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On January 31 2011 09:27 NuKedUFirst wrote:
Not that I disagree with supporting e-sports but If I were to pay for the GSL I would want downloadable HQ VODs, which are available for free on a few other websites.
I think that the LQ vods should be free and all VODs should be downloadable to be seen on mobile devices, etc. Until then I will watch the stream and use other methods of watching. Not because I don't like GOM but because I think that their marketing plan is flawed. If I were to watch live through premium ticket it would be 2am/5am and my internet is rather bad so I have to wait for them to buffer so I would rather be able to download the VODs while I'm at work and have them when I come back, my TV has a usb port on the side that lets me put media files on an external drive and watch on my TV which makes it that much more enjoyable.
Also. the gom vods on youtube for highlight videos and whatnot should be alright as long as they are below 3 minutes per match, that should be allowed in my opinion so fans can create highlight videos and what not.
Their marketing is flawed simple as that. Why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free and can put it into a container to use later. ~ Just my opinion again like I said. I do enjoy the commentating, Tasteless, Artosis, Day9 and Incontrol are the only commentators I can stand listening to, the others seem not to anyone play if they are in masters, It seems I get worse watching others, and the games played have very good players, always fun to watch but would be better once a new map pool is introduced., I wish they would get more advertisements in and lowered the prize pool to make it more feasible for VODs and fix the VODs issue.
Edit: Starcraft 2 is new, people are just getting into it. TL is growing due to the release, people wont pay 10$ for a this because it is imperfect. BW viewers don't pay to view BW games and are easy to download via torrent so BW viewers may be less likely to pay for it aswell because it is a new idea.
I love how you claim their marketing strategy is flawed when you have absolutely no idea what their marketing strategy is all together. Heck the only reasoning you've provided about your dissatisfaction of GOM is that they don't conform with every one of your specific standards and needs. If you can't even stream the VODs, your main concern should be getting better ISP or plan.
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On January 31 2011 10:16 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +However, you're leaving out so much potential future customers/fans by making us pay a few bucks. OK, let's say they did. And this doubled, or even quadrupled their viewerbase. So, where does GOM make the money for 2x to 4x the bandwidth costs? Remember, they went from many paying customers to 0 paying customers. And they doubled or quadrupled their bandwidth costs. However many may be left out for not wanting to pay doesn't matter in a financial sense, because you're losing money. Losing money is not a way to make money, unless you have a plan whereby you lose money for a time only to make it up later. People generally don't like it if you give something away for free, then charge them for it later. So what is your plan for them to make money in the future?
If the viewership rates go up, increase the rates you charge from the advertisers that you'd get for the higher views.
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I buy every season but GOM REALLY needs to let it's VOD's (at least SQ) be free for everyone with maybe like a 48 hour delay or w/e like they did it in BW.
There is so many games I would love to be able to link my family and friends to, but alas cannot without them subbing.
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It's really kind of silly seeing as most of the people here have no clue how much money they make off of advertisements/sponsorships compared to how much they make just from the subscription. It's also an unbelievably wild assumption, especially given what we already know about the nature of most corporations, that the money is going to go back into e-sports and not just into the pockets of whoever is running the show. Unless you actually know what their expenses are, telling people that they need to subscribe to keep GOM alive is really stupid.
On January 31 2011 10:07 timbo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2011 09:47 dabom88 wrote:
Until GOM comes out with an acceptable free plan, as much as I want to support them with my views, I will watch the GSL via other means. So no, paying to watch GSL matches is not a good idea. You should not support a flawed business model. It is so laughable that you think you would be 'supporting them' just by watching a free stream / vods. You also fail to mention why paying for GSL is not a good idea and how its flawed business model. It seems you are one of the many naive posters in this thread with the arguement of - 'it should be free because i don't want to pay.'
Yeah, maybe you failed to acknowledge the part where people mentioned advertisements. I know it's a wild and crazy system, but maybe you should turn on your cable TV and check out how it works sometime. They seem to have it figured out, and I don't have to pay monthly fees to watch basic tv. The flawed business model is trying to expand your viewership by charging them money to watch a full tournament. Try reading the thread?
It's really hard to tell the difference between people who actually think GOM's payment model is a good idea, and those who have too large of an ego to admit that they may be paying money for no reason other than the fact that GOM is telling them it's good for e-sports. Some of us prefer to look a little deeper and ask WHY we need to provide the funding for the future of e-sports when there is already a working model for profitable, free media distribution.
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On January 31 2011 10:23 SolidusR wrote:
It's really kind of silly seeing as most of the people here have no clue how much money they make off of advertisements/sponsorships compared to how much they make just from the subscription. It's also an unbelievably wild assumption, especially given what we already know about the nature of most corporations, that the money is going to go back into e-sports and not just into the pockets of whoever is running the show. Unless you actually know what their expenses are, telling people that they need to subscribe to keep GOM alive is really stupid.
It's funny because you also have no clue about their economic situation and where the money is flowing and yet make the same "unbelievably wild assumptions" that you have been telling people were stupid in the first place.
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ITS SO CHEAP for the amount of money you have to pay to watch endless and endless hours of GSL i mean 10 dollars is like 7 euros - thats one time trip to the cinema - for 1 month of pure pleasure ^_^ - I tried it one time - i got convinced and now im a happy customer 
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GSL needs to incorporate VODS with ads and such. Live streaming needs to be paid for by sponsors not people watching. If you require people to pay to watch, then you slow future growth of the viewer-ship for short term gains.
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On January 31 2011 09:34 rightstuff wrote:
Another thing to remember is that advertising is tough to find for an international stream. Who is going to sponsor a program with a limited viewer base spread around the globe? McDonald's? Walmart?
There isn't much of a return on the advertising investment for most companies outside of Korea, so until there is, it's likely that you'll shell out some cash for international content.
I've yet to see anyone address this. People keep saying advertising is the way to go...but who is going to do it? Can anyone think of companies that will pay 10's of thousands of dollars(to compensate for subscription fee losses) to advertise to the international GSL audience?
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if you want to watch the GSL live, and have to stay up every day till 4 or 6 am depending on where you live (in the USA) then get the package, it's only $10, yeah $10!!!! And you get that entire season, HQ stream AND extremely HQ vods.
Definitely worth every penny.
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People are not thinking outside the box.
VODs will stay a pay-fee. It has always been like that.
Its not the VODs that need to be focused on (nor on advertising).
The problem is two-folds:
1) GOM does not let others to upload GSL videos on youtube. If making us pay is because of the bandwidth use, then use Youtube's bandwidth. A LOT more accessible.
2) There are no televised games because MBC and OGN are barred from televising Starcraft 2. I hate to bring up the Blizzard vs Kespa, but that thing needs to be resolved if SC2 want a broader audience.
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It is worth it, PERIOD.
Where else can you see the best players in SC2 playing each other, with commentary, in HQ, and watch the VODs over and over again?
Want to work on your splitting? Simple, go watch Foxer vs Kyrix on Zel Naga Caverns in Season 2 over and over again until you pick up how he does it. (Good luck)
Problem with your macro? Check out how players like Nada and MVP will actually que up 2-3 SCVs sometimes before they push or drop.
Idra seems to always know exactly how many banes and lings will bust a main. Freeze a VOD and count them, bitches!
Watch how players abuse the high ground, and where to best place that Spine Crawler to fight off that Thor on the Cliff, like only Idra and Fruitdealer can.
When I watch the GSL vods, I take note of the strategies used, what works, what didnt and why. I am building an Excel spreadsheet going all the way back to Season 2. (season 1 had poor balance)
Sure, there are YouTube VODs, but I prefer Tastosis, regardless of their bias and premature GG predictions. They are funny, knowlegeble, and often will throw in some insight that I would never have picked up on my own.
When you consider, that these GSL seasons are less than the cost of a decent pizza, what the hell are we even arguing about? If you cant afford the GSL, should you really be playing video games? Get a job. If you are a kid, cut some fucking grass. Shit, cut my grass, I'll buy you a season.
Buy it.
Bitches.
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On January 31 2011 10:20 oygp wrote:
The way I see it, the GSL is 95% aimed at the Korean market. If that weren't true, then why not just hold the tournament in the USA and force Korean players travel to the USA to compete? If millions of Americans started watching the GSL, I'm sure we'd have our own grand SC2 competition similar to GSL that we could all watch for free on TV, b/c companies would be paying loads of money for advertisement time.
I'm happy to just be able to watch the highest level Korean SC2 and to have such high quality, professional commentary in English provided by tastosis.
And I agree with tarath, the audience demographic "aged 8-18" goes to the movie theaters all the time paying $10 for a 120 minute movie. With the GSL, you're paying "$10 for like 50+ hours of content." Maybe people are just less used to paying for online content, which tends most of the time to be absolutely free?
GSL may be aimed at the Korean market, but I would like to point out that you can find vods of the games hours after the game FOR FREE if you happen to live in Korea. Just something to throw out there.
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if it was expensive I would totally agree that they should not be charging for it.
but it is so ridiculously cheap that complaining about it makes you a silly fucking goose.
The entitlement complex of some people is colossally incredible. You want them to run all of this for free? They already provide a free stream which, while it has its problems and used to be quite poor, is now very stable and relatively decent quality. If for whatever reason you can't watch it live, skip Subway for one day, drop the $10 on a season ticket and watch ridiculously high quality VODs anytime you want. $10 is such a ridiculously inconsequential amount of money unless you have no income whatsoever. Hell, if you smoke, why not quit smoking and use a fraction of the saved money on the GSL subscription? or cut down on the amount of alcohol you drink, or buy a couple less cheap games on Steam the next time you go on a Steam spending spree.
There is absolutely no one whose finances are so tight that they can't find $10 somewhere if they really want to see the GSL. And if you absolutely can't find the $10, you should just be grateful that there IS a free (albeit limited) option for people who are living that close to the edge.
And if you can't watch it live because you're in the US, tough shit. The rest of the world has had to deal with all kinds of international events being incredibly US-timezone favoured, for once you guys are the ones who have to deal with awkward timing, and a few vocal idiots think that is a reason to complain about a cheap price.
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...and here I thought people wanted Sc2 to be ambitiously big
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On January 31 2011 10:48 PukinDog wrote:
It is worth it, PERIOD.
Where else can you see the best players in SC2 playing each other, with commentary, in HQ, and watch the VODs over and over again?
Want to work on your splitting? Simple, go watch Foxer vs Kyrix on Zel Naga Caverns in Season 2 over and over again until you pick up how he does it. (Good luck)
Problem with your macro? Check out how players like Nada and MVP will actually que up 2-3 SCVs sometimes before they push or drop.
Idra seems to always know exactly how many banes and lings will bust a main. Freeze a VOD and count them, bitches!
Watch how players abuse the high ground, and where to best place that Spine Crawler to fight off that Thor on the Cliff, like only Idra and Fruitdealer can.
When I watch the GSL vods, I take note of the strategies used, what works, what didnt and why. I am building an Excel spreadsheet going all the way back to Season 2. (season 1 had poor balance)
Sure, there are YouTube VODs, but I prefer Tastosis, regardless of their bias and premature GG predictions. They are funny, knowlegeble, and often will throw in some insight that I would never have picked up on my own.
When you consider, that these GSL seasons are less than the cost of a decent pizza, what the hell are we even arguing about? If you cant afford the GSL, should you really be playing video games? Get a job. If you are a kid, cut some fucking grass. Shit, cut my grass, I'll buy you a season.
Buy it.
Bitches.
Worth the $? Hell yes.
Worth it to people who know little to nothing about ESports or SCII and you are trying to convert over, or people who watch 1-10 SCII matches a month at most? Hell No.
To me it's not about the hardcore fans, it's a fantastic deal to them, but the casuals are hurt by this move. The casuals make up the bulk of the audience.....
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On January 31 2011 10:48 PukinDog wrote:
It is worth it, PERIOD.
Where else can you see the best players in SC2 playing each other, with commentary, in HQ, and watch the VODs over and over again?
Want to work on your splitting? Simple, go watch Foxer vs Kyrix on Zel Naga Caverns in Season 2 over and over again until you pick up how he does it. (Good luck)
Problem with your macro? Check out how players like Nada and MVP will actually que up 2-3 SCVs sometimes before they push or drop.
Idra seems to always know exactly how many banes and lings will bust a main. Freeze a VOD and count them, bitches!
Watch how players abuse the high ground, and where to best place that Spine Crawler to fight off that Thor on the Cliff, like only Idra and Fruitdealer can.
When I watch the GSL vods, I take note of the strategies used, what works, what didnt and why. I am building an Excel spreadsheet going all the way back to Season 2. (season 1 had poor balance)
Sure, there are YouTube VODs, but I prefer Tastosis, regardless of their bias and premature GG predictions. They are funny, knowlegeble, and often will throw in some insight that I would never have picked up on my own.
When you consider, that these GSL seasons are less than the cost of a decent pizza, what the hell are we even arguing about? If you cant afford the GSL, should you really be playing video games? Get a job. If you are a kid, cut some fucking grass. Shit, cut my grass, I'll buy you a season.
Buy it.
Bitches.
That is a good argument for buying GSL to improve skill, but 90% of gamers don't play SC2 and more than half don't care about improving their game to the point of studying GSL vods.
Personally, I think the GOM should try to become a youtube partner and get husky to get his subscribers to subscribe. Instantly they would have all of teamliquid AND all of Husky's viewer base (probably 300k viewers that don't visit TL or GOMTV). I am sure Husky or HD would have no problem praising GOM to further Esports. The reason they haven't already is mostly because most of their viewers are casual viewers and wouldn't pay. All the hardcore GSL fans are here on TL.
They could make the games 3 days delayed and their own paid service super good quality.
People don't like non youtube video sites and that is a fact. Esports will only explode through easily shared means, not through a log in, pay per view only website. If youtube stars like husky can make 100k a year, then surely GOM could make do with that. With youtube they have a chance of exploding in watchers, but without it they are not going to progress at all.
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It's cheap, it's worth it, and they have a right to monetise it. There's even a free option for those who feel typical nerd-entitlement. Unless they start charging too much, it's fine. Great, even.
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On January 31 2011 09:25 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2011 09:22 hmunkey wrote:
Charging a fee to watch GSL at a reasonable time (sorry, but live at 4 am doesn't count) is basically just stunting most potential growth GSL has in the West.
I've said it before and will say it again: media, with the advent of the internet, has to be free and ad-supported. This is absolutely essential for media specifically created FOR the web. However ad blockers mean that ad revenue isnt coming in especially from ppl who use ad blocking software (generally in my experience ad blockers are used by tech savvy people). Also in my experience SC players and interested people are tech savvy. On youtube HD/Husky/Day9 always have videos in the entertainment/gaming section trending on the browse page so I think SC2 is getting good enough representation on youtube imo and GSL isn't expensive and they can avoid ad blockers hurting their revenue and costs of streaming and hosting all this content.
And that still hasn't hurt the bottom line of any other internet-based company. Either Gom is not doing it right and doesn't deserve to stay in business, or they would be profitable without having to charge a subscription fee.
If they can't meet their bottom line, they need to reconsider how they work as a company because frankly, the point of a company is to be profitable while sustaining growth.
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You know ... technology is pretty advanced these days that I'm sure it is possible to have ads localized to your country. So yes, some Romanian company could advertise to Romanian GSL viewers and not to American viewers.
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On January 31 2011 10:23 SolidusR wrote:It's really kind of silly seeing as most of the people here have no clue how much money they make off of advertisements/sponsorships compared to how much they make just from the subscription. It's also an unbelievably wild assumption, especially given what we already know about the nature of most corporations, that the money is going to go back into e-sports and not just into the pockets of whoever is running the show. Unless you actually know what their expenses are, telling people that they need to subscribe to keep GOM alive is really stupid. Show nested quote +On January 31 2011 10:07 timbo wrote:On January 31 2011 09:47 dabom88 wrote:
Until GOM comes out with an acceptable free plan, as much as I want to support them with my views, I will watch the GSL via other means. So no, paying to watch GSL matches is not a good idea. You should not support a flawed business model. It is so laughable that you think you would be 'supporting them' just by watching a free stream / vods. You also fail to mention why paying for GSL is not a good idea and how its flawed business model. It seems you are one of the many naive posters in this thread with the arguement of - 'it should be free because i don't want to pay.' Yeah, maybe you failed to acknowledge the part where people mentioned advertisements. I know it's a wild and crazy system, but maybe you should turn on your cable TV and check out how it works sometime. They seem to have it figured out, and I don't have to pay monthly fees to watch basic tv. The flawed business model is trying to expand your viewership by charging them money to watch a full tournament. Try reading the thread? It's really hard to tell the difference between people who actually think GOM's payment model is a good idea, and those who have too large of an ego to admit that they may be paying money for no reason other than the fact that GOM is telling them it's good for e-sports. Some of us prefer to look a little deeper and ask WHY we need to provide the funding for the future of e-sports when there is already a working model for profitable, free media distribution.
So much fail in your post i don't know where to begin. Aside from it being pointless comparing cable tv to an international online stream as they are completely different systems i'll run along with it for you.
You are stupid enough to prove yourself wrong with your own analogy. Cable tv charges a MONTHLY FEE. As does GOM. Sure you can get the basic tv for free, i suppose the starcraft equivalent would he HD / Husky. But for a good show on HBO where a lot of money is invested in the production to bring you a quality you rarely get outside of cable tv you have to pay extra. HBO seems to make money without advertisments and still attract enough viewers to make a profit. Is it as many viewers compared to if they aired the shows on basic tv? Probably not but it earns them far bigger profits this way which in turn allows them to produce more high quality shows.
Now GOM obviously isn't trying to expand their viewership by charging money. They are charging money to cover expenses and to make a profit. They are trying to expand their viewership by offering a free stream and free games to watch with the hope that it will entice you to pay for the premium package.
If you don't think its worth it, fair enough. GOM isn't going to spend more of their resources offering restreams / free VODs to those who have no intention of paying. There is enough free content out there for people to make that decision. Giving more free content would just discourage those who are willing to pay from doing so because they may then find all the content they need can now be gained for free.
Maybe if you had read the thread you would also be aware that making money from advertising isn't as simple as you think either. Finding compaines wanting to advertise to an international audience of this relatively small scale isn't easy. Throwing videos on youtube would make an insignificant amount of income. While it would bring GSL to a wider audience you must remember that the more free content GOM provide the less people are going to feel it necessary to pay for more.
If you really think it is a more profitable business model for GOM to offer all of their content free of charge when they have to pay all bandwith fees and have so far been unsuccessful in finding international advertisers then you are even stupider than i originally thought. You don't have to look very hard to understand why it is necessary for companies such as GOM to charge a fee when they are offering more content of a higher quality than anyone else in the industry.
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EPT
