Link plz, that sounds sick

Yes, and let's not forget that ProjectX is sponsored and quite possibly funded by Memory Express.

Incorrect. If anything it's funded by Switchbox, but I am doubtful of even that.

You'd like to say 'incorrect', but I know that the Ngo's (MemX owners) like to get their sticky fingers into things that can give them a business advantage.

Fair enough but I know the organizers and have discussed MemX's involvement with them multiple times. I am curious to hear what you have to back up your statements other than their known for 'getting their sticky fingers into things that can give them a business advantage'

ProjectX lan doesnt have a gil or a sphincter to hug. You gotta pay premium prices for the good stuff.

The thing is i understand that you could look at fragapalooza as a business,but really, they are not there to make money. They need unpaid volunteers to make the function to work. From the way it seems they seem to struggle to get proper equipment. Now people are demanding bigger prizes and cheaper prices . Like what would you rather have either no fragapalooza or a fragapalooza with a bunch of guys trying their hardest to make it the best they possibly can with what they have.Maybe if some of you could offer some time to help with your given abilities it could be better. Btw computer gaming is on the decline of market share but not in size. There is more people in pc gaming now then ever before. Oh and i gotta meet some of you guys this year im a starcraft maniac(pretty bad at may i add) so anyone down to play give me a shout-out.

Always welcome. We have an IRC server on enterthegame you are welcome to drop into and we do various non gaming things during the year if you're in Edmonton and cool.

BTW, Look at this:

WCG Fails after lack of funding: http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/172103/

A group that catered SOLELY to the "competitive" crowd (including counter-strike) and offering "real" prizes fails. Doesn't look good for the people that say "Make X a tournament and people will come!!"

Not to mention they had an international corporation fronting them and they still couldn't do it.

Its really to point out one dieing group that catered SOLELY to the competitive crowd and then try and discredit the entire argument that competition brings people.

However, WCG is only one group. MLG, GSL, GOMTV, ProjectX in Calgary (for an example of a local build-up), HomestoryCup (caters to only the highest competition)... countless more grass-roots.... are everywhere in Europe, America and Asia (not even just Korea). These are all examples of successful groups who have been able to impact the gaming market. While my examples mostly relate to Starcraft 2, as they should, since I am a Starcraft 2 player and don't know much about the other extremely successful competitions with regards to HoN, LoL, etc... (gosugamers.net), it just shows that there are many more examples of successful groups than your one unsuccessful group that you pointed out.

The main reasons why WCG fails is because:
1) the group is involved alot of fraud, which could even be seen in Canada.
2) even WCG divisions who were not involved with fraud were very mis-managed - for example: it has a very poor reputation of managing tournaments in an efficient and organized manner
3) WCG fails to actually produce income as a business model. While its easy to ask sponsors for money, WCG failed to provide the sponsors with exposure, advertisement and real benefits.
For example: WCG rarely streams their events or promotes them so that the wider community can observe the competition. While they do have streaming and commentary during grand-finals, this does not provide the main consumer (people watching the competition) with a story-line about how the top-tier player got to their end-game and main-stage.
For an international event to be successful, it must draw a large viewership. To draw a large viewership, you must have effective organization, advertisement, awareness as well as not pissing the viewers off with inefficient tournament organizing and extreme apathy.

Its really not surprising to see WCG die once everyone outside of Korea realized that WCG was not the only stage you could compete on at the highest level internationally.

Therefore, I object your statement that WCG dieing does not look good for people saying "Make X a tournament and people will come!!". WCG dieing is a good thing because it makes room for their existing sponsors to invest in better organized groups, such as MLG.

While fraga is not a business, it still has to think like a business in order to survive. I do not doubt the good intentions of the staff and the volunteers that make this event happen every year. However, if you want people to pay money to attend an event, it better have some sort of entertaining value. Most of the time, entertainment is driven from competition. Although many friends are made at these events and good people are met, not many people will fork out $100 and commit 3 days worth of time just travel to a networking event these days.

Therefore, make fragapalooza entertaining again. I don't really care how you do it. Whether its building awareness and hyping the event up with advertising to get viewership across Canada (the United States is kind of pushing it, really nobody cares) or being more creative with events for the people that actually show up. So far, wall-sit and Starcraft 2 tournament are barely on-par with entertainment value that most people can get by going summer bible-camp weekend. Sound familiar? "Let's just all run up a hill for fun, don't you enjoy the great outdoors and meeting all these wonderful summer friends?" I have nothing against Christian's (I'm Christian) and their events. Event needs to be more competitive, which can come from upping the stakes - through either better bragging rights or a better prize. Nobody wants to try at a tournament nobody gives a shit about. Nobody wants to win a tournament that doesn't mean anything. Nobody wants to win a $60 mouse (exageration) for a $100 entry fee. Its really that simple.

Fraga use to be nationally renowned event where teams would come from as far as Texas just to compete with the "best in North America". There is really no reason, at this day in age with the technology that we know how to use, that a bunch of people can't come up with the solution. I sure as hell aren't going to try and think of ideas. I get PAID to think about ideas at my actual job that I am somewhat passionate about. If the volunteers and organizers are passionate about this event and actually want to build it, they'd make it happen. The attitude that I saw last year and the year before where Gil stood up in front of everyone and said "this is the core-group and we only want you guys to come and really don't want the event to be any bigger" isn't going to accomplish anything but shrink your current customer base and alienate potential customers in the future.

It doesn't matter how much money they are getting paid. If you mismanage a corporation/business/group, it will fail. Simple.

WCG died not from a lack of funding, but because of very poor management over a long span of time. As Apple rightly mentioned, this mismanagement was evident even in the Canadian division. The sc2 players that represented Canada in 2011 (HuK and kiwikaki) received zero funding to fly to Korea to play. WCG Canada was sponsored by an extremely shady company that had no accountability and made no effort to do anything. WCG USA was the same way; lots of team divisions that were promised tickets just never got them.

To me, this reminds me a lot of the CPL's collapse, if anyone can remember back to then. CPL and WCG (and hell, ESWC, too) died because of poor management, and NOT because eSports is a void that makes money disappear.

I'm advocating that Fraga take larger steps to incorporate a competitive feel because I think that it's realistic to avoid the problems that plagued these events for several reasons.

1. Fraga does not need to create content for thousands of viewers across every continent.
2. Fraga already has a huge attendance base.
3. There are TONS of people involved in SC2, LoL, QL, and CS (CS;GO will be huge, i promise). This is a demographic that is almost completely untapped. If you don't believe me, go check out OverKlocked on a day where they hold one of THEIR tournaments. I guarantee that it holds zero resemblance to any tournament held by Fraga in the past 4 years. They're also hugely successful.
3. WCG has laid down a template of what not to do. It died because of poor decisions, and because it didn't keep up with new standards introduced by GSL, MLG, etc etc.

Here's a clue; I use to work for said company and have had my fair share of discussions with them. Most of which were internal to company employees. Second clue; They expanded their business into home electronics to compete with the big names, versus just selling memory like they once did (hence the name). Third clue; Calgary is home base for MemX, and would love the chance to get involved with the gaming community provided they don't have to make trips to Edmonton. Most of all, they are very greedy and they reek of it. If they can turn a profit for something that no one else has done, you can sure bet they'll have some involvement.

Now that I have successfully cured your curiosity, I have finished debating saying 'Whom said what'. All I am offering are my past experiences as an employee.