General Discussion

General DiscussionWould you participate in this?

Would you participate in this? in General Discussion
Supernatural

    I have been bored recently and in my spare time have worked on a fully fledged website that allows players to win cash by playing dota 2. It's in a place now where it can be launched but I am starting to doubt whether people would be interested?

    The basic gist is that you buy a season pass for $20, and you start playing contests. A contest is X games played with a single hero. Games are scored individually using a secret formula and added up to give a final score. You can play as many contests as you like during the season once you have bought the pass. The system only counts the ranked games and it's irrelevant whether you win the game or lose it. I will obviously provide a bit more info on exactly how the games are scored.

    I would invest $200 into the prize pool initially and each purchase of the season pass would add into it - hence it would grow as more people enter the contests. The number of places that get payed out will also grow.

    From the perspective of the player - there is no work required apart from starting contests by choosing the hero. The system tracks and scores everything automatically.

    What do you think about this?

    GRANT MACDONALD

      More people in ranked trying to Quest rather than destroy the enemy ancient. Cant wait

      Supernatural

        There is no quest, the aim is to play to your best ability

        GRANT MACDONALD

          Then you get people playing to meet the formula objectives rather than destroy the enemy ancient.

          Why not make it Unranked? Theres a big subset of people who dont play ranked or just play to learn her heros, screw around, meme etc.

          Supernatural

            Because unranked is easily abusable

            Yung Beethoven

              Well as long as the main goal is to play good, its OK i guess. I understand @AIDS concerns about even more people wanting to finish a quest instead of winning the game.

              [RR53] RR

                I want ez money.

                What are the guarantees I won't be scammed?

                Supernatural

                  The money will be paid out as soon as the season ends. I'm a software developer, not a scammer. So say based on my model with 100 people signing up to play the season the prize pool will be $1700 split between top 10. Obviously top places get more money. Not all of $20 goes into the prize pool as the payment provider charges % for transactions and I will also get charged for paying out the prizes to people but most of it goes into the pot.

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                  Supernatural

                    My only concern is that people thinking $20 is too much but doesn't make sense making it less as it decreases the prize pool

                    Dire Wolf

                      It's very illegal to gamble online in most countries without a bunch of licenses and against valve's tos to wager on games so if it actually took off someone will shut it down.

                      Supernatural

                        It's not gambling. It's a skill based competition, it's legal - I checked the laws.

                        faw

                          there are a bunch of issues to this:

                          1) x games played with a hero = only played or won/lost as well?

                          2) how do u want to prevent smurfing if it was about won games?, how do u want to prevent abuse if lost games counted?

                          3) 20€ - is probably far too much for 2 reasons

                          a) its a lot of cash (and u might get nothing out of it) and b) you are not reputable

                          Supernatural

                            1. Played.
                            2. Wins or losses are not relevant. The system looks at the overall picture of a match.
                            3. 20 dollars is a lot of cash? You would be buying a pass that lasts at least a month and top 10% of players get paid

                            faw

                              yes 20$ is al ot of cash, although u might know about those issues as a software engineer

                              and i doubt ur algorithm will work, it will either give smurfers an advantage or only very good ppl will play there

                              faw

                                and top 10% is oto low as well im sure

                                Supernatural

                                  It works I have tested it. Smurfing doesn't have an impact on it besides that will be forbidden in the rules hence people who try to cheat won't get away with it. Well with a 1700 prize pot if you finish 10th you will get twice your initial buy in and if you get into top five you earn a tidy sum. That's based on 100 players.

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                                  one syllable anglo-saxon

                                    it is extremely hard to make an algorithm that couldnt be abused and adequately determined the impact a player had, even humans can't tell that and a human brain would be way better at that job than an algorithm
                                    if u take ingame values/actions and give them some weight in pts(like in fantasy dota) and at the same time do not put a rquirement to win it is very easy to abuse that system - the first thing i'd do if i was in such a league is try a few excelling heroes(alchemist, oracle, zeus) and then stick to one that gave me the highest boost in pts, leaderboard position or whatever ranking you come up with

                                    even if u come up with an algorithm so good(highly doubt that, im sure there are quite a few very skilled ppl in valve and damn me if they didnt try that) that it is fair and not easily abusable, $20 entry with less than 10% chance to profit from it, especially when the host has no credibility whatsoever is not looking very appealing

                                    faw

                                      ^exactly that

                                      also 90 ppl get NOTHING, im not sure whether u realize how many ppl that are

                                      Supernatural

                                        Are you saying to me that if I launched the site and the first place prize was $120 and no one else has signed up you wouldn't try to claim the first place? But I take your point about credibility

                                        faw

                                          well, there are lots of free gift cards sites where i can get u to open a link and get a 500$ steam card without any investment!!!

                                          Supernatural

                                            What if I made the first season free to play? That does limit the prize pool to $200 tho which isn't a great deal.

                                            faw

                                              thats probably the best way, it gives u the possibility to advertise ur league properly, show ppl that ure not a scammer etc and esp gives u the chance to test ur algorithm

                                              Dire Wolf

                                                Oh well maybe you are right, you're basically hosting a tournament online right? So you'll have to 1099 winners? Still seems shady and like valve won't like it. I think it'd be a lot easier to just get people to buy into tournaments, setup a day for everyone to play, $20 buy in, pay out 50-80% of the proceeds as prizes, use paypall. Your software can do registration and payment tracking and schedule matches.

                                                one syllable anglo-saxon

                                                  yea was about to suggest that, it will both test your algorithm and get some potenital playerbase without them worrying about ur credibility at start

                                                  one syllable anglo-saxon

                                                    in any case i'd suggest lowering the entry fee to a sum most people can throw away because more about half the participants would be essentially doing that - they'd have no chance to even come close to the winning percentile
                                                    5$ seems way more adequate and expendable for pretty much everyone

                                                    Supernatural

                                                      There isn't a whole lot valve can do about it haha I don't even have to use their API to get the match data, there are other sources. Besides I haven't read anything in the terms and conditions that prevents me from doing this.

                                                      Point taken about the test season.

                                                      Supernatural

                                                        5$ makes the prize pool tiny. 100 players = $500 to win? Even less when I deduct the fees that I end up paying for the transactions?

                                                        one syllable anglo-saxon

                                                          at the start when the playerbase is small u might need to get prize money for ur own pocket or from sposnors, if ur site works out u can eventually split it into leagues by entry fee(20$ leagues, 10$ leagues, whatever) and they'd sustain themselves with u taking whatever percentage u want
                                                          if it doesnt work out well what do u want any business is a risk

                                                          ive 0 experience douing any sort of business, but what i'd do if i had a working scoring algorithm and an ability to build a platform that would make money off it, is first launch a few free entry tournaments to test the stuff out and let ppl know that u exist, then if it gets any popular hit up some people that might be interested in sposoring ur site/prizepool, split everything into leagues(with maybe less expensive giving out less prizep pool% to players so u can still profit about as much) and improve from there

                                                          i might be spewing out bullshit at this point, i wouldn't know, but it seems the only real to make it work fast and profit from it

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                                                          faw

                                                            I'm afraid there will be moree than 100 players after a free season 1, with a base prize pool and a league where you can win by playing dota, which ppl would do anyway

                                                            Idk, only way is to try and gather data