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I happily paid the $20. And I think it was well worth it. I really don't care about this "well there are so many free tournaments so I won't pay" thought. One, very few are as good as MLG. I watched Assembly this weekend too. I also had to sit through a minimum of 10 minutes of ads and coming up next screen between matches. With MLG, there was next to no downtime. There biggest down time was when they put the pay wall up which is pretty reasonable to me.
The only thing to really rival what MLG just did is GSL. And if you aren't paying for GSL, you are stuck with a 240p stream that is horrendous.
$20 is cheap for me. I really don't mind spending it on quality entertainment.
On February 28 2012 05:31 Durso wrote:
even if it was a great even, a lot of people who watch these things are poor college students like myself. that 20 dollars is gas money to get to school, so MLG not so important. And that pizza might be the only food i get that day so yea. maybe if the one percent would share some money... nah im just kidding on that but this economy does not really look good for esports.
Honestly, if you are that strapped for cash, you shouldn't be spending money of pizza. Buy food at the grocery store and make it yourself. Its way cheaper.
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For a lot of people this isn't just about $20, hell I can definitely afford it but I chose not to buy it.
I absolutely do not like the PPV direction...if MLG can't compete with Free LQ, paid HQ model they need to go out of business. I am not here to support their lack of competence.
If e-sports can't sustain the current model then it deserves to die or scale back.
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I am one of the individuals who quietly declined to pay for the event, and my story is the same as many other's. I could "afford" to pay the $20, just like I could afford to pay for alot of things in life that I decide not to. Why? Because I don't perceive $20 to be a fair price for the content provided (I DO however perceive the $65 I spent on a yearly GSL pass to be worthwile, take that for what it's worth).
I don't understand why people with my general mindset who decided to make their opinions known about the cost are being villified as killing E-Sports. This is how business works. A company makes a product or service, some people buy it, and some people don't. Some of the people who don't make the purchase voice their concerns that they don't think the value proposition is good enough to justify the price.
Are the people who choose to not buy MMA PPV killing MMA? Are the people who choose not to go have a night out at a restaurant because it's expensive killing the food industry? Please.
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On February 28 2012 05:52 Oceaniax wrote:
I am one of the individuals who quietly declined to pay for the event, and my story is the same as many other's. I could "afford" to pay the $20, just like I could afford to pay for alot of things in life that I decide not to. Why? Because I don't perceive $20 to be a fair price for the content provided (I DO however perceive the $65 I spent on a yearly GSL pass to be worthwile, take that for what it's worth).
I don't understand why people with my general mindset who decided to make their opinions know about the cost are being villified as killing E-Sports. This is how business works. A company makes a product or service, some people buy it, and some people don't. Some of the people who don't make the purchase voice their concerns that they don't think the value proposition is good enough to justify the price.
Are the people who choose to not buy MMA PPV killing MMA? Are the people who choose not to go have a night out at a restaurant because it's expensive killing the food industry? Please.
They're just being overdramatic of course. You're not "killing" anything by not supporting it, you're just not funding it's growth. There is nothing wrong with that, it's your money.
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@ Xenocide_Knight
BurgerWay is going to go out of business. Burger2 will have some consumers, enough to keep them afloat, while BurgerWay's secret formula wasn't enough to sustain itself. The consumers of BurgerWay are left to either never eat burgers for free again, or pay for it.
Changes need to be made, things don't come free very often for a good reason.
@TheToast
Yes if someone is not willing to pay more than $10 than they can rightfully decline the Pass. But if someone is not willing to pay more than $10, they are not entitled to demand a free stream. That is my point I've been trying to make, although my original OP did a very poor job trying to carry that point across, I'm just bad at it.
Companies will fall off, but the question is, really- who's going to hang on and how?
@Chef
Man. Chef you never really get the message I'm trying to convey through my blogs. Because I remember you making a similar post in my previous blog in the same way- thinking that I'm putting myself on the High Horse. I hate that so much. I actually think I that's like my most hated internet insult to ever receive. Quite frankly very few people out there intentionally put themselves on the high horse, and very few people come to terms and accept it if they've been proven to do so.
I'm bitching about people who don't buy passes AND DEMAND quite in an unruly and unreasonable fashion for streams to be free. I'm not yelling at you guys to buy a pass purely to support E-Sports because that's stupid why would you even think that. If you thought about it, calmly voiced your complaints and decline a pass then fine. Just don't come back with a rant on why the stream should be free.
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Okay the blog has a bad title, and the blog was poorly written, I'll bring myself down. I am also out of line for being against people who are vocal advocates for lower prices but have not purchased a pass (or am I? In the end it's just my opinion).
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Why pay for something I get free everywhere else, oh even now there are professional StarCraft 2 streams up. I suppose I should watch them with my delicious pizza.
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If you ask me the Providence tournament was a better product overall because of the stage and crowd atmosphere and the open bracket, and cost much less if you were a gold member. It's not that I can't afford it but there are other options, just look at what IPL is offering. Free low quality streams with $5 HD pass. Even $10 would've been reasonable.
The players that attended might've been slightly more popular/better than any other tournament to date but not by a lot, especially compared to providence. It just feels like I'd be fitting the bill for having the players flown over. It's unfortunate that NA is geographically far from where the best talent resides but as a customer that's not my problem.
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United Kingdom1685 Posts
On February 28 2012 02:51 mynameisgreat11 wrote:
I couldn't care less about the future of e-sports, I'm just here to play starcraft. I don't pay to download movies, tv, music, why live sc2? Especially when it lags to hell, and there are a million other places to watch live sc2 lag-free.
You're a criminal and should be fined massively. I am a musician trying to make my way, and people like you who not only steal left right and centre, but have the nerve to be open about it just because you think you're above the whole thing, make me sick. Screw your attitude.
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On February 28 2012 05:54 Snuggles wrote:
@TheToast
Yes if someone is not willing to pay more than $10 than they can rightfully decline the Pass. But if someone is not willing to pay more than $10, they are not entitled to demand a free stream. That is my point I've been trying to make, although my original OP did a very poor job trying to carry that point across, I'm just bad at it.
Companies will fall off, but the question is, really- who's going to hang on and how?
Yes, I agree with you about people watching the streams for free. MLG has the right to sell their product and no one has the right to watch it if they didn't pay.
And I think that's a good question about which tournaments will be left. My feeling is it's going to be the ones that can run with the lowest costs, probably NASL and IPL. Dreamhack isn't going anywhere either, they have more than just an SC2 tournament bringing in cash.
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I don't think taxing 20$ will make e-sport grow tbh, it's most probably the opposite; you lose fans and discourage new ones.
Justified or not.
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On February 28 2012 05:54 Snuggles wrote:
@TheToast
Yes if someone is not willing to pay more than $10 than they can rightfully decline the Pass. But if someone is not willing to pay more than $10, they are not entitled to demand a free stream. I disagree. They are entitled to make that demand provided they do not violate laws or website rules.
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On February 28 2012 02:47 Snuggles wrote:
I bought the pass, and I'm not a very generous guy when it comes to handing out money. But after reflecting on what SC2 meant to me, and how much I love the Esports scene, I wanted to give back. I want E-Sports to have a better future.
This is where a lot of people make erroneous assumptions. Putting your money into eSports does not guarantee a better future, or that eSports will survive or thrive etc... There are plenty of consumers that throw their money away on shady services, products and businesses and there are people that avoid said things.
The issue with trying to battle for who is right in whether we should have paid for MLG, or if it was worth it or not, or what have you, is that it is avoiding the big picture.
Supporting something on principle does not give the company an accurate picture of the real worth and reach that they have with their particular service or product. When we lose that objective measure of if something is really worth our time and money, the company is unable to improve or find measures to alter the product/infrastructure cost, the price to consumers and a host of other things.
We would have to ask ourselves, of all the individuals that paid for MLG, how many did it simply to "support eSports" regardless of the product quality? Luckily, the feedback thread was full of issues and concerns, and no doubt, if MLG wants to continue under this model, and it does really work for them after this initial impression, they will have to address most of them if they want to succeed.
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I love SC2 with a passion.
That being said I can't force myself to sit down for 10 hours a day for a 3 day weekend to watch something that I am not invested in.
I paid for the MLG arena. Great time for me, great players etc. Since I paid $20 for it, it actually made me extremely excited to watch something like this. I wanted to get my monies worth! I had concrete plans for my weekend that if I ditched on I'd stupidly be out money. I came home from work every day and watched the hell out of it intently, happy with my purchase.
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On February 28 2012 06:11 domane wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2012 05:54 Snuggles wrote:
@TheToast
Yes if someone is not willing to pay more than $10 than they can rightfully decline the Pass. But if someone is not willing to pay more than $10, they are not entitled to demand a free stream. I disagree. They are entitled to make that demand provided they do not violate laws or website rules.
Yes, this.
There is a big difference between people who are asking for a free stream and those who are getting access to the content for free. If you are "stealing" the content, there is no defense for your behavior; MLG has a right to charge for the content and you don't have any right to watch it without paying.
However I am one of the people who like esports, but am not willing to pay money to watch it. Why would I pay to watch MLG when NASL, IPL, ROG, and countless userstreams are all free? I spend too much of my time watching SC2 and BW as it is, I don't feel the need to watch more. There's nothing terribly special about MLG's arena content, at least nothing that I would want to spend $20 on. It's not even a live event.
You can say I'm "hurting esports", but in reality I'm doing exactly what I should be. MLG isn't the girl scout next store from whom you buy cookies that you don't like just because you feel bad. If we want this to survive as an industry, then we need to treat it like one. That means making decisions like the informed consumers that we are, if you think MLG's content is worth $20 then by all means go ahead and spend the money. I however don't want to spend money to watch MLG, so I choose not to. The industry needs to figure out how to make profit from the view base; it's not the responsibility of the view base to figure out how to make the industry profitable.
As I said previously, I think the industry outside of Korea is totally over sized and is not linking production expenses to realistic income models. Some of these tournaments like MLG are going to continue with this rediculous model and fail, that's the free market. Others, I suspect, will find a way to minimize their costs and at least come clost to breaking even. Hopefully they will be able to consolidate the former view base of some of the tournaments that fail, and continue gowing.
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I'm pretty sure everyone can agree with that nobody can rightfully demand a free stream, right?
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I'm really tired of all these lectures on why I should buy something. I don't want it, how simple is that? I do not want to pay $20 to watch a SC2 tournament. TL has turned into those infomercials about how I too could save a child's life for 30 cents a day except it's about some completely insignificant niche form of entertainment.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On February 28 2012 02:47 Snuggles wrote:
My friends would pool in their money to watch UFC games that go for much than $20, sure it's once every few months but we're dealing with the same model. Plus none of us actually did any MMA (el oh el) so we just wanted to be entertained by people beating on each other. UFC was low on our priority list and we still paid to watch so whats wrong with paying to watch Starcraft? What the quality isn't up there? You son of a bitch they've been giving us FREE content since the release of the game. How on earth are they going give us better quality with the limited resources they have? C'mon folks, I think we all know by now that things aren't going that well for MLG.
you compare sc2 to UFC but you can also compare it to other sports that can be seen for free. It doesn't need to be PPV. I don't know if you are new to MLG but they have been around for a long time and they have been making profit or doing fine before starcraft2 came into the scene. Now that they have sc2 in the circuit, their attendance and stream views grew a lot. If they were doing fine before, I would imagine they are doing better now? So, no, we all don't know by now that things aren't going that well for MLG. They are actually in better position than DH, IEM, etc with corporate sponsors like Dr.Pepper, xperia, etc.
Don't let MLG try to fool you to thinking they really need people to support them. It should happen naturally, if people are mad that they don't want to pay $20... then that's fine. Sundance did the same thing last season with the gold passes saying they really needed the support. A business model can't be stable based on guilt and "supporting" esports. It's not a charity, it's a business model. People don't buy UFC PPV events cuz they want to support it forever, they do it because they are exclusive and people are naturally wanting to buy the programs. In this case, I didn't really see what MLG Arena did that set the bar even against free events.
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On February 28 2012 06:40 Xiron wrote:
I'm pretty sure everyone can agree with that nobody can rightfully demand a free stream, right?
People can demand it, it's just that nobody is obligated to provide it.
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On February 28 2012 05:54 Snuggles wrote:
@ Xenocide_Knight
BurgerWay is going to go out of business. Burger2 will have some consumers, enough to keep them afloat, while BurgerWay's secret formula wasn't enough to sustain itself. The consumers of BurgerWay are left to either never eat burgers for free again, or pay for it.
Changes need to be made, things don't come free very often for a good reason.
Except Burgerway is still chugging along even with Burger2 desperately trying to cannibalize it for a quick buck, and has been successful and self-sustaining for more than 9 years before Burger2. If you don't know your burger history, don't talk about burger business.
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I have enough responsibilities as it is. I'm not gonna worry about the "growth of esports." If something is popular, if the product is good, it will grow. I don't try to push people into buying any other product, and a stream is no different.
If it's free, I'll watch it. I won't pay though. I just don't value it that much.
On February 28 2012 05:56 unoriginalname wrote:
Why pay for something I get free everywhere else, oh even now there are professional StarCraft 2 streams up. I suppose I should watch them with my delicious pizza.
Also this. Excellent post.
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