P1 - A good point, but also to think about is what they settle on and how they intend to migrate the playerbase. If they do not communicate with existing leagues they will find it hard to migrate the playerbase from the league, to wherever they wish to place them (ESL, MM, wheever). Otherwise it's solely down to the leagues discretion if they want to get involved, I think last time I interacted with an ETF2L on the topic they kind of just expected the playerbase for their league to rise automatically without any sort of intervention, after I finished face-palming it did make me realize league admins should be involved in the discussion since they provide the platform the competitive community largely exists from.

P2 - Agreed and well summarized. Fact 2 of the people went to Valve originally have gone to another game in search of a professional gaming career shows their commitment to the project and their belief it will actually work, unless there is something I am missing here. I don't hold it against them but it's telling.

P3 - Maintenance of aforementioned projects would I am sure, involve a new SBU and that will incur a whole new set of staff costs and costs around that. Whatever happens, it means an increased budget.

I echo your sentiments, the idea of cash injection of the size needed to boost TF2's profile to the sought after level is so unrealistic, it's almost absurd we're trying. Keep trying though, it's commendable, even if at best MM will incur the same sort of effect to the game as a previously successful Newbie Cup. Even something of the level of the HCC would be an achievement.

I do not mean just throwing money at the game, I am not as naive as you seem to think people are in this community are when I watch your videos.

If Gaben puts up a shed load of funds he will have to:

- Greate and maintain a regulatory body that governs the core rules/formats/tournaments/whitelist (basically everything admins do today) and other factors to take into account (There are a lot; ranging from legal to good governance).
- Ensure there is adequate funding for leagues/tournaments/events/community projects...etc to be invested
- Invest in the infrastructure of the game from grassroot level up to professional level, this can be in the form of MM but must also include other bridging services such as functionality of websites, pickup systems, guides, resources, marketing, advertisement and so forth.
- Cost of maintenance of all above aspects if not already mentioned (ie, staff costs, hardware costs,,,etc).
- An achievable business plan in place to cover the costs of the aforementioned points as well as produce profit.

There is a lot more than my brief summation that would need to be done for a game like TF2 to become successful and to make it work it requires investment in the tens of millions.

Like I said though, Valve can produce a perfect MM system, but there won't be the interest to maintain it, think about how revenues are created in other eSports and apply them to TF2's numbers. Trends will not increase under the current infrastructure which is still, with the exception of a messy MM system, maintained by 99% community volunteers, all it takes is for Arie to become Amish and shut his servers down and we lose Serveme.tf and then someone has to step up to replace it or people will need their own servers again, which would affect the size of the community. Or perhaps one streamer gets a new job and can't work, so TFTV casts are reduced by 33%. Or Sonny Black gives up all his possessions to live in the wilderness and ETF2L requires a new head admin to organise the league (oh this would actually be a good thing). But you see my point here -

A community where infrastructure is so dependent on volunteers to survive over the next 5 years as Valve sort their shit out in a game where most believe there cannot be enough interest to garner the sort of financial supported needed to launch the game to the size it becomes even semi-professional...Is not going to happen. The community will continue it's current trend of decline unless some serious cash injection was made so the people who keep it running at a grassroot level can do it for a living (or they replace them appropriately).

I have read it, it's the same article that has been written for 9 years and the same discussion.

Look at the numbers, we've had Valve support for Matchmaking for a while and we're still not growing - Could it be related to the fact we have a multitude of different formats and the most popular one is so boring and stale to play the only reason we still play it as a team is because one of our guys wants to play a season where we don't have a roamer and use a multitude of off-classes instead?

Unless you can persuade Mr Gaben to put up a $10,000,000 in prize money we're staying the same mate. I will bet you money in 5 years time the league size is no larger than it was in 2011.

So what is growing a scene at the grassroots to you?

Look at comp.tf, look at the league histories, you will see that in 5 years signups have halved and player levels have more than halved throughout ETF2L/ESEA, can't speak for UGC but only because their website gives me eye cancer with their horrible grey outlook. The number of people playing competitively is dropping.

Stream viewers increased with the growth of Twitch, but on average I don't think I have seen TF2 numbers increase significantly apart from a once a year LAN (where it actually reduced this year). An average competitive cast gets no more than the days I casted with TF2TV with The Pledge on Own3d.TV or w/e it was called. On average in 5 years we've got like 100 more viewers per stream, excellent growth.

The scene can't grow from grassroots, I think people in this community who have tried and I have been one of them in the past have done all they can, and done excellent work but ultimately it's a losing battle. I doubt any game* put as much into a community as we have, personally I am happy with TF2 like this, I have met some of my best friends in this game, I met people I love and loved in this game and I am so happy to play this game but TF2 as an eSport is a pipe dream. My personal opinion is you are deluding yourself to think we can even exceed previous levels we built up as a "Grassroots" game a few years ago.

I commend you for trying, but it's a waste of time talking about it - Too many people disagree, too many players play this game for different reasons for anything to ever be agreed upon, Valve can pump money in and they could add Matchmaking to mirror 6v6 format as it stands but people will not play it for the same reason they don't play Leagues / PUGS / ESL / TF2Center (okay for TF2C it's because the admins are cunts) - Just isn't enough interest to bring in sizable numbers.

They can change MM to 9v9 - It would be just as bad if not worse, they can change it to something totally new and different, the most perfect balanced, fun, interesting, varied, exciting Comp MM that could ever exist....and it would still fail because people aren't interested in TF2 on the scale of other games as a competitive game. There is a reason Football is the world's most popular sport and Bowls is played by old people in retirement - One is better than the other.

Sigafoo mate, I am not sure what you're trying to achieve and do what you like with your money but 7 Prolander has been tried and failed previously, remember doing it Wireplay years ago, it was good fun but you won't gauge interest from people. What will happen is people will sign up, play for the money then leave.

Good luck with the tournament matey.

xD

1) Define an OP weapon
2) Find a definition that can be universally accepted by all leagues
3) Implement whitelist
4) Accept the whitelist and stop qq

The fuck watches that shit, TMZ

(GL TO FORMER TF2 PLAYERS I HOPE YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL).

Usually a bad idea, tried it before, didn't work.

I think it's good, either evolve with the game or go and play OW.

Why would you want to still play on this website?

Made that decision pretty quickly, literally 12 hours before this post at LAN you were drunkenly telling me how you were going to shit on playoffs and Prem.

The only true comment here is downvoted, tells you how retarded TFTV is

Most viable strat is suicide, cos then you don't have to play this shit game anymore

LUL

Get triggered TFTV nerds.

Should be an inspiration to all of us scrawny nerds, work hard, eat right and you can be a MANsky.

Fundraising is THE ONLY WAY to get any sort of support for top teams, anything we do is not possible without fundraising. Fundraising is also going to be the easiest way to raise big prizepools. We had a large one for DeutschLAN off the back of a couple of showmatches and perks, the LAN simply didn't happen without fundraising to pay for the venue, pay insurance costs, then have a prizepool for the players.

A really well organized and driven community effort is the most realistic and likely way to make this happen. By all means pitch to Valve or other sponsors for support but that comes with a lot of grappling and hassle, besides it's unlikely to be successful or large scale.

For a suggestion for a venue, I heard of a place in Brussels that is basically a giant gaming cafe, when we were looking for alternative places for DeutschLAN, it looked a good potential spot, might be worth checking out. If only I could remember the name.