How popular are real life cash prizes in online games? Such as http://us.seafight.com/? I just got an ad linking to that site and it appears their game is pretty popular and they MUST be making a hefty amount of money to be able to dish out a possible $10,000/mo. in cash prizes for playing their game. ...and how exactly does this business model normally work? Do most require the user to pay some money for a chance to win the money? Is it just because it attracts enough attention that the ad revenue possibly pays for the cash prizes? Is it a sponsorship thing? Also, how popular and stable are games like these? :o I'm guessing they don't last too long. If you have any answers that would be great! Thanks, Robert [Edited by - Sneftel on December 13, 2009 6:13:57 PM]

Kings of chaos gives prizes at the end of each age (check em out if you are curious).

The thing about giving cash rewards for accomplishments in your game is that it makes it much more attractive to hackers and cheaters.

Security is all about making it harder to cheat / hack than is worth while.

when you give real monetary rewards, it makes it much more worth while to hack your game so you'll have to be extra cautious about that stuff.

i bet you some of those games out there offering rewards are just scams or dont really give out prizes etc. 10k a month in cash prizes for playing their game is kinda insane dont you think? seems fishy :P

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Original post by Atrix256 i bet you some of those games out there offering rewards are just scams or dont really give out prizes etc. 10k a month in cash prizes for playing their game is kinda insane dont you think? seems fishy :P

I was thinking the same thing. It doesn't seem to be a good idea to hand out cash prizes as that system could be abused.

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Original post by RFarns ... they MUST be making a hefty amount of money to be able to dish out a possible $10,000/mo. in cash prizes for playing their game.

The site says "up to $10,000". I think that anyone who has signed up for broadband offering "up to XX Mbits" knows what that means.