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Alright this is the PPV model explained
Imagine a drug kingpin sitting on a throne with his mighty swagger thinking about how he can get this new dope ass drug (called idraphine, naniweed, hukstacy or whatever) out on the market. So he gets a couple of drug dealers and tells them to give away a small dose to as many people as possible and he'll pay the dealers a small fee per guy who takes the drug. Now some of the dealers manage to find a huge audience Pimpin'Nine, Dreamthug, Great Swag Lamarr and Mighty Lil' Gangsta is giving this new drug away like its viagra in the common elderly home brothel.
However there are some drug dealers who doesn't show the same efficiency, mostly because a lot of people prefer the older drugs or really prefer the other more swagger looking drug dealers. Lil'Nassel and his gang is not up to par with the top notch guys but they still hang on. So one day the kingpin says "you dawgs, its time to get this bitch crackin', feel free to charge whatever you wan't for this awesome drug. Hell I'll still pay you if you just give it away for free cause I'm such a nice guy and all... you dig?"
All the lil' thugs start planning how to earn money of this great drug and some try to just make an improved version that gets you more pixels during the trip while others just add a smiley face on a couple of bags and offer to sell them for just a buck. The junkies react variously to this, some people think its great that the drug dealers are so engaged and giving to the community so they gladly pay a dollar for that smiley face on the dope bag. Others just prefer to get it free, like they always has.
Time goes by and Mighty Lil' Gangstah gets a genius idea "Yo, why have I been a fool and giving this dope ass drug away for free? I'll just make mo of this better version and only sell that for mo money. Playah!". The top dealers are divided about the idea and some choose to go on with this new platform while others choose to go on with the same old drug dealing ways.
So what happens next? There's a slightly better version of a drug thats free being dealt for normal drug prices. The major dealers must have an exceptional market share if they where to pull of this brave stunt or else their piece of pie would be split among the dealers who currently is giving it away for free. But the big dealers don't have to sell as much as they gave away before in order to make the same amount of cash, they only need a part of the junkies to keep paying in order to stay in good shape.
So Major League Gaming oh I meant Mighty Lil' Gangstah loses its first place spot as a market leader and Dreamthug who's been making the drug better and giving the better version for free takes the number one spot and all of the sudden gets more people wanting the drug and all the cool rap artists wants to be the next smiley face on the dope bag that comes from Dreamthug so now Dreamthug gets cash from the Kingpin and these rappers making way more paper than MLG.
The End
Moral of the story
Unless one leauge has a majority of the market or some how all leagues go in to it together PPV won't be the most profitable solution for a single leauge since they will lose loads of viewers if there are free alternatives. Hell if we see Dreamhack, MLG, ESL and GSL merge into Global Major Dream eSports League we might have a real UFC thing going on.
I might be wrong but I see eSport as a whole new era of how we provide content and we shouldn't try to change the way we are progressing cause if we suddenly take a leap of faith we might destroy everything we worked for. I think in the long run, since the world is the audience - advertising with free content will be the way to go. And I don't mean that we shouldn't pay for shit, I just mean that the games should be free to watch. If you wanna sell extra content be my guest, hell that would probably be a way better solution oh wait, thats already happening.
TL;DR no need to change things, just keep on growing <3 xoxo
 
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Netherlands6142 Posts
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Love the names, good laugh
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obviously MLG's marketing department (filled with top men, I'm sure) thinks differently or they wouldn't have done this.
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This.. is... beautiful. <3
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Really nice written. What concerns me about PPV is that in esports apparently all the other income possibilities seem exhausted. Every team or organisation has their sponsorship with either Twitch/Owned and Steelseries/Razer but apart from that it seems very hard to acquire new resources. I hope Sundance`s projects won`t go the same route as Angel Munoz`s one.
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SC2 is too small to be profitable based on ads only. Most big events have 100-150k concurrent viewers tops. Worldwide. And these are live events, with large staff and players flown in from all over the world. It might grow but it would need to grow at least 20-50 fold before ads can sustain it.
OTOH, most fans are enthusiastic and probably more open to paying than the average sports viewer is. So it's either PPV or paying for premium content, until SC2 becomes "mainstream".
I don't really watch SC2 but I'd sure as hell pay to watch Proleague or even a TSL style foreign megatournament.
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brother, i need a naniweed hookup. I am so hurting. Can you help a brother?
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On the other hand it`s the big events that have the potential to reach a larger audience (and to get people addicted that haven`t been in touch with a lot of esports related content before). PPV on the other hands aims mostly at the die-hard fans wallets and thus prevents an influx of fresh viewers. So it is detrimental if esports aspires to become mainstream (whatever that means). If anything it will become a niche product comparable to e.g. comic books where again an hermetic die-hard scene make it sustainable for 2 big publishers and as few indie ones to exist (I intentionally leave the market value of comic characters for blockbuster movies aside) but if anything the fan base remains stagnant.
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Maybe. Just saying that large LANs can't be profitable based on ads only, unless viewer numbers increase drasticly. You can try to look for alternative models (like volunteer run online tournaments) but from a purely business point of view PPV is the only model that has a chance of being profitable in the short run.
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Well right now eSport doesn't need to bring in huge profits, all that is needed is sustainable growth and PPV is not helping that. I don't believe that buying PPV will make eSport bigger since PPV means less viewers it means less interest from sponsors and sponsors is carrying eSports right now. The community isn't big enough to carry all of eSport on its shoulders, the community can definitely help out and they should - by buying merchandise or extra content.
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On February 14 2012 23:40 hypercube wrote:
Maybe. Just saying that large LANs can't be profitable based on ads only, unless viewer numbers increase drasticly. You can try to look for alternative models (like volunteer run online tournaments) but from a purely business point of view PPV is the only model that has a chance of being profitable in the short run.
well think about it. MLG said they would have to pay at least 100k $ for player accomodation. Then you got costs for venue etc which will be quite a lot too. So based on that MLG will need at least 5000 viewers of arena for player accomodation alone. Big tournaments like TSL got 50000 viewers for the finals and a poll on TL showed that most likely 80% are not willing to pay the 20$ for the ticket. That leaves you with a an estimated 10000, well lets be generous and say 15000 to 20000 viewers. 20000 viewers would mean 400000 $ in revenue for the event. 100k are gone for the players and I doubt that of the 300k $ remaining much will be left after expenses are paid.
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On February 14 2012 22:04 venage wrote:
So Major League Gaming oh I meant Mighty Lil' Gangstah
I hate it when people explain their jokes.
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On February 14 2012 22:45 Count9 wrote:
obviously MLG's marketing department (filled with top men, I'm sure) thinks differently or they wouldn't have done this.
You say that like it's not just a random dude in sweatpants and a wife-beater making these decisions.
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On February 15 2012 00:12 TiTanIum_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 22:04 venage wrote:
So Major League Gaming oh I meant Mighty Lil' Gangstah I hate it when people explain their jokes.
I do too but I literally wrote Major League Gaming instead of Mighty Lil' Gangstah and I thought it was funny that I just randomly did that so I kept it in. 
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Well written like a sir (insert meme pic here) such eloquence in speech is a rare gift indeed.
To the point, I don't see myself paying for PPV nor do I think PPV is necessary for eSports to be sustainable. As you said, if a couple of organizers can put their heads together to form a centralized league, maybe things will be better
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Was going to make a blog post but can't top that Naniweed man Great read.
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Daily laugh comes from here, endorsed!
Now Im pondering if Naniweed would give you a bad trip if you lost to a probe rush cuz you was high on the ladder...
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On February 15 2012 02:00 Duka08 wrote:
PIMPIN[9]
Daily[Dose]?
Day[doggydog]?
Tab[9]?
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EPT
