That's because your website blows ass to watch on outside of Korea with the constant buffering and lag zzzzzz Hopefully they actually attempt to solve for that somehow.

I’ve never had problems with lag or stuttering on aftv..

Chris_Havoc

United States600 Posts

January 05 2024 06:47 GMT

#12

I'm rather curious if this re-branding is a direct response from AfreecaTV to Twitch leaving South Korea, and trying to capture a more worldwide viewer audience as a result.

It's either that, or maybe it's related to competition from the rumored upcoming streaming platform from Naver.

Branch.AUT

Austria853 Posts

January 05 2024 07:50 GMT

#13

I don't understand this. The claim is to rebrand to realize potential in foreign viewership. Ok,thats cool. Then they go ahead and call themselves soup. Don't get me wrong, I like soup. I eat soup fairly regularly. But Soup is not exciting. In fact soup might be the most boing food item there is, in a dinner kind of context.
From an english marketing perspective, this rebranding makes no sense. Is this just kt fingerbang all over again? Or does soop mean something exciting in chinese?

BLinD-RawR

ALLEYCAT BLUES50861 Posts

January 05 2024 10:11 GMT

#14

On January 05 2024 03:47 WGT-Baal wrote:
are they gonna keep the league names like ASL or will it be SSL (Soop SL)?

Btw anybody knows how easily afreeca integrates with like SplitOBS and the like? Does it need a special afreeca dedicated program?

AFAIK at least for the upcoming season its still ASL, beyond that I do not know.

also Soop still a better name than Naver's streaming platform, CHZZK

Qikz

United Kingdom12032 Posts

January 05 2024 13:58 GMT

#15

On January 05 2024 04:29 Master of DalK wrote:

Show nested quote +

That's because your website blows ass to watch on outside of Korea with the constant buffering and lag zzzzzz Hopefully they actually attempt to solve for that somehow.

That's a bit of a shitty cycle as well, nobody will watch because the website sucks, but they won't spend the money to update the website and host global servers because of the fact nobody watches.

Chris_Havoc

United States600 Posts

January 05 2024 16:08 GMT

#16

On January 05 2024 03:47 WGT-Baal wrote:
are they gonna keep the league names like ASL or will it be SSL (Soop SL)?

I suppose one possible option would be to change it to the AfreecaTV/SOOP StarLeague (ASSL).

Garnet

Vietnam9041 Posts

January 05 2024 17:15 GMT

#17

Yeah renaming "BJ" is definitely a good move.

lechatnoir

392 Posts

January 05 2024 19:21 GMT

#18

huh. I mean if they have a more global viewership with Valorant and stuff they may have it in them to continue with SC2.

Southlight

United States11768 Posts

January 05 2024 21:16 GMT

#19

When they ban folks for whatever reason I hope they say "NO SOOP FOR YOU"

WombaT

Northern Ireland26645 Posts

January 05 2024 22:05 GMT

#20

SOOP? Hey not as bad as Ragnarok becoming ‘SHIN’ but it’s really not doing it for me

Changing the term BJ does make rather a lot more sense if we’re talking the international market, with all it entails elsewhere

Others more knowledgeable than I have chimed in already, if it’s purely a rebrand rather than accompanied with other changes I don’t see how it fixes the twin problems of a certain bad reputation domestically, or largely failing to penetrate internationally.

Guess we’ll learn more down the line

BisuDagger

Bisutopia19334 Posts

January 06 2024 03:52 GMT

#21

I’m hoping for Ramen sponsors next tournament!

Acrofales

Spain18270 Posts

January 06 2024 15:49 GMT

#22

The two times I tried Afreeca to get rid of the irritating border around youtube, it was bad, and I stuck with the border. So unless they invest in infrastructure as well, I don't see how this fixes anything.

Fanatic-Templar

Canada5819 Posts

January 06 2024 16:56 GMT

#23

On January 06 2024 01:08 Chris_Havoc wrote:

Show nested quote +

I suppose one possible option would be to change it to the AfreecaTV/SOOP StarLeague (ASSL).

I would advise against rebranding as the ASS League.

Branch.AUT

Austria853 Posts

January 06 2024 18:24 GMT

#24

On January 06 2024 12:52 BisuDagger wrote:
I’m hoping for Ramen sponsors next tournament!

Made me laught so hard, I spilled noodle soup in my lap

Akio

Finland1838 Posts

January 07 2024 10:31 GMT

#25

Echoing the point that while changing "BJ" is long overdue, the website is still unusable overseas (as in, cannot get streams and vods to load half the time on PC/mobile)

RKC

2848 Posts

January 07 2024 12:25 GMT

#26

Sorry for sounding ignorant even though I follow ASL quite a fair bit and occasionally watch their live stream. But what exactly is the domestic bad reputation of Afreeca? Most streaming platforms like Twitch have their own share of NSFW content. How is Afreeca any different? Or is it more of a cultural issue? Or some big scandal?

WGT-Baal

France3472 Posts

January 08 2024 16:26 GMT

#27

On January 07 2024 21:25 RKC wrote:
Sorry for sounding ignorant even though I follow ASL quite a fair bit and occasionally watch their live stream. But what exactly is the domestic bad reputation of Afreeca? Most streaming platforms like Twitch have their own share of NSFW content. How is Afreeca any different? Or is it more of a cultural issue? Or some big scandal?

I think it is also that in Korea the other ones (local) are less NSFW I suppose. So bit of a cultural thing but they may have had other scandals. Twitch is irrelevant there.
Note in Korea it is also quite common to rebrand and change names, for instance political parties do this almost every election.

itsjustatank

Hong Kong9172 Posts

January 09 2024 19:13 GMT

#28

SOOP

a portmanteau of broth and noodles

iRkSupperman

Norway140 Posts

January 20 2024 17:15 GMT

#29

Afreeca loads just fine on both PC and mobile (app). I suspect a lot of people have shitty ISPs and instead wrongly blame the foreign site which they've used once-twice before going to their favourite whining spot of choice, whether that be TL, Reddit, Discord, Twitch chats or Youtube comments. (+ in the case of SC2, Afreeca already receives a bunch of hate for not subsidizing dead Korean SC2 even harder than it already does).

The real issue is that the international version of the PC site doesn't have game categories ala the Korean one, so you can't easily see all/most viewed SC streams, for instance. In the mobile app you can do this even when abroad.

Once you have direct links to relevant streamers though, it's a completely fine platform IMO. (Hint: https://bwstreams.appspot.com/ )

IMO, Afreeca provides a way better viewing experience than for instance Chinese ones like Douyu/Douyin/Bilibili or Japanese ones like Niconico. Insane that somehow back in the 2000s, most Asian video platforms decided that chat messages and comments rolling across the video screen was a good idea.