Let's devise the perfect big $$$ tournament

[msufan]

flignats, we need to make this happen. Say we start smaller: just $10K to be safe. I front the 10K prize money. You guys host the tourney in a game of our collective choosing. We work together to promote it. I get back the $$$ people spend in entry fees for that tourney, whether that means I take a loss or make a profit. You win by getting more people/publicity for your site.

[msufan]

what about this: a 3-game tourney

3-card solitaire
Breakit 3
Gem Swap II

costs $1.25 to play an entry in any of those three games, and you can play as many times as you wish to get your best score possible for 4 weeks

Top 100 finishers in each tourney get points, from 1,000 (for 1st) down to 10 (for 100th)

Add up your total points from the three tourneys. The top 32 people overall move on to the quarterfinals and are immediately awarded $50.

In the quarterfinals, players play head-to-head matchups based on rank from the first round -- #1 plays #32, #2 plays #31, etc. Scores from the previous round are erased. Players get one free entry into each of the three games but may then purchase additional entries into each game as often as desired (for 3.5 days) for $1.25, like before. Winners (decided by whichever player wins 2 of the 3 games) are immediately awarded another $100 and move on to the semifinal.

The semis are exactly like the quarters, as 16 players play down to 8 over another 3.5 days. Winners pick up another $200 immediately.

The final 8 play a final 3-tourney battle just like the first round. The winner gets a total prize of $2500 ($2150 on top of what was already awarded), and the rest of the payouts are below.

Final prize values:
1st: $2500
2nd: $1600
3rd: $1200
4th: $800
5th: $600
6th: $500
7th: $450
8th: $350
9th-16th: $150 ($1200 total)
17th-32nd: $50 ($800 total)
Total = $10,000

We need 8,000 entries to get back the $10K, and I think the multiple rounds causes people to need to play lots of times, helping that to happen. I also think awarding people their money immediately is huge so they can reinvest it in the next round rather than having to deposit more money.

[All4SciFi]

Oh surrrreee ... go pick three games I suck at, anyway ... well, maybe not 3-Card Solitaire IF it's unsolvable ... I might tie for 100th place there!

[Flignats]

First - Love the enthusiasm. That's hard to find and keep going for a lot of people.

Ok, as a business person - we don't like risk, or we try to minimize it. It's great that you'd want to fund such an event, but, if possible, it'd be best to set it up so that the funds coming out exceed the funds coming in. I'd hate to see something flop - wherever you do it - just to pay out $10k to people without getting a good return.

I like the setup you're thinking about though. It's surprisingly similar to an event we were going to host at a university.

However, regardless of the setup - the main obstacle is getting the traffic to the tournament site. SA has thousands of players, but a tournament of that size would need thousands of entries just to cover the prize pools. We have a couple tournaments hit the 1,000 play marks, but not near 5000, just not a big enough player base yet.

The unique setup would definitely motivate people to sign up again and again for the plays to better their score - especially the really competitive players. It even appeals to the less skilled with the initial qualifying rounds, fixed prize, and unlimited plays in the qualifying rounds.

But, the biggest question is the traffic. Obviously, we grow daily, new cash players..ect...but that's a big prize purse.

It also requires us to develop a brand new tournament style, which takes some time in development. It could be done, just a matter of time (not too long though... I'd imagine something like that would take about 2 weeks of development... maybe a little more because of the creative aspects added [designs, page layouts, ect]). We have a large project wrapping up this month, which will allow us to develop more features, can't wait to get this project finished!

So, really though - bottom line - players, advertising, marketing - and that's the biggest obstacle.

Thoughts on that?

[dpaull414]

So WW tried the qualifying round, then 32 player cup game tournament format for the W3 stuff and based on W3 longer existing, I assume it was not profitable.

King seems to launch royal cups fairly regularly with very large jackpots. This suggests to me that format works. Why not simply copy king and just make your own royal cup?

[All4SciFi]

Yeah ... but gotta come up with something unique and spiffy for SA ... like what they did with the ad graphics for the Treasure Hunt. That pirate bunny from Odd One Out was a nice touch!

3rd Place gets the Bronze Bunny
2nd ... the Silver Piggie
1st ... the Golden Teddy Bear

... oh yeah, and make the heads bobble!

[msufan]

So WW tried the qualifying round, then 32 player cup game tournament format for the W3 stuff and based on W3 longer existing, I assume it was not profitable.

King seems to launch royal cups fairly regularly with very large jackpots. This suggests to me that format works. Why not simply copy king and just make your own royal cup?

this is a good point... a royal cup cannot lose money as it just waits however long it takes to be filled with entries. hmmmm....

[Flignats]

So WW tried the qualifying round, then 32 player cup game tournament format for the W3 stuff and based on W3 longer existing, I assume it was not profitable.

King seems to launch royal cups fairly regularly with very large jackpots. This suggests to me that format works. Why not simply copy king and just make your own royal cup?

We have Grand Trophy Tournaments - just like King has Royal Cups - but a prize that size would take a long time to close.

I do think a new tournament style would work nicely though - Worldwinner also has the tournaments where you pay $1 and play till for a month, or whatever, and you try to rack up the most points - as well as King's version of that too (right?).

Maybe WW didn't communicate that tournament style properly