Hello community 
I really appreciate that Microsoft supports big tournaments.
However I think that the prize money is much too high. N4C had a prize pool of 100 000 dollars. Golden League even 125 000 dollars.
I would prefer that they use most of the prize money to hire some additional developers and support the modding community. If the game wants to be successful beyond the competitive scene this would be much more profitable.
Please don’t get me wrong. The tournaments are / were great and well organized. But I would rather lower the price pool and invest in the development and the modding scene. Tournaments do not make the game better.
What do you think about the tournaments with high prize money? Would you rather see the high prize money invested in more developers and for the modding scene or otherwise than for the high e-sports prize money?
Kind regards
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the tournaments that were done so far are essentially just burning money that could be invested into something else tbh, the viewer numbers arent even close to justify those pools.
would probably be a better idea to invest some money into improving the tools, like making state trees accessable for modders and so on
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$100,000 and $125,000 are divided between how many players? I doubt a single one of them is getting much.
I think it’s essential to keep the pro players active by organizing tournaments. Tournaments will keep the streaming community alive, and the streaming community will keep the player base active. $125,000 (plus the overhead expense) isn’t really that much money compared to the benefit of the tournaments.
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Those are the annual cost of 1-2 good developer depending on where they are… So I don’t think that would make a huge difference at the end.
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Tournaments are important to the RTS ecosystem especially IRL ones.
The prise pool is not all microsoft money. N4C for example had alot of other sponsors. Plus i believe that donations via twitch stream went also to the organisers and prisepool.
- The price money is spread between top8. In N4C for example the 1 place was 30k 2 was 20k …
About the exposure.
Viewship above 1k-3k is (even if not that much) good for ads. And can atract donations as well. And if enough people interact with the sponsor’s products can atract new sponsors.
Plus the twitch viewship is misleading. People watch youtube vods as well. Ex: the N4C final atracted 40k viewers.
Another good thing is that good price money atracts competitive players. even from other games.
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I understand the motivation behind this suggestion, and opportunity for modders would be welcome, but I am an example of a person who might have lost interest by now if not for the great content coming out as a result of the tourneys.
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How cheap do you think developers are in Canada?
I think the tournaments are good as they are important for the community. It would be interesting to know how much of the prize money comes from Microsoft. I suspect that Microsoft sponsors by far the largest part of all the sponsors. As @MahoganyHalo80 said most of the viewers probably already owns AOE4. So the effect of attracting new players is probably very limited. New exciting content is what will attract new players and keep existing ones playing the game long term.
@WiseConcil I think 1 to 2 full time developers for AOE4 could make quite a difference in terms of new content.
Besides they should expand the mod tools and make mod events like Aussie Drongo ( Map Making Contest For May 2022).
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How could you say 1 or 2 devs make a difference if you dont know how many devs they have?
I think big tournaments are good for the community.
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Yes I don’t know how many developers they have. But I think 1 or 2 additional full time developers can make quite some content. For example I estimate that a color picker, more animals and plants can be implemented in one month from one or two full time developers.
Mi amigo, no hay mejor manera que usarlo para obtener más contenido.
Ha sido un gran peso en mi corazón todo este tiempo que los premios del torneo crezcan, pero nuestro contenido no.
The prize pools you are describing will not afford more than one developer. You seem to be describing a temporary contract (as prize pools are one-off affairs and dependent on sponsors, etc) - contractor rates are usually higher again.
You’re ignoring any training time required, underlying work to the game required for the features you’re estimating can be done, and so on. I’m not even touching on the estimates themselves.
I think the money is much better put to use in the competitive scene. Maybe spread it out across more tournaments, but it isn’t enough to put towards something like expanding the developer team. It just isn’t.
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True, I don’t… And of course, there are few individuals who might change the fortune of whole projects single handedly… My opinion is only, that the budget spent on these tournaments is at the end not that high, compared to the potential impact they can produce (or produced already), so after all that price money is well spent. If they have spent the same on devs, and that would have caused a very huge significant impact, the project managers would do something seriously wrong… 
It hardly depends in which country you are looking for developers. In Canada it is maybe only one. When they cooperate with game developers from other countries there could be much more developers for this money.
I think they will make more big tournaments in the future. Even though there are other sponsors I think by far the most money come from Microsoft.
Investing in reasonable prizes for many modding contests like Aussie Drongo will do in May Map Making Contest For May 2022 are better invested in my opinion. This leads to new content from which all players can benefit.
As a compromise I would suggest splitting the prize money between many modding events and e-sports tournaments in the future. This way they would also offer something to the non-competitive players with the money (new content).
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Agree, ideally there is a good balance / budget for both purposes (or all purposes including development of new features, content, QoL features, bug fixes etc.), and this game can turn into a very great one.
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That is a better solution than just a tourney.
I Agree with this.
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it shows that they are pretty desperate, too bad they have priorities backwards and its kinda late to fix them now.
release broken game, purely targeting esport and hope to get into esport market while charging $60. how can they compete with actual big esports game that are literally free to play? on release even ignoring a ton of single player content as well as modding capabilities, basic game functions + hotkeys etc.
can guarantee all those money go down the drain. they should have just spend those on improving the game and players base will eventually return. once they get a consistent player base only then should tournaments be hosted.
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125k is pocket money for microsoft. They won’t feel it. It also woulndt make much difference on the game.
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Yes, this is why they released a bunch of campaigns with narrated cutscenes. Because they were purely targeting eSports.
Yes, this is why they prioritised mod tools for the first major post-release update. Because they were purely targeting eSports.
Yeesh.
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yesh this is why game failing hard
because they target esport, yeshhh
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