Background: So, I was bored over lunch at work, so I decided to go watch Mvp's games yesterday in Code S. For some reason it struck me: I don't really get to see Mvp play as much as a lot of other players, but he's made such a fudge ton of money from SC2. Then it hit me: how much do players earn for each tournament game that they play?
Reason Why This is Interesting: Earnings are important, obvs. The best players win the most money, and are regarded as the most successful players.However, not all players participate in the same amount of tournaments. Some just do GSL forever, some live on an airplane to grab money from foreign economies (I'm looking at you MC >.> ), some only join tournies when they have free time (because they study). Having to travel and play so many games to earn money takes its toll, and being a pro is hard work, so being efficient at earning money from tournaments is a good indicator of success, and in some ways skill (less games needed to win more money, more tournie wins than tournies not won, etc).
Tools: 1. http://sc2earnings.com/ - the best site for earning data, as far as I know 2. TLPD - best place to look at player records! 3. Notepad - to list down the numbers. I love notepad 4. Calculator - I'm no math whiz
Variables: 1. Earnings - how much a player has earned in SC2 so far, from tournament wins and payouts 2. Games Played - Wins + Losses, both internationally and in Korea
Rationale: Why Games Played and not Wins - I decided to use games played instead of only wins because losses are important to consider. Losses have an "opportunity cost" in a way, because each loss results in 0 earnings instead of potentially more earnings from advancing further in the tournament. Seriously though this should be obvious T_T
Limitations: 1. As far as I know, sc2earnings does not include current tournaments where players haven't finalized their tournament position. So players in GSL Season 4 Ro8 haven't had the potential earnings from this round added to their totals. 2. I can only use TLPD data. Probably the most complete data but I'm not sure how 'correct' this would be for my purposes. 3. Team League games: TLPD includes team league games. Unfortunately it's too cumbersome to have to look through every single game played by these players to filter out team league games. The reason this should be done if possible follows 4. Team League earnings: Some of these players have won money through team leagues, but it's impossible to know how teams split the winnings, if at all. 5. I'm only doing the Top 10 players + interesting players, because there is a huge dropoff after the Top 10.
Formula: Earnings Per Game = Earnings / Games Played. Duh.
========== Results: ==========
The Original Top 10
The New Top 10 Based on Earnings Per Game Drop outs: Stephano, Polt
================ Observations!! ================
Well shit that was a surprise. I guess GSL 1 paid out a ton. $87,500 to be exact. Fruitdealer won 86% of his money in it. Despite not making anything since IEM New York, Fruitdealer was 11th in all time earnings, and because of the tiny amount of games he played, ends up being the most efficient earner of SC2 so far, and likely ever.
Traveling pays if you've got the stamina The most traveled Koreans ended up earning more, but at the cost of time and energy. Out of MMA, MC, DRG, PuMa and MKP, arguably the most traveled Korean champs, only MMA ended up with a positive rank movement (+1). This is likely because of his huge GSL title money. Everyone else dropped in places or stayed even. MC dropped 4 places and MKP 3, both fan favorites traveling the most out of the GSL players. I don't even know how many places Polt drops had I computed the results for everyone.
The GSL title makes for an efficient full time job. If you can win it. In total earnings, Stephano stands as the lone foreigner and non-GSL player. MKP, despite being forever Kong in GSL, still earns a lot because of foreign money. However, in Earnings Per Game, the top 7 players are all GSL champs. Curiously, the order in which they won appears similar to the order in our ranking! This is because the GSL has been trying to have better earning parity among its contestants, which results in less prize money for the winner. Still, Seed jumps a humongous 25 places because of his recent win, and we've already talked about Fruitdealer. The only GSL tournament winner that lags far behind is Polt, but we all know the Super Tournament wasn't a real GSL :p
Nestea and Mvp, by far the most efficient players still active This was expected. They focus on the GSL, have 3 and 4 titles respectively, and stay in Code S most of the time. Despite their comparative slumps, both players still outearn the next active player (MMA, who is also arguably in a slump) by $200/game. Even with a lot of up and comers wrestling for the throne of Best Player or Best P/Z/T Player, it will take someone truly special to out earn these two legends, both in Total Earnings and Earnings Per Game. Just to illustrate how far ahead they are, Nestea needs to play 765 games and not earn a single penny for him to drop down to MKP's current earning efficiency level. MKP could sweep 10 straight GSL titles (18-0 x 10) and still not come close to Mvp's current earning efficiency. That's a lot of money for a lot less work.
We all love overanalyzing everything Seriously. This includes you if you read this far into this pointless thread :p
Moving Forward: I hope sc2earnings will use Earnings Per Game. It's an interesting measure of player success and is easy to solve for. Also, I hope that nothing happened at my office while I was doing this and neglecting my work, because I'm going on vacation tomorrow. ^^
Any suggestions to make the data better, just voice 'em out. Or do it yourself because I should be working >.>
TL;DR: Mvp and Nestea are the most efficient active players in SC2 in making money, but no one will ever catch up to the LEGENDARY FRUITDEALER.
==== EDIT!! ====
Some people have suggested doing this for more players, with more relevant info. It will take a while but here is a preview of what I'll do if I'm bored enough:
Well, sc2earnings is not always correct (they could forget about X dollars for Y place; Y >=6 at Z tournament), so a 'worst list' would not be as reliable as this.
On September 27 2012 16:03 canikizu wrote: What about the worst? We need a list of that too.
Random B-team player #36?
I'd be on that worst earners list too; I've never earned a single dollar playing this damn game >.>
I guess if you did lowest amount earned with a minimum game amount of like 100 or something. idk what a good number would be but that would be the way to go about it in my opinion because otherwise you'd just get a 5 thousand way tie of $0 from people who have like 3 games played
I don't think you can actually say something like this as "efficient"
Just because Fruitdealer has a high, it's mostly because he played so few games in GSL for over a year because he kept falling out so early on every time.
On September 27 2012 16:24 Hiea wrote: I don't think you can actually say something like this as "efficient"
Just because Fruitdealer has a high, it's mostly because he played so few games in GSL for over a year because he kept falling out so early on every time.
That's why the result is hilarious. Overanalyzing numbers like this is all just for silly fun (or as I mentioned I was bored at work) ^_^
On September 27 2012 16:24 Fionn wrote: Where's Polt/Stephano in the Earnings Per Game standings? I would like a Top 50. Cool idea.
You just want Polt in there somehow >.>
I can probably do Top 50 next week. Gonna be away on vacation this weekend.
So silly to keep fruitdealer on these lists, Sure he made bank, sure he won GSL. BUT HE DOESNT PLAY ANYMORE common remove retired players from these things. Im sure you put a lot of effort into this but common....
On September 27 2012 16:28 MapleFractal wrote: So silly to keep fruitdealer on these lists, Sure he made bank, sure he won GSL. BUT HE DOESNT PLAY ANYMORE common remove retired players from these things. Im sure you put a lot of effort into this but common....
It took about 15 minutes >.>
I think it's interesting to keep him there. Despite losing so often and not doing anything after season 1, he still made quite a bit of money and didn't have to work for it much (which is great since he was probably drunk a lot apparently). He's just there for reference and because I find it funny.
On September 27 2012 16:24 Hiea wrote: I don't think you can actually say something like this as "efficient"
Just because Fruitdealer has a high, it's mostly because he played so few games in GSL for over a year because he kept falling out so early on every time.
That's why the result is hilarious. Overanalyzing numbers like this is all just for silly fun (or as I mentioned I was bored at work) ^_^
On September 27 2012 16:24 Hiea wrote: I don't think you can actually say something like this as "efficient"
Just because Fruitdealer has a high, it's mostly because he played so few games in GSL for over a year because he kept falling out so early on every time.
That's why the result is hilarious. Overanalyzing numbers like this is all just for silly fun (or as I mentioned I was bored at work) ^_^
On September 27 2012 16:24 Fionn wrote: Where's Polt/Stephano in the Earnings Per Game standings? I would like a Top 50. Cool idea.
You just want Polt in there somehow >.>
I can probably do Top 50 next week. Gonna be away on vacation this weekend.
I think you should try and do a list of earnings per day
Take the date of their first earning till the most recent one and do the math.
Earnings per tournament is probably a good one too.
I guess I could do it little by little every time I'm bored at work
Interesting concept. Judging from Nestea's earning per game, one can say that Nestea either makes it real far in a tournament or just gets knocked out of a tournament really early.
Is there any way to quickly mine the games played and tournaments joined data from TLPD or do I have to do it one by one? T_T
Edit: I assume "Leagues played" in TLPD can be used for tournaments joined?
Edit2: Probably not, because it includes Up/Downs and Code A. Or should those count as separate tournaments from Code S? Since a Code S seed is technically assured prize money for next season.
On September 27 2012 16:58 Maxilicious wrote: Interesting concept. Judging from Nestea's earning per game, one can say that Nestea either makes it real far in a tournament or just gets knocked out of a tournament really early.
Not really it's just because Nestea doesn't play in very many tournaments.
On September 27 2012 16:28 MapleFractal wrote: So silly to keep fruitdealer on these lists, Sure he made bank, sure he won GSL. BUT HE DOESNT PLAY ANYMORE common remove retired players from these things. Im sure you put a lot of effort into this but common....
It took about 15 minutes >.>
I think it's interesting to keep him there. Despite losing so often and not doing anything after season 1, he still made quite a bit of money and didn't have to work for it much (which is great since he was probably drunk a lot apparently). He's just there for reference and because I find it funny.
Maybe a better idea is to set a certain threshold of games played, i.e., only include players with 200+ games played.
On September 27 2012 16:28 MapleFractal wrote: So silly to keep fruitdealer on these lists, Sure he made bank, sure he won GSL. BUT HE DOESNT PLAY ANYMORE common remove retired players from these things. Im sure you put a lot of effort into this but common....
It took about 15 minutes >.>
I think it's interesting to keep him there. Despite losing so often and not doing anything after season 1, he still made quite a bit of money and didn't have to work for it much (which is great since he was probably drunk a lot apparently). He's just there for reference and because I find it funny.
Maybe a better idea is to set a certain threshold of games played, i.e., only include players with 200+ games played.
Then you end up with everyone who's ever made it out of the MLG open bracket on your list.
On September 27 2012 16:28 MapleFractal wrote: So silly to keep fruitdealer on these lists, Sure he made bank, sure he won GSL. BUT HE DOESNT PLAY ANYMORE common remove retired players from these things. Im sure you put a lot of effort into this but common....
It took about 15 minutes >.>
I think it's interesting to keep him there. Despite losing so often and not doing anything after season 1, he still made quite a bit of money and didn't have to work for it much (which is great since he was probably drunk a lot apparently). He's just there for reference and because I find it funny.
Maybe a better idea is to set a certain threshold of games played, i.e., only include players with 200+ games played.
Then you end up with everyone who's ever made it out of the MLG open bracket on your list.
No it would include most of established pros in the scene. People who just makes it out of some qualifiers without actually winning stuff won't make it to the list.
The only thing that should matters is the total amount of earnings. Progamers will almost always do worse when they play a high frequency of games. Travelling time, lack of practice, revealing of strats, stamina issues. It really depends on the preferences of the player himself, whether he wants to play a tournament with more preparation time and prize money or just many smaller-scale tournaments. This ranking is not indicative of one's achievement but it can tell us a lot on what type of tournament schedule players prefer.
Since it averages and we won't ever have a true bonjwa (at least until a year or two after LotV stabilizes), FruitDealer is probably going to continue to dominate a table like this, seeing as how he's not playing anymore lol. Players getting close to his EPG with such robust percentages are really interesting though!
It's a cool idea but I don't really like this kind of measurement because it really holds no merit in terms of accomplishment/skill. I mean, think of Leenock, who has gone from open bracket to win an MLG TWICE. I find that more impressive than someone being seeded directly into groups, winning 5 matches, and then taking down the finals because of a terrible extended series system.
On September 27 2012 22:44 Dosey wrote: It's a cool idea but I don't really like this kind of measurement because it really holds no merit in terms of accomplishment/skill. I mean, think of Leenock, who has gone from open bracket to win an MLG TWICE. I find that more impressive than someone being seeded directly into groups, winning 5 matches, and then taking down the finals because of a terrible extended series system.
Yeah it doesn't really mean that much when you really think about it. Some people get seeded, some people have to play qualifiers. Some people climb up from obscurity, some people have been playing at the top a long time. The numbers are just interesting and make sense to think about, at least. Earning so much playing so little is still a great feat. Doesn't make them best player ever, obviously
One of the big influences in earning efficiency is prize money distribution at tournaments. Some tournaments pay out for just qualifying like WCS or GSL. Other only give prize money to the highest placing finishers. Look at DreamHack Valencia, there were 64 players competing but only 4 players earned any prize money. So if you played up to the Ro8 then you could have played a lot of games which were not included in this list because no prize money resulted. Another example is the MvP Invitational. There will be 48 competitors who play 50 maps or so and yet only one player will win any prize money for their efforts.
Something to note is that in that top 10, Stephano has been a full-time pro-gamer for a lot less time than the other players, less than half the time of some! This highlights how staggeringly quickly he has managed to accumulate prize money from SC2 tournaments.
There is a lot more tournaments this year and a lot more prize money up for grabs compared to last year, and I do wonder if this trend will continue next year.
On September 27 2012 22:52 revel8 wrote: Interesting stats right there.
Not sure you can really measure 'earning efficiency' in the way that you do, if you are only using tournaments where the player manages to attain prize money. Look at DreamHack Valencia, there were 64 players competing but only 4 players earned any prize money. So if you played up to the Ro8 then you could have played a lot of games which were not included in this list because no prize money resulted. Another example is the MvP Invitational. There will be 48 competitors who play 50 maps or so and yet only one player will win any prize money for their efforts.
Something to note is that in that top 10, Stephano has been a full-time pro-gamer for a lot less time than the other players, less than half the time of some! This highlights how staggeringly quickly he has managed to accumulate prize money from SC2 tournaments.
I got the games played from TLPD, which includes tournaments where players get knocked out early and don't get any prize money. Basically the earning info is from sc2earnings and the game/tournament info is from TLPD, which includes all competitive games (online/offline, qualifiers, etc)
Stephano has played a LOT of competitive games considering how short he's been a pro and not even full time. Kinda crazy
On September 27 2012 22:44 Dosey wrote: It's a cool idea but I don't really like this kind of measurement because it really holds no merit in terms of accomplishment/skill. I mean, think of Leenock, who has gone from open bracket to win an MLG TWICE. I find that more impressive than someone being seeded directly into groups, winning 5 matches, and then taking down the finals because of a terrible extended series system.
Yeah it doesn't really mean that much when you really think about it. Some people get seeded, some people have to play qualifiers. Some people climb up from obscurity, some people have been playing at the top a long time. The numbers are just interesting and make sense to think about, at least. Earning so much playing so little is still a great feat. Doesn't make them best player ever, obviously
Yeah, it's neat. I'm just saying that it doesn't really belong on something like SC2earnings because it holds no true merit and arguments will be made that X Player isn't good because his EPG doesn't compare to Y Player even though X has earned more than Y in a shorter period. People already use ridiculous statistics to make their arguments, there's no need to add more fuel to the fire. :/
On September 27 2012 22:52 revel8 wrote: Interesting stats right there.
Not sure you can really measure 'earning efficiency' in the way that you do, if you are only using tournaments where the player manages to attain prize money. Look at DreamHack Valencia, there were 64 players competing but only 4 players earned any prize money. So if you played up to the Ro8 then you could have played a lot of games which were not included in this list because no prize money resulted. Another example is the MvP Invitational. There will be 48 competitors who play 50 maps or so and yet only one player will win any prize money for their efforts.
Something to note is that in that top 10, Stephano has been a full-time pro-gamer for a lot less time than the other players, less than half the time of some! This highlights how staggeringly quickly he has managed to accumulate prize money from SC2 tournaments.
I got the games played from TLPD, which includes tournaments where players get knocked out early and don't get any prize money. Basically the earning info is from sc2earnings and the game/tournament info is from TLPD, which includes all competitive games (online/offline, qualifiers, etc)
Stephano has played a LOT of competitive games considering how short he's been a pro and not even full time. Kinda crazy
OK, I've amended my post as it was incorrect.
If you have the time, perhaps look at Nerchio's data? He has an amazing amount of wins while still being a student. Incredible really.
Really cool post. The MVP/Nestea efficiency thing compared to MKP is interesting.
Recommendation: average earnings per tournament per team whilst taking a sample of the top 5 earners per team for each team... at least for the foreigners in MLG/DH etc
Looking at the spreadsheet, Kas is down at $22.36 per game, Nerchio is at $35.57 per game with only international games counted (they haven't played much in Korea I think).
On September 27 2012 22:52 revel8 wrote: Interesting stats right there.
Not sure you can really measure 'earning efficiency' in the way that you do, if you are only using tournaments where the player manages to attain prize money. Look at DreamHack Valencia, there were 64 players competing but only 4 players earned any prize money. So if you played up to the Ro8 then you could have played a lot of games which were not included in this list because no prize money resulted. Another example is the MvP Invitational. There will be 48 competitors who play 50 maps or so and yet only one player will win any prize money for their efforts.
Something to note is that in that top 10, Stephano has been a full-time pro-gamer for a lot less time than the other players, less than half the time of some! This highlights how staggeringly quickly he has managed to accumulate prize money from SC2 tournaments.
I got the games played from TLPD, which includes tournaments where players get knocked out early and don't get any prize money. Basically the earning info is from sc2earnings and the game/tournament info is from TLPD, which includes all competitive games (online/offline, qualifiers, etc)
Stephano has played a LOT of competitive games considering how short he's been a pro and not even full time. Kinda crazy
OK, I've amended my post as it was incorrect.
If you have the time, perhaps look at Nerchio's data? He has an amazing amount of wins while still being a student. Incredible really.
Nerchio isn't the only one. Life/Creator/Maru are also prime example.
On September 27 2012 22:52 revel8 wrote: Interesting stats right there.
Not sure you can really measure 'earning efficiency' in the way that you do, if you are only using tournaments where the player manages to attain prize money. Look at DreamHack Valencia, there were 64 players competing but only 4 players earned any prize money. So if you played up to the Ro8 then you could have played a lot of games which were not included in this list because no prize money resulted. Another example is the MvP Invitational. There will be 48 competitors who play 50 maps or so and yet only one player will win any prize money for their efforts.
Something to note is that in that top 10, Stephano has been a full-time pro-gamer for a lot less time than the other players, less than half the time of some! This highlights how staggeringly quickly he has managed to accumulate prize money from SC2 tournaments.
I got the games played from TLPD, which includes tournaments where players get knocked out early and don't get any prize money. Basically the earning info is from sc2earnings and the game/tournament info is from TLPD, which includes all competitive games (online/offline, qualifiers, etc)
Stephano has played a LOT of competitive games considering how short he's been a pro and not even full time. Kinda crazy
OK, I've amended my post as it was incorrect.
If you have the time, perhaps look at Nerchio's data? He has an amazing amount of wins while still being a student. Incredible really.
Nerchio isn't the only one. Life/Creator/Maru are also prime example.
Life/Creator and Maru are exceptional talents who are also very young and still at school. However Nerchio has won 10 times as many games as these players! More than 1160 wins for Nerchio compared to 90 odd wins for Creator! Nerchio has an amazing amount of wins relative to many other players.
I think by this way of measuring things, Stephano gets actively punished for participating in daily/weekly tournaments. Even if he wins all of them, he'll still lose out.
Interesting benchmark but I think $ per tournament is a better way of measuring efficiency than $ per game, for all the reasons people mentioned before.
On September 28 2012 00:46 Grumbels wrote: I think by this way of measuring things, Stephano gets actively punished for participating in daily/weekly tournaments. Even if he wins all of them, he'll still lose out.
He's got 190,000 reasons to get over it! I am sure he is pretty happy with how things have gone since turning pro!
On September 28 2012 01:11 Appendix wrote: To be fair, Scarlett deserves a mention here. She actually breaks in on the list at second place.
Total earnings: $30250 Games played: 39 Earnings/game: $775,64
A lot of Scarlett's games aren't on liquipedia for some reason. She won both WCS Canada and US, but on TLPD there's only one series total from both events.
Here's the earnings for the top 50. Scarlett is much lower in reality, because only 3 of her games from WCS are registered in TLPD, but that's where most of her earnings are from.
Really interesting research. It'd be really funny/depressing to see how many NA pro's have made less $ TOTAL than the guys on the top 10 list would 'average' in a best of 3.
On September 28 2012 01:11 Appendix wrote: To be fair, Scarlett deserves a mention here. She actually breaks in on the list at second place.
Total earnings: $30250 Games played: 39 Earnings/game: $775,64
A lot of Scarlett's games aren't on liquipedia for some reason. She won both WCS Canada and US, but on TLPD there's only one series total from both events.
But even if you would magically make her having played as many game as Fruitdealer(121) she would place 9th on the earnings/day-list with $250/game. So even if not all of her games are listed, with her current amount of total earnings she would just have to mass games to earn her a spot on the top 10 if you were to introduce some arbitrary game limit which by default must be lower than 121.
On September 28 2012 03:10 thundertoss wrote: Really interesting research. It'd be really funny/depressing to see how many NA pro's have made less $ TOTAL than the guys on the top 10 list would 'average' in a best of 3.
The top 10 on earnings per game have earned $1498306 in 2973 games, meaning a BO3 that goes the full 3 games would earn them on average $1512. That would put them on the 44rd place (out of 100) that SC2earnings has for Americas players since 2010.
Why does Stephano have 901 games and not 987 as his TLPD page says? Am I missing something? I am writing a python script to calculate all these numbers for the top 200 in sc2earnings.
Combine earnings per game with a stability factor to get a better sense of "real skill". (this removes Fruitdealer). Like taking into account the standard deviation on a montly basis would give a better result.
On September 28 2012 05:48 TheV wrote: Why does Stephano have 901 games and not 987 as his TLPD page says? Am I missing something? I am writing a python script to calculate all these numbers for the top 200 in sc2earnings.
EPT
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