Feel sorry for Artosis and Tasteless, but this is a good time to start ther own casting business with unofficial casts of bw events and earn salary from donations.

bracala

95 Posts

March 03 2021 11:20 GMT

#202

Is there any chance they can create BW league with korean pros and stream on youtube since Artosis and Tasteless live in Korea?
I suppose they only need money for prize pool and some sponsors.

UGOlivander54

2 Posts

March 03 2021 11:21 GMT

#203

wow this just sucks

jinjin5000

United States1407 Posts

March 03 2021 11:26 GMT

#204

On March 03 2021 14:09 FlaShFTW wrote:
While this is certainly sad, people here arguing that it's stupid need to calm down and look at it from Afreeca's business perspective.

Afreeca is a KOREAN based platform. It hosts a KOREAN tournament during KOREAN hours. Hardly any English speakers are watching during those hours anyways. A business will generally only pay if they will get financial gains back from an investment. Afreeca invests in casters to promote their games, get additional sponsorship and ad revenue, and attract viewers to watch. Why have commentators in the first place? To make the product more enjoyable and watchable.

Tastosis, unfortunately, are not worth the investment. While they certainly make the product much more enjoyable from an English viewer perspective, not enough viewers tune in to watch. Even fewer are ever buying any products shown via the advertisements (the products are Korean), and only a tiny fraction of the viewers will ever spend money on Afreeca perks or donations. The English fans who watch aren't watching Afreeca so much as they are watching Tastosis, then jump ship immediately. You aren't staying on the website, you aren't buying any of the ad products, so what's the purpose of paying Tastosis money on something that yields almost ZERO returns?

At the end of the day, it is a Korean company sponsoring a game that, while has seen tremendous growth in the foreign audiences, has not seen the growth translate to viewer counts and increased revenue.

However, I would urge Afreeca to allow people to use and upload their own English casts, not just on AfreecaTV, but also Twitch or Youtube. While it is understandable that Afreeca wants all the viewership traffic to their website, there are so many people that just wait for the Youtube video anyways and don't go to Afreeca.tv ever. To me, they lose hardly anything by allowing foreign communities to enjoy the casting in their own languages.

they already dont allow korean starcraft progamer youtubes to upload their own full games, but just limit it to 7 min highlight at most. The whole streaming platform between youtube and afreeca is tilting too, so do expect more changes going forward.

MineraIs

United States846 Posts

March 03 2021 11:27 GMT

#205

On March 03 2021 20:13 iFU.spx wrote:
Fell sorry for Artosis and Tasteless, but this is a good time to start ther own casting business with unofficial casts of bw events and earn salary from donations.

Would be so good..

Sinnq

Denmark75 Posts

March 03 2021 11:28 GMT

#206

This is bullshit

Crateros

19 Posts

March 03 2021 11:34 GMT

#207

--- Nuked ---

TehRei

Sweden261 Posts

March 03 2021 11:35 GMT

#208

Sad, but not particularly surprising. The past year(s) has seen less and less Korean BW events with official English casts. It was only a matter of time before ASL followed suit.

It was fun while it lasted though! Personally I don't mind Korean casters even if I don't understand the language. BW is still BW, and I'll be sure to follow ASL regardless.

chongu

Malaysia2585 Posts

March 03 2021 11:40 GMT

#209

As upsetting as this is, I am still grateful for Afreeca and their support of the BW scene. They've done more than we ever could carrying BW thus far. This is inclusive of the management team, players, map makers, observers and sponsors.

Arty and Tasteless will continue to do well regardless as their casting skills are out of this world. Will whole-heartedly support them in their youtube casts/live streams.

oxKnu

1178 Posts

March 03 2021 11:45 GMT

#210

From a business perspective this does make sense. However I would add that Afreeca has done a poor job at managing their Starcraft content in the last 5 years.

Paying Tasteless and Artosis for 10 seasons is all fine and dandy but their whole approach to insulate themselves from other streaming platforms and basically confine the professional Starcraft scene to a website that is hardly accessibly and/or user-friendly for Western audiences is actually their biggest downfall.

At this point it's pretty clear that if Broodwar has a scene, it's not large enough to survive unless it's available to a global audience. The Korean viewership seems to be down-trending.

This game seems to be bastardized by everyone to be honest: Blizzard taxes everyone that wants to put out an official tournament (probably the reason KSL died) whilst the same company PAYS Afreeca to host SCII tournaments at (probably) a record loss. All this while the game hasn't had proper support and bug-fixing ever since Remastered was launched.

On top of that, the best players are restricted (not officially, but they're adults that prioritize steady income over anything else of course) to a platform that has a self-destructive business model that somehow tries to compete with global streaming business like twitch.

Cursed all around.

On the other hand, think of a featured stream on twitch with Artosis and Tasteless casting where you can watch the best Broodwar tournament in the world with a semi-decent production that would probably cost peanuts in a COVID world.

How do you not make that work? Cmon guys...

Xaoz

Germany146 Posts

March 03 2021 11:50 GMT

#211

This is just horrible.
Wish there was anything we could do...

kogeT

Poland2032 Posts

March 03 2021 12:00 GMT

#212

The crappy part is that you can only restream on Afreeca.. so basicially they say: "we love english streams, but we will not pay a penny for them, but you are welcome to bring us more viewers". I would cast ASL if I could do that on my twitch channel. ;-)

Goma

Germany15 Posts

March 03 2021 12:01 GMT

#213

Oh noooooo, how sad.

LUCKY_NOOB

Bulgaria1417 Posts

March 03 2021 12:03 GMT

#214

I don't like the decision but I understand it. ^_._^

Holint_Casazr

Germany72 Posts

March 03 2021 12:08 GMT

#215

What a shame, though big thanks to Afreeca for keeping this going for so long.

I know its not realistic but I'd be happy with it if Afreeca kind of turned a blind eye towards english YT-vods of tournaments. As it is now we actually have a lot of BW content, I can't even watch everything I want (BSL, ASL, ASTL, Best of the Best, Shinhan, Ultimate Battle, Race Wars and more). We have, even without Artosis, maybe the highest concentration of good and knowledgable BW-casters since they days of old before the SC2 switch.

Its just that the coverage of the content from Korea is constantly on the edge of being shut down. Saiyan does a great job covering lots of korean stuff, but one sweep from Afreeca and he'd be gone.

Well either way, BW keeps going and to a big part due to Afreeca, so thanks again, even though I don't like this decision.

Zealos

United Kingdom3574 Posts

March 03 2021 12:22 GMT

#216

NGL, gonna send a few message to Afreeca

I'm sure its in vain, but I remain nostalgic for the hayday of enough pitchforks in esports forcing a u-turn :')

Yogzototh

9 Posts

March 03 2021 12:36 GMT

#217

AfreecaTV should think about selling the ASL English broadcast rights. I would think there are enough viewers and a market.

I imagine this is the way to go. The question is if anyone in BW scene actually has the time/connections/funds to organize such thing, because it doesnt look simple at all.
You'd need to negotiate broadcasting terms with Afreeca, organize crowdfunding, probably find and negotiate with sponsors, thats a lot of fucking work with barely any chance of compensation.

zelderan

United States163 Posts

March 03 2021 12:44 GMT

#218

What the fuck?