Game & Event Hosts

New art brings us back to the original issue we tried to solve with the host market a few months ago. You raised a strong point: a few months ago, we had a host who ran just one hour a month but still took full advantage of everything in the host market. Meanwhile, another host putting in one hour a day was essentially receiving the same benefit. On the other end of the spectrum, we have hosts contributing 30+ hours a month who didn’t want any rewards at all and give it away.

What we’re really doing here is looking for a fix to cover up the deeper issue with the broken voucher system we tried to address a few months ago. In reality, this doesn’t solve the underlying problem with the host reward system, it just patches over it. That said, it may be the easier path for now, since a smaller group of members prefer the current oversupply situation in the short term, even though it undermines the longer-term value and stability of vouchers as a meaningful currency/reward/prize system.

One idea we discussed was splitting the host market into tiers (or “rooms”), with access depending on how many games a host ran each month. That would prevent oversupply, since vouchers have been devalued to the point they’re no longer meaningful for hosts.

Another idea was a ticket system: for example, one Host Reward Ticket for every 10 games hosted. A ticket could be exchanged for a custom-made or painted item. This approach gives hosts flexibility to get exactly what they want, while ensuring tickets themselves can’t be traded, sold, or undervalued. Any item created for the host could still be sold or traded later, which keeps the system fair and valuable.

We can discuss further at the September meeting.