It would be a bit of a tight rope walk if they did it at E3. Send the message properly and it’s “we want to help support the growing community of competitive players and we want to reward fans for their support by giving you this awesome thing”
Do it wrong and it’s “we want to support this franchise with as little monetary commitment as possible so we want you fans to shoulder that burden while we give you this far less expensive thing.”
Again, I’m just throwing out how people could read it, which could easily be a gross oversimplification of or have little to do with the actual reality of the matter.
It’s kind of crazy to me that almost three years later, MS is still trying to dig themselves out of the PR hole that Mattrick and a few bad decisions (which were themselves walked back) put them in.
Perhaps bc of the kiwc, MS has allocated all we’re gonna see to major fgc events. Though, with Goddard’'s song and dance to the competitors at combo breaker maybe they’ll loosen the purse strings even more going forward. It seems odd to be relying on community funds to pay players, even Valve fronts a few, cool mill to get their pots going
For me it’s a 3 hr. dive there and back. I could leave early morning, say 6 a.m. and get there by 9, and leave at around the same time in the evening (6-9) and consider it a full day. For meals, I’d just spend about $4 per meal to get a small chicken sandwich, a small shake, and a potato from Wendy’s for a total of $8 ('cause I’d eat breakfast before leaving the house). That plus gas, it’d probably only cost me, say, about $28. For me, it’s well worth the trip.
Too bad I can’t go though. That’s life, I suppose.
one way that may help the pro level scene is higher rewards. if each tournament had prizes like:
1: 25K
2: 15K
3: 10K
etc
and major ones prizes up to like half a million split for the top 15 places…i think it would be better for the scene…
MS, as a company, can afford it easily.
question is, what is the profit margin for KI so does that make sense for them.
OR, even if it doesn’t, does it make sense to do it just to keepthe name out there…
I guess one of the things that really bugs me about the “MS should spend huge amounts of $ for tournaments” argument is that MS kind of did, and that whole “everyone will come back” argument was proven pretty false. I remember one of those tournaments last year had a several thousands dollar pot bonus, and still only got like 40 entrants.
It’s true that MS could put in more for tournaments, and it’s true that they could probably do it without having the community itself fronting the money. But this whole idea that if more money is involved all these online warriors are just going to appear out of nowhere to try and get a cut, I think that’s bogus, and has largely been proven so. KI’s netcode is great - good enough to have run into Sleep and Bass online and know that while I might be good, I’m still probably not going to beat them in tournament, so that better not be the only reason I’m trying to go.
I do sympathize with LCD’s point - he is not wrong when he says the expected payout largely isn’t worth the effort of travel. I am in favor of pot bonuses that make it worth the trip, and yeah, I’d support a community fund to help make those possible again. But I’m under no illusions that this is somehow going to be just that shot-in-the-arm that KI needed to make it to true stardom.
Our community doesn’t travel and large pot bonuses aren’t going to magically fix that. That’s something that we need to understand and work into how we promote and play our game.
As someone who doesn’t attend tournaments due to personal skill and location relative to where the tournaments happen, I’m hoping (and assuming) that there will be some sort of fund announcement at E3. Whether that’s a community fund with incentives for the general KI community (new colors, costumes, accessories etc) or simply Microsoft directly funding it, I think it would be beneficial for both the tournament and spectator scenes.
If they’re concerned that a second community fund could send the wrong impression, I think offering a 1:2 style fund ($1 from MS for every $2 the community puts in, flexible numbers or maximums of course) would go a long way towards funding the game and showing MS’ backing without them needing to fund the entire thing.
Eh…I get that, but I think that response largely boils down to an “in my day…” dodge. For whatever reason, KI didn’t grab all those old school players, and in the world of the FGC where these new players have gotten into the scene these incentives are, if not quite standard, pretty prevalent for major publishers on the scene. It’s not an entirely unreasonable desire at this point, because fighting games are becoming more “eSports”.
I say that however while still maintaining that pot bonuses are the least of KI’s tournament concerns. SFV isn’t getting thousands of entrants because all those people realistically think they have a shot at the pot or the Pro Tour. They don’t. They travel because like you said, they love the game and just want to compete or experience the tournament scene. That dynamic is what’s largely missing from the KI scene, and it’s not one that’s going to be solved by MS putting a ginormous pot bonus up for tournament X.
I’ll be at CEO because I love KI and want to compete in it, not because I’m expecting to win a ton of money. But at the same time, I’ve got a good job, family in the area, and disposable income. If I didn’t have those things, what’s to say I wouldn’t just content myself with playing KI’s (fantastic) online? I’m one of those completely new people to the FGC, and have no real history of tournament attendance or inculcation into that scene. I think that’s the thing that really hurts KI - most of its biggest fans are newbies to the whole idea of traveling to play videogames, so that facet of the community just isn’t ingrained in the scene.
I don’t know the solution to this, but I do know that throwing money at it isn’t going to fix it. I think that maybe leveraging KI’s great online might be the better way to go about it, to at least get the scene writ large used to the idea of competing at high level. However it shakes out though, I’ll just keep playing the game I love.
I wish I could go! But my travel across the country days to go see bands, ect are over… 2 kids and an important job. But I will take my family to possibly the event in Dallas this august if all pans out.
It may not be as big as CEo or Evo, but it will be fun never the less.
I agree… if you are in a few hours drive…you should just go because you love the event and supporting your favorite game. Now to fly from the other side of the US… that might be too expensive unless you have a ton of extra money and live with your parents.
From what I watched of the Combo Breaker stream… it looked like an amazingly fun time regardless of participating int he tournament or winning money. I just want to go to be a part of the event and enjoy that atmosphere!
Im going to try my best to go to the Dallas event.
