Gaming.SE StarCraft 2 tournament plan

Question

In continuation to the great idea proposed previously, I believe that we should actively work towards running - or at least sponsoring - a StarCraft 2 tournament.

I have already discussed this with Robert, and it is my understanding that it is possible for us to get funding from SE if we propose a solid plan. This question is a request for such a plan.

Answers to this question need to propose a plan where gaming.SE will gain publicity as a sponsor for a SC2 tournament, either by just sponsoring an existing event or by running our own event.

Answer guidelines:

1. Funding is not final; at the moment please limit your plan to a budget of around 1000$.
2. If you propose to fund an existing tournament:
   • Provide details about the tournament structure - tournament style, number of games, length, famous players involved, where games are broadcasted, who the casters are.
   • Provide details about the amount of visibility that tournament generates. Information about previous sponsors and the impact on them can be useful (e.g. showing the amount of Google searches or page visits they got during the tournament).
3. If you propose to run our own event:
   • Provide details about the tournament structure - tournament style, number of games, cash awards involved.
   • Explain how famous players will be drawn.
   • Explain who will cast the tournament and whether it will be broadcasted live.
   • List what sort of positions we will need volunteers for.

Finally, if you can think of any idea that will increase visibility for our site beyond just mentioning our name as sponsors, please share it - add it as an answer even if it's not a complete tournament plan.

Remember, this is a PR event paid for by SE. Our primary goal is to promote our site, to increase its traffic and visibility.

Answer 1

So there are a couple different ways we can run a tournament but it should be worth noting they have the following metrics:

• Management
• Time (they take, not to manage)
• Games Casted as VoD
• Target Gamers
• Games per Match

Note: I have used terms as follows: Match (a set of games between two players), Game (an individual game as part of a Match)

Double Elimination

So the classic tournament structure for these kinds of things is: Double elimination. This would mean every player must lose to 2 opponents before dropping out. You have a main bracket and a loser bracket. Here is an example:

The downside is that it takes twice as many matches as a single elimination. The advantage here is that players are less susceptible to fluke loss streaks, and it becomes "more likely" who the winner is. Double elimination has a medium number of matches and is fairly popular.

Season Play

A season is usually a method to distill better players from a wider field. Players are split between divisions where they compete against everyone else in their division. At the end of the "season" (once everyone has played all opponents in their division) the top players from each division are placed in a Single Elimination Bracket. The recent IEM was a great example of this: a good example can be seen here. Season style without a Single Elimination playoff is usually called Swiss Style.

Qualifiers

Qualifiers are a series of games played by players to qualify for a tournament. Usually this indicates an open invitation or a hybrid (some spots are closed invite, others are open invite). Qualifiers are used, like Season Play, to whittle down a large field of players to a few players. Additionally, in many qualifiers matches are not managed by the tournament runners and instead players are asked to email in the replays, with failure to do so resulting in disqualification (the hosts do have to make sure that both players are present at the appropriate time though).

Games per Round

The usual standard is Best of 5 games per Match, with Best of 3 in qualifiers and Best of 7 in finals. Usually only one or two matches are casted per round. If we play the games in advance these matches can be selected and then casted as replays.

In our situation I might advocate for a hybrid qualifier approach with Double Elimination starting at Ro8.

Answer 2

In a typical sc2 tournament, cash prizes are awarded to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. One idea I have is to add another award - smaller than the rest - that will be be given to "the most entertaining player" or "the most diverse player" or something like that. And how will that player be chosen? By voting him up in a gaming.SE question, of course!

The benefit is that it can draw many tournaments viewers to our site, if only to see who the highest-voted players were. It will also promote higher involvement in the tournament from our own users,

Answer 3

Perhaps there could be some marketing motivation for people to create SE accounts leading up to the event. For example prizes could drawn and award from a pool of the new users who show up at the event. Or if there was some valid reason to have a cover charge (free food and drinks?) then you could give new SE users free entry as an option. You would need some way for them to prove their account, perhaps a pass that they can print out from their user page.

Another idea would be to give away something at the event that requires a SE to be created in order to retrieve it, this is kind of an inverse of the idea above. It may be necessary to find some affiliates who would also benefit as well as provide a product or giveaway.

Obviously the plan must include user adoption of SE if we expect any funding to flow from SE. Though it does seem like with either of the above plans some development will be required, at least a temporary solution.