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Hey guys,
I got an idea for a website yesterday, and I wanna know what you think.
A lot of great players are participating in showmatches (BO7 for example) for a relatively small amount of money (sometimes as low as $100). But usually, we have to wait for an organization like MLG or some famous caster to organize one.
What about having a website, kinda like Kickstarter, where users could ask for a showmatch, vote for the ones they would like to see, and actually contribute to the cash prize. Even $1 would be fine. I bet there are more than 500 people who want to see a BO7 between... idk... Stephano vs Rain.
Not sure how we would get casters to participate, but I'm sure it could be done.
The point is, it would be a community driven way to organize showmatches between players. I think it could be cool.
What do you think?
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I had this idea for tournaments a while ago too, but came to the conclusion that this will only work over a short period of time. I think it´s nothing that you can do longer than half a year or so bcs ppl will simply stop funding at some time. Still, I like the idea too
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Why not just use Kickstarter or one of their competitors? When chosing between Kickstarter or an alternative, I wouldn't use Kickstarter for a number of reasons, especially as it doesn't seem you'll get randomly browsing users to support your cause.
Or directly contact a couple of the smaller crowdfunding websites, don't limit it to showmatches - include (smaller) tournaments - and see if they want to coop. http://www.lab.gamesplanet.com/ might be interested seeing they seem a bit stuck at the moment, and it's right up their gaming ally. Could be interesting.
Casters - let them keep (part of) the ad money from the stream?
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If a project like this would raise a lot of money, there would be a lot of matches to set up. Progamers could even be hard pressed to fit all showmatches into their schedule.
So, my prediction: something like this would skyrocket in funds early and bottleneck when ppl get disappointed because the matches turn out to be hard to organize.
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@Passion I usually like websites that do one thing, and do it well. Focusing on just showmatches would make the website a lot better imo. Tournaments for example are a lot more complex to organize than getting 2 players, 1 or 2 casters, and twitch.
Plus sites like Kickstarter (and probably all of its serious competitors) don't allow this kind of projects. Showmatches wouldn't work. Plus it would be super hard to promote individual showmatches to the community on these websites.
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I think the fact that matches happen so often, and everyone plays everyone on such a regular basis, there wouldn't much demand for people to see these matches. They'll wait until GSL has a equally good match-up, or proleague can also achieve the same.
Not only that, but can you imagine if Boxer played Yellow every single time fans through some money at them? There would be no hype in tournaments with two of the best facing off, I think also if everyone is donating low sums of money, it'd also mean that paypal/visa would be taking a decent share of the money and less for the prizepool.
The best way I suppose I can see this working, is high-profile players register to this site, and offer a show-match between them if "x" amount of money is raised within a week, any extra and they could have a longer series, viewers pick maps etc. Although the other thing to consider too is, who would be casting this? What share of money would the owners of the site be taking to do the casting?
I don't think players would be happy with a 30 percent cut in the money that got donated to them to play this showmatch, and would look for other alternatives. However if you do a low 5-10%, and say they raised $200, where could you find a high-profile casting team to cast this for $10-$20 dollars, plus add graphics etc to add hype, otherwise this will be nothing special. There are tons of great games between great players that sometimes only get 100 or so viewers. And the reason is no-name casters and bad production value.
I'm just saying that you should consider all possible scenarios and things that could potentially go wrong before you invest into this. The thought seems a lot less sunny when you analyze it's viability to me, but it could potentially be done. Do the homework well first. (:
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On January 19 2013 02:10 FiWiFaKi wrote: I think the fact that matches happen so often, and everyone plays everyone on such a regular basis, there wouldn't much demand for people to see these matches. They'll wait until GSL has a equally good match-up, or proleague can also achieve the same.
Not only that, but can you imagine if Boxer played Yellow every single time fans through some money at them? There would be no hype in tournaments with two of the best facing off, I think also if everyone is donating low sums of money, it'd also mean that paypal/visa would be taking a decent share of the money and less for the prizepool.
The best way I suppose I can see this working, is high-profile players register to this site, and offer a show-match between them if "x" amount of money is raised within a week, any extra and they could have a longer series, viewers pick maps etc. Although the other thing to consider too is, who would be casting this? What share of money would the owners of the site be taking to do the casting?
I don't think players would be happy with a 30 percent cut in the money that got donated to them to play this showmatch, and would look for other alternatives. However if you do a low 5-10%, and say they raised $200, where could you find a high-profile casting team to cast this for $10-$20 dollars, plus add graphics etc to add hype, otherwise this will be nothing special. There are tons of great games between great players that sometimes only get 100 or so viewers. And the reason is no-name casters and bad production value.
I'm just saying that you should consider all possible scenarios and things that could potentially go wrong before you invest into this. The thought seems a lot less sunny when you analyze it's viability to me, but it could potentially be done. Do the homework well first. (:
I'd say it's key to aim high. If you go for 500$ as a minimum and do your marketing properly, you should be able to get interesting players, thus more viewers, raising potential advertising money to support casters. It totally seems worth a shot to me, especially as you might be able to set it up without huge investments.
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I appreciate your input, it's definitely a good idea to think about these potential problems beforehand.
I don't really care about the time investment though. IF I did it, I would do it the same way I built http://ibarcraft.com , for fun, when I have the time
It's true that there are so many matches played all the time, there might not be enough motivation for users to pay to actually see a one more. There are a lot of great players that dont get to face each other often though. That could be an incentive. Plus I'm sure we could think about some things that would make the match more interactive as you pointed out (map choices etc).
Your idea of actually letting the players offer a showmatch might be a good one, but maybe harder to actually achieve. But in any case, the idea is indeed to have a certain amount of money to reach in a certain amount of time. If this limit is not reached, then nothing happens, like Kickstarter.
You might sadly be right, having good players might not be enough, casters are really important too to get viewers.
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A point system of sorts would be a cool feature of a website that did this. Have people vote on who they want to play out of a list of confirmed candidates. Have the individual(s) funding choose who they think will win out of those two chosen, if they chose the winner out of those two correctly, have him or her be rewarded points based on the total amount invested/odds.
Points could be used towards extra votes for the next match-up, or things like titles/vanity website things. Would that be too similar to gambling, though? You aren't gaining anything material, but I don't really know.
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This is a good idea that has been done before, but the name escapes me. I think the issue with that website was that their were some showmatches the players didn't even know about, and did not provide any consent to playing. I remember one of the top rated showmatches was Tasteless vs Day9 or something similar and I don't think the showmatch ever happened.
Would be a cool idea as long as you get commitment and consent from the players.
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@GDR could be cool, but you're right, it's a form of gambling and not the main goal of the (hypothetical) site.
@shindigs oh, if you can remember the name, it could be interesting. But you're right, having the consent of the players is crucial. I was hoping that the prize money would be enough to get them motivated That's why FiWiFaKi's idea of having the players set up the matches was good (but more difficult).
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United States32478 Posts
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Thanks Waxangel That's exactly what I had in mind so... I guess that settles it ^^.
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I prefer the tip jar model that TB has used. Host a showmatch, let people tip players as they want. There was another tournament that tried it (HSC?) and a lot of players that didn't end up in the finals got hundreds of dollars each.
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y not have this as a part of TL?
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On January 19 2013 01:19 Hermanoid wrote: If a project like this would raise a lot of money, there would be a lot of matches to set up. Progamers could even be hard pressed to fit all showmatches into their schedule.
So, my prediction: something like this would skyrocket in funds early and bottleneck when ppl get disappointed because the matches turn out to be hard to organize.
I think that's what happened to the last one except it didn't really skyrocket...
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In terms of getting casters to be up for it, ask us? I'd be up for it gladly
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Calgary25938 Posts
Sounds like you haven't put much thought into this.
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