Paypal takes $.30 +2.9% per national transaction and $.30 + 3.9% per international transaction. Using a 50/50 American split that's roughly 6.5% right off the top to paypal for the buy ins and (assuming the top 4 teams are getting paid out of the $853 spread among 32 players) roughly 3-3.5% more in fees when it comes time to pay people. Anywhere from 9-10% of that initial buy in money is going to be going straight to paypal. Not stating this as an opinion on whether or not 33% is too much or not enough for Tris, just something I wanted to point out.
Thank you for providing the actual numbers on this. All I've seen is the 59 cents taken out of a 10 dollar transaction which matches perfectly with those numbers.
Have you guys considered making the first time fee a fixed charge? Virgin Gaming charges 5$/month for their premium package, which more or less removes the 12% I think it is in management fees per game played. This is not to mention the extra 3$ they charge you for withdrawing the money that you've already won as a paypal service fee REGARDLESS of how much you are withdrawing from your account. I have played about 12 games on there this year, winning about 60-70 bucks I think, but that's with the 12% already taken out of there, and you can factor the 3$ service fee from paypal as well. I didn't look at all of the posts from this thread on what the numbers really are, but just from what I've seen so far, for this being the first time and a lot having gone into setting this up, I think 20-25 percent ONLY for the first time would be reasonable. After that, I'd say maybe 10-15% or so. The fixed charge idea is just some food for thought.
For this round the numbers arent changing, for the next time I'll talk to Tris and see what would be best for both sides and hopefully we come up with something that can lower paypals cut and make it so the prize pool is as big as possible. I have reached out to a number of companies about possibly sponsoring the tournament as well (Probably wont get any interest until one tournament is run successfully) but if we can market this tournament well on the EA forums and generate interest in it we might be able to get a company to cover all fees to get their name attached to it (wishful thinking but anything is possible).
What about using some sort of email transfer system opposed to using paypal? Running a business, email transfers were the best thing ever invented. I haven't thought too deep into it, just a thought I had reading your response. Too lazy to do math right now but it's an idea that could be looked into.
What nuge said about having one successful tourney. No one would sponsor something like this with out any thing to go off of. The one guy I talked to on vg wanted to see the results of this. It's$10, let's do a trial run with this set up and go from there.
People need to stop worrying about this shit and worry about the big tourny (Warren Buffett is writing me a check as I type), IT'S MARCH MADNESS BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, raise the buy-in to 20 and then give Tris like 15-20%, if people are worried about 20$ then they shouldn't even be playing in this.
Now (pay attention Blick. Also I think we're on the same side so we'll move on).... I'm going to just throw numbers used here as examples, forgive me if something isn't 100% accurate BUT you will get the idea. The questions are... Option 1: $.59 per $10 pay in $.59 per $10 pay out $1.18 total paypal expenses $3.33 Tris' 33% cut -$1.18 paypal $2.15 - actual Tris' cost = 21.5% $6.67 per $10. Balance divided by winner pool Option 2: $.59 pay in paypal cost $9.41 actual entree fee going into pool $3.10 Tris' 33% cut $.59 pay out paypal cost $2.51 - actual Tris' cost = 25% $6.31 per $10. Balance divided by winner pool OR is there and option 3? Does paypal take an extra $.59 off your account when you make a $10 payment, bring the total entree fee to $10.59? The point is, it hasn't been officially stated and all these options are possible with what's been stated BUT if it wasn't what people thought they will be screaming bloody murder. Some of my points were IF there were other cost that may have factored in outside of Tris' cost, not doing the research myself, like I said for any legal fees, etc, etc. It sounds like there are none. For most of us, the slight up and down of cents or a dollar or 2 isn't a big deal. It's a shame people are more worry or have trouble with Tris getting (based on 16ish teams) +/- $400. and they will only walk away with $50. each. But if you actually look at it by profit, Tris' will most likely break even while the winner will be looking at a 400% profit(?). Hope I made sense.
