hackett: The grid system appears rather new and unique, can you explain how it would work in detail for team based CoD4?  What separates this from a ladder?

Travis: Yes, the grid system is new; in-fact Professional Gamers League, Inc. holds multiple domestic and international patents pending covering the gaming grid system. From a team based aspect, and a player versus player aspect the gaming grid works practically identical; the objective (as with most everything in life) is to get experience and move to the top as quickly, and efficiently as possible. By transferring this strategy and logic into everyday game play on the PGL(tm) system you will soon find that playing a video game, defending your position on our gaming grid, and maintaining that position is very rewarding in context of true-currency payout. Who doesn't want to get paid for playing a video game?
 
Once you have an account on the system, a player profile, and are a member of a team; the team captains can initiate challenges against other players on the grid for the games your team plays. Once the match is accepted and scheduled, a match server is automatically and instantly setup on one of our many high-end gaming servers across the country (selectable by yourself when setting challenging options) and will be operational/playable within 1 minute. Playing the match is like playing any game; once the match is over (determined by our automatic behind-the-scene system) the server will be shutdown and scores will be automatically posted to the website invoking the methods that update your credits (money), grid position, win/loss ratio, etc.
 
One of the neat things to always remember is that while defending your position, you always get paid.  No matter what.  If you win you receive 80% of the total match cost, while a percentage of the remaining funds are added to the ever increasing tournament pools and to PGL™ for overhead etc.; if you lose you receive 50% of the total match cost, this difference goes into the tournament pool fund. As for the question of “What separates this from a ladder”, I believe that is becoming ever more clear at this point; once you and/or your team play a few matches through the system, the drastic uprising changes from a ladder system to our proprietary grid system will become even more apparent.
 

The website displays money guarantees and tournament pools, how is money won through the grid system?  Is any lost?  Is there a registration fee for the grid?

The “money guarantees” are for the tournaments that we will regularly host; this is essentially a defined amount of funds that Professional Gamers League, Inc. places up-front as a guaranteed prize for tournaments.  As the “live tournament pools” increase, the supplemental guarantee from PGL(tm) decreases; while all tournament funds are placed into a secure Professional Gamers League, Inc. tournament pool savings account.

Playing regularly on the system will allow you to earn money as well; you don’t have to wait for tournaments.  As you progressively increase your player experience points and move up through the grid rankings you will earn more money for defending.  Essentially, “you get paid to play” being paraphrased into “you are paid for defending your position on the grid”.
 
As a defender, you do not lose credits for playing a defensive match.  The only time you will need to pay credits is when you challenge another team or player, however challenging another player that is higher than you gives the opportunity to progressively move up the grid; hence the logic behind how you will make more money for defending your position on the grid (higher funds for higher positions).
 
To participate online by playing on our patented gaming grid systems, you are not required to pay a registration fee.  However, a small fee may be present for becoming a physical “member” (allowing you to attend LAN tournaments, plus gain access to many other benefits; to be announced on our website soon). You do not need to be a member to play on the PGL™ site or in tournaments, although being a member will have its advantages.