Furthermore I want to mention. There are other organizers that we should be supporting/participating in that have already done more than what Sidular has done in less than a year, quite frankly.
Some that I'd like to note are:
- Horse Run Monthly (GamerLatam): 7 cups hosted across 7 months with +$3,000 in prize money already paid out
- QEL (Quick Esports League): 2 cups (Cup #1 & #2) hosted with over $1,100 paid in prize money (mix of keys/USD) across divisions of varying skill levels
- MGE.TF: $5k 1v1 World Championship + an ongoing EU MGE League with over $2k in prize money across two divisions. Hell they even have a pretty decent looking website too with a rulebook at that. All for MGE.
- TF2 Coaching Central: Hosts of the TF2 Coaching Central Newbie Cup. They've been able to get a fiesty $100 prize pool for their most recent cup on top of in-game participant medals DESPITE no income/revenue streamlining into their efforts. On that very same vein, Asiafortress is also hosting a "Gibus Cup," which essentially is the same thing as the Newbie Cup, but for the APAC region.
Sure they will probably run into the same issues with longstanding participation that also plagued the Essentials Monthly Cups. But key differences that I see from TFCL are:
1) They don't make a grand show of an announcement. When they have an event finalized, there is no grand show of these events. They make an announcement, give you a date, and you play in it and get paid promptly
2) Receptive to criticism in the sense that they actually implement changes for the better
e.g.
- QEL mirroring severe RGL bans
- GamerLatam working with other organizers like TF2 Coaching Central, RGL, Fireside to better plan out their cups
- TF2 Coaching Central working with RGL to host cups in the off-season to time their events with signups for RGL
- MGE.TF's inaugural season being Europe only, which is great for Europe since I think the region lacks prize pool seasons other than ETF2L for the most part (Could be wrong). From talking with Neptune personally I can see why they wanted EU.
3) Transparency. I mean hell I see a channel in the QEL Discord server that has screenshots of them paying out their participants.
4) Integration into the current competitive ecosystem. TF2 Coaching Central's Newbie Cup streamlines a player's path to Invite (so per say) by giving them a chance to test the waters of competitive TF2. They like competitive 6s? With the experience they've had from the cup, they can further test their skills out in RGL. I mean, that's the whole goal of the cup anyways: to get people playing 6s and eventually play in RGL.
Do I see any of this from TFCL? Aside from a wall of text, no. I ask that we support those that are actually taking initiative and putting the money and time where their mouths are without all this showboating. Sure, the marketing for these events could be better... but they're trying and that's what matters. There's even people on the r/truetf2 subreddit trying to help market and publicize these events. Those are the people we should be returning the efforts towards.