[crAzerk]

I would love to see it work though, I'm a fan of buy-ins ^^

But still,
"Once people figure out that they have a very significant chance of not getting anything out of it I think they'd stop contributing to the tournament, and as a result we'd have a dramatically shrinking player pool after an initial good run"
I think people ALREADY know whether they have a significant chance of not getting anything. For example, I know if I join it's just to donate to the prize pool and not to win. Heck, even for a smaller event like the SG LAN where there was an entry fee, I know I wasn't going to win, but I was just joining for the experience.

For it to work it has to be packaged in a different way from a normal tournament I reckon, as people are already very accustomed to 'free' tournaments like CO, GPD, etc.

I hope you understand I'm not trying to shoot it down, but rather point out limitations so that the original idea can be modified and improve to be a successful one


EDIT:

Originally Posted by Paroxysm

It is a reasonably taboo 'addiction' in some circles

YES This is so annoying! It's frustrating to explain to my mum that I'm 'in a SC2 tournament that pays out MONEY and i can actually win stuff' when her mindset is just that gaming = bad . I wonder how long it'll take for a paradigm shift such that gaming becomes just like any other sport, like say, soccer.