Depends on the amount of players and money up for grabs.
It is a conundrum. Less money on top means top players who live far away may not compete as it would cost them money even if they win. American scenes already suffers from top players not playing each other enough in order to grow (see Yeb’s Gen for example. A lot of people where just lost against his Gen).
On the other hand giving more prizes to non top 3 attracts more people to join the tourny thus more money for prizes and expands the game base.
Solution - get a sponsor to give out sticks, mouse, LCDs, etc.
But the point is, you see the problem organizers have.
UltraDavid nailed this one imo. A little love goes a long way and no one at the tippy top is going to care unless you go out of your way to tell them, “Hey, we’re taking money out of your pocket.” Even then, if it’s just a small chunk of loot, they might not care.
y’all think streaming websites will eventually turn into a pay per view set up for special events? even at a reasonable charge for a good stream. like a buck or something. I’m just thinking how WC Warzone had like 2,000+ viewers at one time, if that was translated into money via a paypal account, that’d be a good chunk of change added to the pot for dispersal.
and I think John Rog added 100 bucks, not 1,000. But maybe he’s rich like that.
Agree on Top 8 getting paid…More people getting paid the more people will spread the word like wildfire.
The only reasonable way to pay out to more people is to attract sponsors and that isn’t going to happen when you have an idiot on commentary cursing every few minutes.
For major tournaments with 200 or more entrants(give or take), a payout for top 8 should be standard in my opinion.
For mega tournaments, perhaps even top 16? Though I understand if people think this is a stretch.
A megatournament like evo with 1000+ people only paying the top 3 is a bit ridiculous IMO.
I’m talking about giving people more incentive to get good at the game and play their best, and rewarding those who do so successfully. You seem to be under the impression that I’m begging for welfare.
UltraDavid: I wonder what the required amount to get the top players to show up would be… I’m thinking that $2800 first prize is way more than necessary. I think the $1500 from my 8-way payout idea would be more than enough to attract the same crowd. Even if that was somehow a bit short, who would have stayed home as a result of it not outweighing the travel costs enough? Only one person, Marn. While he’s definitely the kind of top player that major tournaments want around, I don’t think it would have been a failure without him.
I would agree if the entry fee wasn’t already a trivial $10. Saving people a buck or two is not that important.
If that’s true then that’s another huge reason the payouts should be extended…
Good idea but it might be difficult to execute… people always try to get things for free, it would be rebroadcast by someone or the login info would be shared, stuff like that. And then the majority of those 2,000 would miss getting to see an exciting event too, since they wouldn’t pay for it up front. (Actually it was 2,000 at once, I heard the unique viewer count was 10k or more).
I wonder if asking for donations during the stream would work… remind people of the entertainment value they’re getting… if even 3% of the viewers tossed in a couple bucks, that’s over $500. There’s really no way to tell how much money would be sent, but it could definitely help pad the prize pool.
Actually it was a thousand dollars… who else loves SF competition as much as him? I doubt there are many… the guy is dedicated. This is one situation where I actually hope some of the venue fee was left over and found its way into his pocket.
There is definitely enough money right now without sponsors to pay the top 8. Of course, sponsors would help. Seems like there ought to be some kind of product that needs advertising that this would work for… a few hundred bucks would buy advertising to an audience of thousands of gamers.
VersatileBJN: I don’t think top 16 is unreasonable for something as big as EVO… but people would probably want to give top 8 a try first before expanding it any further.
maybe they should up the buy-in, but i guess that would eliminate alot of the less serious players
As far as money goes, it would be nice to get it from playing street fighter.
But that’s not why I would enter a tournament, I play street fighter because its fun and for the competition.
I think I’d rather take the respect of being the best there instead of the cash.
It’d be nice if there was some sort of standardized system for the fighting game scene. Granted the numbers below might not be ideal, just an example of what might work.
> 50 players - 70/20/10
50 players > 75 players 69/18/8/5
75 players > 100 players 68/17/7/5/3
100 players > 150 players 67/15/7/5/3/3
150 players > 200 players 64/15/7/5/3/3/3
So on …etc
3% may not seem like a lot but if it’s more than the 10 dollar entry fee it’s money made. At 150 players 7th, 6th, and 5th are making 35 dollars on their 10 dollar entry fee while 4th makes 65 dollars on their 10 dollar entry fee. Any money over the 10 dollars made isn’t half bad for a day playing video games and if first place never goes below 60 percent then no one should really complain.
Paying top 8 encourages more people to play which in turn ups the pot.
$10 entry fee seems a little low for a tournament that size. If I would have gone for $10 I would still go for $15.
People will be encouraged by prizes for top 8. It’s also intuitive, when you make it to top 8 you should be getting something.
There were what, 300 people? Make that a $15 fee and you’d have an extra $1500 to spread around. Of course you’d lose people, but I bet you’d still have at least an extra $1000, and that would be off set by paying out the top 8 (encouraging more people).
People gotta keep making noise in here. Some big names supporting this would help, too.
Evo, Final Round, etc should have this for next year no doubt.
I’m not going to bother reading the first page of bullshit. All I’m going to say is Olympics, you know something the Greeks came up with before Christ was born. Well if you go all the way back if you got 3rd it was cool, but if you got 4th well looks like you just weren’t good enough and didn’t get shit.
Point is if you aren’t going to win first place then why the fuck are you going at all?
Incentive: All or nothing.
“My fight money!!!”
That’s a great way of thinking if you want three or four people to show up. If that.
I’m not even convinced it would get more players to the tournaments. It didn’t stop anyone from showing up to Evo.
Why not marginally increase it? I think not charging people anymore than you need to for tournaments is important.
@MrSNK : :tup:
I thought it was all about the competition, and not necessarily the money.
Man, I’m so naive and idealistic 
:looney:
Look at the games he plays. He’s used to it!
I’m not claiming that many more people would show up if the top whatever finishes got their money back, but it’s more likely to work where people are not being incentivized than where they already are. And it’s a crap of a lot more fair. By the way, for the 250 people at WCW to pay for 4th-8th’s entrance fees, we would have had to take only 16 cents out of each person’s entrance fee.
Damn and I remember once not getting paid for getting 3rd in like a 45man tournament ;x