Potential methods to increase tournament attendance

[Zivilyn Bane]

Topic: Potential methods to increase tournament attendance.
Goal: Vastly increase tournament attendance over an short period of time
Purpose: To keep the melee community alive and growing, while simultaneously becoming a more mature and established community.
In other words: This is a rethink on the Amateur Bracket, and will base it's theory on one of the many lessons our small and young community can learn from the Grandfather of competitive gaming, Chess.
Seeking: The advice and opinion of the community on whether or not something like this could or would work. Please refrain from obvious trolling and if you're going to give your advice or opinion, please try to do so with some sort of logic as to why you think the way you do.
Warning: If you want to cut to the chase and read the proposal you can skip the Preface. However, if you really want some insight and education on WHY there is potential money in melee, read it.

Preface: Melee. It's a game I love and am very passionate about. However it's not the only hobby I love. I also love pro football, chess, movies, music, playing other video games, MMA, Starcraft: BW, and maybe a couple of others. When I look at my other areas of interest I see a lot of money. Fans are the source of cash for football, movies, music, game developers, MMA, and even Starcraft. So what about melee? There aren't really any fans clamoring to get seats for the next big smash tournament before they sell out. There's no merchandise. No advertisement. No sponsorships. Nothing. But what about Chess? Chess, Melee, and other board games or video games have one thing in common that sports do not; and that's that anybody can play. It's not like I can go out and play a game of football with the Packers. I can't exactly go fight Anderson Silva for money (not like I'd want to). But I sure can go enter the same melee tournament as Dr. PP, or enter a chess tournament that Hikaru Nakamura is going to. I'd even have the opportunity to play them. I played Mango at E52-2 during his reign as best smash player. I've played Grandmasters in chess before. The players are the one's who support the prizes and community. Chess just so happens to have a much much larger community. According to recent study there are over 605 million people worldwide that know how to play chess. That's nearly 10% of the worlds population! 285 million people play actively online. And the USCF (United States Chess Federation) alone has around 90,000 ACTIVE members. These are people that actually travel to, pay for, and compete in chess tournaments. Melee would be lucky to break 3,000 world wide. So why is it that so many people are willing to play chess? I personally spent 6 years playing tournament chess and after playing tournament melee off and on for 6 years, I can say that the melee community is much better, closer, and fun than chess will ever be. Well aside from the obvious or wrong answers like "chess has been around forever" or "chess has richer players" just try to remember that once upon a time chess, football, MMA, ect, ect all started out with a few guys passionate about their game/sport and wanted it to become something more than what it is, and never let it die. Even though there will always be doubters.

Proposal: Ok down to the meat and potatoes of this idea. Keep in mind the goal of this operation is to improve tournament attendance, and thus increase the money involved. To do this we will take a close look at Chess and find out why so many players compete and pay to play.

The first thing I want to do is talk about an annual chess tournament, the Las Vegas Open. This is a huge chess tournament that happens every year and is open to all players. Before we get in to it, you must know what elo ratings are. Elo ratings are numerical values given to players that track their skill level as opposed to the rest of the players in the world. If you've ever played chess online you've probably seen 'em. In the world of real chess (not online) they're actually extremely accurate. To the point where you could take two players from opposite sides of the country with similar ratings and expect them to split a ten game set 5-5. It's not guaranteed, but it's accurate. If you want to read more about how they work, there is a proposal to use elo ratings in melee and that can be found here. In my opinion there are so many reasons why it just won't work in melee (or at least not for several years) but we can still take adaptations from it and see if we can make other things work. Anyways, the way chess uses elo ratings to increase attendance and generate money via entry fees is to segregate players into divisions during tournaments and allow players of all skill levels to have the chance to win money. Lets take a look at the following prizes for a chess tournament.
Las Vegas Open 2011

OPEN U2200 U2000 U1800 U1600 U1400 U1200 UNR
1st $8,000 $4,500 $4,500 $4,500 $4,500 $2,500 $1,500 $600
2nd $4,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $1,500 $900 $400
3rd $2,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $500 $200
4th $1,000 $750 $750 $750 $750 $500 $250 $150
5th $600 $500 $500 $500 $500 $300 $250 $150
6th $400 $350 $350 $350 $350 $300 $200
7th $400 $350 $350 $350 $350 $250 $200
8th $400 $350 $350 $350 $350 $250 $200
9th $400 $350 $350 $350 $350 $200 $200
10th $400 $350 $350 $350 $350 $200 $200
11th $200 $200 $200 $200 $200
12th $200 $200 $200 $200 $200
13th $200 $200 $200 $200 $200
14th $200 $200 $200 $200 $200
15th $200 $200 $200 $200 $200
U2500 $2,000
U2400 $1,500
U2300 $1,000
Plus score bonus: $50 in any division
Awarded on site only!
$2,000 bonus for perfect score in open!

Ok so we notice several things. They are divided into divisions. And the prize money is insane. That's a lot of prizes. It's $80,000 guaranteed. These are the entry fees:
Entry Fees $179 by 5/18, $199 by 6/8, $220 on site.
· $100 additional for adults rated under 2100 or juniors under 2000 in the Championship section.
· Re-entry $120, counts as 1/2 player for based-on count.

So basically a MINIMUM of $170 bucks to enter. Well, that's not the route I want to go with melee, or at least not in the next 20 years. What we notice though is that there is the potential for a newer chess player to win more money than a Grandmaster. Why is this? It seems dumb right? Well the fact is the noobs outnumber the GMs 1000 to 1. The prizes in this tournament are based off 850 paid entrees, and not a single one of those will be a Grandmaster. And the Las Vegas Open ALWAYS has the minimum number of entrees for their advertised prize pot.

So if not a single paid entrant will be a Grandmaster, does that mean not a single GM will enter? No, but we'll cover that a little later.

Melee obviously doesn't have an intricate and established elo system, so how are we going to get this to work? We aren't really, but an adaptation of this system might work. Because I'll tell you right now, 850 people wouldn't be going to the Las Vegas Open if it was just one big huge open division and only the top ten win prizes. In fact I could almost guarantee that NOT A SINGLE person would attend and pay $170 bucks just to win a payout that was determined by entrants. It's just too much money and without all the NOOBS going and trying to win money in the lower division, the experts, masters, and GMs wouldn't show up either.

So. For Melee, this is what I propose:

I propose that a national tournament have TWO separate divisions. A Pro bracket, and an Amateur bracket, both with prize money. The players simply have the choice of which bracket they want to enter.

Why wouldn't a pro just enter the amateur to win the money? Well it's simple. The Amateur bracket, while having the same or even higher entry fee, would have a much smaller prize pot. It will however be big enough to entice players that wouldn't otherwise win money to attend.

Here is an example.

Let's say we host a National Tournament with a guaranteed $3200 prize pot. With Pro and Amateur brackets that would run simultaneously. This isn't one of those "don't make it out of pools, play in ama bracket" things. Those don't work and are generally unfair to players that do make it out. See Pound 5.

Ok so the $3200 prize pot is entirely made up of entry fees and is based off 128 entrants. It's common practice in chess (and I've seen it in melee a few times) to say "GUARANTEED PRIZE FUND - $3200 based off 128 entrants, bonus for more." Well, the $3200 is based off a $25 entry fee, pretty common for a national. For this example we are using same entry fee for Amateur and Open. The players upon registration are openly allowed to chose which division they would like to enter. They MUST however keep in mind that no matter what distribution of players the two divisions get (example, 50% open 50% ama) the Open will recieve 75% of the prize fund. EVEN IF only 10 people entered the open and 118 entered the ama, 75% of the prizes would go to the open. This is what our prizes breakdown would look like:
$2400 - Open (prizes to top 5)
$800 - Amateur (prizes to top 5)

Open
1st-$960 (40%)
2nd-$600 (25%)
3rd-$360 (15%)
4th-$240 (10%)
5th-$120 (5%)
5th-$120 (5%)

Amateur
1st-$320 (40%)
2nd-$200 (25%)
3rd-$120 (15%)
4th-$80 (10%)
5th-$40 (5%)
5th-$40 (5%)

Does this seem reasonable? In my opinion, as long as the 3rd place finisher in the open is getting more than 1st in the ama, it has some grounds for balance. There usually is only a handful of players that can actually win money at a large tournament. Because of that I believe many people do not show up. However, with this system almost anybody can win money. Lets use Zhu as an example. He's a player that could opt for the Amateur bracket and win $320. Well he's obviously a pro and could take top three in the open. However the risk is higher. But for a player like Dr. PP. Would he take a chance on the amateur bracket? I would definitely think not. And if he did? I think even more players would be inclined to enter the open. However, there are still ways to prevent things like this from happening. But first, lets look at one more example.

In this example, we have the exact same tournament, only we give 85% of the entrees to the Open division with top 5 payout, and 15% of the entrees to the Ama division, with only top 3 payout.
$2720 - Open (prizes to top 5)
$480 - Amateur (prizes to top 3)

Open
1st - $1088
2nd - $680
3rd - $408
4th - $272
5th - $136
5th - $136

Amateur
1st - $240
2nd - $144
3rd - $96

In this scenario we see top 4 in the open winning more money than first in the amateur, which would be quite beneficial to deterring pros from entering the amateur.

Now remember earlier when I said at the Las Vegas Open there would not be a single paying Grandmaster? The reason for this is because large chess tournaments like that will generally give invites to certain players to attend. These are Grandmaster level players and THEY are the major draws of a tournament. For example, we run local monthlies here in Springfield. We normally have between 12 and 20 players. But if Dr. PP showed up at the May event, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw 40+ players. What if Dr. PP, M2K, Mango, HBox, and DaShizWiz showed up? Well we'd probably be looking at a National.

The point is for tournament organizers to consider VIP lists. These lists can be made by organizers and be full of as much bias as they want. It's important to remember though that if it's not necessary, it's a waste of money. So just listing your favorite players on the VIP list isn't going to benefit your tournament.

So for the National Tournament we used as an example earlier, we're going to give free entry to the open bracket to the following players:
Dr. PP
Mango
Mew2King
JMan
Armada
DaShizWiz
Darkrain
SilentSpectre
Lucky
IB
Axe
Wobbles
Hax
Amsah
Kage
Zhu

So, now we have Pro's getting in for free, and more money being distributed to lesser skilled players. Believe it or not but this actually does equal more entrants which equals more money. Our pros are more likely to attend with free entry fees, and opt for the pro bracket (they're not receiving free entry into the amateur bracket). Lots of players of mid tier levels wanting to go to play against the best and get better and this is the perfect opportunity to do so with so many pros going. Lots of lower tier players wanting to go to finally have a shot at winning some money. The 128 man bracket we discussed earlier might well have been a 64 man bracket with 56 entrants. Or maybe it might've been a 128 man bracket and now it's a 256 man bracket.

There are more options at the TOs disposal as well. They could have an event and charge $25 for the amateur bracket and $15 for the pro bracket. They could take a poll to decide the 10 VIP players. They could charge even higher entry fees to pros attempting to enter the amateur bracket. Just a few thoughts.

Even More: There are many other ways to attract larger audiences while making more money. Some of these things are so commonplace in other communities and professional environments I'm surprised melee doesn't take advantage of them more often. Lets take a look:
-Raffles. At the registration table, have optional raffle tickets for purchase. Get a T-Shirt signed by all the pros in attendance. Front some cash for a few "swag" type prizes like micro SD cards, games, or gift cards. Have the pros sign a gamecube. You'd be surprised how many mid level and noob players would actually covet something like Mango's autograph. Charge $1-$5 for them as optional add ons to entry or include them in entry fees.
-Merchandise. I know Genesis 2 is going to have T-Shirts. What a great idea. They should raffle one with some autographs on it. T-Shirts are commemorative souvenirs that people will pay money for to increase prize money or help pay for venue fees.
-Special prizes. Notice in the Las Vegas Open table up above there are prizes in the Open for U2500 or $50 to players that get even scores? I've been to chess tournaments that offer prizes to "biggest upset" or "best game." After the tournament have players vote on a poll what the best match played was and award the players with something. SMYM12 did a really nice Top 10 Plays from their videos.
-Do a lottery. Just pick a random player to win $20 bucks or their entry fee back.
-During side events, registration, or other open time sit somebody like Mew2King at a table with a sign that says "$1 to play. Get $5 if you win." And just watch the players line up to pay $1 to play Mew2King in one set.
-Sales booth/tent. Most chess tournaments have a "store" where you can go buy chess boards, clocks, score books, books, videos, software, ect. Set up a table and have someone run it and sell melee discs, controllers, memory cards, gamecubes, memorabilia, ect. This stuff WILL SELL and there is plenty of profit in it.

These are all things that might seem like they would cost more money but in the big picture just end up increasing attendance and cash flow. Pros would win more money. The community would grow and expand and mature. These are all things that the Chess playing community practice and use to great effect and wouldn't be that hard for our community to emulate.

What do you guys think? Can any of this work? Was it too long to read? Are there any TOs willing to try any of this? Please post up with thoughts and comments and lets all collaborate more ways to grow our community and who knows? Maybe in 100 years people will still be playing it! I'm sure nobody thought they'd still be playing chess 2 thousand years ago, huh?

Links:
http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/natlopen/sections.php
http://vegaschessfestival.com/
http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/natlopen/prizes.php
http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/kenilworthian/2007/02/how-many-chessplayers.html

 

[Redact]

There would be too many high level players entering the ama bracket. Sure there is the chance to play pros, but I can see a few players simply going "hey I'd make say 7th at best in pro bracket, maybe around 10th-15th.... I'll just enter amateur instead"

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

There would be too many high level players entering the ama bracket. Sure there is the chance to play pros, but I can see a few players simply going "hey I'd make say 7th at best in pro bracket, maybe around 10th-15th.... I'll just enter amateur instead"

You don't think free entries or more money would deter them? What if many many pros enter the amateur, don't you think other pros would see that and enter the Pro bracket since the more pros in amateur, the easier it is to win more money in the Pro?

 

[PEEF!]

The fact that I'm not on the free entry list is disgusting.

 

[Abate]

You don't think free entries or more money would deter them? What if many many pros enter the amateur, don't you think other pros would see that and enter the Pro bracket since the more pros in amateur, the easier it is to win more money in the Pro?

I guess his concern is that "better than amateur" players will enter the amateur bracket and dominate because they know they wouldn't get any money in the pro bracket. What if the amount of winners in the pro bracket was increased? (like prize for 8th in pro equals prize for 1st in amateur). I think you're right about pros choosing the pro bracket to win more money... but it seems like the payout has to be chosen perfectly in order for this system to work well (which seems really difficult to do).

If a player typically places 10th-15th at big tournaments... should he enter the pro bracket? If not, is he the type of player that should be considered "amateur"?

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

I guess his concern is that "better than amateur" players will enter the amateur bracket and dominate because they know they wouldn't get any money in the pro bracket. What if the amount of winners in the pro bracket was increased? (like prize for 8th in pro equals prize for 1st in amateur). I think you're right about pros choosing the pro bracket to win more money... but it seems like the payout has to be chosen perfectly in order for this system to work well (which seems really difficult to do).

If a player typically places 10th-15th at big tournaments... should he enter the pro bracket? If not, is he the type of player that should be considered "amateur"?

Even if more mid tier players show up I still think it's a success. I'm fine with a midtier player winning an amateur bracket. I consider myself a midtier player, but I personally would play in the Pro bracket. The goal of the amateur bracket isn't really to let noobs win money, but to provide the chance to win money to many more players to increase attendance.

By all means play around with the numbers a little bit and if you find a way to do payouts to top 8 which all pay more than amateur, and the amateur still has enough to draw people in, post it up.

 

[Pi]

i don't like the idea of the ama/pro bracket because I think I would find myself, like many others, opting for the ama bracket because we're not in a position to 'win' the tournament but we'd still like to see how we stack up against the competition

so if we enter the pro bracket, get 2-0'd we don't really gain anything from it, but if we enter the ama bracket we have a chance to actually beat people

so the pro bracket would only be alluring to a handful of people

though I guess even taking top 7 or so would net you some cash...

Idk

 

[Life]

Bookmarking this thread, and spreading it to the Brawl boards as well. This is an amazing thread and deserves the attention.

 

[PEEF!]

Amateur pots are worthless. Without going into it, I'm leaving it at that. As someone who would probably do quite well in an amateur bracket, I would get a f*cking job instead of playing Super Smash Mario kiddie bros all the goddamn time.

The only way the Melee community will continue is EXACTLY HOW IT IS. There will never be real money in Melee outside of our own money. Deal with it. People should stop trying to turn this community into something it will never be. Play the damn game. Get good at the damn game in order to improve at one of the most awesome games ever and get people to cheer for you. This is not the place for the greedy and it never will be. Most everyone will lose, but they still hang out and enter knowing that they will lose. They know they will lose but they also know that they will have a good time. Beating good people gets you fanboys and makes you a decentish amount of money for the investment. Good enough.

Bottom line: For 90% of players, going to tournaments is an entertainment cost. Get over it people. Enjoy a weekend with the bros and play the bracket. These silly systems would have been a great idea 8 years ago, but unfortunately the Melee community is not growing, and not dying, but that is totally fine. We all need to accept what we've got. Eachother. All of this silly business about money...come on. No circuit is picking up Melee because it is too old and has no online capability. Brawl sucks, the next one will probably suck just as bad. Live with it.

 

[Massive]

As much as it pains me, I actually agree with peef on this one.
It would be an awesome setup if every melee tournament got 300+ attendees, but that is never likely to happen.

What little incentive there is for top-of-the-top players to travel, other than the love of the game, is the reasonably sized payouts they can get. Dropping their payout from 50%-60% to 30% is not going to be looked kindly upon.

Additionally, if all the really awesome people are in the 'pro' bracket, how are you going to tell your buddies stories about "I would've gotten to play -really awesome dude-, but ****ing -insert amazing dude- knocked me into losers before I got the chance!" or "HOLY **** -really good dude- ***** ME".

There would be no Johns for anyone.
YOU SUCK IN AMATEUR BRACKET YOU SUCK FOR REAL.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

I appreciate your input Massive, it's very nice to see a sort of close local player with an opinion on the topic.

I just want to make sure though that some of you who don't have the time to read it all realize that the idea is NOT to drop prize pots for the pros. The idea is to create in incentive for more players to show up thus increasing prize money. And one of the incentives is to give a little back to the players that make up the majority of the tournaments we run now: non $ winning players. Like I said, the Las Vegas Open will have 850 paying entrants. Not a single one of them would attend and pay a $179 entry fee if there wasn't the chance to win money.

Is it honestly the best idea to just sit back and leave things the way they are? Smash WILL eventually die if we don't find ways to grow. Is that ok with most players out there?

 

[Life]

Here's a simple idea: any player that makes it out of pools gets a (partial?) refund on their venue fee. Thoughts?

 

[EPsilon933]

Here's a simple idea: any player that makes it out of pools gets a (partial?) refund on their venue fee. Thoughts?

Watch the prizes for top 8 cut in half... if it's for first round pools. But do we have to give out money to those who do slightly well?

 

[Life]

The idea is to give incentive to the players who normally don't make it to bracket to keep improving themselves.

Think of it this way. You're running a marathon. I offer to give you one dollar for every mile you run or 26 dollars at the end of the run. Which are you more likely to be willing to do? If the rewards for improving are a little more spread out, you're more likely to improve because the gratification for improvement will be less delayed.

I AM a tad concerned that it might require higher venue fees to make up the difference which will work against the whole idea. Kinda throwing it out there just for people like you to play around with.

 

[crush]

I like how you listed IB on the free entry list but not hungrybox

 

[Massive]

Here's a simple idea: any player that makes it out of pools gets a (partial?) refund on their venue fee. Thoughts?

You can't just do that.
A lot of times venue fees go to, you know, rent the venue.
Without those fees you're expecting the TO to take a loss every time they run a tournament, not cool at all.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

I like how you listed IB on the free entry list but not hungrybox

Wtf lol. Sorry no disrespect intended towards HBox. He was absolutely intended to be on there. He's even on my rough draft .doc list. As for players like IB and Kage, they are definitely on there even though there may be a few US players better that were left off (maybe...but probably not). Intending to attract more international players, even if they're not really from overseas.

 

[Get Low]

Even More: There are many other ways to attract larger audiences while making more money. Some of these things are so commonplace in other communities and professional environments I'm surprised melee doesn't take advantage of them more often. Lets take a look:
-Raffles. At the registration table, have optional raffle tickets for purchase. Get a T-Shirt signed by all the pros in attendance. Front some cash for a few "swag" type prizes like micro SD cards, games, or gift cards. Have the pros sign a gamecube. You'd be surprised how many mid level and noob players would actually covet something like Mango's autograph. Charge $1-$5 for them as optional add ons to entry or include them in entry fees.
-Merchandise. I know Genesis 2 is going to have T-Shirts. What a great idea. They should raffle one with some autographs on it. T-Shirts are commemorative souvenirs that people will pay money for to increase prize money or help pay for venue fees.
-Special prizes. Notice in the Las Vegas Open table up above there are prizes in the Open for U2500 or $50 to players that get even scores? I've been to chess tournaments that offer prizes to "biggest upset" or "best game." After the tournament have players vote on a poll what the best match played was and award the players with something. SMYM12 did a really nice Top 10 Plays from their videos.
-Do a lottery. Just pick a random player to win $20 bucks or their entry fee back.
-During side events, registration, or other open time sit somebody like Mew2King at a table with a sign that says "$1 to play. Get $5 if you win." And just watch the players line up to pay $1 to play Mew2King in one set.
-Sales booth/tent. Most chess tournaments have a "store" where you can go buy chess boards, clocks, score books, books, videos, software, ect. Set up a table and have someone run it and sell melee discs, controllers, memory cards, gamecubes, memorabilia, ect. This stuff WILL SELL and there is plenty of profit in it.

As if TOs don't already have enough to do and aren't stressed out enough as it is during tourneys.

 

[Ripple]

tell people women will be attending.

 

[B_AWAL]

Wow....

Interesting I'll take a look when I'm not tired from work

 

[da K.I.D.]

the basic concept of this idea seems to be that

50% of the 20$ entry fee for 200 people isnt as good as
30% of the ~25$ entry fee for 400 people.

 

[Divinokage]

The fact that I'm not on the free entry list is disgusting.

Sucks to suck I guess.

I like how you listed IB on the free entry list but not hungrybox

I like how you nitpick everything for no reason, stfu.

@Ripple.. I swear if there's more women in the smash community, I would go to every tournaments around the world!

As for being serious about this topic.. hmm... Well definitely, the people that go to tournaments is usually for the awesome times that is brought along with it. It's about the good times, I don't travel because I want money (Well I do but I don't play for it, it's a nice bonus for sure) I play because I want to defeat strong opponents and I want to accomplish something that no one has ever been able to yet. I play because I was able to make lots of awesome friends, and it will probably stay that way. Smashers simply have no means to travel constantly in order to simply have a chance to make money.. We HAVE to work before going to tournaments or else it's simply not possible. How often we get large tournaments is very low. It seems like you want to try to make smash a game where we can live it out off. But even then.. a game like SSF4 where the attendance is triple the amount of smash. There's not that many difference, except well.. it does have more sponsors and they fly in Daigo for example because hes so damn good.

Can we really at least triple our attendance? It seems very unreal to me right now.

 

[Anth0ny]

This is how:

Nintendo is going to release downloadable GC games on Cafe (Wii 2). Melee is released, and a new generation of players are introduced to this amazing game.

tournament attendance increases!

 

[Mooo]

and then we specualte more

 

[crush]

I like how you nitpick everything for no reason, stfu.

i wasn't nitpicking if i was saying i liked it...

 

[MattDotZeb]

Crush - Not a warrior.
Kage - Warrior.

Decision has been made.



Also I'm going to look into putting a few of the things you mentioned towards the end here into my tournaments. Keep up the great posts, Zivilyn.

 

[Brookman]

More Crews + more crew battles. This **** is the classic. I duno about you guys, but I miss those more than anything. DA for life.


On that note:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy90qL1CbD8&feature=feedu

More crew battles . . .less "OOHH!! OOOOH!! OOOH!!! OOHHHH!!!!!"

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

As if TOs don't already have enough to do and aren't stressed out enough as it is during tourneys.

If you can explain to me why organizers of pretty much every other event on the planet can add things like raffles, tee shirts, lotterys, and autographs but smash TOs cannot, I'll see your point as valid. What makes them so much better than us that they can and we can't? The fact is, most good TOs could do these things with ease. Ken and ManaCloud had their sisters help out with these kinds of things. Darkrain let my wife and many other spectators run some pools for him at E52 to free up some time. Trust me, people can do it. Plus (and not to be rude) but you have 36 posts and joined last month, why on earth is your point about smash TOs valid to begin with?

the basic concept of this idea seems to be that

50% of the 20$ entry fee for 200 people isnt as good as
30% of the ~25$ entry fee for 400 people.

This is correct. The only thing we can do is try it and see if it works. It has to be with a big tournament though because it's not going to make a difference with a 32 entrant event. However with it comes a lot of risk. It COULD fail. But it really could succeed.

tell people women will be attending.

This could work. I remember MLG Anaheim back in 2006. There were "MLG Girls" handing stuff out and they were all ridiculously hot. Reason enough to travel to an event. They were all very friendly and flirtatious as well. E3 uses things like this. However, it's just really not very practical. Although I gotta admit, I watched Peef's thursday night smash stream twice just because his girlfriend is hot lol.

Also I'm going to look into putting a few of the things you mentioned towards the end here into my tournaments. Keep up the great posts, Zivilyn.

Thank you and I appreciate that Matt. If you take any ideas from here or come up with more of your own, post up and let us know how they went and if you feel they could work consistently.

As for being serious about this topic.. hmm... Well definitely, the people that go to tournaments is usually for the awesome times that is brought along with it. It's about the good times, I don't travel because I want money (Well I do but I don't play for it, it's a nice bonus for sure) I play because I want to defeat strong opponents and I want to accomplish something that no one has ever been able to yet. I play because I was able to make lots of awesome friends, and it will probably stay that way. Smashers simply have no means to travel constantly in order to simply have a chance to make money.. We HAVE to work before going to tournaments or else it's simply not possible. How often we get large tournaments is very low. It seems like you want to try to make smash a game where we can live it out off. But even then.. a game like SSF4 where the attendance is triple the amount of smash. There's not that many difference, except well.. it does have more sponsors and they fly in Daigo for example because hes so damn good.

Can we really at least triple our attendance? It seems very unreal to me right now.

It's nice to have a pros opinion on this so thank you for posting Kage. You make valid points but honestly, I absolutely believe we can at least triple attendance in melee. It's not going to happen overnight, and it's going to take some hard work from our very best TOs and other players that truly love the game. All it takes are some genuinely good ideas. Sure it would help to have the financial backing of a large corporation. I mean seriously if I won the lottery I would start a company and I guarantee you I could make this game prosperous for players, TOs, and the community as a whole.

Smash players are generally very intelligent people, why couldn't we take something we love and find a way to make it grow?

 

[Deleted member]

not everything is based on money or whatever other programs you have going. your calculations are...extensive, but i don't think they'll have much impact. if people wanted to play the game, they simply would.

you're looking at a game that's 10 years old with limited quality condition discs available used on a dead system with increasingly difficult to obtain controllers to use on a non-flat screen TV, all 3 of which haven't been made in years. the community has no public advertisement, tournaments have no online capability, the median age is very high, and even higher are the skill entry barriers to competitive play. i just don't think it's realistic to expect any kind of community growth, in spite of whatever efforts you may produce.

as it stands, we've had a good run with this game and it's been a long ride. at this point, every player is best off getting whatever he/she personally can while people still play it and slowly transition into the next stage of your life, whatever that may be. the sooner you realize it's coming, the more likely you'll have no regrets when the time comes to make the transition.

 

[Divinokage]

There is no transition, melee forever!

 

[Get Low]

If you can explain to me why organizers of pretty much every other event on the planet can add things like raffles, tee shirts, lotterys, and autographs but smash TOs cannot, I'll see your point as valid. What makes them so much better than us that they can and we can't? The fact is, most good TOs could do these things with ease. Ken and ManaCloud had their sisters help out with these kinds of things. Darkrain let my wife and many other spectators run some pools for him at E52 to free up some time. Trust me, people can do it. Plus (and not to be rude) but you have 36 posts and joined last month, why on earth is your point about smash TOs valid to begin with?

First of all, I'd like to say that I've been playing Melee for about a year now, I just never had an account on here until recently. Also, the things you mentioned are all splendid ideas as long as TOs can find other people to help them out. I don't believe they would be capable of doing all those things and running the main tournament single-handedly. And also, for smaller tourneys, there might not be as many people willing to help out. I can't imagine all of those things you mentioned getting accomplished unless it was a fairly large tournament.

 

[tarheeljks]

not everything is based on money or whatever other programs you have going. your calculations are...extensive, but i don't think they'll have much impact. if people wanted to play the game, they simply would.

you're looking at a game that's 10 years old with limited quality condition discs available used on a dead system with increasingly difficult to obtain controllers to use on a non-flat screen TV, all 3 of which haven't been made in years. the community has no public advertisement, tournaments have no online capability, the median age is very high, and even higher are the skill entry barriers to competitive play. i just don't think it's realistic to expect any kind of community growth, in spite of whatever efforts you may produce.

as it stands, we've had a good run with this game and it's been a long ride. at this point, every player is best off getting whatever he/she personally can while people still play it and slowly transition into the next stage of your life, whatever that may be. the sooner you realize it's coming, the more likely you'll have no regrets when the time comes to make the transition.

to each his own. people who feel this course of action will give them the most enjoyment should do it. however, if some people want to take measures to extend the life of the game then they should do that. i don't really understand why anyone would try to dissuade someone from the latter when it is not detrimental. if you don't agree, think it's worthless,etc then don't participate

 

[Brookman]

...however, if some people want to take measures to extend the throw more of their life into the toilet bowl of this game then they should do that.

Reality check, please.

 

[tarheeljks]

wat. why must this exist on the extremes where a person has to "throw their life down the toilet"


there is obv little doubt that people have done so; however, it need not be the case. that is an issue of maturity that really has little to do w/the game

 

[Massive]

tell people women will be attending.

This is an idea I can get behind.

Another idea, open bar at a smash tourney.

 

[Deleted member]

to each his own. people who feel this course of action will give them the most enjoyment should do it. however, if some people want to take measures to extend the life of the game then they should do that. i don't really understand why anyone would try to dissuade someone from the latter when it is not detrimental. if you don't agree, think it's worthless,etc then don't participate

definitely. I suppose I was just going for some kind of effect where if it doesn't work out, don't get too disappointed.

 

[Life]

This is an idea I can get behind.

Another idea, open bar at a smash tourney.

This idea is bad unless you make it an explicitly dry bar. I hope I don't have to explain why a normal bar would be a problem.

 

[PEEF!]

This idea is bad unless you make it an explicitly dry bar. I hope I don't have to explain why a normal bar would be a problem.

I know the problem. A normal bar dosen't include strippers and we need those.

 

[Metà]

I know the problem. A normal bar dosen't include strippers and we need those.

I like the way you think.

 

[Life]