Tournament Cash Pay-Ins?

[EirikN]

Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but I've had a couple discussion about it with others and wanted to get some more discussion going towards it.

Barring all potential legal problems that may come up from running an international online tournament with laws from many different countries, do you think tournaments requiring cash pay-ins to participate are feasible?

Personally, I think the advantage is two-fold: it helps support TOs in putting together a cash prize for the top X teams, and it helps establish a sense of legitimacy and seriousness between teams to put forth their all. Some of the funds could be used to pay off whatever minor tournament expenses there may be, creating a better tournament experience. Logistically, since we're all playing online, pay-ins would have to be made over Paypal, which should be doable. As for prices, I recall the pay-in for an individual player for Smash would run anywhere from extremely low ($2 local) to $15, with most prices being $5-10 with an additional venue fee that online tournaments wouldn't need.

I'd be curious to know what any of you think about the advantages and disadvantages to having those pay-ins. I could definitely see how people not as familiar with other competitive video game tournaments would wonder why they're even done in other spheres.

 

[skyphoi]

I'm not very familiar with other competitive game tourneys, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me as long as the fee isn't much. Legal issues aside, a large cash prize would definitely entice people to join the tournament. The only con I could think of is that some people may not dig the idea of paying, so it may lower the amount of people joining? But like you mentioned, it would likely make players/the vibe of the tournament more serious, which could weed out people not actually interested, but simultaneously really interest/motivate those that would be.

 

[Kat]

They're fine but if we're going to have any posted/registered on Squidboard the legitimacy of the TO etc. will have to be verified. I wouldn't be cool with letting just anyone post those simply for the safety of the users.

Aside from that though there aren't really any downsides or upsides aside from a lower amount of teams entering as not everyone wants to put cash forward.