Intro To Crowdfunding Tournaments

Crowdfunding is becoming ubiquitous and success stories like The International, the Smite World Championships, and more recently the competitive scene of Blizzard’s Overwatch beta have shown that there is a new wave of opportunity to turn gamer’s dreams to reality.  By democratizing the access to possible capital, fans can encourage new story lines in esports to grow and who wouldn’t want to help kick start the next big event their scene has been waiting for?

It is really a revolutionary concept giving normal people investment opportunities previously reserved for publishers and funded production companies. In this dynamic market, streamers and influencers must sell themselves as personalities first and then create content that brings their fans closer to the action. The Matcherino platform was created to put ease on the organization process of community events and tournaments to allow the streamer to focus 100% on their viewers.

In the crowdfunded tournament space, prize pools generally comes from financial backing of sponsors and the generosity of the viewers. With larger games such as Dota 2 and Smite, a guaranteed prize pool is set by the publisher at the start of announcement with a percentage of sales during a crowdfunded event run to add directly to the cap of the prize pool. In such reward-based crowdfunding, publishers are able to give value to donors through in game rewards and the sense of community for their enthusiasts.

This same process is necessary for amateur and mid-level organizers creating content on Matcherino. Similar to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the most donated events on our platform have come from well prepared landing pages, generating awareness with the fans, and strong execution on game day. The point is that media never shows the amount of work that organizers put into creating a successful pre-launch campaign.

If you’re still reading at this point, that means the blog was interesting enough to keep you here. All of these notes have been opinions and strategies that we’ve noticed in the three months since our tournament feature release. I hope I’ve helped you even the slightest to prepare yourself for the mind-blowing world of esports!

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