RSL Revival patreon money discussion thread - Page 6

On July 18 2025 03:40 Admiral Yang wrote:
This is why we can't have nice things.

For starters, I am a perfectly satisfied donator at the stalker tier.

The reason I am perfectly satisfied is that it is perfectly transparent from the Patreon what I donated to and what I would get in return - not that I had to donate. It was made clear right from the start that an event similar to the one that just ended would be hosted regardless of what donation target was reached.

Which makes the claim that nothing was "given back to the community" utter nonsense in my book. The community got a free-to-watch event and, based on reading this thread, that is a whole lot more than it deserves. I can only hope that the organizers will pay more attention to all the positive feedback than the conspiratorial drivel posted in this thread.

As an aside on that point - how exactly does putting a larger lump sum into the pocket of whoever would have won this event constitute "developing the community"? I could understand your point if you suggested that part of the proceeds went to some bootcamp for young masters and GM players or something like that, but simply further lining the pockets of already well-compensated players is hardly the sort of grassroots development you are insinuating - which is in no way me implying that I begrudge these players their earnings, I am happy for them to earn as much as is financially sustainable for this sport, which is important to say and for you to read, because it needs to be in mind for my next point:

The prize pool isn't all that important to me, personally. What matters to me is that it is large enough for the best players to take the tournament seriously and deliver their A-game. If that is achieved at 25 cents, fine. If it takes 100,000$, well, the communtiy had better start donating rather than pontificating on the internet, because once the EWC gravy train runs out, no tournament is going to deliver that.

In that regard, please bear in mind that this tournament was conceived when the assumption was that there would be no EWC, meaning that the 7,250$ prize pool can only be reasonably compared to the 10,000$ prize pools we had at Stara Zagora and HSC 27. So roughly 25% less than the highest tier tournaments we could expect at the time, based on a 36,000$ donation budget. Scandalous.

On that 36,000$ question... How on earth have we gotten to page 6 in this thread before anyone points out how OP's math is completely asinine? He apparently argues that the organizers should start handing out shares of the projected yearly donations after a mere 3 months of collecting. I'm glad he's not my accountant.
Please also bear in mind that the Patreon is 3,000$ short of the prize pool tripling, so if you want to see larger prize pools, there is an obvious way to bring that about.

Not that the prize pool is what matters to me, what I wanted was a studio hosted, multi-casted event. As it happens, I did do what some people in this thead have suggested, and I asked around in the community where I could donate to bring that about. One of the first things people told me is that for that to happen, we would require donations in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, before we even started talking about prize pools. Tasteless et al. have gotten there after 36.000$, so if they are scamming anyone, it seems to be mainly themselves.

Which brings me to my next point, which is that this is absolutely not a zero-sum game. The organizers here are in no way taking money that would have otherwise gone to some other parts of the SC2 ecosystem. I am perfectly capable of donating the same amount to someone else willing to credibly offer something similar.

I hate to see mom and dad fighting, so for ZG, Wardi and Harstem to chime in with snarky, unhelpful and, frankly. conspiratorial remarks saddens me a great deal. I love the work you people do, and if you went about hosting something similar to this, I can absolutely guarantee you that I would donate the exact same amount. Double that if you brought back the Casters Civil War. Until then, please stop making nonsensical insinuations, such as that they posted the prize money in Won to lure in gullible donators.

I think the fact that Tasteless et al. have raised an amount large enough to inspire this kind of passion should actually be a wake-up call for all of us. I don't see why the community has to tear itself apart in sour grapes infighting over it - Money can apparently be raised, heall yeah, let's get to organizing some tournaments. We don't need the ESL, but we should have something similar to the Pro Tour back. A consolidated scene, where we can compare results across different tournaments at the highest level. Rather than fighting over these breadcrumbs, I would love to see the likes of ZG, Wardi or Harstem join in on the casting of these events, or hold their own. Perhaps we can defer some proceeds from the various events into a season finale, and have our own, community-driven world championship.

TLDR: Rather than complain, host your own tournaments. I would love to see them.