Where Is All The Money? FGC Debates Prize Pools And TO Profitability

The issue with tournaments and prize pools continues to be a bone of contention within the FGC. In a time when fighting games are growing more than ever, tournament winnings for most community-led projects are still pretty small. 

To this end, the topic of a perceived lack of transparency comes up every now and again and it was once more revived. This time it came from Ken Willis, a so-called tournament organizer in training. In a social media post, he claimed that the prize pools for Evo 2024 were quite low and that by his calculations, they could have been more. He questioned tournament organizers as to where the money is going to considering they typically work with volunteer staff and don't have to pay them. 

This, to Willis, is a reason for the lack of structure within the FGC and he claimed that the real losers were the players who are the heartbeat of the community. 

As one would expect, this got a lot of attention with many pointing out the glaring holes in the arguments made. Most importantly, some of the biggest tournament organizers spoke up, while not directly, they did express some of the difficulty in running tournaments. 

For one, Alex Valle, North American Evo winner and tournament organizer, spoke up explaining with some sarcasm how difficult it was to get essentials such as power, security, permits and so much more. 

CEO tournament organizer, Alex Jebailey also commented thanking all those who run events and stating that he would be available to share ideas with those who might be in need. 

There will always be those who might have a problem with small prize pools, but it seems the majority of the community recognizes the hardship involved in running a tournament and how much of a time and financial sink it is.