https://support.esea.net/hc/en-us/articles/360008741054-How-much-are-the-ESEA-League-registration-fees-

esea had league fees on top of premium

they have to fun lan and prizepools somehow

do u have a source for this

then dont play advance?

open didn't for the last few seasons. when open had no fees outside of premium (which was a requirement to use the client and connect to servers) felt a lot nicer to be able to jump back into the game

Helix was already paid for the event that was supposed to happen for Season 2 and the next LAN is basically an IOU to RGL based on the event already being payed for. This argument makes even less sense when you consider that because of the global climate S3 is confirmed not getting that LAN either.

The prizepool argument makes sense until you realize that winning most divisions has you just over breaking even, let alone a top 3 placement outside of invite. I get top heavy prizepools are really exciting for non-players and invite viewers/fans because it's really cool to say "hey our top level is playing for 5 figures we esports!" but for the rest of the league it's burdenous and feels like your money isn't really contributing to your division.

due to RGL's player restriction rules their entire team would probably have to swap classes to play down a division. It also doesnt help when the fees are still relatively high in the lower divs. I think I paid like twenty something dollars to play in RGL IM last season when it cost less in league fees than that to play in the Advanced equivalent the season before (ESEA S31 IM).

If the counter to this is "don't play this league at all then" have fun playing 100+ ping to ETF2L or OZFortress servers depending on where you live in NA, because RGL has an effective monopoly on 6s.

you pay roughly the same amount as esea to not have servers provided and to have much lower prizepools
https://pastebin.com/txzBynKD
for comparison 1st place esea s30 invite was 5000
1st place IM was 600

in rgl placing 2nd in main in s1 or 1st in IM was the same payout as winning advanced in s2

i understand weighting the prizepool to the top but this is very funny

S1 invite had 53.9% of the league prizepool (4830 of 8960 USD)
S2 invite had 82.6% of the league prizepool (7680 of 9510 USD)

I knew it was bad but this is fucking egregious ROFL

Okay so apperently RGL have explicitly stated that there's no LAN and that the Helix venue was paid for but ARE STILL CHARGING A LAN FEE THIS SEASON

https://i.imgur.com/SsV96Fr.png

This is the fucking worst timeline

console redemption arc

RGL is unfair! Sigafoo is in there! Standing at the concession, plotting his oppression!

The big difference between those two seasons is that one of them did not have a LAN and the other was supposed to.

If you look at ESEA numbers from Season 31, the final season.
It was: Invite Division Prize Pot: $12,600
Invite: $10,900 (~86.5%)
IM: $1,200 (~9.5%)
Open: $500 (~3.9%)

So even with our LAN numbers skewing the distribution, RGL still gave a higher % out to lower divs then ESEA did.

The only reason we adjust those is to have a better prize pool so players can help cover their cost for coming to the Invite LAN playoffs. The reason did not adjust them back from last season was because we canceled the LAN so late, players likely already spent some money that they may not have been able to get back (flights, hotels, etc...) If we do not have a LAN this season, then the numbers will go back to normal.

We lowered and kept the fee to help build up a bank of money to help cover future LANs. As just because the LAN didn't happen in S2 doesn't mean that money still exist, we're still in discussions with Helix to try to work something out.

The money we got from just the LAN fee's in S2 was not going to cover all of the cost related to the LAN, let alone have any money to help support the volunteer staff who are coming out. (e.g. cover their hotels or some of their travel fee's.)

The reason we called it the LAN sustainability fee is for sustainability. To have a fund that's dedicated exclusively to helping cover future LAN fee's, help support our staff, etc... This money is earmarked specifically to help cover the cost related to future LAN's and to make it so we can make sure that LAN's are a consistent part of RGL's future.

Were any other options explored to help teams financially compensate for LAN? Actively helping them seek out sponsorships? Separate, voluntary fundraisers? Helping teams build sponsor decks and providing stream viewership statistics to go with those decks from RGL's S1 coverage and TFTV's S1/ESEA S31 coverage? I didn't elaborate in my convo with boxcar but there are better options than what felt like an under the table swap up of prizepools that many didn't notice at all.

Comparing ESEA's prize numbers is kind of unfair when you remember that the community didn't really get a say from ESEA and we were basically held hostage for 10 seasons, not knowing if we were going to have a season, let alone having a say in how much money was given to divisions. ESEA should be an example for RGL to learn from if anything, not a standard to slightly deviate from. Season 1 actually did a decent job of this and I actually liked this change personally; it is the huge change from that initial season, combined with a required fee on all players to pay for the venue itself that is the troubling matter.

as someone who was putting a lot of time and effort into S2 LAN and for the first few weeks of organizing was under the impression I was going to have to go uncredited as a producer I am really curious about this. Covering any staff's hotel or travel fees was never covered at any LAN organizing meeting.

That's why in my statement I said

For S2 because we knew that our estimates of money brought in through the sustainability fee versus the cost of the LAN were going to be tight, at best.

So, as I said in my last post, as you understood then, we were not going to have extra money to help cover the staff who were coming to the event. Which is why we never talked about it for S2. That doesn't mean, that's what we should aim for though.

We should aim to not only cover the cost of running the LAN, but also help support our volunteer staff. If we want sustainable LAN's, it's hard to expect our volunteer staff to shell out hundreds of dollars each time. Being able to help support our staff in some way, even if it's not 100%, is a good goal to aim for.

i'd rather pay 15 less dollars than have a lan happen.

If LAN isn't happening anytime soon (which it shouldn't) I see no reason to charge us extra.

lan fees? sounds like a tax to give the elites a kitschy vacation

I'm not really sure why this is a bad thing? If you are disappointed in the amount of money you get for being the best team in the 2nd/3rd highest division, perhaps you are playing tf2 for the wrong reasons. Why should the team that wins advanced, presumably the 10th best team in the region, make more money than the 9th-5th best teams in the region?

Can i make my b4nny rent fund payment to tyrone directly instead of sigafoo first?

LAN fees looking more like hoe fees and we’re the hoes.

Cheapskates can't pay 20 bucks for a hobby they put 100hrs/week into

Just because you are in the invite division doesn't automatically make you the 1-9th best team in the region. In most ESEA Seasons there were better top IM teams than the lower Invite teams.

I would rather pay more to a team that fights hard to win a division, like advanced, than to pay some low invite team that just hung around to fill-out 9 teams and say they "played invite one season".

imagine paying to play this game,they should pay me to play this,plus why don't u guys get a platform like etf2l where you don't have to pay???

5-9th place invite shouldn't be getting any prizes imo it discourages competition and help to enable the low-invite cirlejerk to continue to exist. I don't see why you'd want the same little cry babies who don't have a chance of beating froyo and don't even aspire to beat them to continue to take up invite spots rather than bringing in new blood who will at least improve and dream of beating froyo.
You might want to have 5-6 reimbursed for there league fees for placing that high each season, but paying out the 7-9th for just existing feels stupid af especially when the top advanced teams are probably better than or at least competitive with them.

Hey, I don't know if you remember, but we're in a global pandemic. Assuming that there will be a LAN any time soon is dangerous for several reasons

You are absolutely milking people for money when you know you don't have to, and crying about it under the guise of 'league sustainability' when it's really just bad business decisions and bad timing

It'd be one thing if you simply asked for donations but you're so obviously dangling a LAN over our heads in hopes of getting more money

imma be real with u chief no one thinks they're gonna beat froyo, you might as well take away 2nd place prize money with this mentality

also wtf is the "low-invite circlejerk," invite definitely gets more circlejerky the higher you go

this is true tho

The difference is the top 4 teams actually placed in the standard prize distribution of a competition, the other teams didn't they just existed in the division. 2-4 demonstrate that they are at least somewhat competitive even if they aren't trying for 1st or think they can get it. The payout for 5-6 is mostly just because I think tf2 would struggle to get enough teams for mid invite if they just have to pay large fees every season in exchange for nothing.

how did americans get suckered for a decade for paying for leagues when etf2l exists?

I believe the mentality for prize pool distribution to lower teams is that it makes the fight to become the 6th place team instead of the 7th place team actually matter a little bit

lan fee is $3... guys...