Play games for cash

Gaming for a Living
Pay to play at Tournament.com and turn your frags into funds.

By Tom Chick

You ready to put your money where your mouse is? UK-based Tournament.com plans to launch a service this month that will let gamers pony up an entrance fee, play a first person shooter match, and then divide the money among the winners. After the house gets its cut, of course.

At launch, you'll only be able to play Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 deathmatches. Tournament.com founder Marcus Pearcey wouldn't comment about any publishers who might have declined to participate, much less any upcoming deals. "We look forward to signing new companies in the very new future," he said, stressing that this isn't gambling and therefore shouldn't be objectionable to any of the larger publishers. "Gambling rewards a player based purely on luck, while Tournament.com is a service that rewards players based on their skill. They're two very different models."

Nevertheless, 14 states in the US ban this sort of gaming for money, so people from those states won't be able to participate. Also, Tournament.com requires players to fax or email proof-of-age ID, which will then be verified to ensure that no one under 18 participates. Otherwise, it's easy to sign up and use your credit card or PayPal to set up an account. You install a fairly simple and sleek 10MB front end, and from there, you'll be able to jump into games with variable entry fees. With enough skill, you can take your place among top winners with names like Ars- and l33tboy.

A ranking system is supposed to match you against players of a similar skill level. An anti-cheating system will presumably keep things honest. But it's a bit disconcerting to log on and see the home page proclaiming the number of cheaters banned as if it were an accomplishment (currently at 338). "We're confident that [our anti-cheating software] is some of the best out there and we use a combination of different anti-cheating software developed by third parties in conjunction with our internally developed Tournament Anti-Cheat, also known as TAC," said Pearcey. "To supplement our security, we also have admins who continuously monitor in-game play, making sure that everyone is playing fair."

Based on the beta of the program, the entrance fees range from free-to-play (i.e. practice games with no rewards) to $10. "There's no real concrete amount that's consistent across all of the tournaments. Winnings are also dictated by a number of factors, including whether or not the tournament has a set reward amount or instead rewards based on the number of players participating." It's worth noting that in beta testing, many players complained about being unable to accumulate winnings in excess of $25, which was the requirement to withdraw money during the beta. So even if you've got seriously 733t gaming skillz, don't quit your day job just yet.

Pearcey is aware that other companies have tried this model and failed. But he remains optimistic. "Other services, in our opinion, failed to consider the big picture about a service such as this. While it's mainly about winning money and playing well, it's also about fostering an environment that's open to all players, regardless of whether they've been playing games for 20 years or just two days. Gaming is still about having fun and Tournament.com is completely dedicated to that idea."

source: Yahoo Games

It's time for a new strategy - make money the "stupid" way

I am sure for you PROs this is nothing new. But after many attempts and sites of all kind, simple affiliate sites, complex sites, blogs etc... I will soon try something else.

In the back of my head I "know" for sure that sometimes REALLY, REALLY stupid things...or VERY SIMPLE stupid things can bring a lot of traffic.

(Adsense!)

You all remember that stupid "hamster-dance" from a few years ago.... I saw people raving and screaming about it..while I was in awe over how pathetic and retarded it was (IMHO).

Or.... think about how many sites often just contain a joke, or something unique, dumb and funny like a single video....or things like the good old "church sign generator"

Or what about (ok, this is old now)...just some extremely disgusting pictures. (Assuming here I am not talking about gore/nudity etc...this would also be against AdSense TOS)

What about some extremely fat woman ?

Or make up some fake story which everyone just HAS to see, including pictures etc.. or maybe even a real story...something outrageous, incredible, hard to believe.

Or some video with Britney or Paris or...let your fantasy flow

----> THAT is the "high quality" stuff I always see having the most diggs and traffic and what is most talked about anywhere....NOT the hyper-complex websites where you sit 5 months alone to DESIGN them...to get 10 uniques a day !

I think it's time I sit down and do a bunch of really, really "stupid" sites in that sense....put some AdSense on it and see traffic coming in because the kids think it's cool to see someone popping a giant football-sized pimple, or an animated cat dancing...or 100 hamsters in an animation singing..or some pictures of my new cat which i will certainly claim weighs about 300lbs because I got her from Chernobyl. She genetically mutated because of the remaining radiation in Chernobyl and doctors discovered that some genes are missing which are responsible for her growth to stop. She is STILL growing.

At this point she is 9' long, 289lbs....i will show her to you soon on my new website. I will aso have a video on that site showing how she swallows one of the two cows which we daily feed to her.

Wait... I need to do some photshopping....

Get my drift ?

Georg

Edit: "The extremely fat woman" is ok. But to top this of: What you don't know is that this is actually Paris Hilton before she had her surgery ! No one knows that of course. But i will have the proof....soon...."