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IEM World Championship to be Winner Takes All for $100,000…

Forum Index > SC2 General
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JustPassingBy
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
10776 Posts
January 28 2014 15:50 GMT
#841
On January 28 2014 23:31 Treemonkeys wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 28 2014 19:34 Dingodile wrote:
On January 28 2014 19:16 ScoutWBF wrote:
"IEM World Championship to be Korean player Takes All for $100,000"

Non-Koreans already whining because they know that don't have a chance at winning the whole thing.
It's not even a joke. ~_~

I am sure many people like this "take all" if it was 15k€. But 100k is just unfair.


How is it unfair when players can just not attend? That makes absolutely no sense. I swear, sometimes I think the TL community is the worst enemy of SC2.


Some people argue that it is morally unfair because at least the second players deserves something at the end of the day, because he sacrificed so much of his time to give the audience a good show. I'm one of them, yet I still like the idea of the event and I'm really looking forward to it.
grs
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany2339 Posts
January 28 2014 15:52 GMT
#842
On January 29 2014 00:05 Mifoi123 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 28 2014 22:03 Darkhoarse wrote:
On January 28 2014 21:34 ShadowPie wrote:
I really dont see why there is so much negativity surrounding this. IEM wants to celebrate with a special (unique) event and they are paying for all the players travel and accomodation. So basicly the players get a "free" shot at 100k, IEM gets a lot of hype and we get extremely tense matches since everyone will be playing 150%.

I understand, and agree, that this is bad as a regular format but they have said many times that this is not to be the case. Give the guys some slack and enjoy!

What is up with everyone saying things like, "it will make players play 150%" or "we'll see the best matches yet". Do people really think we haven't seen anyone truly playing their best because we haven't had a winner take all tournament? Every competition thus far has been a farce because the finalists didn't try as hard knowing they would still get some money in the end by this logic.


Let me explain what I understand in "it will make players play 150%".
If you have to play a game for $1000 you will play at the best of your abilities. ok
Now, if you have to play for $100,000 you will WANT to play at your best BUT you will have to deal with a LOT more pressure, hence, you will have to play at 150% of your abilities. The insanely large added pressure is the key!

This is not correct. The idea that people will work better under pressure or additional "incentives" in plain wrong. It does not work in office jobs and it will not work for gaming. Having a big, attractive prize money will make a tournament more attractive for players for sure, but the idea that the "the winner takes it all" format and it's additional pressure will make for better games is not working. Motivation is intrinsic, not extrinsic - and I am glad it is.
qotsager
Profile Joined March 2012
Germany585 Posts
January 28 2014 15:53 GMT
#843
On January 29 2014 00:32 Lorch wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 00:31 qotsager wrote:
On January 29 2014 00:12 Lorch wrote:
On January 28 2014 23:43 Wingblade wrote:
On January 28 2014 21:24 Lorch wrote:
You guys make it sound like IEM paying for travel + hotel means these Progamers who don't come 1st have nothing to loose. That is so not true, and sadly we don't have enough players who take stops from traveling to practice for most people to get this. Traveling to ANY tournament pretty much means that you loose about a week of practice and for most of these guys you also fucking with your sleeping rhythm. TBH if I knew my chances of getting 1st were very slim and I had enough honor to not agree to some splitt I would probably deny participation in this. I'd much rather use that one week to practice to get into the money at another tournament. I mean I always thought dreamhack was bad for only paying out top 8 (I think), but this is just beyond terrible. Besides who does WCS really provide for? In Korea it means that most players only have a chance to play in individual tournaments 3 times a year and most of the mainstays in code s are actually on teams that pay them a decent salary, I'd say the old 5+ seasons per year GSL did a better job at allowing koreans to do this full time (especially esf/ex-esf who often don't have much of a salary) than what WCS KR is doing. WCS NA is full of Koreans on foreign teams (aka those with some of the best salaries in the business anyways), so basically the argument off "WCS now provides for the players" only holds true for EU, where both Premier and Challenger are full of EU players. Still even there a decent amount of the prize money from last year went to people like MC or MVP who already made a ton in star 2.

I usually try to watch these IEMs as there are usually enough Koreans to make this worth watching (if it's not somewhere in Asia as those times are just beyond terrible for Europe), but I think I'll just not tune into this one as I don't really enjoy seeing a bunch of my favorite players wasting their time.


It's dumb statements like this that hurt SC2 more than anything, you're boycotting a tournament because of their one off format to make some level of excitement when they are typically great at prize distribution? You care way too much for the little guy who won't even be at the tournament... It's a finale that's pretty much going to be all-Korean anyways, and most likely top tier players who are doing just fine already money wise. Sure San isn't doing amazing but most of his winnings have been won recently, it's certainly not the horror story some people have tried to claim.

"Voting with your wallet" has to be the dumbest philosophy ever. Don't bring it here.


First of all I'm not boycotting all of IEM, I'm just not watching this one tournament. I care way too much about the little guy? Well guess what I couldn't care less about how popular sc2, I have watched/played and followed games that were smaller than foreign BW, I care about the competition and the guys who trade their 20s for a shot at this. I don't see any level of excitement in "hey this one guy is gonna get a lot of money, while everyone else would have been better of practicing". The last few IEM World Championship final thingies had atleast 50/50 Korean/Foreigner, sometimes even more foreigners, so your statement of "all korean" is pretty much bs. Even Blizzcon wasn't all Korean. And the dumbest philosophy ever is Hitler's adoption of Darwinism. Your "wallet" or how others may say your viewership is pretty much the only way fans can really voice their opinion in eSports. Nobody is gonna give much of a fuck about reddit/tl threads, though if tournament organizer X sees a drop in viewership they will realize that they did something wrong. It's really the same as it is in the videogame industry, Activsion doesn't care that COD has been the same game for like 7 years now as long as it sells well.



"Voting with your wallet", as you call it, is mostly the only way a consumer has to voice his opinion. what's dumb about that? what you mean is: "i don't think this format is bad, so everyone else should share that opinion and let esl do their thing."
but imagine someone is not fine with that idea, even though it may be a one time event. what is that person going to do to show his disagreement besides not watching? be angry on TL? not sure if that matters in the end.
say, a lot of people think the concept is not very good in general, but might be fun if it is done once. so they watch the tournament. what iem sees, is that the viewership is as high as usual, probably higher, because, well, the winner takes 100k bucks. so if this works out for iem viewershipwise, i wouldn't be too surprised to see it again in the future. better show that you oppose the idea the first time.


You do realize that I am highly against what IEM is doing here?


yeah i kinda tried to reinforce your point and was referring to wingblade. sorry for misunderstanding.
***Official ABL Winner 2013***
-Celestial-
Profile Joined September 2011
United Kingdom3867 Posts
January 28 2014 16:27 GMT
#844
On January 29 2014 00:49 Musicus wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 00:39 -Celestial- wrote:
Wow...ok. I can understand some people not being necessarily happy here but the amount of negativity is absurd.
Its a one-off "special" tournament with expenses covered. Sure, a player might not win but all it costs them is time. Unless they have a more financially attractive option at the same time, in which case they could just not attend and take up the alternative.

Hell, IPL Fight Club back in the day also only paid out to the winner each week. I didn't see the pitchforks waving over that one.


Yeah but IEM WC was tradionally what everyone tried to qualify for to have a cut from that big prize pool. Fight club was always announced as what it was, invite based and also on a much smaller scale, plus only 2 players. This is something players worked the whole year for to qualify and now most of them will go home empty handed. If they had announced this before IEM Season 8 started, most would be ok with this I think. But a 180° turn (they usually have the most fair distribution) out of nowhere midseason is not cool. Then there are other problems like splitting the pot etc.



Ok, being part way through the season kind of sucks. But by the same token (and as Kennigit has already pointed out) most of the people qualifying into this do so by winning money at the other IEM events.

So yeah. I think you've got a strong argument against it with regard to the "part way through the season" thing. But I don't think the winner-takes-all format itself is fundamentally broken as a lot seem to be arguing. The scene would be wrecked if EVERY event was like that, sure. But they're not.
"Protoss simultaneously feels unbeatably strong and unwinnably weak." - kcdc
Wingblade
Profile Joined April 2012
United States1806 Posts
January 28 2014 16:33 GMT
#845
On January 29 2014 00:53 qotsager wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 00:32 Lorch wrote:
On January 29 2014 00:31 qotsager wrote:
On January 29 2014 00:12 Lorch wrote:
On January 28 2014 23:43 Wingblade wrote:
On January 28 2014 21:24 Lorch wrote:
You guys make it sound like IEM paying for travel + hotel means these Progamers who don't come 1st have nothing to loose. That is so not true, and sadly we don't have enough players who take stops from traveling to practice for most people to get this. Traveling to ANY tournament pretty much means that you loose about a week of practice and for most of these guys you also fucking with your sleeping rhythm. TBH if I knew my chances of getting 1st were very slim and I had enough honor to not agree to some splitt I would probably deny participation in this. I'd much rather use that one week to practice to get into the money at another tournament. I mean I always thought dreamhack was bad for only paying out top 8 (I think), but this is just beyond terrible. Besides who does WCS really provide for? In Korea it means that most players only have a chance to play in individual tournaments 3 times a year and most of the mainstays in code s are actually on teams that pay them a decent salary, I'd say the old 5+ seasons per year GSL did a better job at allowing koreans to do this full time (especially esf/ex-esf who often don't have much of a salary) than what WCS KR is doing. WCS NA is full of Koreans on foreign teams (aka those with some of the best salaries in the business anyways), so basically the argument off "WCS now provides for the players" only holds true for EU, where both Premier and Challenger are full of EU players. Still even there a decent amount of the prize money from last year went to people like MC or MVP who already made a ton in star 2.

I usually try to watch these IEMs as there are usually enough Koreans to make this worth watching (if it's not somewhere in Asia as those times are just beyond terrible for Europe), but I think I'll just not tune into this one as I don't really enjoy seeing a bunch of my favorite players wasting their time.


It's dumb statements like this that hurt SC2 more than anything, you're boycotting a tournament because of their one off format to make some level of excitement when they are typically great at prize distribution? You care way too much for the little guy who won't even be at the tournament... It's a finale that's pretty much going to be all-Korean anyways, and most likely top tier players who are doing just fine already money wise. Sure San isn't doing amazing but most of his winnings have been won recently, it's certainly not the horror story some people have tried to claim.

"Voting with your wallet" has to be the dumbest philosophy ever. Don't bring it here.


First of all I'm not boycotting all of IEM, I'm just not watching this one tournament. I care way too much about the little guy? Well guess what I couldn't care less about how popular sc2, I have watched/played and followed games that were smaller than foreign BW, I care about the competition and the guys who trade their 20s for a shot at this. I don't see any level of excitement in "hey this one guy is gonna get a lot of money, while everyone else would have been better of practicing". The last few IEM World Championship final thingies had atleast 50/50 Korean/Foreigner, sometimes even more foreigners, so your statement of "all korean" is pretty much bs. Even Blizzcon wasn't all Korean. And the dumbest philosophy ever is Hitler's adoption of Darwinism. Your "wallet" or how others may say your viewership is pretty much the only way fans can really voice their opinion in eSports. Nobody is gonna give much of a fuck about reddit/tl threads, though if tournament organizer X sees a drop in viewership they will realize that they did something wrong. It's really the same as it is in the videogame industry, Activsion doesn't care that COD has been the same game for like 7 years now as long as it sells well.



"Voting with your wallet", as you call it, is mostly the only way a consumer has to voice his opinion. what's dumb about that? what you mean is: "i don't think this format is bad, so everyone else should share that opinion and let esl do their thing."
but imagine someone is not fine with that idea, even though it may be a one time event. what is that person going to do to show his disagreement besides not watching? be angry on TL? not sure if that matters in the end.
say, a lot of people think the concept is not very good in general, but might be fun if it is done once. so they watch the tournament. what iem sees, is that the viewership is as high as usual, probably higher, because, well, the winner takes 100k bucks. so if this works out for iem viewershipwise, i wouldn't be too surprised to see it again in the future. better show that you oppose the idea the first time.


You do realize that I am highly against what IEM is doing here?


yeah i kinda tried to reinforce your point and was referring to wingblade. sorry for misunderstanding.


Let me clarify what I mean. When you have a good reason to do it, and when you can convince a large number of people to do "vote with your wallet", and I mean a LARGE number of viewers to do it, that's fine. This isn't either of them. These people who are angry about it, how many of them will ACTUALLY refuse to watch it really? It doesn't do anything to the guy who made the decision(Carmac I believe). You're also doing it for a really silly reason. You're talking about wanting good prize pool distribution to support the guys who aren't top tier and who deserve a small portion of the winnings for competing or doing somewhat well. Except that player isn't going to be at this tournament! It's going to be the 16 best players who performed at IEM tournaments throughout the year. Guys who for the most part are already considered top-tier and not desperately needing money. If this decision was done for a regular event yea that would suck the guy who worked through the open bracket and lost in the groups deserves something. But the people at this tournament are almost guaranteed to be doing fine regardless. They are going to be the ones who have a decent salary and have made money already from winnings.

The middle tier, the people who would be very adversely affected by this decision in other cases don't matter. Because they won't be playing here in the first place.
PartinG fanboy to the max, Rain/Squirtle/Dear/Scarlett/Bbyong are cool too. I don't always watch Dota2 but when I do I have no clue what's going on. GOGO POWER RANGERS
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5221 Posts
January 28 2014 16:35 GMT
#846
I love this so much.

And I can't wait.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States46098 Posts
January 28 2014 16:56 GMT
#847
This is awful. Entertaining for the fans but absolutely abysmal for the players.

It's wonderful to see tournaments treating their lifeblood (the players) like caged animals. Pay 1 person a ton of money and let the other 99% starve, including 3 out of 4 semi-finalists.

If this idea (Winner Take All) was actually the norm for tournaments, rather than a fairer distribution of the prize money being spread to more players, players would be retiring even faster than they are now.

IEM is just hyping their tournament by doing something different, but their "different" is hurtful.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Salteador Neo
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Andorra5591 Posts
January 28 2014 16:58 GMT
#848
Maybe they think the current state of the game really needs a hype push.

But on the other hand, with the situation of several progamer teams and the progamers usual small income... This sounds awful for the players.
Revolutionist fan
seoul_kiM
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States545 Posts
January 28 2014 16:59 GMT
#849
On January 29 2014 01:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This is awful. Entertaining for the fans but absolutely abysmal for the players.

It's wonderful to see tournaments treating their lifeblood (the players) like caged animals. Pay 1 person a ton of money and let the other 99% starve, including 3 out of 4 semi-finalists.

If this idea (Winner Take All) was actually the norm for tournaments, rather than a fairer distribution of the prize money being spread to more players, players would be retiring even faster than they are now.

IEM is just hyping their tournament by doing something different, but their "different" is hurtful.


Right...because every event IEM has ever done has been winner takes all. This community is full of drama queens. IEM could easily take this 100k and put it into a different game if they wanted to.
oGs.MC: Repair IMBAAAAAAAAAAa
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States46098 Posts
January 28 2014 17:04 GMT
#850
On January 28 2014 23:43 Wingblade wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 28 2014 21:24 Lorch wrote:
You guys make it sound like IEM paying for travel + hotel means these Progamers who don't come 1st have nothing to loose. That is so not true, and sadly we don't have enough players who take stops from traveling to practice for most people to get this. Traveling to ANY tournament pretty much means that you loose about a week of practice and for most of these guys you also fucking with your sleeping rhythm. TBH if I knew my chances of getting 1st were very slim and I had enough honor to not agree to some splitt I would probably deny participation in this. I'd much rather use that one week to practice to get into the money at another tournament. I mean I always thought dreamhack was bad for only paying out top 8 (I think), but this is just beyond terrible. Besides who does WCS really provide for? In Korea it means that most players only have a chance to play in individual tournaments 3 times a year and most of the mainstays in code s are actually on teams that pay them a decent salary, I'd say the old 5+ seasons per year GSL did a better job at allowing koreans to do this full time (especially esf/ex-esf who often don't have much of a salary) than what WCS KR is doing. WCS NA is full of Koreans on foreign teams (aka those with some of the best salaries in the business anyways), so basically the argument off "WCS now provides for the players" only holds true for EU, where both Premier and Challenger are full of EU players. Still even there a decent amount of the prize money from last year went to people like MC or MVP who already made a ton in star 2.

I usually try to watch these IEMs as there are usually enough Koreans to make this worth watching (if it's not somewhere in Asia as those times are just beyond terrible for Europe), but I think I'll just not tune into this one as I don't really enjoy seeing a bunch of my favorite players wasting their time.


It's dumb statements like this that hurt SC2 more than anything, you're boycotting a tournament because of their one off format to make some level of excitement when they are typically great at prize distribution? You care way too much for the little guy who won't even be at the tournament... It's a finale that's pretty much going to be all-Korean anyways, and most likely top tier players who are doing just fine already money wise. Sure San isn't doing amazing but most of his winnings have been won recently, it's certainly not the horror story some people have tried to claim.

"Voting with your wallet" has to be the dumbest philosophy ever. Don't bring it here.


While I wouldn't go so far as to start boycotting this stupid tournament idea, since when are the (often Korean) finalists and semi-finalists considered "the little guy"? I would not be surprised if some players turn down the tournament simply because the risk is far worse than the reward here (unless you're currently just about the best player in the world, and very few players are comfortable with making that claim).

On January 29 2014 00:22 DeadByDawn wrote:
I quite like it as long as it is infrequent. It's their tournament, their money - deal with it. I can't wait to watch (as long as a top Terran takes part in it).


While I agree with the idea that the tournament is obviously *allowed* to create whatever rules they want (and if you don't like it, don't participate or watch it), it's also more than permissible to critique the structure and point out its flaws (as most players have done). We can still be critical of the tournament.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
ZenithM
Profile Joined February 2011
France15952 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-28 17:05:34
January 28 2014 17:05 GMT
#851
On January 29 2014 00:23 Treemonkeys wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 00:06 ZenithM wrote:
On January 28 2014 20:05 Zinnwaldite wrote:
Too much negativity,, should be a fun thing, as long as it does not become common practice.

I think the problem is that the scene may be a bit money-tight already, so people (read: players) are frustrated that a nice bunch of e-Sportz dollaz goes to one person instead of supporting multiple players.


Money-tight and too many sub par players are two sides of the same coin, and it's not the players who are hurting for money that will get 2nd or 3rd. Ultimately IEM is injecting money into the scene all year.

You can't have top players without sub-par players.
Besides, some players may be aiming for a good Ro8-Ro4 final rank or something, because they know eventually they will run into a monster impossible to beat, but it kind of defeats the purpose if the only guy who gets money is the winner and they can't even show up to aim for a decent but not "1st" rank.

But I agree, I assume the players already at this event all have a shot at winning and not money-starved, so it will surely be a good show for the spectators.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States46098 Posts
January 28 2014 17:08 GMT
#852
On January 29 2014 01:59 seoul_kiM wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 01:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This is awful. Entertaining for the fans but absolutely abysmal for the players.

It's wonderful to see tournaments treating their lifeblood (the players) like caged animals. Pay 1 person a ton of money and let the other 99% starve, including 3 out of 4 semi-finalists.

If this idea (Winner Take All) was actually the norm for tournaments, rather than a fairer distribution of the prize money being spread to more players, players would be retiring even faster than they are now.

IEM is just hyping their tournament by doing something different, but their "different" is hurtful.


Right...because every event IEM has ever done has been winner takes all. This community is full of drama queens. IEM could easily take this 100k and put it into a different game if they wanted to.


I never said this is all IEM does o.O But your argument that them supporting exactly one SC2 player (the winner) as opposed to supporting exactly zero SC2 players is kind of silly, as they can certainly support many more SC2 players with significant prize money if they were more concerned about their participants and less concerned about creating potential hype. Hype can be created without turning your back on 99% of the participants of your own tournament.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Kofuku
Profile Joined January 2014
31 Posts
January 28 2014 17:15 GMT
#853
On January 29 2014 02:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I would not be surprised if some players turn down the tournament simply because the risk is far worse than the reward here (unless you're currently just about the best player in the world, and very few players are comfortable with making that claim).


What's the "worse risk" you're talking about?

It's easy to calculate, and even if you're not the best player in the world, there's a strong case to be made to not drop out. After the player and map pool are decided, a player and his team can estimate the player's chances of winning and attach a risk value to it. So say a player thinks he has a 5% of winning it all (not super confident), then do 5% * $100k prize pool = $5k risk value.

If there's a tournament he could otherwise be going to at the same time where the risk % * reward $ > $5k then yeah, the risk is too high to attend IEM and he shouldn't go. But if not - and right now it doesn't look like there would be anything like that - then there's no downside to attending, except for being tired from the long travel
Initiative
Profile Joined July 2011
United States131 Posts
January 28 2014 17:18 GMT
#854
Suprised at the negativity regarding the prize pool. I think if every event was like this it would be a problem, but for a one time event it will be a nice change of pace. I will definately be watching these finals!
seoul_kiM
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States545 Posts
January 28 2014 17:25 GMT
#855
On January 29 2014 02:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 01:59 seoul_kiM wrote:
On January 29 2014 01:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This is awful. Entertaining for the fans but absolutely abysmal for the players.

It's wonderful to see tournaments treating their lifeblood (the players) like caged animals. Pay 1 person a ton of money and let the other 99% starve, including 3 out of 4 semi-finalists.

If this idea (Winner Take All) was actually the norm for tournaments, rather than a fairer distribution of the prize money being spread to more players, players would be retiring even faster than they are now.

IEM is just hyping their tournament by doing something different, but their "different" is hurtful.


Right...because every event IEM has ever done has been winner takes all. This community is full of drama queens. IEM could easily take this 100k and put it into a different game if they wanted to.


I never said this is all IEM does o.O But your argument that them supporting exactly one SC2 player (the winner) as opposed to supporting exactly zero SC2 players is kind of silly, as they can certainly support many more SC2 players with significant prize money if they were more concerned about their participants and less concerned about creating potential hype. Hype can be created without turning your back on 99% of the participants of your own tournament.


It's their 50th tournament anniversary and they want to do something different. They want to create a new type of hype that players have never been exposed to before.If you really think that IEM is turning their backs on 99% of the participants with this one tournament then I suppose the 99% should grow a thicker shell. IEM does not have to support many SC2 players with any prize money. They are advertising their brand and sponsoring these tournaments. People always forget that IEM is Intel's way of advertising their own brand. It's a business. They care about the hype and the livelihood of its own consumer base. If they want to create a big hype tournament of only the best players where the winner takes all, people are going to watch it. The players will play because they want the money.
oGs.MC: Repair IMBAAAAAAAAAAa
lilopuppy
Profile Joined August 2012
Philippines542 Posts
January 28 2014 17:29 GMT
#856
The only part I don't like about this is the single elims part. As for the prize distribution, I'm afraid I don't know anything much to feel about it.
All the way to TI322!
[O]ops
Profile Joined July 2011
Italy44 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-28 18:06:16
January 28 2014 17:42 GMT
#857
So people are saying that the players' choice to become a progamer should be inconsequential?
Anyway, tournaments shouldn't try to make up for what sponsors fail to do. If oversaturation is the reason why sponsors can't properly support progamers then I think you should let the scene naturally thin itself out so that it isn't a problem instead of creating a bubble that will eventually collapse once people get tired of lower quality tournaments brought about by oversaturation

Offtopic:How can people be vocal about this and remain silent about the current state of balance which deprives progamers of a certain race livelyhood
Markwerf
Profile Joined March 2010
Netherlands3728 Posts
January 28 2014 17:46 GMT
#858
This is awesome. I couldn't care less about progamer income, supporting the community or whatever. It's a game.. people will play it if they like it and they will not if they think it sucks, I only hate the pro's that see it as a job and don't care much else anyway.
This sort of prize model gives great tension and excitement, sure it's harder for a broad base of progamers to support their lifestyle with tournaments like this but I don't care about such things. That only the top get's paid well is part of any pro sport, for consistent income they can have sponsorships or contracts or just do something else besides playing the game..Tournaments have no responsibility whatsoever for supporting a proscene, they just want to make an exciting product. A 100k finals certainly helps with that and with WCS being the overall support system already I can understand this decision. Single elimination does blow a little bit but more action in less time is also understandable
Wingblade
Profile Joined April 2012
United States1806 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-28 18:03:16
January 28 2014 18:00 GMT
#859
On January 29 2014 02:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 28 2014 23:43 Wingblade wrote:
On January 28 2014 21:24 Lorch wrote:
You guys make it sound like IEM paying for travel + hotel means these Progamers who don't come 1st have nothing to loose. That is so not true, and sadly we don't have enough players who take stops from traveling to practice for most people to get this. Traveling to ANY tournament pretty much means that you loose about a week of practice and for most of these guys you also fucking with your sleeping rhythm. TBH if I knew my chances of getting 1st were very slim and I had enough honor to not agree to some splitt I would probably deny participation in this. I'd much rather use that one week to practice to get into the money at another tournament. I mean I always thought dreamhack was bad for only paying out top 8 (I think), but this is just beyond terrible. Besides who does WCS really provide for? In Korea it means that most players only have a chance to play in individual tournaments 3 times a year and most of the mainstays in code s are actually on teams that pay them a decent salary, I'd say the old 5+ seasons per year GSL did a better job at allowing koreans to do this full time (especially esf/ex-esf who often don't have much of a salary) than what WCS KR is doing. WCS NA is full of Koreans on foreign teams (aka those with some of the best salaries in the business anyways), so basically the argument off "WCS now provides for the players" only holds true for EU, where both Premier and Challenger are full of EU players. Still even there a decent amount of the prize money from last year went to people like MC or MVP who already made a ton in star 2.

I usually try to watch these IEMs as there are usually enough Koreans to make this worth watching (if it's not somewhere in Asia as those times are just beyond terrible for Europe), but I think I'll just not tune into this one as I don't really enjoy seeing a bunch of my favorite players wasting their time.


It's dumb statements like this that hurt SC2 more than anything, you're boycotting a tournament because of their one off format to make some level of excitement when they are typically great at prize distribution? You care way too much for the little guy who won't even be at the tournament... It's a finale that's pretty much going to be all-Korean anyways, and most likely top tier players who are doing just fine already money wise. Sure San isn't doing amazing but most of his winnings have been won recently, it's certainly not the horror story some people have tried to claim.

"Voting with your wallet" has to be the dumbest philosophy ever. Don't bring it here.


While I wouldn't go so far as to start boycotting this stupid tournament idea, since when are the (often Korean) finalists and semi-finalists considered "the little guy"? I would not be surprised if some players turn down the tournament simply because the risk is far worse than the reward here (unless you're currently just about the best player in the world, and very few players are comfortable with making that claim).

Show nested quote +
On January 29 2014 00:22 DeadByDawn wrote:
I quite like it as long as it is infrequent. It's their tournament, their money - deal with it. I can't wait to watch (as long as a top Terran takes part in it).


While I agree with the idea that the tournament is obviously *allowed* to create whatever rules they want (and if you don't like it, don't participate or watch it), it's also more than permissible to critique the structure and point out its flaws (as most players have done). We can still be critical of the tournament.


What risk? They earned a substantial amount of money in qualifying for this tourney, and they get free travel and hotel if I understand it correctly. The few days of messed up sleep is well worth a chance at the money, and playing in a live tournament setting against other top players in a high pressure environment is way better than any "practice" they will get.

I'm also referring to the argument that players who don't make that much in salary and winnings somehow need this tournament to be structured in a "standard" way. Those players won't be playing here. No one who qualifies for this will be desperate for a few hundred or even a thousand dollars.
PartinG fanboy to the max, Rain/Squirtle/Dear/Scarlett/Bbyong are cool too. I don't always watch Dota2 but when I do I have no clue what's going on. GOGO POWER RANGERS
Noobity
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States871 Posts
January 28 2014 18:01 GMT
#860
On January 28 2014 04:38 shinobi112 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 28 2014 04:35 Qwyn wrote:
This is really, really stupid. Thanks for giving all the other competitors in this thing no reward for their efforts whatsoever...

Honestly, what the fuck? This seems like more of the thing where a lot of talent would STAY AWAY just because there's no fucking point if they're just going to lose to a Korean...


Really, you believe any foreigner just says well I am going to lose a Korean, I might as well not go… If you are going to lose to a korean mentality and there are 10 koreans you are not going to participate anyways because you will be knocked out first round before any money anyways… They all are INVITED to this tournament after getting other prize money earlier in the year… THIS is like a BONUS tournament… with a BONUS prize of 100,000 so… All these players already got paid for their efforts.


I believe there are plenty of pretty good foreign pros that are going to pass on this invite or not. If I were scarlett and had to choose between traveling to IEM or staying home and practicing for an upcoming premiere league match, for instance, I'd be damned sure to practice for premiere league over a small chance for $100k, and more likely $0. There's not a single pro gamer, Korean or otherwise, that has a great chance at winning such a large event.

I don't tend to watch IEMs, I don't enjoy them as much as the other tournaments. A $100k prize to first place is not going to increase my likelihood of watching it. I respect the idea behind it and the goal, but I can't help but feel this is going to be a negative all things considered. I think it's just the wrong way to go about it.

But good luck, IEM. I hope I'm wrong
My name is Mike, and statistically, yours is not.
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