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On February 20 2012 15:53 FXOpen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2012 15:42 PolishxThunder wrote:
Then lowering the prize pool is the answer. Stream numbers are actually fairly decent imo so I don't undestand how you could increase revenue. Increasing the value of advertisements is the best response. Its entirely possible to do that. Hopefully I can.
I may be alone here, but I have no problem with streamers running more ads between games. Go ahead and load me up with 2 or three of them in between each set, its only a minute and half. It usually takes that amount of time for the next game to get ready anyway.
A lot of people will complain, but its not the type of complaint that people will stop watching for. They already have to sit through 3 times as many commercials for a tv program.
Especially at this stage, I think many people will recognize the need for increased revenue, and if they don't, this thread should help. Even if there was a PPV model I wouldn't mind more ads.
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Don't want to come across as a flamer but honestly I think your casters were pretty sub par. I imagine a lot of people were put off by them.
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On February 20 2012 17:31 Bijan wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2012 15:53 FXOpen wrote:On February 20 2012 15:42 PolishxThunder wrote:
Then lowering the prize pool is the answer. Stream numbers are actually fairly decent imo so I don't undestand how you could increase revenue. Increasing the value of advertisements is the best response. Its entirely possible to do that. Hopefully I can. I may be alone here, but I have no problem with streamers running more ads between games. Go ahead and load me up with 2 or three of them in between each set, its only a minute and half. It usually takes that amount of time for the next game to get ready anyway. A lot of people will complain, but its not the type of complaint that people will stop watching for. They already have to sit through 3 times as many commercials for a tv program. Especially at this stage, I think many people will recognize the need for increased revenue, and if they don't, this thread should help. Even if there was a PPV model I wouldn't mind more ads.
We openly stated we do 3 ads between each game. We did not receive many complaints about this and understand its relatively acceptable to do so provide there is some downtime.
Doing more than 3 though hurts the industry for sure and is not the best way to gain revenue (by upsetting advertisers).
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On February 20 2012 17:47 KMARTRULES2 wrote:
Don't want to come across as a flamer but honestly I think your casters were pretty sub par. I imagine a lot of people were put off by them.
It would depend on what you like from a caster. This is unfortunately a popularity game (commentating). There are not many fully capable casters out there who are able to bust through 200 hours of content in 4 weeks. Alot of them have school and other commitments.
If you could be more specific by PMing me, I am sure there are things we can work on.
Thanks.
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On February 20 2012 17:47 KMARTRULES2 wrote:
Don't want to come across as a flamer but honestly I think your casters were pretty sub par. I imagine a lot of people were put off by them.
Care to give real feedback? So we can work on it? I was one of those casters and am open to constructive criticism. It's more towards flaming when you just throw out something like that without any specifics.
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I have an idea. I have no idea if it's a workable thing, but you seem like you're willing to experiment so here goes:
Run a PPV tournament, but let people pay whatever they want.
I say this because often I wouldn't mind spending 5$ or whatever, but I'm frankly too lazy to get out my information and enter it.
Also by the way, wasn't the FXO tournament played at weird hours? I seem to remember only seeing it at weird hours for CST. Maybe a rebroadcast in a US friendly time slot would have helped.
edit: raelcun I liked your casting fwiw 
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Talking about Casters, would it be viable to get another view point of the game BoSs? like an observer and switch between the obs and the casters during the game? I think Unstable would be a lot more awesome if he only had to cast, rather than doing his best to show us pretty pictures at the same time as explaining the strategy and figuring out what is about to happen?
Also I would love if the casters could to a quick run down of each game between games, maybe even with them on-screen.
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Looking at this you can really see why MLG wants to move to a PPV model. If they had 10x as many subscribers (950) then that would be more revenue than ads for over 400000 unique viewers. That's a pretty large motivation.
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I think publicity is the biggest problem. If you're not on TL all the time you don't see events like this that aren't from the big names, maybe some advertising on TL or reddit or something could have helped. There's lots of other stuff you can do for promotion. Bring on guest casters! Seriously, announce you're having John the translator guest casting for a night and boom, to the top of r/starcraft you go.
The fact that the stream was perma-rebroadcasting was poorly publicised, too.
I don't really know what I'm talking about. Just throwing out my ideas.
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Its not so easy to get guest casters. Alot of them require payment and increasing overhead without breaking even is silly. At the same time, our viewership is good. We have very high viewership numbers for the type of tournament it is. There is alot of value in that, the value is just not reaching our pockets (to sound like scrooge).
I will see if I can sell the exposure off.
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I appreciate the simple and insightful post, it gives serious input in - what has become - the troubling discussion of buisness models in e-sports.
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2.4k from half a million people is pretty sad indeed.
Since overall viewership is pretty high it seems that the problem is pretty much entirely that the streaming platform don't seem to be able to get decent advertising buy in. How can that be fixed?
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I commend you with being so open with your statistics and how profitable you competition is. I hope this starts a trend in the community and other leagues/organizations do the same. As a consumer I would rather know what I am buying into rather than have to assume and take somebody's word that their organization is doing terrible and you need to contribute or e-sports will die. With this type of information allows me to make a full assessment on how i want to spend m "e-sports viewing budget" and allows me to decide where to spend or donate money based not only on content but on need for the organization.
Also I do not necessarily see the need for a PPV model, when a subscription based model could work similar to the GSL's, I believe a combination of advertising, subscriptions and merchandise can be a viable and reliable way to run a business.
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What's the time frame for when you're expecting this to start paying off? Two years? Five?
Who (and this might be more open-ended) is best suited to be making money off e-sports in a few years. In "The guy doing X" terms if you don't want to name names :D
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For my own viewing habbits i would actually prefer if you did a continous broadcast rebroadcasting either entire brackets or just the "best series". I personally do not like to catch up through vods and i really like the idea of just turning on a stream and always getting games from my favorite source/tournament.
Is there anything limiting you from doing a continous transmition?
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On February 20 2012 19:19 Ribbon wrote:
What's the time frame for when you're expecting this to start paying off? Two years? Five?
Who (and this might be more open-ended) is best suited to be making money off e-sports in a few years. In "The guy doing X" terms if you don't want to name names :D
I am not 100% sure when I expect to be profitable from e-sports. I have a few things lined up to see if they are possible in the next month. Hopefully one of them materialises and I can push things a little harder. My fingers are crossed.
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Thank you for the final numbers and here is a bit of feedback.
A) Other than what’s been mentioned I still think you should put more weight on the subscriptions such as limited stream quality. 480p for free is ok, 720p and more for free in this kind of event is just too “nice”. Make it another reason to get the subscription.
B) 32 players, double elimination (a lot of content and fair to the players) split over 4 weekends make it very difficult to follow and kill the hype a bit. A smaller event during one weekend would probably bring higher average viewership.
C) Casters are a thing of personal preference and definitely can up the budget but they bring the followers. You could ask some English speaking progamers to do a bit of co-casting, they tweet about it and bring their fans and so on (although some might consider it a dip in “casting quality”.)
All in all the talent of the players is of Code S level, what you miss it the live studio, the production (yours is just fine anyway), more exclusive subscription (less for free), the hype, the strong celebrities (aside from the Korean players) and their following. I know it sounds harsh, difficult and obvious, but it’s a list of things you can take apart and find the most accessible ways to improve.
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Thank you for publishing your data, very interesting. Great that you dont spend money on useless stuff like a "studio" which adds nothing in most cases (look at NASL).
I guess it depends on how you look at it.
(5254.62 USD / 434895 UV) = 0.012 USD per Person (IP) reached
Although i think the service FXO offers isnt of interest to most of your demographic.
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I agree with Zax19. Weekend tournament model should be alot profitable because people sitting at home for the weekend follows it all along. For example, I only followed FXOpen when other streams are not good enough. I did not even watch it live. But, I tried to watch homestorycup because I know who is eliminated or who is not. Although, I stayed home all this weekend, I do not even know who won the FXOpen. I am sure 8-10k money would be enough to make it a weekend tournament like home story cup, but in Korea instead of EU. The main issue is which weekend should it be? If you can time it well and bring good casters/players, I am sure it will break even.
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FXOpen, why not bring in sponsors? Is it truly difficult to build a demographic sample for the companies you approach?
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EPT
