Thoughts on Prizes for Speedrunning Competitions and SRL

2015-05-10 04:39:34 pm

Over the past couple years, we SRL admins have been putting much of our attention towards organizing scheduled races and events. The ones we've held this past year have all been well received, and have been a lot of fun to put together.

As speedrunning has grown, we have been approached by different groups such as PC hardware suppliers and indie gaming studios, who have expressed interest in helping us to hold such events. They've graciously offered to supply prizes to the winners of these events; thus far the prizes in our events have been on a smaller scale, such as Steam keys, T-shirts, etc. The purpose of this post is to try and gauge the community's interest in offering more significant prizes, such as PC equipment or consoles.

Historically, this has been a sensitive topic within the community. The primary concern as we see it is that as the opportunity for personal gain increases (due to wanting the prize), the desire to collaborate dwindles. Some enjoy the fun new competitive dynamic this introduces, while some are completely turned off by the private routing and practice which comes as a result. Both opinions are valid, and are not mutually exclusive. This has not been brought up for open discussion in a long while, so before we introduce serious prizes to any of our events, we were hoping to get a sense of how the community would feel about it.

The questions we'd like to focus on:
1. Do you feel that offering prizes for speedrunning competitions would be detrimental to the collaborative feel of the hobby?
2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?
3. Would you prefer an approach where the prize is assigned to an entrant RANDOMLY, rather than by placement? Could a prize be too big under these circumstances?
4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?
5. Would your opinion change if practicing the game ahead of time was near-impossible? This could be due to the game not being known ahead of time, the game not being released until the day of the race, or prizes being offered for our Mystery Tournament.

Clarifications:
1. We will continue to hold these events regardless. Introducing prizes naturally introduces a new dynamic to competitions. If the community at large is warm to larger prizes, it's something we will explore. If not, we won't.
2. SRL has no interest in establishing a longterm partnership or sponsorship. It would be on an event-by-event basis. SRL and its admins would not receive any additional compensation for putting on these events.

Thread title:

Over the past couple years, we SRL admins have been putting much of our attention towards organizing scheduled races and events. The ones we've held this past year have all been well received, and have been a lot of fun to put together.

As speedrunning has grown, we have been approached by different groups such as PC hardware suppliers and indie gaming studios, who have expressed interest in helping us to hold such events. They've graciously offered to supply prizes to the winners of these events; thus far the prizes in our events have been on a smaller scale, such as Steam keys, T-shirts, etc. The purpose of this post is to try and gauge the community's interest in offering more significant prizes, such as PC equipment or consoles.

Historically, this has been a sensitive topic within the community. The primary concern as we see it is that as the opportunity for personal gain increases (due to wanting the prize), the desire to collaborate dwindles. Some enjoy the fun new competitive dynamic this introduces, while some are completely turned off by the private routing and practice which comes as a result. Both opinions are valid, and are not mutually exclusive. This has not been brought up for open discussion in a long while, so before we introduce serious prizes to any of our events, we were hoping to get a sense of how the community would feel about it.

[b]The questions we'd like to focus on:[/b]
[b]1. [/b]Do you feel that offering prizes for speedrunning competitions would be detrimental to the collaborative feel of the hobby?
[b]2. [/b]Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?
[b]3. [/b]Would you prefer an approach where the prize is assigned to an entrant RANDOMLY, rather than by placement? Could a prize be too big under these circumstances?
[b]4. [/b]Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?
[b]5. [/b]Would your opinion change if practicing the game ahead of time was near-impossible? This could be due to the game not being known ahead of time, the game not being released until the day of the race, or prizes being offered for our Mystery Tournament.

[b]Clarifications:[/b]
[b]1. [/b]We will continue to hold these events regardless. Introducing prizes naturally introduces a new dynamic to competitions. If the community at large is warm to larger prizes, it's something we will explore. If not, we won't.
[b]2. [/b]SRL has no interest in establishing a longterm partnership or sponsorship. It would be on an event-by-event basis. SRL and its admins would not receive any additional compensation for putting on these events.

Deuceler

2015-05-10 07:31:25 pm

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

It really depends on the value of the prize imo. I think something like having a large race of a particular game and the winner gets a sealed copy, 2nd gets a CIB, and 3rd gets a cart or something along those lines could be neat. Just please please please please please don't EVER make money a prize.

One idea that popped into my head would be having a "spotlight" stream every month on the SRL page, and it could be the winner of said race. Something like that would often be more valuable to a lot of streamers than a physical prize. Regardless, I think the idea of rewarding people for doing well is great!

Blechy

2015-05-10 07:35:43 pm

Those are good ideas! And yeah, we wouldn't have cash as a prize.

Emptyeye

Edit history:

Emptyeye: 2015-05-11 10:41:01 am

Emptyeye: 2015-05-10 10:09:25 pm

2015-05-10 08:09:52 pm

Talk to the Hand

Okay.

So first, in the interest of full disclosure, my general attitude is that there is no such thing as "too mainstream" for speedrunning, and indeed, I'm of the thought that more people speedrunning for money/streaming as their career/etc is good for speedrunning (The analogy I always bring up is American sports, where the quality of play went up exponentially in the last 40 to 50 years as players could actually focus on their sport of choice year-round instead of having to sell insurance/etc. in the offseason). I'm aware I'm in the minority on this.

Now then, to answer the questions.

1. No. As it is, the general attitude toward speedrunning is "vids or it didn't happen". Further, speedrunning (To the extent that there's one "speedrunning" entity and not a bunch of smaller communities, which is closer to the truth) is largely self-policing socially. If someone tries to hide strategies in the name of trying to win prizes/get glory, that's only going to work until A. They're forced to produce a video of their strategies, at which point others will know the "what" if not exactly the "why", or B. They're ostracized from their micro-community as a strategy-hoarding jerk (Which has happened for many years, even before streaming became standard).

2. I basically answered this in my disclosure, but no.

3. I would say I have no preference either way. I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "an entrant" in this case--would it only be a person in the race/event, or could it be a spectator too? Either way, my answer to the second part of the question is "No."

4. No it would not.

5. No it would not, although I suspect others might be more on-board with this. I know strat-hoarding is a big concern with incentivizing speedruns, as you allude to. Making practice (Or coming up with strats ahead of time) near-impossible would be a way to keep this down--if you can't come up with strats ahead of time, how can you possibly hoard them?

I also want to say that Deuceler's idea of somehow getting the winner of a race additional exposure is an awesome one. It's a pretty common complaint from both inside and outside of the speedrunning community that Twitch doesn't really help all but the biggest streamers with exposure. Whether they should is irrelevant here, but it is true that expanding your audience is ridiculously hard (Essentially, the best way to do it is to network with other streamers, but you can't be too obvious about the fact that that's what you're doing or you just come off as spammy/shamelessly self-promoting), and having this as a way to do so would be great.

(EDITS were for typo corrections)

Okay.

So first, in the interest of full disclosure, my general attitude is that there is no such thing as "too mainstream" for speedrunning, and indeed, I'm of the thought that more people speedrunning for money/streaming as their career/etc is [b]good[/b] for speedrunning (The analogy I always bring up is American sports, where the quality of play went up exponentially in the last 40 to 50 years as players could actually focus on their sport of choice year-round instead of having to sell insurance/etc. in the offseason). I'm aware I'm in the minority on this.

Now then, to answer the questions.

1. No. As it is, the general attitude toward speedrunning is "vids or it didn't happen". Further, speedrunning (To the extent that there's one "speedrunning" entity and not a bunch of smaller communities, which is closer to the truth) is largely self-policing socially. If someone tries to hide strategies in the name of trying to win prizes/get glory, that's only going to work until A. They're forced to produce a video of their strategies, at which point others will know the "what" if not exactly the "why", or B. They're ostracized from their micro-community as a strategy-hoarding jerk (Which has happened for many years, even before streaming became standard).

2. I basically answered this in my disclosure, but no.

3. I would say I have no preference either way. I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "an entrant" in this case--would it only be a person in the race/event, or could it be a spectator too? Either way, my answer to the second part of the question is "No."

4. No it would not.

5. No it would not, although I suspect others might be more on-board with this. I know strat-hoarding is a big concern with incentivizing speedruns, as you allude to. Making practice (Or coming up with strats ahead of time) near-impossible would be a way to keep this down--if you can't come up with strats ahead of time, how can you possibly hoard them?

I also want to say that Deuceler's idea of somehow getting the winner of a race additional exposure is an awesome one. It's a pretty common complaint from both inside and outside of the speedrunning community that Twitch doesn't really help all but the biggest streamers with exposure. Whether they should is irrelevant here, but it is true that expanding your audience is ridiculously hard (Essentially, the best way to do it is to network with other streamers, but you can't be too obvious about the fact that that's what you're doing or you just come off as spammy/shamelessly self-promoting), and having this as a way to do so would be great.

(EDITS were for typo corrections)

Trysdyn

2015-05-10 10:05:52 pm

I can't figure out a good way to organize my thoughts, so let me just answer your questions in line. Sorry for the tangled mess and verbosity.

tl;dr: I'm fine with the idea in general. You don't need to do anything to address concerns about collaboration. Just don't offer cash or a prize too big it becomes more important than the hobby.

Quote:

1. Do you feel that offering prizes for speedrunning competitions would be detrimental to the collaborative feel of the hobby?

To some people who would care more about the material gain than the community, but that's going to happen no matter what. We have already had cases where strategies were kept secret until a runner could produce a WR run, but even then the strategies were put on display and were able to be reverse engineered by other members of the community. I guess my answer on this is "For a select few people yes, but even then their secrets will come to light on race day," In fact, I'd propose that this could actually help drive development of runs by giving runners a bigger stage than usual to show off new techniques and strategies.

I'm a fan of anything that produces more runners and more video for a game. That's what will produce the likelihood of more development, even if some people are trying to keep that development secret.

Quote:

2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?

Yes but that's not a concern here. The prize becomes too big when the event becomes more important than the hobby, or any other event. It's apples and oranges, but the DotA community comes up as an example. When Valve introduced The International and its $1m prize pool (now up to $7m as of the last tournament), the scene radically changed overnight. Suddenly everyone cared only about the Big Game and the other tournaments and such were just lead-up to that. It really harmed the community.

Now I know, $1m is a pipe dream for any speedrunning competition, but it's not the $1m mark that made that happen. It's that TI was so radically disproportionate from anything else in the scene at the time that everyone was forced to only care about that. For speedrunning, the mark would be much lower. If a prize pool of a few grand suddenly comes on offer, it'll make waves and change how people approach running.

I don't believe that's a huge concern here/yet. Just something to keep in mind if a sponsor suddenly wants to up the ante on prizes.

Quote:

3. Would you prefer an approach where the prize is assigned to an entrant RANDOMLY, rather than by placement? Could a prize be too big under these circumstances?

I believe that would have a harmful effect rather than the intended one. It would drive people entering events just to try to get the prize draw while doing little to address concerns of competition clouding collaboration. If you're going to do it, have 3, 5, 10 prizes of roughly the same value and randomly assign them to the top X places.

Quote:

4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?

If the prize supplier wants to host a speedrunning event, there's not much my opinion would do to stop them. I don't think I'd have an inherent problem with it provided all my other opinions spewed out here line up. If Alienware showed up and suddenly offered a $5k destop on a race, I'd probably be suspicious, but I'm suspicious of companies in general anyway.

I really don't know how I'd feel about it, I guess. It'd feel like part of a marketing "thing" and not a community race.

Quote:

5. Would your opinion change if practicing the game ahead of time was near-impossible? This could be due to the game not being known ahead of time, the game not being released until the day of the race, or prizes being offered for our Mystery Tournament.

I've seen similar happen before: a game developer would show up with a beta or 1.0 product and offer a little trinket for the fastest time someone can post. I think it's pretty brilliant marketing and a way to generate some really cool gameplay footage (as long as the runners know that's what's going on here, anyway).

In general I don't think that'd help or hurt anything else. Mystery races are its own bag of chips, and are pretty cool on their own. Having a mystery race wouldn't really do much about the concerns of prizes and such though.

I can't figure out a good way to organize my thoughts, so let me just answer your questions in line. Sorry for the tangled mess and verbosity.

tl;dr: I'm fine with the idea in general. You don't need to do anything to address concerns about collaboration. Just don't offer cash or a prize too big it becomes more important than the hobby.

[quote]1. Do you feel that offering prizes for speedrunning competitions would be detrimental to the collaborative feel of the hobby?[/quote]
To some people who would care more about the material gain than the community, but that's going to happen no matter what. We have already had cases where strategies were kept secret until a runner could produce a WR run, but even then the strategies were put on display and were able to be reverse engineered by other members of the community. I guess my answer on this is "For a select few people yes, but even then their secrets will come to light on race day,"  In fact, I'd propose that this could actually help drive development of runs by giving runners a bigger stage than usual to show off new techniques and strategies.

I'm a fan of anything that produces more runners and more video for a game. That's what will produce the likelihood of more development, even if some people are trying to keep that development secret.

[quote]2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?[/quote]
Yes but that's not a concern here. The prize becomes too big when the event becomes more important than the hobby, or any other event. It's apples and oranges, but the DotA community comes up as an example. When Valve introduced The International and its $1m prize pool (now up to $7m as of the last tournament), the scene radically changed overnight. Suddenly everyone cared only about the Big Game and the other tournaments and such were just lead-up to that. It really harmed the community.

Now I know, $1m is a pipe dream for any speedrunning competition, but it's not the $1m mark that made that happen. It's that TI was so radically disproportionate from anything else in the scene at the time that everyone was forced to only care about that. For speedrunning, the mark would be much lower. If a prize pool of a few grand suddenly comes on offer, it'll make waves and change how people approach running.

I don't believe that's a huge concern here/yet. Just something to keep in mind if a sponsor suddenly wants to up the ante on prizes.

[quote]3. Would you prefer an approach where the prize is assigned to an entrant RANDOMLY, rather than by placement? Could a prize be too big under these circumstances?[/quote]
I believe that would have a harmful effect rather than the intended one. It would drive people entering events just to try to get the prize draw while doing little to address concerns of competition clouding collaboration. If you're going to do it, have 3, 5, 10 prizes of roughly the same value and randomly assign them to the top X places.

[quote]4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?[/quote]
If the prize supplier wants to host a speedrunning event, there's not much my opinion would do to stop them. I don't think I'd have an inherent problem with it provided all my other opinions spewed out here line up. If Alienware showed up and suddenly offered a $5k destop on a race, I'd probably be suspicious, but I'm suspicious of companies in general anyway.

I really don't know how I'd feel about it, I guess. It'd feel like part of a marketing "thing" and not a community race.

[quote]5. Would your opinion change if practicing the game ahead of time was near-impossible? This could be due to the game not being known ahead of time, the game not being released until the day of the race, or prizes being offered for our Mystery Tournament.[/quote]
I've seen similar happen before: a game developer would show up with a beta or 1.0 product and offer a little trinket for the fastest time someone can post. I think it's pretty brilliant marketing and a way to generate some really cool gameplay footage (as long as the runners know that's what's going on here, anyway).

In general I don't think that'd help or hurt anything else. Mystery races are its own bag of chips, and are pretty cool on their own. Having a mystery race wouldn't really do much about the concerns of prizes and such though.

Blechy

2015-05-11 07:58:54 am

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Quote from Emptyeye:

3. I would say I have no preference either way. I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "an entrant" in this case--would it only be a person in the race/event, or could it be a spectator too? Either way, my answer to the second part of the question is "No."

Yes, "an entrant" would refer to a racer that completes the goal.

Cronikeys

2015-05-12 08:42:03 am

1. Do you feel that offering prizes for speedrunning competitions would be detrimental to the collaborative feel of the hobby?
I like the result-oriented aspect of speedrunning more than competing personally, but I don't see something like this hurting that side of the hobby.

2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?
It depends where these prizes are coming from and how they are paid for IMO. Personally, I'd rather the money spent on them be put toward a charity of some sort and keep "the prize" be either ranking on a list or personal satisfaction.. or something that's no-cost to the organizer (steam code, etc.)

3. Would you prefer an approach where the prize is assigned to an entrant RANDOMLY, rather than by placement? Could a prize be too big under these circumstances?
This seems silly given the fact that there is no way to compete and SRL is historically a competitive speedrunning site.

4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?
I assume in this case you mean a (probably indie) game developer holding a racing event where the prize is some of that game's related merchandise. I know events like this have sort of happened in the past (with Goat Escape 2 or something?) and don't really see a problem with it seeing as it doesn't impact any other game's community. Like with point 2, if the prize weren't "supplied" I'd be concerned where the money for the prize / pool was coming from.

5. Would your opinion change if practicing the game ahead of time was near-impossible? This could be due to the game not being known ahead of time, the game not being released until the day of the race, or prizes being offered for our Mystery Tournament.
I'd have the same opinion either way. Like emptyeye said, if the game is an older popular game, then new discoveries would eventually be revealed since video proof would need to be required. The only problem I see with this is the ability to practice the game or participate in a game's event where you're already a prominent runner.

Misc thoughts:
-"monopoly money" instead of tangible prizes. I've seen some sites have their own sort of e-currency that can then be used to "purchase" things on the site's "store" (top of my head examples: color, special icons, "featured stream" for an amount of time, get-out-of-race free pass [a forfeit that wouldn't count against you], etc etc creative community things here)
-would implementation of this get in the way of other things on the site like fixing up seasons or moderating the front page (I've seen a lot of let's plays on there recently)
-for some games, a better PC gives you a clear advantage. I'd hate for new release games to come down to the person with the fastest GPU winning every time, and as it stands Racebot/SRL is mainly run on realtime afaik
-I'm willing and able to help w/ the coding side of things, as always

[i]1. Do you feel that offering prizes for speedrunning competitions would be detrimental to the collaborative feel of the hobby?[/i]
I like the result-oriented aspect of speedrunning more than competing personally, but I don't see something like this hurting that side of the hobby.

[i]2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?[/i]
It depends where these prizes are coming from and how they are paid for IMO. Personally, I'd rather the money spent on them be put toward a charity of some sort and keep "the prize" be either ranking on a list or personal satisfaction.. or something that's no-cost to the organizer (steam code, etc.)

[i]3. Would you prefer an approach where the prize is assigned to an entrant RANDOMLY, rather than by placement? Could a prize be too big under these circumstances?[/i]
This seems silly given the fact that there is no way to compete and SRL is historically a competitive speedrunning site.

[i]4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?[/i]
I assume in this case you mean a (probably indie) game developer holding a racing event where the prize is some of that game's related merchandise. I know events like this have sort of happened in the past (with Goat Escape 2 or something?) and don't really see a problem with it seeing as it doesn't impact any other game's community. Like with point 2, if the prize weren't "supplied" I'd be concerned where the money for the prize / pool was coming from.

[i]5. Would your opinion change if practicing the game ahead of time was near-impossible? This could be due to the game not being known ahead of time, the game not being released until the day of the race, or prizes being offered for our Mystery Tournament.[/i]
I'd have the same opinion either way. Like emptyeye said, if the game is an older popular game, then new discoveries would eventually be revealed since video proof would need to be required. The only problem I see with this is the ability to practice the game or participate in a game's event where you're already a prominent runner.

Misc thoughts:
-"monopoly money" instead of tangible prizes. I've seen some sites have their own sort of e-currency that can then be used to "purchase" things on the site's "store" (top of my head examples: color, special icons, "featured stream" for an amount of time, get-out-of-race free pass [a forfeit that wouldn't count against you], etc etc creative community things here)
-would implementation of this get in the way of other things on the site like fixing up seasons or moderating the front page (I've seen a lot of let's plays on there recently)
-for some games, a better PC gives you a clear advantage. I'd hate for new release games to come down to the person with the fastest GPU winning every time, and as it stands Racebot/SRL is mainly run on realtime afaik
-I'm willing and able to help w/ the coding side of things, as always

Blechy

2015-05-12 04:47:29 pm

Quote from cronikeys:

2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?
It depends where these prizes are coming from and how they are paid for IMO. Personally, I'd rather the money spent on them be put toward a charity of some sort and keep "the prize" be either ranking on a list or personal satisfaction.. or something that's no-cost to the organizer (steam code, etc.)

So far the folks that have come to us have either had the prize available and are willing to offer it for the competition, or it would simply be one of their own products.

Quote from cronikeys:

4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?
I assume in this case you mean a (probably indie) game developer holding a racing event where the prize is some of that game's related merchandise. I know events like this have sort of happened in the past (with Goat Escape 2 or something?) and don't really see a problem with it seeing as it doesn't impact any other game's community. Like with point 2, if the prize weren't "supplied" I'd be concerned where the money for the prize / pool was coming from.

Well the Escape Goat 2 race was still done through SRL. I meant something more along the lines of the recent Chariot competition, which from what I saw was met with positive reception by those who knew about it. That was held solely by the indie studio itself, but I'd be interested to know if popular opinion would change if it was hosted by a site already rooted in the speedrun community such as SDA, SRL, GDQ, etc.

Quote from cronikeys:

-"monopoly money" instead of tangible prizes. I've seen some sites have their own sort of e-currency that can then be used to "purchase" things on the site's "store" (top of my head examples: color, special icons, "featured stream" for an amount of time, get-out-of-race free pass [a forfeit that wouldn't count against you], etc etc creative community things here)
-would implementation of this get in the way of other things on the site like fixing up seasons or moderating the front page (I've seen a lot of let's plays on there recently)

For #2 nah, it would simply be doing what we already do, but with a greater reward for winning. The features in #1 are the type of things we want to add and just haven't gotten to yet. But those things definitely would take resources away from developing anything else.

[quote=cronikeys]
2. Would the value of the prize impact your decision? That is to say, can a prize be TOO big?
It depends where these prizes are coming from and how they are paid for IMO. Personally, I'd rather the money spent on them be put toward a charity of some sort and keep "the prize" be either ranking on a list or personal satisfaction.. or something that's no-cost to the organizer (steam code, etc.)
[/quote]
So far the folks that have come to us have either had the prize available and are willing to offer it for the competition, or it would simply be one of their own products.

[quote=cronikeys]
4. Would your opinion change if the event was held by the prize supplier itself, rather than promoted as an SRL event? If so, is there a reason for this?
I assume in this case you mean a (probably indie) game developer holding a racing event where the prize is some of that game's related merchandise. I know events like this have sort of happened in the past (with Goat Escape 2 or something?) and don't really see a problem with it seeing as it doesn't impact any other game's community. Like with point 2, if the prize weren't "supplied" I'd be concerned where the money for the prize / pool was coming from.
[/quote]
Well the Escape Goat 2 race was still done through SRL. I meant something more along the lines of the recent [url=http://chariotgame.com/blog/chariot-speed-run-contest/]Chariot competition[/url], which from what I saw was met with positive reception by those who knew about it. That was held solely by the indie studio itself, but I'd be interested to know if popular opinion would change if it was hosted by a site already rooted in the speedrun community such as SDA, SRL, GDQ, etc.

[quote=cronikeys]
-"monopoly money" instead of tangible prizes. I've seen some sites have their own sort of e-currency that can then be used to "purchase" things on the site's "store" (top of my head examples: color, special icons, "featured stream" for an amount of time, get-out-of-race free pass [a forfeit that wouldn't count against you], etc etc creative community things here)
-would implementation of this get in the way of other things on the site like fixing up seasons or moderating the front page (I've seen a lot of let's plays on there recently)
[/quote]
For #2 nah, it would simply be doing what we already do, but with a greater reward for winning. The features in #1 are the type of things we want to add and just haven't gotten to yet. But those things definitely would take resources away from developing anything else.

Blubbler

Edit history:

Blubbler: 2015-05-12 07:18:11 pm

2015-05-12 07:17:13 pm

I'm not a big fan of money in speedrunning, but money for good runners sounds better than money for obnoxious personality streamers with a hundred overlays, which already exists.

If you complain that your precious WR got beaten by "strat hiding", you are just a mad grindmonkey, who should have routed more.

Frogburt

2015-05-23 12:59:52 am

Quote from Emptyeye:

Okay.

So first, in the interest of full disclosure, my general attitude is that there is no such thing as "too mainstream" for speedrunning, and indeed, I'm of the thought that more people speedrunning for money/streaming as their career/etc is good for speedrunning (The analogy I always bring up is American sports, where the quality of play went up exponentially in the last 40 to 50 years as players could actually focus on their sport of choice year-round instead of having to sell insurance/etc. in the offseason).

I cannot state how much I agree with this. I've always wanted more for speedrunning and I think the only way to start to push it into the esports spotlight is to lose this strange mentality that making money from this hobby is "selling out" and "detrimental to the hobby." Perhaps it is because speedrunning is so small compared to other competitive video games but I don't see this mentality in other communities. It is my opinion that allowing the best of the best to be able to make money and even a living off their skill will be overwhelmingly good for speedrunning. I don't think many people would argue that Dota or League would be far less popular if it weren't for sponsors, tournament winnings, and donations. These things not only allow for specialization but they also drive competition as people will work harder when money is on the line.

[quote="Emptyeye"]Okay.

So first, in the interest of full disclosure, my general attitude is that there is no such thing as "too mainstream" for speedrunning, and indeed, I'm of the thought that more people speedrunning for money/streaming as their career/etc is [b]good[/b] for speedrunning (The analogy I always bring up is American sports, where the quality of play went up exponentially in the last 40 to 50 years as players could actually focus on their sport of choice year-round instead of having to sell insurance/etc. in the offseason).[/quote]

I cannot state how much I agree with this.  I've always wanted more for speedrunning and I think the only way to start to push it into the esports spotlight is to lose this strange mentality that making money from this hobby is "selling out" and "detrimental to the hobby."  Perhaps it is because speedrunning is so small compared to other competitive video games but I don't see this mentality in other communities.  It is my opinion that allowing the best of the best to be able to make money and even a living off their skill will be overwhelmingly good for speedrunning.  I don't think many people would argue that Dota or League would be far less popular if it weren't for sponsors, tournament winnings, and donations.  These things not only allow for specialization but they also drive competition as people will work harder when money is on the line.

DarkTerrex

2015-06-07 02:37:12 am

I think prizes are fine, cash bounties already get put onto games to achieve a certain time, I don't see how giving prizes would be any different.