Does the amount of cash prize really help the tournament scene?

[Arliss]

This is a very interesting topic...I for one could care less about the prize IF there's a prize. I just wanna play and someday come out on top. I want to keep learning about these games and keep improving everywhere that needs improvment. Socialize. have fun. But thaaat's just me. I like just knowing I won. no need to brag about it nor showing off fancy prizes. But like i said..that's just me. :]

 

[Matt Ponton]

It's interesting going back to my old articles. It sometimes feels like I didn't write it, haha.

 

[Game Over]

I like how we now know DOA5 is coming, and back when I made the posts/suggestions I did in this thread, the idea of a DOA5 was a mere pipedream!

I'm still in support of having a point system in place for both online and offline tournaments when DOA5 hits.

 

[Relius Starkiller]

Prizes are important.

Its why trophies where invented.

" Way back in the B.C somebody held a rock tossing contest and was trying to get cave men from a bunch of different tribes to come play in an event to determine who was the best. Sure, the ones he KNEW would show because if one of them won he could rub it in his tribes face but the others would need a little bit more than the satisfaction of knowing they were victorious - they needed to show others they won and why it was important.

Thus the caveman grabbed the biggest rock he could find and smeared a mixture of franken berry and goose shit on on the top."

Wait. . .what? Fucking wikipedia.

Anyway, yeah, more money equals more players. If you hold monthly Dead or Alive only tournaments in your area with 50 dollar grand prizes and no entry fee, eventually you'll see an uptick if you advertise it in the right places.

And once they think they are good enough to win regardless of an entry fee, they will play to play.

My hometown arcade did the same thing with Tekken tag - freebee tournaments for 3 months and then paid from then on in. There was a drop off, but by then most everyone had practiced to the point that they felt they could place in the money. So it went from 30 or so to around a max of 23 I think. And those first three tournaments maybe paid out 30 bucks max in arcade tokens by the end it was around 150 for the first place winner with the arcade getting a cut of the entry fee.

Just gotta be willing to eat the cost for a little while.

 

[Rikuto]

Trophies were invented as proof of accomplishment. Money is given out as an incentive to attend. Big difference.

Anyway, yeah, more money equals more players. If you hold monthly Dead or Alive only tournaments in your area with 50 dollar grand prizes and no entry fee, eventually you'll see an uptick if you advertise it in the right places.

Yea, you'll also see people playing the game who don't actually want to play the game.

If you wanna throw money at an event, go nuts. Not saying you can't. Heck it will even increase turnout. but if that money disappears, so will the support for the game. We've already seen this before. It's not the same as having legitimate community support, as its a foundation built upon greed and short sighted gains instead of passion.

If Master stopped putting money into DID, for example, people would stop attending DOA 4. Why? Because people are not going there for DOA 4. They are going there for the money, and the convention, and the other games. Feeding some ducks isn't the same thing as being friends with them.

This can already be seen by the fact that I show up to these when the money is good enough. So with that in mind, what is the point of continuing to do so?

Why would you want people to come play a game they don't enjoy? And why would you want to play that game with them yourself?

Now if we're talking DOA 5, and DOA 5 is actually good, it somewhat changes the dynamics a bit if the pre-established community is actually attending for the sake of attending. I don't think we need to keep buying and begging players though.

 

[Relius Starkiller]

Yea, you'll also see people playing the game who don't actually want to play the game.

If you wanna throw money at an event, go nuts. Not saying you can't. Heck it will even increase turnout. but if that money disappears, so will the support for the game. We've already seen this before. It's not the same as having legitimate community support, as its a foundation built upon greed and short sighted gains instead of passion.

If Master stopped putting money into DID, for example, people would stop attending DOA 4. Why? Because people are not going there for DOA 4. They are going there for the money, and the convention, and the other games. Feeding some ducks isn't the same thing as being friends with them.

This can already be seen by the fact that I show up to these when the money is good enough. So with that in mind, what is the point of continuing to do so?

Hmm. . .how about this.

Pretend Justin Wong loses his sponsorship.

Three tournaments happen tomorrow, all of which he feels he has a legitimate shot at winning. Tournament A pays 100, Tournament B pays 200 and Tournament C pays nothing. Where does he go?

How about this, say all the money in competitive fighting dires up with the exception of EVO, a few tournaments here and there and locals. . . does Justin Wong leave New York to play (outside of the tournaments that offer the most scratch)?

Street Fighter is big because of its legacy but everyone shows up to tournaments to get better with the hope of, one day, placing in the money - EVO is an acceptation, thats a convention for enthusiasts.

Its about the money Jack, its about the money.

And I think you travel to DID because its as much an opportunity to make money as it is to play DOA and re-up with old friends.

 

[Rikuto]

There aren't many people in Texas I would travel that far just to see, honestly. If I was to travel anywhere to re-up with friends, it would be on the east coast.

Three tournaments happen tomorrow, all of which he feels he has a legitimate shot at winning. Tournament A pays 100, Tournament B pays 200 and Tournament C pays nothing. Where does he go?

If they were legit, grassroots tournaments they probably wouldn't be competing with each other. But seeing as how you have set up a very one-sided hypothetical situation where literally the only factor involved is money, it would tournament B.

Street Fighter is big because of its legacy but everyone shows up to tournaments to get better with the hope of, one day, placing in the money - EVO is an acceptation, thats a convention for enthusiasts.

People go so they can stomp on each others nuts with a smile on their face and drink beer afterwards -- that's arcade culture. People go, because its a community driven hype machine you can't get from anywhere else. The big money can sometimes add to that hype, but that's all it does. It isn't all about the money jack (for most people), it's about the game, the competition, the achievement and the camaraderie.

Making the focus something you are supposed to add on top is a bastardization of the ideology behind it. You don't order a bowl of ice cream so you can eat the cherry. If people really thought it was all about the money, you wouldn't have every other FGC looking at the DOA 4 community and what it pulled, and spitting on it.

You also wouldn't have had those smash players from MLG break contract and attend grass roots tournaments in protest of the bullshit.

With DOA 4, yes it's all about the money. That's because the game is ass.

 

[d3v]

If it means that eventually, players didn't have to work anymore and could instead, make a living out of doing something they loved, then I say "fuck yes" to more money.

 

[Rikuto]

Except that you can't do it for a living. Not with fighting games, not as they are now. That was the theory behind CGS.... but look what happens when you make your community dependent on the kind of organization that has absolutely no respect for it? You get people who have no accomplishments getting invited to $10,000 private tournaments while the real warriors are left out in the cold. You get girls like Belle being drafted who have never even played the game before in their life because they are in a relationship with one of the general managers, while girls like tagyourpregnant performed well and got shafted.

You want that kind of a community?

It's a flawed concept with a deadly outcome, and it cannot be done right by just handing over the power reigns to someone with money in the hopes they'll just take care of everything for you. If you want that kind of thing you have to build it yourself from the ground up, and you do that by building interest from the grass roots and expanding properly -- not by just finding some fat businessman to throw money at it and then watch it buckle under the genuine lack of interest in a year or two.

But hey, I'm not against big money. I travel myself for it, like I said. I just don't like think signing away the soul of your game to a corporate juggernaut is a great idea when their interests do not align at all with yours beyond the fact that there is money. Money is not the bottom line, it sure as hell wasn't the reason we started playing the game and people need to remember that.

 

[Matt Ponton]

I wasn't saying that money isn't a good incentive for a tournament, but using money as the primary focal point for a community this size is just pointless because you have to put a large sum of money in that would attract players who just aren't interested in playing the game. This is different from Justin Wong or the Street Fighter/Marvel community as it already gets enough numbers to warrant high money payouts without advertising the focal point as the money. You have to build the community up and throwing money at it thinking it will add more players who want to play the game is just a fallacy.

 

[Awesmic]

Speaking for myself, I didn't go to D.I.D. 7 for the money. I went because:

1) I was - first and foremost - looking for real acceptance in the community, and realized what I was doing the past 6 years wasn't enough.

2) I was able to take the time off to go thanks to the powers of negotiation, which isn't easy. I could also afford to travel at the time.

3) I had a new car between the time of my accident and D.I.D. 7, (though I wasn't confident about traveling alone without a GPS, which I thought I was going to get at the time).

4) This could've been my one and only opportunity to see Monty Oum in person and get his autograph. Hell, it could've been my only chance to see Yaya cosplay as Christie again, seeing as she was gonna be there too. The thought of her spectating the matches as Christie is hella motivation... for me, anyway. She actually makes the "Fourth Costume" look classy.

5) A lot of people believed I had potential to do better than last place even though I didn't believe in myself. I wouldn't have gone if I was gonna be easily considered a laughingstock.

6) I don't have the same bandwagon hate mentality for DOA4 nor DOAD like most others, obviously 'cause I still play them when I have time... so I was gonna play these games at the tourney. But at the same time, that's not saying I wouldn't opt for a better game than these two either.

So yeah... for me, it was never about money. It meant nothing to me compared to all this apart from going from point A to point B. If it did, I would've just invested more time on my old man's poker night gatherings. Besides, I was feelin' lucky after winning a free copy of MK... but that would get boring really fast.

 

[LivingShadow]

If they were legit, grassroots tournaments they probably wouldn't be competing with each other. But seeing as how you have set up a very one-sided hypothetical situation where literally the only factor involved is money, it would tournament B.

You also have to keep in mind travel and lodging costs. If tournament B costs $150 to attend but A costs $20 then A wins out.

 

[Relius Starkiller]

to see Yaya cosplay as Christie

I know right.

I'd go yard on that chick.

 

[DrDogg]

Prize money with a standard payout draws out the big names, it does not draw out the community. Unless you're paying down to about the top 32, people are traveling to a tournament for the experience and the competition. A vast majority of the people who travel to tournaments do so with the assumption that they're not going to win.

When DOA5 hits, there will be tournaments for it (I already know of two). Assuming the game is good, I'd guess we won't see more than about 50 people at majors until people see it streamed and realize it's a solid fighter. Of those 50, I'd say only about 10-15 went to the tournament thinking they had a real shot at taking top 3 and getting in the money. The remaining 35-40 went for the experience and the competition.

 

[Relius Starkiller]

I don't think smash brothers was built on streams.

I believe everyone is failing to realize that there is a new generation of DOA players, right behind us, who picked up on DOA4. I think instead of trying to turn atheists into believers we'd be better served preaching to the quire.

It just doesn't make sense to me that. . .you have a list of ALL the people who ever played DOA4 online right on Xbox Live. Why didn't someone go out and try and reach those people? Thats what I'm doing now - I'm going down that list of ranked players on DOA4 and sending each one of them a message letting them know that there is a competitive outlet for DOA if you want it and its at TKplayers.com (No vemon guys, lets keep the shit civil.).

750 odd thousand messages is going to take a while, but hey, 20 or so a day.

And some will come back for the money, some will come back because they get to compete and don't care how they come back, just as long as they come.

Kind of like Yaya Han - I don't care how she comes, just as long as she comes. I want her to come.

 

[Rikuto]

Choir.

And no vemom is necessary, I think pretty much anyone with half a lick of sense has known what you were doing here from the moment you started posting.

 

[UncleKitchener]

The only reward I'm expecting is to not get stabbed when going to east London. I'm happy enough it's not South London because no one wants to travel all the way there to just play video games and I'm still not doing that even for a free $10,000.

 

[DrDogg]

I don't think smash brothers was built on streams.

Did you seriously just say that?

At what point in time did I say the DOA community has to be built on streams? It's simply the easiest way to do so in modern times. If you can prove to the competitive fighting game community that DOA5 is a solid fighter, they will play it. It's that simple.

And for the record, the Smash community is about 7 times the size of the DOA community. It's been like that since the beginning.

Now I have to ask... who are you? I have not read a single comment from you that made any kind of sense. But before I just start ignoring you, I'd like to at least figure out if you're just trolling, or if you actually believe the things you're saying. I tried to be civil, but I can only put up with so much.

I believe everyone is failing to realize that there is a new generation of DOA players, right behind us, who picked up on DOA4. I think instead of trying to turn atheists into believers we'd be better served preaching to the quire.

You do realize that most of us played DOA2U and DOA4 online right? You realize that we were in rooms with a good number of those people you're trying to contact? You also realize that with any fighting game, the competitive community is going to be significantly smaller than the total player base of the game.

And to be honest, I don't want most of those online players. It was hard enough to get people to understand the flaws of competitive online play back around the DOA2U days. The same argument had to be made when DOA4 hit, and I'm sure the battle will rise up again when DOA5 hits. At least now, if I say online matches don't matter (from a competitive standpoint) people understand. Bring in another 100 online players and it's a shouting match again. No thank you.

If DOA5 is solid, people from other fighting games will play it. If it is not solid, then you'll need those other DOA players because the scene will be dead.

Kind of like Yaya Han - I don't care how she comes, just as long as she comes. I want her to come.

I've ignored all of the other comments like this that you've made, but seriously... why do you bother saying things like this?

 

[Matt Ponton]

Now I have to ask... who are you? I have not read a single comment from you that made any kind of sense. But before I just start ignoring you, I'd like to at least figure out if you're just trolling, or if you actually believe the things you're saying. I tried to be civil, but I can only put up with so much.

I've ignored all of the other comments like this that you've made, but seriously... why do you bother saying things like this?

It's Julius Rage.

 

[UncleKitchener]

Yeah guys, stop thinking with your dicks. God, think of those church going god loving players reading your messages.

But seriously guys, I don't need to know about your raging boners. Keep them in your pants.