$200k AoE2 Platinum League when

[LowEloNobody]

Given that AoE4 is getting a $125k golden league for its roughly ~13k active players, when will AoE2 get a $200k platinum league for our roughly ~20k active players?

Can someone ask the tournament coordinator or check the tournament calendar?

 

[Paint]

instead of wasting money on turnaments they should just invest it into the game and hire more people to fix problems. For 125k you can hire 1-2 people that will actually enhance the apeel of the game for everyone.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

I'm starting to think that Microsoft has the rich neglective dad mentality - not caring about anything in the world and thinking that throwing money at something will fix all the issues. : )

 

[SouFire]

First events were about famous pro players from other games facing each other, but some months after they are no longer the best players and low profile players have been winning aoe4 events, which means less potential viewers, so they need to invite players that lure viewers just by their names, cause they want to keep their audiences to keep boosting the game and create a false perception of the game.

At this point that is a desperation move, but i don't think it will be the last attempt, at my gaming time zone the game barely has 4.7k players(much closer to aoe2HD numbers then DE), which following it's tendency it will be even less within a month and only noticeable during europe time zone, basically for a new MP game it is already dead.

The game press talks a lot of battlefield 2042 and halo infinite losing players and focusing on their mistakes, but non of those media is talking about aoe4 despite they all promoted it like "the return of the RTs genre".

 

[Tempires]

First events were about famous pro players from other games facing each other, but some months after they are no longer the best players and low profile players have been winning aoe4 events

Who are these low profile players winning events?Who were these high profile guys? Top3 of last months winter championship players like "Hera","Marinelord", "viper" who are such unknown players, also lowering standards in AoE2 by winning of S-tier tournaments there too... N4C seems to be mostly same as top player at the launch.

 

[OGN]

It's incredible to see all this money invested in this game which can already be considered as a dead game by looking at the stats...

Next to it, there is AOE2 which has already proven itself with incredible events like RBW5 or KOTD 4 or HC where the stats are each time huge.

Microsoft seems to want to promote eSports on its franchise but is betting on the wrong horse. I don't understand...

 

[Giuseppe551]

Yeah it's pretty amazing when you think about it. I just looked at T90's numbers for HC4 qualifying weekend and he had 19k average viewers and 40k max on the last day. Nili had what, 1.5-2.5k last weekend for an ostensibly bigger tournament? There's just no enthusiasm for the game at all and the only thing that makes sense is that this is a top down directive from MS to toss money at this game.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Yeah it's pretty amazing when you think about it. I just looked at T90's numbers for HC4 qualifying weekend and he had 19k average viewers and 40k max on the last day. Nili had what, 1.5-2.5k last weekend for an ostensibly bigger tournament? There's just no enthusiasm for the game at all and the only thing that makes sense is that this is a top down directive from MS to toss money at this game.

Maybe ask the tournament coordinator who has explicitly said he gets to decide the division of prizepool money across the franchise

 

[kw1k000000]

Say what, I have always enjoyed the mental gymnastics shown by our esteemed tournament coordinator @Nili_AoE

 

[Faraday]

they could give 20k for an aoe II nations cup.
Sad

 

[Lord Bolton]

Such a **** measuring contest. hilarious.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Such a **** measuring contest. hilarious.

Mine is very clearly the smallest, which is why so much of my own self-worth is wrapped up in a 20 year old video game
$500k Hidden Cup plz

 

[kalcium]

instead of wasting money on turnaments they should just invest it into the game and hire more people to fix problems. For 125k you can hire 1-2 people that will actually enhance the apeel of the game for everyone.

Can’t agree more.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Can’t agree more.

125k doesn't even cover the fully loaded cost of a single developer

 

[archxeon]

125k doesn't even cover the fully loaded cost of a single developer

You're thinking of yearly salary. If you think of it monthly perhaps you can find at least 6-7 decent developers.

 

[robo]

Apparently Pesti said that World's Edge is contributing less than 50% of the prize pool, so a reasonable asumption would be $50k out of $125k.

So if someone wants to put up $120k I'm sure World's Edge would consider putting in the other $80k.

AoEZone trolls, you know what to do. Put your money where your mouths are.

 

[Potkeny]

So if someone wants to put up $120k I'm sure World's Edge would consider putting in the other $80k.

AoEZone trolls, you know what to do. Put your money where your mouths are.

MoS2 collected $3k, they didn't get even $2k to make it $5k, like Regicide Rumble.

Maybe not only AoEZone trolls should put their money where their mouths are.

 

[Kaschperili]

Nili is desperately trying to keep Aoe4 alive by throwing the lion share of Microsofts tournament money on it. As a consequence the way more popular Aoe2 has to suffer by receiving way less money.

 

[Saeda]

Microsoft seems to want to promote eSports on its franchise but is betting on the wrong horse. I don't understand...

I've explained this before, it's the gambler's fallacy.

If you make a bet, and lose, you are presented with two choices:
1. Cut your losses and move on
2. Double down

I would not be surprised, if the trend continues, if the next AoE4 Tournament will have a 250k Prize Pool because Microsoft is doubling down on a losing bet. They wanted 4 to become a big name in Esports, because while AoE2 is a stable, reliable game, in terms of Esports, it's small fries.

The rhetoric we heard in the past month or so by the AoE4 organizers sport literally all the arguments that gamblers have for their "I lost once, next time I'll win" mindset. Things like Nili having a Video ready expecting the fallout of N4Cs Announcement tells me he's fully aware that it was a bad move.

Admitting you've invested into a bad product is hard, and many gamblers or stock traders go broke failing to do it.

However, I have become increasingly apathic towards it. AoE2 is far from dead, we now know of many S-Tier tournaments on the horizon, player and viewer numbers are steady or increasing even as we close in on half a year of AoE4. Would the AoE2 Scene benefit from getting such inflated price pools? absolutely. Will it suffer if it doesn't? Probably not.

So if click on a topic and see "AoE4", i just click away again and get enjoyment from announcements like Regicide Rumble, which will likely be a better event with a fraction of the prize pool.

 

[sheeesh]

MS desperately trying to keep pro players into playing the game, or to put it in pro players words ''have more fun playing it''. Maybe they got a couple of dlcs in store and can't allow the game to die that fast and all this money was already allocated to be pumped in AoE4 starting year. It sounds kind of naive to me for all this money to come from ''commercial sponsorship deals''.

 

[-R-]

Apparently Pesti said that World's Edge is contributing less than 50% of the prize pool, so a reasonable asumption would be $50k out of $125k.

So if someone wants to put up $120k I'm sure World's Edge would consider putting in the other $80k.

AoEZone trolls, you know what to do. Put your money where your mouths are.

BF nerds asked for money for their BF tournament and were rebuffed. Eventually Memb got some money for it, which I'm assuming is due to him being a bigger name than any of the Amigos.

Edit: According to Modri (vid infra), the money for the event was obtained by Villiams.

Huehuecoyotl asked for money for a TG tournament twice, and was rebuffed twice. Tournaments were held with 8k and 5k prizepools respectively because lf the generosity and good will of individual benefactors.

Edit: Huehuecoyotl wanted to clarify that he only requested money from Microsoft once (vid infra).

Clowns raised their own money for MoA and for MoS (twice). They asked for MS money and were rebuffed, because apparently Arena and Socotra are not serious maps. Meanwhile MS sponsors Regicide Rumble with 5k.

I don't see how the fault lies with the AoE community here. They have been both raising money and going through the appropriate quasi-bureaucratic channels, only to get repeatedly shafted. I don't think anyone's asking for 100k but it's pretty counter-intuitive to deny any sort of funding to MoS/MoA/WDC/RotC because of pretty stupid reasons (MotC/WDC because they're close to BoA when we've not seen TG tournaments for a year, MoS/MoA because those are not serious events when you're dropping 5k for T90's gimmicky event) and expect people not to be mad at a blatant lack of transparency in the allocation of funds and favouritism for a game only the guy distributing funds enjoys.

 

[robo]

I don't see how the fault lies with the AoE community here.

I didnt say it did, I'm just pointing out if the OP wants to make this a reality, that is likely what they need to do to achieve that.

 

[Black Adder]

It's incredible to see all this money invested in this game which can already be considered as a dead game by looking at the stats...

Next to it, there is AOE2 which has already proven itself with incredible events like RBW5 or KOTD 4 or HC where the stats are each time huge.

Microsoft seems to want to promote eSports on its franchise but is betting on the wrong horse. I don't understand...

That's the point, they don't - they want to just advertise, again, caring for and managing a healthy competitive, or just any community, environment looks completely differently. Or if they truly are trying, then they're doing it hilarously stupidly.

-R-'s post then well exemplifies the situation and the goals - they basically give money only to visible parties with reach, they don't support actual tournament hosts creating things for the community and players, because they don't have the clear view of who would stream and therefore who would be the viewership and how it would benefit them, they support viewership, not players.

Just imagine what would do for the community and the motivation of players if there were all those mentioned tournaments sponsored with 5k, instead of one bombastic that could take maybe half of the prizepool, which would still be big, and you would have 10 extra normal-sized ones. You just simply don't support competitive community by hosting bombastic high-prize tournaments and ignoring everything else that is actually needed for healthy environment feeding into actual organic growth and motivation of the playerbase, which is also why the competitive community is to a degree stale and mostly sees the same players rotate for prize pools all the time (basically the biggest rotation lately has been to a high degree caused by the simple fact some players actually stopped playing or stopped focusing on the game) - the top-heavy (big-money tournaments mean exceedingly high prizes for top placements, even with decent prizepool spread) distribution means that you win (or place well in) a tournament->get a lot of money(also through your stream exposure)->you can be full-time or fuller-time->more training possible->better chance to win again that high prize chéque vicious circle (supported by how this community likes to take previous tournaments results as a key, it even worsens this trend).

The contrast of on one day there being an announcement of 125k (out of which possibly 50k by Microsoft) for Age of Empires IV and 5k for AoEII for a supposedly considered top host is also rather stark and doesn't help the atmosphere.

Plus I wonder if with the current (long-term) trends and situation anyone thinks AoEIV would be looking as it is and having the players it still has without those hundreds of thousands being thrown at it (whereas here you are with Age of Empires II and how it's doing, and kind of also the other games living on their own).

 

[IYIyTh]

If they wanted a healthy competitive scene with any kind of effort they probably wouldn't given the ability to disperse budgeted funds to an entity with a vested interest in promoting their own event(s).

Difficult scenario continues with Hera dropping out of N4C and an inability to sell AOE4 as the superior product with non AOE2 personalities. Outside of Viper and a subcommunity pour la francaise avec MarineLord and Nili hosting the event, one could justifiably speculate on the efficacy/business prudence of the disbursement of the budget thus far. Might even be warranted w/o something as piss weak as labeling any critiques as trolling.

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

BF nerds asked for money for their BF tournament and were rebuffed. Eventually Memb got some money for it, which I'm assuming is due to him being a bigger name than any of the Amigos.

Huehuecoyotl asked for money for a TG tournament twice, and was rebuffed twice. Tournaments were held with 8k and 5k prizepools respectively because lf the generosity and good will of individual benefactors.

Clowns raised their own money for MoA and for MoS (twice). They asked for MS money and were rebuffed, because apparently Arena and Socotra are not serious maps. Meanwhile MS sponsors Regicide Rumble with 5k.

I don't see how the fault lies with the AoE community here. They have been both raising money and going through the appropriate quasi-bureaucratic channels, only to get repeatedly shafted. I don't think anyone's asking for 100k but it's pretty counter-intuitive to deny any sort of funding to MoS/MoA/WDC/RotC because of pretty stupid reasons (MotC/WDC because they're close to BoA when we've not seen TG tournaments for a year, MoS/MoA because those are not serious events when you're dropping 5k for T90's gimmicky event) and expect people not to be mad at a blatant lack of transparency in the allocation of funds and favouritism for a game only the guy distributing funds enjoys.

I only asked once so far, and the reason was reasonable, because my proposal was a 3v3 tournament and BoA 3 will be too. Just to add it, so nobody shares something that is not true.

I can still apply for something for later in the year again.