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eSports are more popular than ever before! Both men and women love playing video games, and odds are you have at least a few friends who would love to flex their digital fighting or racing skills in an online gaming tournament. Online gaming tournaments aren’t just fun; they can also be used to raise money for charities, to bring communities together, and more. But if you want any online gaming tournament to be successful, you have to organize and plan it carefully.
Determine the objective/game to be played
First, determine what kind of game you want the tournament to be focused around. There are dozens of different game genres and types, some of the popular ones for tournaments include:
- Racing games like Forza
- Fighting games like Smash Bros. or Street Fighter
- RTS games like Starcraft
- FPS games like Halo or Call of Duty
Whatever name you choose to center your turnaround, choose it carefully. Different games attract different sorts of people, and some games may be more or less popular in your local area or among the people you want to participate.
Secondly, come up with the core objectives that your tournament is meant to accomplish before moving on. Are you running this online gaming tournament to:
- Raise money for a charity?
- Just for fun?
- To build a community of gamers for future games and events?
Whatever the objective, it’ll influence other things about how you organize your gaming tournament. For example, if you want to raise money for charity, you should start thinking about how you’ll charge money to both attendees and players. You might consider having an entry fee for tournament participants and offer an alluring prize for the first, second, and third place winners.
Come up with a rule set beforehand
After figuring out the game you want the tournament to be about, and determining your tournament’s overall objectives, you need to create an ironclad rule set.
Rule sets ensure that the tournament is fair for everybody and set clear expectations for the type of play people can expect. Gamers can be especially picky about what the rules are when it comes to tournaments; different players prefer different weapons, characters, or racing maps based on their play styles and experience.
It’s a good idea to pick a game that you are familiar with so you can create a fair rule set for professional yet engaging play. Remember, your rules need to allow for player expression and dynamic gameplay so it’s fun for any tournament viewers as well as tournament players.
When you create a tournament rule set, you also prevent players from cheating or exploiting game mechanics or items unfairly.
Consider prizes and betting rules
As mentioned above, you can host your tournament while offering various prizes. This can be a great idea if you want your tournament to raise money for one or more charities.
Your prizes need to be worthwhile, however. They can be a percentage of the income you make from the tournament, a set cash prize (such as $500, $1000, etc.), or an item like a commissioned trophy. If your game is popular enough, you might even be able to contact the game’s developers and ask for a signed poster or something similar. These kinds of prizes are very popular among a game’s most dedicated players.
What about betting? Some eSports tournaments allow betting, usually to raise money for charity by letting the organization running the tournament (that’s you) take a cut of the wagered cash. But note that these kinds of betting competitions may not be legal in your state since it technically counts as a type of sports betting.
Find a venue (if applicable)
Depending on how you want to run your tournament, you may need to find a physical venue with enough seating for viewers plus the equipment and hardware necessary to set up gaming terminals, like PCs or Xbox consoles.
However, your tournament might also be entirely online. In that case, you might want to look into hosting a Discord server, Twitch channel, or use a similar platform so that viewers can join together and watch the broadcast to gaming footage as a digital crowd.
Marketing your gaming tournament
You’ll need to market your gaming tournament if you want anyone to show up! To that end, you can post ads on social media, write messages on forums for the game or brand your tournament is focused on, or talk to your friends in person.
The main thing to keep in mind is to market your gaming tournament early. Don’t tell people about the tournament the night before it is set to start – begin marketing at least a month in advance so people have time to set mark calendars.
Make some great posters to drum up excitement
Aside from posting on social media or forums where online gamers might be interested, you can also create digital and physical posters to drum up excitement about the tournament.
Posters are still one of the best visual ways to market any kind of upcoming event or service. A gaming poster could easily take advantage of existing images or assets from a popular game and create an attractive poster to draw in viewers or competitors.
Don’t have the design skills to make a great poster on your own? You don’t need them! In fact, you can make a top-tier and eye-catching gaming tournament poster using tools like PosterMyWall: a free graphic design tool that lets you create posters, flyers, and social media content for any promotional needs.
Since it has tons of customizable templates in its gallery, you can take one of these templates and build upon it until you have an awesome gaming tournament poster that’s sure to get a lot of attention.
Make sure the posters include very clear dates and times for the tournament. This way, players and viewers will know when to either tune in or show up to the venue to participate or watch. Putting this information at the bottom of the poster in clear lettering is a good idea.
Hire/recruit moderators and staff
Lastly, don’t forget to hire or recruit moderators and staff for your gaming tournament. Viewers and gamers alike can get a bit rowdy, and having at least some people to keep things reined in or to make sure that cheaters don’t prosper can go a long way toward ensuring your tournament is a success.
Follow all the above steps and your online gaming tournament will be fun and engaging for both competitors and viewers! Good luck!
Featured Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash