
I do think the same ideas that poker employs could be what takes sc2 to the next level of esports. However i believe the major set backs are 1) blizz tourny policies, 2) amount of players. I know there are a ton of sc2 players but the simple reality is the majority of them are in the lower leagues and i don't see those players entering tournaments (however this may be solved by your tiered tournament idea).

I have a friend who is a professional poker player who has earned over 3 million in earnings. Several of the guys he lives with in vegas used to play starcraft professionally. They switched to poker for the same reasons you talk about. He has earned over 3 million dollars and less than 2 million of that is from live tournaments. And he would never consider playing a tournament with a prize pool of less than 10,000 so the natural effect you talk about is exactly what happened to him.

I think you aren't considering the idea that starcraft2 skill is much harder to gauge than poker. Like you said beating up on your friends is probably enough to make some poker players think, "I can do this and make some cash." However how many of your gold ranked buddies truly believe they can compete in a tournament and earn cash. Its a perception that could be changed but will take a lot of effort from players and tournament organizers.

Just to add my two cents on what can be done i think a gamebattles type site that allows players to sign up and register for small tournaments on demand would really help. I know for me specifically i don't sign up for tournaments knowing they are days in advance and i just don't want to commit to something that like you said, i have a tiny chance of winning $50. If i could log in and pay $5 to instantly enter a 16 person tournament with a payout of $75 i'd do it constantly. And also just one more point but if IdrA, Huk, ret, inc, etc, etc could log on and enter a 16 person tournament with $100 buyin and $1000 dollar buyout maybe they'd do it?

I don't know if this type of business/website would be possible but i'd love to be a part of it. I definitely have friends that could be a major help if its something thats doable.
毒爆虫 | CJ Entus fight
Magulina
Profile Joined May 2010
Sweden152 Posts
December 14 2010 09:59 GMT
#97
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)


That is a very good idea, it would definately motivate people to play again if they won a small sum every now and then
Doso
Profile Joined March 2008
Germany769 Posts
December 14 2010 10:04 GMT
#98
Buy-In Tournaments just don't work in eSports. They have been tried often, and in most cases they failed miserably.
Perscienter
Profile Joined June 2010
957 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-14 10:09:59
December 14 2010 10:08 GMT
#99
Human psychology is the reason why there is so much money involved in poker. It's just a giant pyramid game living of the money of people who are tricked by advertising, deception and variance. I don't see how we could achieve a similar situation in sc2. Then there are also problems with hacking, while poker software is by design already maphack-proof.

There is also much more money involved in poker than in chess. That's the reason why many chess players switched.

edit: Human beings are weird.
Novice
Profile Joined May 2010
United States115 Posts
December 14 2010 10:47 GMT
#100
So i've read most of the posts since I posted earlier and I understand where everyone's coming from. Now I know someone who tried to run a $10 buy in tournament that failed miserably. The basic point of this thread makes sense. However at its current state it won't work.

What needs to happen is that people need to host more of these smaller tournaments. Whoever made this thread, if you want more cash flowing into SC2, PLEASE start a tournament! I've hosted one myself, and am currently working on setting up a LAN event in San Francisco. The more small tournaments that we have, the more sponsors will recognize this community and join in.

However the problem that we have right now, compared to S. Korea which has a flourishing Starcraft scene and a real Esports where thousands of people watch them play, is that our community in NA is not big enough! If we have more online tournaments, and most importantly MORE LAN EVENTS, people will hear about Starcraft and check out a LAN event or watch a tournament online. They'll see the game and they some will think its dumb, and some will love it and start playing. Not everyone will think that they can go pro, or even want to try. But 1% of the population will want to at least try, and if our population or community of SC players continues to grow it will get more attention and attract more sponsors and eventually a evolve into something like Korea's SC scene.

But this will never happen until people like us host more tournaments, and more LAN events! I can't stress that enough. Expose people to the game and it will catch on. Convince your friends who've never played or heard of it to play it at your house, or find a local LAN event and convince them to come with you. They'll sit over the shoulder of one of the players and be impressed by the amount of skill involved, or if you're lucky there will be a caster and a projector for people who don't know the game to watch and get an understanding for it. That's just my opinion but let me know if you guys agree that SC2 needs too follow this path before it can get the cash inflow that you're talking about.
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