Bronze league is in style again

Jun 15, 2012 - by Strom

Today there are about twice as many silver league games per day when compared to a year ago. I myself had also moved almost exclusively to the silver league. Although I kept an eye on the total game count per day, I failed to properly track the bronze-to-silver ratio and thus did not notice the huge decline in bronze games until it was basically too late. In January there were about 40 games per day total, but as I'm writing this post it has dropped down to around 20 games per day. The reason for this overall fall is the fact that bronze games are a rarity, with only a few happening per day. While the silver league is in a relatively good state, it is not sustainable. People leave DotA-GC all the time for various reasons, e.g. a bunch left to play Diablo III instead. This is unavoidable, but it can be neutralized by the flow of fresh blood. No fresh blood can flow in when there are only silver games. This means that the bronze league is a vital part of the system and needs our full attention immediately, to prevent a catastrophic failure.

The first step that I'm taking is raising the minimum skill requirement for silver league from 50% to 80%. Basically this means that there will be maybe a few silver games per day, but all others will be in the bronze league. I know that many people will not like this change, especially those who have been complaining about silver and requested the gold league to be opened. However this is an absolutely necessary change to help kill the cancer that would otherwise slowly but surely terminate our community. With the bronze league far more active, new players will have the ability to actually play and earn points. When the overall game count has been raised up to a healthy number, I will lower the silver league access requirement.