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On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion).
Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics.
I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money.
I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now.
Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike.
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On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike.
Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it.
BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?"
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Why are we focusing the discussion on Valve? The main product you are offering is the stream itself, and that is on twitch. I think you should be focusing on ways you can monetize the stream, such as offering 'ultra quality' streams for a fee, for example 60fps, or resolutions above 1080.
In addition there is the prospect of the Dota2 majors playing a big role in the scene. The DAC compendium was so successful because of the bonuses attached to it. I would expect that valve would allow the compendiums for the Dota2 majors to have some sort of attached bonus. Although each major tournament player would probably only be allowed to host one major a year, if you play your cards right you could make a good amount from compendiums.
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On June 07 2015 11:17 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike. Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it. BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?"
They dont have an obligation to do so, but they have a system where BTS, joindota are getting subsidizes through hat sales anyway. Why are the artists subsidizing the pro scene?
On June 07 2015 11:22 LSB wrote:
In addition there is the prospect of the Dota2 majors playing a big role in the scene. The DAC compendium was so successful because of the bonuses attached to it. I would expect that valve would allow the compendiums for the Dota2 majors to have some sort of attached bonus. Although each major tournament player would probably only be allowed to host one major a year, if you play your cards right you could make a good amount from compendiums.
Because not everyone is going to do a Major anyway. There's going to be 3 Majors outside of TI, 1 of them we could safely assume will be run by Perfect World, that leads 2 for the West. Someone is gonna be left out in the cold.
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On June 07 2015 11:25 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 11:17 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike. Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it. BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?" They dont have an obligation to do so, but they have a system where BTS, joindota are getting subsidizes through hat sales anyway. Why are the artists subsidizing the pro scene?
I think you don't quite understand what subsidizing means.
Artists (plural) aren't subsidizing anything in the scene. Specific artists are entering contracted agreements with specific tournaments, and the organizations get the sales from the hats, and the artists get the extra official exposure and marketing. Now that might be a bum deal for the artists, or it might be entirely symbiotic where everyone gains. I don't think we have any stats or numbers for it.
But it's not a subsidy. At worst it's merchandising.
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On June 07 2015 11:33 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 11:25 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 11:17 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike. Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it. BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?" They dont have an obligation to do so, but they have a system where BTS, joindota are getting subsidizes through hat sales anyway. Why are the artists subsidizing the pro scene? I think you don't quite understand what subsidizing means. Artists (plural) aren't subsidizing anything in the scene. Specific artists are entering contracted agreements with specific tournaments, and the organizations get the sales from the hats, and the artists get the extra official exposure and marketing. Now that might be a bum deal for the artists, or it might be entirely symbiotic where everyone gains. I don't think we have any stats or numbers for it. But it's not a subsidy. At worst it's merchandising.
The way the system is set up right now, you either agree to get a substantial pay decrease, or have your sets rot in the workshop. "exposure and marketing" is incredibly laughable because the cosmetics are making the majority of the sales, people aren't buying the product for the dotatv access, they're buying for the hats, as LD and many others have said in the past.
It's an indirect subsidiary because artists aren't afforded the same access and opportunity to the store as the tournament piggy-back is getting them right now. They're having to get a lower cut percentage just so Valve can pump money into prizepools and tournament organizers.
And that's how LD kinda described it, the subsidy is there because its hard to reward organizers for their efforts to grow the scene. but the challenge is that it's impossible to quantify that. The issue I have as well as artists I know, is the money they use to reward that comes from their cut. If you want to reward such people, doesnt it make sense to use that 12.5% cut on all products and not just ones from the workshop to reward people to grow the game but cant be quantified?
It's a really unfair system, imo.
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On June 07 2015 12:04 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 11:33 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:25 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 11:17 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike. Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it. BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?" They dont have an obligation to do so, but they have a system where BTS, joindota are getting subsidizes through hat sales anyway. Why are the artists subsidizing the pro scene? I think you don't quite understand what subsidizing means. Artists (plural) aren't subsidizing anything in the scene. Specific artists are entering contracted agreements with specific tournaments, and the organizations get the sales from the hats, and the artists get the extra official exposure and marketing. Now that might be a bum deal for the artists, or it might be entirely symbiotic where everyone gains. I don't think we have any stats or numbers for it. But it's not a subsidy. At worst it's merchandising. The way the system is set up right now, you either agree to get a substantial pay decrease, or have your sets rot in the workshop. "exposure and marketing" is incredibly laughable because the cosmetics are making the majority of the sales, people aren't buying the product for the dotatv access, they're buying for the hats, as LD and many others have said in the past. It's an indirect subsidiary because artists aren't afforded the same access and opportunity to the store as the tournament piggy-back is getting them right now. They're having to get a lower cut percentage just so Valve can pump money into prizepools and tournament organizers. It's a really unfair system, imo.
Depends entirely on which bundles you're talking about. The major/premier tournaments with stretch goals and all that, your set is getting bundled in with a lot of other stuff.
For the minor ones like DotaPit which really is just a ticket and a set, the artists definitely get a lesser deal...but then again, those tournaments also usually have the lesser artist work. So if your creation is more average, you either piggyback onto a lesser tournament and take a pay cut, or get ignored entirely.
Not to mention that every chest bundle has multiple sets, and for the most part customers are focused on only a couple of them. So if you agree to let, say, BTS use your set for their chest, you're also getting "subsidized" by at least half-a-dozen other artists. I mean, look at the Faceless Rex courier, how many thousands of dollars did the set artists make just because that courier was bundled with their work?
Also ignoring that Valve still releases sets and chests that are unconnected to anything, so if you think your product is good enough, you can compete to make it into those.
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On June 07 2015 12:19 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 12:04 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 11:33 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:25 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 11:17 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike. Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it. BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?" They dont have an obligation to do so, but they have a system where BTS, joindota are getting subsidizes through hat sales anyway. Why are the artists subsidizing the pro scene? I think you don't quite understand what subsidizing means. Artists (plural) aren't subsidizing anything in the scene. Specific artists are entering contracted agreements with specific tournaments, and the organizations get the sales from the hats, and the artists get the extra official exposure and marketing. Now that might be a bum deal for the artists, or it might be entirely symbiotic where everyone gains. I don't think we have any stats or numbers for it. But it's not a subsidy. At worst it's merchandising. The way the system is set up right now, you either agree to get a substantial pay decrease, or have your sets rot in the workshop. "exposure and marketing" is incredibly laughable because the cosmetics are making the majority of the sales, people aren't buying the product for the dotatv access, they're buying for the hats, as LD and many others have said in the past. It's an indirect subsidiary because artists aren't afforded the same access and opportunity to the store as the tournament piggy-back is getting them right now. They're having to get a lower cut percentage just so Valve can pump money into prizepools and tournament organizers. It's a really unfair system, imo. Depends entirely on which bundles you're talking about. The major/premier tournaments with stretch goals and all that, your set is getting bundled in with a lot of other stuff. For the minor ones like DotaPit which really is just a ticket and a set, the artists definitely get a lesser deal...but then again, those tournaments also usually have the lesser artist work. So if your creation is more average, you either piggyback onto a lesser tournament and take a pay cut, or get ignored entirely. Not to mention that every chest bundle has multiple sets, and for the most part customers are focused on only a couple of them. So if you agree to let, say, BTS use your set for their chest, you're also getting "subsidized" by at least half-a-dozen other artists. I mean, look at the Faceless Rex courier, how many thousands of dollars did the set artists make just because that courier was bundled with their work? Also ignoring that Valve still releases sets and chests that are unconnected to anything, so if you think your product is good enough, you can compete to make it into those.
Yeah, and guess what? Have you EVER seen a stretch goal that was unbundled? Those bundles sell like hot cakes because they're incredibly cost effective. There's no bundling multiple sets outside of tournaments.
It's kinda nonsensical that grouping with a tournament gets you past the review process over people who've had great sets for months and months.
I'm not saying Valve never release sets that are unconnected to anything, but that path is not a fair one, and tournament sets are added far more frequently to co-incide with the tournament dates.
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On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion).
Hey LD, thanks for doing this.
You mentioned the low revenue for tournament organizers due to adblock and ticket sales being insignificant, can you comment on how that effects your reliance on sponsors? and potential impacts on sponsors expectations of air time in tournaments when they are putting in the money you need to run a tournament?
Can you comment on if its possible/ how you plan to balance the need for sponsor airtime in future tournaments?
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On June 07 2015 10:48 aboxcar wrote:
the main thing is expectations of player and tournament income are not commensurate with value, due to distortions such as hats
hats is the real value that people want to pay for. without tournaments, there would still be hats. without hats, would there still be tournaments? certainly not of the scale dota 2 has grown accustomed to.
you argue that hats exist because of tournaments, and therefore it is right for tournaments to get a piece of the pie.
but you yourself already concede that this is not a great argument, and say that the hat situation is only because valve hasn't found a model to monetize the value tournaments provide.
but maybe the harsh reality is that the actual value is not that high. it was not long ago that tournaments operated on sponsor money. selling tickets to events is a relatively recent development. GSL in Starcraft 2 charged for streams, but when you are competing with free streams that won't work.
maybe the only sensible thing for tournaments is to ask valve to team up and have valve be your sponsor, or else question why tournaments are so adamant they have a right to exist in the first place.
or just accept that the real value of tournaments is as hat salesmen.
There would be just as many quality dota tournaments without hats, I'm not even sure on what basis you would argue there wouldn't be. If organizers like BTS and ESL are saying dota revenue is so insignificant it's not even budgeted, I don't think hats are the reason tournaments are sustainable. I would wager the cut from dota revenue (hat bundles) isn't enough to fund or have enough weight to factor if an event is produced or not for any of the quality tournaments that get proper exposure (sltv,dac,ti,bts,d2cl,dl,gl,rbbg,d2l,esl etc).
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We should be able to smoke Weed in the game
User was warned for this post
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On June 07 2015 13:06 crms wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 10:48 aboxcar wrote:
the main thing is expectations of player and tournament income are not commensurate with value, due to distortions such as hats
hats is the real value that people want to pay for. without tournaments, there would still be hats. without hats, would there still be tournaments? certainly not of the scale dota 2 has grown accustomed to.
you argue that hats exist because of tournaments, and therefore it is right for tournaments to get a piece of the pie.
but you yourself already concede that this is not a great argument, and say that the hat situation is only because valve hasn't found a model to monetize the value tournaments provide.
but maybe the harsh reality is that the actual value is not that high. it was not long ago that tournaments operated on sponsor money. selling tickets to events is a relatively recent development. GSL in Starcraft 2 charged for streams, but when you are competing with free streams that won't work.
maybe the only sensible thing for tournaments is to ask valve to team up and have valve be your sponsor, or else question why tournaments are so adamant they have a right to exist in the first place.
or just accept that the real value of tournaments is as hat salesmen. There would be just as many quality dota tournaments without hats, I'm not even sure on what basis you would argue there wouldn't be. If organizers like BTS and ESL are saying dota revenue is so insignificant it's not even budgeted, I don't think hats are the reason tournaments are sustainable. I would wager the cut from dota revenue (hat bundles) isn't enough to fund or have enough weight to factor if an event is produced or not for any of the quality tournaments that get proper exposure (sltv,dac,ti,bts,d2cl,dl,gl,rbbg,d2l,esl etc).
I of course don't have access to financial numbers, but maybe you will remember that teams pulled out of starladder (first in your list) because the prize pool was too low, and v1lat went on a rant, etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2poo60/full_translation_of_v1lats_twitter_messages/
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/309iki/interview_with_v1lat_starladder_the_extinction_of/
it's not just about hats, per se, but that expectations have become astronomical. in no small part, this is due to TI compendiums and hats. a million dollars investment put in by valve would even today still be considered a substantial amount of money. 15 million dollars from hats is absurd.
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Nice post, man.
I'd also add that the current system of using cosmetics to sell tickets just isn't sustainable. So far, hats have been selling because the designs have been increasingly more "liberal" as the lifecycle of hats has gone on. Basically sets keep selling because every set that comes out keeps on topping the ones prior.
old set 1 old set 2
new set 1 top workshop set
Sets are less likely to sell in numbers if they don't "top" the good sets that already exist for a hero. Things like particle effects and custom icons have become semi-standard at this point. What's going to happen in like a year when there's like 10 good sets for every hero? Especially with TI/DAC putting even more immortals into the hat ecosystem. I feel like sets are going to become much less of a deal than when Starladder was putting out like the first set for a hero 2 years ago
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On June 07 2015 13:36 shizaep wrote:Nice post, man. I'd also add that the current system of using cosmetics to sell tickets just isn't sustainable. So far, hats have been selling because the designs have been increasingly more "liberal" as the lifecycle of hats has gone on. Basically sets keep selling because every set that comes out keeps on topping the ones prior. old set 1 old set 2new set 1 top workshop setSets are less likely to sell in numbers if they don't "top" the good sets that already exist for a hero. Things like particle effects and custom icons have become semi-standard at this point. What's going to happen in like a year when there's like 10 good sets for every hero? Especially with TI/DAC putting even more immortals into the hat ecosystem. I feel like sets are going to become much less of a deal than when Starladder was putting out like the first set for a hero 2 years ago
thats when dota jumps the shark and i finally get my schoolgirl ta set
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ive yet to come across a dota TV ticket which had no problems, i've yet to buy a ticket and not regret buying it because the streams are infinitely better than ingame(audio is usually the main issue). hats are literally the only reason tickets are worthwhile, since the live dotaTV experience is so terrible.
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Aside from starting yet another tickets vs hats conversation, I don't see how LD's insight has actually revealed anything from behind the scenes as a tournament organizer that people don't know about. Yes tickets + hats = more sales than straight up tickets. We have 2+ years of data on that now and nothing has changed. The solution Valve is looking for is a solution from the tournaments themselves. Something that says "Look, we can solve our own problems". But obviously something is wrong because Valve might be taking over using the majors. Who knows. Tournaments failed to find a way to monetize and went for the low hanging fruit of hats. The risks they took were many, but attempting to find new ways to make money or reduce their dependency on hats has been either futile, or largely ignored because hats are "lucrative enough for these tournaments".
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On June 07 2015 11:25 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 11:17 WolfintheSheep wrote:On June 07 2015 11:02 lestye wrote:On June 07 2015 09:05 LDdota wrote:On June 07 2015 08:53 lestye wrote:
It just seems like a shitty situation all around because hatmakers don't have the same opportunities with bundling their sets together like we've scene in some tournament compendium bundles, they don't get sponsorships or twitch revenue, It's not like there's literally no other place for tournaments to make money. Tournaments also have stratospherically higher costs than hat makers. Twitch revenue is extremely insignificant nowadays, probably due to the ongoing proliferation of adblock. Dota ticket sales currently provide very little profit for organizers. You're already giving up half your share to crowdfund, then everyone involved with the hats gets their cut, and there's not much left by that point. There's a reason why people like Kennigit often state publicly that they dont even factor DOTA2 revenue into their business plans and financial models, and it's because it is just completely insubstantial relative to sponsors and live audience ticket sales (except for DAC and TI, but that's a totally separate discussion). Certainly there must be a decent value to you and DC since you're not blowing it off and push for the sale of your cosmetics. I get that they have higher costs, but there's revenue outside of that. I'm sure it means NOTHING to ESL, Dreamhack, and others, but there are organizers that probably rely on it more, I'm going to assume BTS, DC, and Starladder probably rely on it way more than big big orgs like ESL, MLG, etc. And my point is that you guys get money from a large variety of places, including tournament organizers that just pay you to cast, as well as Valve for TI. For most workshop artists, they're only revenue is the money. I don't have a problem with you guys getting money, I think I'm opposed where it's coming from. Like, why is it coming from workshop artists when it could be coming from Valve? Valve's not giving a portion of the sets they release themselves to orgs (They do give to the top players through TI compendium money) They're kinda forcing the workshop artists to subsidize the pro scene. If it was like 5% of all purchases goes to Valve reinvesting into the scene, I think that'd be better than whatever they're doing now. Sorry if I worded stuff poorly or got it wrong, I feel what I'm saying makes sense but I dont know much about the numbers and the scene to point out exactly what I dislike. Because Valve doesn't want to subsidize 3rd party organizations, nor should they have an obligation to do so. They created an avenue for tournaments to be crowdfunded, and the organizations are making use of it. BTS, joinDOTA, etc. have absolutely no negotiation power to go to Valve and say "hey, players don't like that hat sales are paying for tournaments, couldn't you just pay us instead?" They dont have an obligation to do so, but they have a system where BTS, joindota are getting subsidizes through hat sales anyway. Why are the artists subsidizing the pro scene? Show nested quote +On June 07 2015 11:22 LSB wrote:
In addition there is the prospect of the Dota2 majors playing a big role in the scene. The DAC compendium was so successful because of the bonuses attached to it. I would expect that valve would allow the compendiums for the Dota2 majors to have some sort of attached bonus. Although each major tournament player would probably only be allowed to host one major a year, if you play your cards right you could make a good amount from compendiums. Because not everyone is going to do a Major anyway. There's going to be 3 Majors outside of TI, 1 of them we could safely assume will be run by Perfect World, that leads 2 for the West. Someone is gonna be left out in the cold.
Artists are not subsidizing the pro scene. I think you got your facts mixed up. The income from cosmetic creation for artist only exist because Valve created a platform and marketplace for it. If this market place did not exist, the value of those creations in their current form would be zero. This is a relationship between these two parties. The organizers have nothing to do with it and do not have any say in this relationship. Valve chooses to favour submissions that bundle with tournaments. This is their choice. Does it say anywhere in the agreements of the workshop that it was a open competition of some sort? I am pretty sure that every decision is up to Valve's discretion. Fairness has nothing to do with it.
I can understand how artist may feel that they are "forced" to work with tournaments but this has nothing to do with tournaments themselves. It has everything to do with their relationship with Valve. If they want to they could choose not to work with Valve.
It may simply be the fact that Valve chooses to set a extremely high standard for stand alone items that aren't bundled with tournaments. I don't see why they wouldn't with the abundance of items already in the system.
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I do have about 95% of the tickets which have big teams in it - ever since the release of tickets and I do watch a lot.
The only thing i want since forever is a well implemented free camera.
Thanks to the showcase view the free camera command which was bad implemented anyways was removed and did no longer work.
Imagine a completely free camera you can enable by clicking your unused right mouse button in dotatv allowing you to change the camera to any direction you want, adjusting height with your wheel and moving it with wasd or the arrow keys.
even a free camera like counterstrike can work easily and would could change live replays with new camera perspectives.
I do not want hats I never wanted them. I always sell them. A big thanks to The Summit 3. The Invoker item was worth as much as the bundle and the Ogre set could be sold for 5$ on top of it making it a free ticket giving you money!
On the other hand I have a ticket for MLG. MLGs DotaTV audio feed is awful and there has been done nothing to fix it. This is unacceptable for a tournament outside of China where it is luck if everything works.
I also don't think the custom death ward of the MLG set will ever be added which was promised.
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Team pennants are useless, DotA TV drops are average at best (unless you get some nice drop in a major game), in game audio by broadcasters is really poor. If I had a dollar for every time a BTS game had no audio for the first 10 minutes or lost audio half way through the game with it to never be re-established i'd be a very rich man. I buy almost all the major tournament tickets but if you think for a second i'll continue to buy them if cosmetics are removed, you got another thing coming.
What exactly am I paying the privilege for? to miss out on all the player interviews or between game discussion? to have Chinese tournaments lag or freeze for the entire game? Being a DotA TV participant, I feel like I'm being punished sometimes more then I'm being rewarded for spending my cash compared to people watching for free on stream. Some of the garbage sets added to the DotA TV bundles wouldn't even sell half as much if they weren't attached to the big name tournaments. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
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Osaka27151 Posts
From my personal point of view, I buy tickets for hats, but only watch through twitch because the quality in DotaTV is unwatchable. I never like buying tickets because of that, even though I would rather watch through DotaTV because I cannot often watch live.
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EPT
