Rethinking Money 8s For Everyone

The Underlying Issues

Reading? In this economy? Not on my smart watch.

It’s safe to assume that most of today’s audience has less time to read documentation and understand processes, especially when it doesn’t directly benefit their careers. This raises an important question: if you’re an event coordinator (in this case, a tournament organizer) looking to attract participants and encourage them to return, how can you structure your events to maximize value within the limited attention span that participants can or want to afford?

As dull as it may sound, the key is to meet their requirements. When opportunities become limited, you must deliver the same value within a tighter timeframe. This constraint necessitates fulfilling essential requirements while eliminating unnecessary procedures. Traditional tournaments often relied on cumbersome frontends linked to extensive documents and bracket systems that felt outdated. To provide value in such friction-filled environments, organizers resorted to announcing large prize pools to capture players' interest and attention, hoping to maintain that traction with increasingly greater effort. This is one reason the esports industry is so cutthroat, draining, and often unprofitable.

Keep It Short & Sweet

The Money 8s Model

For those unfamiliar, these are essentially private betting games that professional players often host within their circles. Professional players and their organizations cannot officially host such events because the revenue model relies on a loose form of gambling, and the perception of this model has not evolved. As a result, these events remain private, with players trying to gain entry into exclusive circles by showcasing their skills. The artificial exclusivity of these "money 8s" creates a tempting allure. While other organizations may have attempted to establish a formal structure around this concept, I suspect these efforts failed due to the profit-driven nature of previous attempts.

For those who are paying attention, this "gambling" model mirrors how current buy-in tournaments operate, albeit with added complexities and regulations. By streamlining the conventional tournament process—condensing registration, acknowledgment, and other fragmented steps into a simple and accessible format—we eliminate many barriers, providing players with a straightforward way to access these events. That’s exactly what I accomplished. Together with a team of volunteers, I utilized Discord categories and channels to consolidate all necessary information into one location. We then employed the NeatQueue bot to automatically generate channels for players wishing to participate, similar to traditional pickup games. This structure effectively funneled participation into the events without hindering the player experience. And it worked.

The Weekly 8$ Model

The Procedure

Beyond the conceptual phase, players must purchase a reasonably priced ticket for entry through a reliable and publicly accessible frontend. Queues open for a designated period, allowing players to join and participate in randomly assigned teams to earn points toward their placement on a leaderboard. This leaderboard resets at the end of each designated period. At that time, rewards are distributed according to the announced portions for the positions that qualify for payouts based on their leaderboard standings. The competition follows a clear schedule and maintains full transparency and accountability in order to garner incentive and trust before even starting the next period of events and sending payouts.

Establishing the Prize Pot

During our testing phase, we relied on investments from internal partners. However, the goal is to introduce small entry fees that incentivize players to participate in these tournaments. As more participants buy in, the contributions accumulate, resulting in a substantial prize pot that a portion of the final leaderboard will share. This model reflects how buy-in tournaments operate, whether or not there is a "guaranteed" prize pool, but without the associated bureaucracy. This structure serves as the primary source of incentive and marketing potential for the events. This can be easily achieved with a sizable audience.

Scheduling

In our implementation, queues open on Fridays at 9 PM ET and close on Sundays at 11:59 PM ET. Leaderboards reset every Thursday night, ensuring fresh competition each week and allowing players to review the leaderboard and point allocations to independently verify statistics and hold us accountable. Administrative commands for managing or cleaning the leaderboard were executed in a designated "staff" channel on NeatQueue. This channel was made available to everyone but set to read-only to ensure full transparency and maintain trust.

General Rules

To participate, players must meet specific criteria:

1. A valid payment method is required.

2. Participants must be over 18 years of age.

3. Players must adhere to the PUGs ruleset.

Payouts

After the competition, a member of the management team will contact the winners to distribute their share of the prize pot.

Claims & Disputes

In the event of any disputes or claims, players can submit a ticket in the designated channel, providing any necessary proof to support their case.

Other Conditions

Additional conditions include:

1. If fewer than eight players register before the weekend, entries will be refunded.

2. Management reserves the final discretion on all decisions, which are considered final.

3. By entering the weekly 8$, participants agree to these conditions.

This structured approach not only fosters competition but also ensures clarity and fairness, helping to maintain participant interest and engagement in the events.

Particular in Execution, Accessible for Everyone

The format, procedure, and rules are straightforward. While this simplicity can lead to misunderstandings, clearly presenting this information—along with a comprehensive set of community guidelines—helps players understand their responsibilities within the event environment. This approach allows them to focus on the specific rules for the event without needing to remember two separate sets of guidelines. By breaking down the information and controlling how it is displayed, you can effectively manage participants' understanding. Thoughtful execution of this strategy will make it easier for players to engage, reducing friction and overhead. Additionally, maintaining transparency and accountability in communication will foster trust and interest before the events and payouts take place.