EPTPaul Sams Press Conference Dec 02, 2010 - Page 7
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Armathai
1023 Posts
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RinconH
United States512 Posts
"E-Sports", as it currently stands and will probably stand for some time, is the tiniest of niches. Blizzard is a company that counts profits in Billions, not the seven figures that "E-Sports" is generating in the best, best, best case scenario. | ||
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Furycrab
Canada456 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:14 deth2munkies wrote: The 5% is what Blizzard Korea pulls in, that includes everything going on in Korea. The reason why it's so small is thanks to the enormity of World of Warcraft and its expansions in China, the US, and Europe. That accounts for well over half of Blizzard's profits (as of a year or two ago, I'll see if I can find a link if you're REALLY interested), and Starcraft is relatively minor since: A) It's mostly played in PC Baangs over the free Battle.net, meaning Blizzard isn't getting anything from game sales at all. B) They currently have 0 stake in any productions for SC1 thanks to KeSPA and the networks ignoring their IP rights, meaning the MSL, OSL, etc give them no revenue. 5% is still amazing for a country so small, but in reality, it's quite insignificant in comparison to other markets. 5% isn't including WOW, 5% isn't including any other franchise of Blizzard. 5% isn't "recent sales" (if anything recent sales in South Korea is probably the 60% KESPA likes to throw around as if this game didn't make most of it's profits in the first 5 years) 5% is considering they sold this game in many many many semi-dev. to dev. countries, many of which are significantly larger than South Korea. If you payed by the hour, then yes Starcraft has been played much more extensively, but we don't so as a result, the South korean market is worth 5% of their sales of Starcraft and Starcraft BW. | ||
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ShadeR
Australia7535 Posts
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Milkis
5003 Posts
On December 02 2010 18:47 charlesatan wrote: When it comes to IP Rights, the advantage is with Blizzard: 1) By default (or as known in the rest of the rest of the world), Starcraft is Blizzard's property. Now it is possible to claim in court that certain aspects of the game isn't Blizzard's (i.e. it's public) but you'd have to prove that claim. (Of course there are also other deciding factors, such as rules of the country you're in [good luck enforcing IP rights in Taiwan for example] but in general, it's easier to prove Blizzard's claim than KeSPA's. That's not to say Blizzard's side is sure to win in such a lawsuit, but they have the advantage.) 2) In general, it's also bad form to break terms [b]during negotiations. Surprisingly, based on the interview, Blizzard didn't file an injunction (which would halt the airing of BroodWar until everything can be settled in court) and just filed a lawsuit. Sorry but that's how the real world works. Licenses (and franchises) are usually for a set period of time (usually one year but terms can be negotiated). The company needs to prove that they're still fit and able to produce the shows. OGN ten years from now for example might not be as capable as OGN last year. A "regular" license fee is reasonable. Oh, of course if you look at it from a pure law perspective, the case is Blizzard's. But in the end -- what does Blizzard mean by "recognizing IP rights"? If we consider Blizzard's EULA it honestly looks like they want KeSPA to just be completely submissive to them. I think there's a clear clash here -- KeSPA believes that they do recognize Blizzard's rights, but they believe Blizzard asks beyond what is acceptable. A "regular" license fee is reasonable, I agree -- but it completely defeats the "barriers to entry" idea that they were claiming. If it is actually a barriers to entry thing, then it's easy to imagine a much saner contract on all parties. But honestly, it seems like a bad cover up overall. | ||
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gozima
Canada602 Posts
The main reason Blizz is pushing SC2 in Korea so hard is because half of SC1 global sales came from Korea. I doubt they'll be able to duplicate those sales figures, but they still see Korea as a huge untapped market for SC2 in terms of revenue. As it stand now, I doubt Korea even accounts for 5% of Global SC2 sales. | ||
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Kralic
Canada2628 Posts
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leonardus
59 Posts
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
On December 02 2010 23:43 Abraxa wrote: Why can't people understand that blizzard can't let this one slide. It would set a terrible precedent, meaning that all future IP (all future games) can be used by a 3rd party to make profit. That being said, I don't think anyone can make a truly informed objective assessment of the current situation. All we have is what either side can (because of the NDA) and wants to tell us. Both obviously telling their highly subjected side of the story. As for my personal view of the situation (as limited as it is), I didn't get into starcraft untill sc2 (I did play SC1 single player, but that's it). I think that anyone claiming blizzard does not have any rights to BW in proscene and the game itself is nothing more than a tool being used, is wrong. Blizzard has the IP and has the right to defend it. I think blizzard not filing for an injuction is a good thing for both blizzard and for starcraft (both 1 and 2). I hope they can get this sorted and both scenes are allowed to continue and both can be broadcasted. As for those saying blizzard should let it go as their success is partially thanks to the success of BW, obviously blizzard benefitted from it. As to what extend is debatable and probably can not be determined to begin with. But even if Kespa is largely responsible for blizzard success, that doesn't mean Blizzard should just give up on defending their own property. I've noticed that some people here, mostly from areas in the world with weak judicial systems, have no idea how a formal legal system works. They don't understand that the legal term "precedent" has a very specific meaning and that Blizzard letting this slide can be used against them in court in future lawsuits. The arguments put forth by Kespa can be used in future lawsuits by or against other parties if Blizzard lets this slide. Funny enough, Korean game companies can be adversely affected by a ruling against Blizzard. Korea is a civil law country, though, so it might not be that bad compared to a common law country like the US. | ||
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dukethegold
Canada5645 Posts
5% simply means that the amount of profit from recent quarters gathered from SC2, WoW, and other Blizzard productions simply account for 5% of the total profit that Blizzard is gathering from its productions across the globe. Keep in mind that SC2 is not selling as dramatically well as people hoped and WoW is far from the #1 MMORPG in Korea. No other Blizzard product has much relevance to that profit figure for this year. The way I see it is that Blizzard is investing for the future. If Blizzard gets what exactly it is aiming for, there is great potential. But as of right now, as it stands, Blizzard is probably losing money rather than gaining for investing money into E-sports. Whatever pathetic little profit Gretech is getting is just keeping the company afloat and little else. Of all the "e-sport viable" products out there, Blizzard has hold on WarCraft, BW, and SC2. Valve has Counterstrike. I can't even name fifth title that can even be considered as "e-sport material". Blizzard is definitely aiming to become a global leader in what potentially can become the next huge thing as the world progresses forward and video games becoming more and more relevant to the mainstream population. | ||
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magitek
United States9 Posts
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Al Bundy
7257 Posts
On December 03 2010 07:00 dukethegold wrote: Blizzard sure is sparing no expense here. 5% simply means that the amount of profit from recent quarters gathered from SC2, WoW, and other Blizzard productions simply account for 5% of the total profit that Blizzard is gathering from its productions across the globe. Keep in mind that SC2 is not selling as dramatically well as people hoped and WoW is far from the #1 MMORPG in Korea. No other Blizzard product has much relevance to that profit figure for this year. The way I see it is that Blizzard is investing for the future. If Blizzard gets what exactly it is aiming for, there is great potential. But as of right now, as it stands, Blizzard is probably losing money rather than gaining for investing money into E-sports. Whatever pathetic little profit Gretech is getting is just keeping the company afloat and little else. Of all the "e-sport viable" products out there, Blizzard has hold on WarCraft, BW, and SC2. Valve has Counterstrike. I can't even name fifth title that can even be considered as "e-sport material". Blizzard is definitely aiming to become a global leader in what potentially can become the next huge thing as the world progresses forward and video games becoming more and more relevant to the mainstream population. Sorry for being off-topic but a fifth title that can be considered as "e-sport material" would be Quake. The best competitive fps from an objective point of view. | ||
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kamikami
France1057 Posts
Without those broadcasting stations, the notion of esport didn't even pop out. In the future, people are gonna have to watch esport on internet streams, it's very beneficial for esport lol. | ||
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11cc
Finland561 Posts
On December 03 2010 08:44 magitek wrote: They spent a decade making the best game on the planet. Let them defend their intellectual property from being exploited. bw didn't take a decade to make | ||
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hitman133
United States1425 Posts
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phosphorylation
United States2935 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
mustaju
Estonia4504 Posts
On December 02 2010 22:57 s.a.y wrote: If the case goes KeSPA's way, the same thing might happen to StarCraft 2 or any other game out there. Imagine the cost of StarCraft 2 being in development for 6-7 years only to some country say "hey, it's public proprety" I'm only asking this because I really don't understand your position. I often hear it though, so perhaps you can answer this. Is that really so bad when put into perspective? The fall of the KeSPA system would, as far as I've heard, lead to the unemployment to hundreds of people, a lot of them progamers who have invested significant amounts of time and effort into the game, only to be thrown aside later. Sure, the principle is, KeSPA should have asked and arranged a deal to do it legitimately, but is this really the greater of two evils? How does the current KeSPA system negatively affect Blizzard? In their defense, it would be ideal if they received some money and could have a say in the choices KeSPA makes, but it shouldn't ever amount to a sum that makes broadcasting BW too costly to do or give them complete control over the entire operation. KeSPA argues Blizzard is doing just that. The profits should, however, be almost exactly the same, since the E-sports market will probably never be profitable in a direct way, since given the current proposed contract, Blizzard doesn't receive any money! This is not a good outcome for E-sports either way. On the positive side, the KeSPA system keeps a lot of people employed, has remained a stable environment for sponsors, doesn't need outside money to be financed at the moment, and allows people other than the owner to care about the game. I am convinced that watching 2 people play a game and playing a game are completely different things, and that's why the claim of "public property" of televised games makes somewhat sense. Sure, there are really good arguments for the other side as well, since the audio and visual parts of the game undoubtedly belong to Blizzard. However, whether a negative outcome for KeSPA is really beneficial for E-Sports or game developers is really in question. The status quo would largely remain in place, and if that wasn't good for E-sports in some way, I really have no idea why I started visiting this forum. | ||
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Ctoan
Australia75 Posts
Each of these posts seem to have the same replys, ppl who are pro blizzard quote paragraphs and say "Told you blizzard just wants hugs and kisses." People who are anti blizzard take statements out of context and try to twist them to their point of view. Personally I haven't been following BW since the begining but if i where blizzard, and i had spent millions of dollars developing a game, then went on to other games and came back and saw that the game i had made years ago had grown and someone else was charging others for the right to broadcast those games, I'd be pist. For whatever reason, I would ask that company wtf right do they have to do such a thing and at the very least I would want some sort of acknowledgement. I really don't think Blizzard wants to kill BW, I coudnt see how that would be good business. I think in fair court Blizzard would smash any company in regards to IP rights. I think blizzard is screwed in this either way, I see them trying to protect what is theirs and no matter what people are going to look at this outcome and say either theyre dickheads if they win and theyre dickheads if they lose. | ||
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mustaju
Estonia4504 Posts
On December 03 2010 18:18 Ctoan wrote: Alas, Personally I haven't been following BW since the begining but if i where blizzard, and i had spent millions of dollars developing a game, then went on to other games and came back and saw that the game i had made years ago had grown and someone else was charging others for the right to watch that game, I'd be pist. No-one is being charged to watch, only the 2 broadcasting channels have to pay fees to keep Proleague running. We've heard that misinformation countless times, please stop. | ||
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Ctoan
Australia75 Posts
On December 03 2010 18:23 mustaju wrote: No-one is being charged to watch, only the 2 broadcasting channels have to pay fees to keep Proleague running. We've heard that misinformation countless times, please stop. Lol sry i meant to say broadcast, i guess ill edit my post, ty for picking 1 word out of the entire post to pick on <3 But kiiiiinda the sort of thing i was talking about.... | ||
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