GOMtv actively blocking alternative clients?

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:34 Chaosvuistje wrote:


If 1/10 mac users pays you 10 dollars for the HQ stream, and you suddenly cut off their ways of getting the service, you effectively get 100 dollars less for something that can easily be prevented by allowing mac another client.

Its a stupid thing for a software designer to leave out potential customers especially if your target area is as niche as E-sports.

I think its largely due to koreans only owning PC's and having Internet explorer. I don't think GOM optimalizes for foreigners but rather for their market. Which is silly considering that we pay the most for watching streams compared to korea.

On March 14 2011 22:35 Martijn wrote:
sigh

I can understand your frustration, but just to play devils advocate. Of course they want people to use the GOM Media Player for the GOMtv Star League. Promoting their client is part of their core business. Saying that they're going out of their way just to ban mac/linux users isn't fair, it's an unfortunate side-effect. The missed revenue from mac/linux users isn't going to make up for the "missed revenue" (lets just call it that for simplicity) from all the windows users refusing to use the gom client. Point out they could be earning both if they had more support.

It might be more constructive to demand that the gom player for mac can actually watch these broadcasts and that a linux version is released.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:35 Martijn wrote:
sigh

I can understand your frustration, but just to play devils advocate. Of course they want people to use the GOM Media Player for the GOMtv Star League. Promoting their client is part of their core business. Saying that they're going out of their way just to ban mac/linux users isn't fair, it's an unfortunate side-effect. The missed revenue from mac/linux users isn't going to make up for the "missed revenue" (lets just call it that for simplicity) from all the windows users refusing to use the gom client.

Point out they could be earning both if they had more support. It might be more constructive to demand that the gom player for mac can actually watch these broadcasts and that a linux version is released.

On March 14 2011 22:40 Bumblebees wrote:
The GOM player for mac WAS able to watch broadcasts, and then it was disabled (or unintentionally broken?) for some reason.

On March 14 2011 22:41 hmunkey wrote:
I don't understand why GOM doesn't just make a deal with Ustream or Justin.tv to be a streaming partner. I'm sure both would jump at the chance, it would make the stream far more accessible to viewers, and they could run local targeted ads. On top of that, GOM would still have reliable viewer numbers for their sponsors if they have an official restream.

The only reason I can think of for them not doing so is to force people to use their proprietary software, which is horribly outdated and less efficient than many modern alternatives, namely VLC.

On March 14 2011 22:43 Martijn wrote:


Quite, I realized as much. Don't you think that's the issue you should be pushing here then?

On March 14 2011 22:42 CTStalker wrote:

Don't post ignorant bullshit like this.

Really disappointed in gom. Not supporting mac/linux for live viewing is one thing, but actively blocking user work-arounds? ridiculous

On March 14 2011 22:21 Bumblebees wrote:
As you can see here: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/g3lyp/fixing_vlc_issues_with_live_gomtv_streams/ among other places, it appears that GOM has been actively blocking and stopping non-windows users from accessing their streams. Every time a new method is found to view the stream, it is disabled quite quickly. (there have been discussions on IRC about a few other methods, which were all disabled within ~15 minutes of being figured out)

I'm very confused by this. The GOM player for mac will not play the GSL stream, and there is no GOM player for linux. Are we relegated to simply paying for VODs and not even being able to enjoy a feature of the GSL that users of a specific platform get for free!?

I can't imagine this sort of thing being good for their business or e-sports in general. Disallowing paying customers from using your service post-purchase is quite outrageous.

On March 14 2011 22:50 zeru wrote:

I'm curious what those reasons would be.

On March 14 2011 22:42 Rannasha wrote:
edit: I just read that apparently the GOM player does display ads, shows how long it's been since I've used it. Regardless, they can easily embed the ads into the free stream rather than relying on an external program to display them. It's what pretty much every other broadcaster does as well, with good success.

On March 14 2011 22:49 Bumblebees wrote:
I don't.

I think the issues is that they took money from a lot of people, then without warning or explanation have disallowed those people from using a product that GOM gives away for FREE to other people if you're using the right platform and capable of using their player.

Keep in mind that this isn't a mac/linux thing either. There are a lot of windows users who can not use GOM player for a variety of reasons.

I am not a fan of hyperbole, but it surely seems like this is a very clear instance of illegitimate business practices.

On March 14 2011 22:53 Tufas wrote:

EDIT : Oh I forgot something that might actually negate everything I just wrote. Does "http://mystarcraft2clan.com/gsl/" with username and password still work ? I guess not but that was my option C I didnt try today.
Please do tell if it works or not.

On March 14 2011 22:51 NoobSkills wrote:


I don't think this is necessarily them stopping other clients. I don't see the benefit of doing that. I think they just keep updating their software for the masses (pc users) which is what it should be, I'm sorry, but the place where there should be a monopoly is on the computer OS front. It is unfortunate, but just get a VMware client.

On March 14 2011 22:35 Martijn wrote:
sigh

I can understand your frustration, but just to play devils advocate. Of course they want people to use the GOM Media Player for the GOMtv Star League. Promoting their client is part of their core business. Saying that they're going out of their way just to ban mac/linux users isn't fair, it's an unfortunate side-effect. The missed revenue from mac/linux users isn't going to make up for the "missed revenue" (lets just call it that for simplicity) from all the windows users refusing to use the gom client.

Point out they could be earning both if they had more support. It might be more constructive to demand that the gom player for mac can actually watch these broadcasts and that a linux version is released.

On March 14 2011 22:56 Martijn wrote:


Not because we want to, but because we don't have the means to do it otherwise. We can't make a streaming service cost-efficient with only our own broadcasts. Individual broadcasters would be much better off controlling our own ads, but these streaming platforms are cost effective because of the large amount of content from different sources.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but GOM produces a lot of different content aimed at their online channels/gom-player and tv?

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:58 MasterReY wrote:
erm....you should realize its not called GOMtv Star League......
Its Global StarCraft II League.

However othewise i agree that they want to promote their client obviously.

On March 14 2011 23:00 Rannasha wrote:
You would prefer releasing your own standalone program to viewers rather than having them use their own mediaplayer or providing in-browser streaming? Because that's what GOM is pushing for at the moment. And I simply can't see the benefits, since the GOMPlayer is in no way competitive with other media players, so I don't see anyone using it for things other than GSL broadcasts. And if it's about the adds, then I'm sure they can mix them directly into the stream as overlay or in the breaks between the games. With a production at their level, they should have the tech to do that server-side.

On March 14 2011 23:00 Rannasha wrote:
Judging by GomTV.net it's just the GSL and related SC2 leagues. They did other Blizzard games before, but now it's only SC2. Perhaps that they offer more content for Korean viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 22:23 -Archangel- wrote:
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but MAC users are even more rare then Windows Vista users.

I really see no reason for them to really support Mac to gain 100 viewers.

On March 14 2011 23:23 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
what about just running windows on a virtual machine? should work or am i wrong here?

On March 14 2011 23:23 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
what about just running windows on a virtual machine? should work or am i wrong here?

On March 14 2011 23:25 Rannasha wrote:


Yes, that works. But you need to buy a Windows license for that and a VM is not a very efficient way of watching a stream.

On March 14 2011 22:42 Rannasha wrote:


What's the point of pushing their own media player? It's available for free, there are no advertisements in it, what do they gain if more people use it? Also, I've never heard anyone swapping to the GOM Player as their main media player. It's an okay piece of software and it plays the GSL matches just fine, but it is outclassed by all the mainstream media players out there.

So again: Why would GOM want to push their own player rather than focus on their core business: producing and broadcasting awesome games.

edit: I just read that apparently the GOM player does display ads, shows how long it's been since I've used it. Regardless, they can easily embed the ads into the free stream rather than relying on an external program to display them. It's what pretty much every other broadcaster does as well, with good success.

On March 14 2011 23:29 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:


well it shouldnt be hard to get windows nowadays and esp XP evryone still has around unused.

and unless you have a oooooooold macbook it should run absolutely fine.




yeah its not the most elegant way and ofc gomsupport would be nicer but giving up some gb to never have problems with the player again sounds like quite the easy solution.

On March 14 2011 23:33 entocheets wrote:


The thing is, people shouldn't have to go about installing Windows on their Mac OS systems just to watch GSL when just days before they could watch fine via VLC.

I don't understand why we can't watch GSL using the Mac GOM Player. Probably some little bug that has been neglected to be fixed (or at least I hope that's the case) - I'd gladly use it instead if we could.

On March 14 2011 23:24 drsnuggles wrote:
You might as well post this on the official GOM TV homepage, chances are higher that you're getting a response over there. Don't know why you wouldn't use the GOM player when you're a Windows user, its so much better than VLC. Too bad for the MAC & Linux users.

On March 14 2011 23:36 lowercase wrote:
I can understand their concern that people are using VLC player to aid in re-streaming GSL events, but by doing so they are preventing me, a paying subscriber, from watching the series I paid for. Shocking policy decision, and I won't be getting another subscription because of this.

On March 14 2011 23:36 Markus138 wrote:
why would you pick gom player over VLC? I never had ANY video file VLC could not play. It doesn't matter if it's an original dvd, a normal .avi, a defect video file etc etc. VLC plays everything on many operating systems including the most common Linux, Mac and even Windows and it is most important: open source - which unfortunately the gom player is not

On March 14 2011 23:41 Martijn wrote:


Valid points to pick VLC, however, does VLC let you watch awesome tournaments like GSL?

On March 14 2011 23:41 Martijn wrote:


Valid points to pick VLC, however, does VLC let you watch awesome tournaments like GSL?

On March 14 2011 23:43 Markus138 wrote:
that's the topic of this thread apparently not any more

On March 14 2011 23:35 syllogism wrote:
e: I'm not good at reading. Regardless, I imagine most VLC link users do not extract their own link so nothing was "debunked"

On March 14 2011 23:47 Martijn wrote:


Just trying to point out your argument is rather irrelevant to the thread. There can be a bazillion and one reasons for you to prefer VLC, but that's only more reason for them to encourage people to install the gomplayer.

On March 15 2011 00:00 CursedFeanor wrote:
I agree this is pretty retarded from GOM, but to solve the problem, why not simply use a virtual machine with windows installed to check the streams?

On March 14 2011 23:47 baoluvboa wrote:
Heard someone said that it was because using Vlc causes the servers to over load. If you use gom stream it spreads the viewers on each servers evenly but VLC link will just pick a random one and may cause that one to overload and shut down the stream.

On March 14 2011 23:02 xLethargicax wrote:


I know someone called you out on this on the first page but seriously... What are you talking about? Mac sales are growing over PC sales daily. You might want to do some research because your comment on this is one of the least educated comments I've seen as of late on teamliquid.

In 2008 apple had 14% unit share of all the computers in the US. That was in 2008. Apple has had incredible growth since then. As of May 30, 2009, the US Population was estimated at 304,059,724 persons. With those old numbers that's a staggering 42,568,000 mac users in the U.S.

and to the topic, I don't even use mac/linux, but this is ridiculous. I always use the VLC player because I can't stand the GOMPlayer. Sigh.

On March 14 2011 22:42 CTStalker wrote:

Don't post ignorant bullshit like this.

Really disappointed in gom. Not supporting mac/linux for live viewing is one thing, but actively blocking user work-arounds? ridiculous

On March 15 2011 00:39 insta wrote:


gosh stop hypin so much and get an ordinary comp !

On March 15 2011 00:37 -Archangel- wrote:

Yes, of course I am the ignorant one. Maybe you should read a bit about this. Start with this one: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp - this link says my statement is true including vista users having more users.

When we then add that Macs are mostly used by professionals and not kids that play games we really get the reason why GOMTV should not care about Mac.
I forgot about Linux but their numbers are also not big enough for GOM to care that much, although their users might be more willing to watch GOM.

On March 15 2011 00:49 how2TL wrote:


I'm sure he meant your second statement in your first post.

On March 14 2011 22:31 Matkap wrote:


That is just so ignorant I have to lol. I am tempted just to start a poll to see how many mac users there are on teamliquid and how many have to go through strange methods to watch some games, which some of us have even payed for. ( I have pc at home so I can watch Hd vods fine, but at work I do have Mac and sometimes I have time to watch some games Live ).

On March 15 2011 00:37 -Archangel- wrote:

Yes, of course I am the ignorant one. Maybe you should read a bit about this. Start with this one: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp - this link says my statement is true including vista users having more users.

When we then add that Macs are mostly used by professionals and not kids that play games we really get the reason why GOMTV should not care about Mac.
I forgot about Linux but their numbers are also not big enough for GOM to care that much, although their users might be more willing to watch GOM.

On March 15 2011 00:53 Arkless wrote:


Maybe you guys are getting mad at the wrong thing. Instead of getting mad at a company protecting it's interest. Maybe you should be getting mad at apple and linux for making terrible os's and computers that are saudered together.

On March 15 2011 00:39 insta wrote:
a mac is the most useless thing ive ever seen...

gosh stop hypin so much and get an ordinary comp !

On March 15 2011 01:02 kedinik wrote:
Cracking down like this just kind of pushes the non windows sub-community towards VOD piracy.

Absolutely not endorsing any kind of piracy, but I don't think GOM's doing themselves any favors with how they're handling the situation.

* Live Streams are only available through GOM Player, which is only supported by Windows.

On March 15 2011 01:10 TopTimmy wrote:
ITT: Mac users don't want to pay $10 for VoD service yet will pay $1000 for a computer I can make for half that price, resulting in two computers.

I agree with Gom's decision to block VLC/plugins from accessing their broadcasting, with korea being as big of a gaming culture as they are do you really think they wanna play on macs? They need to keep their primary fan base happy. Also, keeping complete attention on GomPlayer since it is GomTV

Another reason to buy a PC.

On March 15 2011 01:07 RHMVNovus wrote:


To clarify, do the VoDs themselves not work on the Macintosh operating systems or is it just the stream? I couldn't find any clear answer.

On March 15 2011 01:13 majestouch wrote:
or you could torrent the games? known torrent sites like demonoid and piratebay have "season packs" about 2days after a season finishes and games are uploaded daily.

but anyways, the root of the problem is having a mac in the first place and i agree with what the 2nd user posted lol.

On March 15 2011 01:15 partisan wrote:



I actually did pay the $10 to watch VOD's, but since they've blocked my ability to watch the game live, I'm stuck watching restreams to see anything happen in real time. I have yet to see anyone come up with one rational reason for them blocking vlc access.

On March 15 2011 01:15 partisan wrote:



I actually did pay the $10 to watch VOD's, but since they've blocked my ability to watch the game live, I'm stuck watching restreams to see anything happen in real time. I have yet to see anyone come up with one rational reason for them blocking vlc access.

On March 15 2011 00:02 Markus138 wrote:


a) maybe hardware issues (some bad laptop graphic cards/cpus have problem with it)
b) you need a windows licencse which means 1) it costs money 2) means supporting windows/microsoft what many people maybe don't like
c) a little overkill instead clicking the simple "play" button

On March 15 2011 01:21 TopTimmy wrote:


Okay there are a few things wrong with this post.

1. A restream implies that it is a recording, thus not real time.

2. Many reasons have been stated to why they are blocking VLC accesss, read the thead. It was causing lag, it causes a loss of potential profit.

3. You can watch the VoDs. As to paraphrase iNcontrol, are you really upset that you cant look up at the stars at 1-4am in the morning and know that somewhere in an asian country people are playing a video game?

On March 15 2011 01:30 Zealotdriver wrote:
Viewing the stream with VLC stops working, so you assume GOM is intentionally blocking VLC. What evidence does anyone actually have that it is GOM's intention to block other players?

On March 15 2011 01:33 savagebeavers wrote:
I have a mac and watch the gsl live, I have been using the vlc method or a while now and it works great http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181714 if you download this addon it makes life 1000x easier to because it gets the script or code or something, I have no idea how it works haha but i love it

On March 15 2011 01:31 Bumblebees wrote:


The very first line in the very first post in this thread.

On March 15 2011 01:33 savagebeavers wrote:
I have a mac and watch the gsl live, I have been using the vlc method or a while now and it works great http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181714 if you download this addon it makes life 1000x easier to because it gets the script or code or something, I have no idea how it works haha but i love it

On March 15 2011 01:36 Zealotdriver wrote:

No, it is just an unsupported claim and link to a reddit site with more unsupported claims.

On March 15 2011 01:33 TheButtonmen wrote:


It doesn't work anymore.

All I can say about this is I'm not going to be purchasing any more season passes until I have a way to watch the stream. GOM if your reading this I know I'm just one customer but the money I was spending on the GSL is now going to be going to the NSAL.

On March 15 2011 01:36 Zealotdriver wrote:

No, it is just an unsupported claim and link to a reddit site with more unsupported claims.

On March 14 2011 22:21 Bumblebees wrote:
As you can see here: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/g3lyp/fixing_vlc_issues_with_live_gomtv_streams/ among other places, it appears that GOM has been actively blocking and stopping non-windows users from accessing their streams. Every time a new method is found to view the stream, it is disabled quite quickly. (there have been discussions on IRC about a few other methods, which were all disabled within ~15 minutes of being figured out)

I'm very confused by this. The GOM player for mac will not play the GSL stream, and there is no GOM player for linux. Are we relegated to simply paying for VODs and not even being able to enjoy a feature of the GSL that users of a specific platform get for free!?

I can't imagine this sort of thing being good for their business or e-sports in general. Disallowing paying customers from using your service post-purchase is quite outrageous.

On March 15 2011 01:44 shwick wrote:
It seems like GOM could be doing a few things better here.

Requiring an inhouse player to view your stream? What is this 1995? That brings so many problems into play that wouldn't exist if they just supported streaming through browsers.

On March 15 2011 01:50 SichuanPanda wrote:


Its to make sure paying customers don't get bogged down by people trying to piggy-back the stream, very standard practice for a streamer really.

User was warned for this post

On March 15 2011 02:02 Panzamelano wrote:
I think that before making all of this asumptions... we should find someone who speaks Korean to do us a favor and go to the official gom tv forums and ask about this... who knows maybe they didnt notice or something like that.

On March 15 2011 02:39 MuTT wrote:
Cmon guys, it's obvious that they exist for esports. If not, then why do they say it every show 20 times. Also all the money they get goes to improve the stream. I don't see anything sketchy about a company trying so hard to convince you of something without any results.

But seriously, that shit crashes all the time and looks worse than 240p. They screw everyone over who wants to watch but can't stay up past midnight. If they truly wanted to support eSports then why don't they like use justin.tv or something and stream in 720p with vods for everybody for free?

On March 15 2011 02:35 darmousseh wrote:
They are blocking it not because it's a way to view the gom stream on a mac, but because it is a way of viewing it on a windows machine. Remember GomTV is a korean country and mac barely exists there at all, thus the cost/benefit of including support for a mac is none. I would guess right now that at least 99% of their users use a windows machine (obviously I don't know exactly but 95% of the internet users use windows, and almost 100% of korea uses windows). Making a player to support 1% of their users is not worth it at all. When someone posts a VLC link and uses a player, most of the people using it will also be windows users and since GOM's business is a vlc player, it is in their interest to block windows users (and consequently mac users) from using alternate players.

No mac hate here, i used one in college, but i will never use one again (mostly because i hate apples software policies since i'm a software developer, annoying interface, and cost double of what a windows would cost without any real benefit).

GOM will probably never support mac, this is just reality, so it is probably in your best interest to find an alternative such as installing windows on your mac.

On March 15 2011 02:43 darmousseh wrote:



Their entire business revolves around a vlc player. That would be like abc using fox to broadcast their stuff.

On March 15 2011 02:35 darmousseh wrote:
They are blocking it not because it's a way to view the gom stream on a mac, but because it is a way of viewing it on a windows machine. Remember GomTV is a korean country and mac barely exists there at all, thus the cost/benefit of including support for a mac is none. I would guess right now that at least 99% of their users use a windows machine (obviously I don't know exactly but 95% of the internet users use windows, and almost 100% of korea uses windows). Making a player to support 1% of their users is not worth it at all. When someone posts a VLC link and uses a player, most of the people using it will also be windows users and since GOM's business is a vlc player, it is in their interest to block windows users (and consequently mac users) from using alternate players.

No mac hate here, i used one in college, but i will never use one again (mostly because i hate apples software policies since i'm a software developer, annoying interface, and cost double of what a windows would cost without any real benefit).

GOM will probably never support mac, this is just reality, so it is probably in your best interest to find an alternative such as installing windows on your mac.

On March 15 2011 02:39 MuTT wrote:
Cmon guys, it's obvious that they exist for esports. If not, then why do they say it every show 20 times. Also all the money they get goes to improve the stream. I don't see anything sketchy about a company trying so hard to convince you of something without any results.

But seriously, that shit crashes all the time and looks worse than 240p. They screw everyone over who wants to watch but can't stay up past midnight. If they truly wanted to support eSports then why don't they like use justin.tv or something and stream in 720p with vods for everybody for free?

On March 15 2011 02:44 Cerotix wrote:

Do you really think that that is the most appropriate business response for GOM to make? Esports is a growing community, but it is still relatively niche as far as viewership outside of Korea is concerned. IMO it would be in their best interests to return the streaming functionality to macs. If you are trying to raise awareness of esports, specifically Korean esports, on an international scene, it behooves them to alienate anybody willing to pay for their service for any reason. I agree with the fact that Korea is a windows dominated country, but if they are only planning on giving support to windows viewers, why make it availible to international viewers at all?
Now, with all the upcoming tournaments that are in the works (NASL, IEM, MLG etc etc.) that are going to be having free live streams (The NASL free stream is reported to be at a higher bitrate than the paid GSL HQ stream), I will be very reluctant to purchase another seasons pass, the incentive for me to not go looking for the free vods has left.
TL;DR - esports is a niche market in terms of international viewers who are willing to pay money for the live stream and the vods, why alienate anybody if you are trying to increase awareness about sc2 and esports in general?

On March 15 2011 03:00 dogmeatstew wrote:
Firstly, I'm not sure why there's so much uproar about incompatibility between a given companies software and unix based operating systems... this isn't exactly something new. With the exception of Blizzard (and very recently select Valve games) the gaming community is generally subject to "have a Microsoft developed operating system of you're out of luck".

As such, it shocks me a little that on a site dedicated to gaming we're having a discussion about how terrible it is that GOM doesn't have mac or linux support for their product. Honestly, in the software world this is pretty common, its a lot of extra coding to make your product cross compatible for what continues to be a very small audience (especially in the gaming community...).


On the other hand, there are some pretty easy workarounds that haven't been mentioned, for Linux users, try using Wine, with a fairly basic understanding of the linux architecture you can get the GOM player running through this no issue on *almost* every major linux distro (for some reason I feel like Wine doesn't work on Suse but I could be crazy...). Otherwise, VM's are always an option...

As for Mac users, if you're not willing to use a windows VM or have an alternate OS installed for the purposes of running incompatible software then realistically you can't be that dedicated to running a large percentage of existing software. If you play any other games chances are you're going to need a Windows OS so again, this issue is hardly GOM specific and I don't really see how we can blame them for it.

Plus I'm sure eventually they'll come out with a working Mac version, but seriously, coding mac applications is hard .

On March 15 2011 03:17 darmousseh wrote:


Yes, this is the best business decision because the cost of developing and maintaining a mac player will not be equal to the amount of extra revenue from users who only use mac (or linux or some other random os), however, they do support the iphone. I have an android phone and am hoping they will come out with a player for it, but as of right now, iphones are what gom has developed for. I have posted requesting on the gomtv site that they make an android app, but I don't go talking about it on the forums mostly because android again is a niche market and gomtv will gain almost 0 benefit from me being able to view the stream on an android.

The problem in development is cost/benefit. As a software developer I have to pick and choose which platforms I will support. The websites I develop all work on google chrome, opera, safari, firefox, and ie8. I do not support ie6 or ie7. I had to make this decision because the development time in order to support those browsers is not worth the cost.

This is also a problem with esports. Esports must invest in the platforms which provide the most benefit to their target audience. In korea, this is windows users using ie8. gomtv constantly has problems with their javascript in firefox and chrome and being a developer I knew how to go around it, but if i didn't, I would just use ie8 when viewing gomtv.

If gomtv were an american company, i'm sure they would support mac since a lot of laptop users use mac, however, gomtv mostly supports korea.

The OP is seeing a symptom of a much larger problem.

On March 15 2011 02:35 darmousseh wrote:
The OP is seeing a symptom of a much larger problem.

On March 15 2011 02:35 darmousseh wrote:
They are blocking it not because it's a way to view the gom stream on a mac, but because it is a way of viewing it on a windows machine. Remember GomTV is a korean country and mac barely exists there at all, thus the cost/benefit of including support for a mac is none. I would guess right now that at least 99% of their users use a windows machine (obviously I don't know exactly but 95% of the internet users use windows, and almost 100% of korea uses windows). Making a player to support 1% of their users is not worth it at all. When someone posts a VLC link and uses a player, most of the people using it will also be windows users and since GOM's business is a vlc player, it is in their interest to block windows users (and consequently mac users) from using alternate players.

No mac hate here, i used one in college, but i will never use one again (mostly because i hate apples software policies since i'm a software developer, annoying interface, and cost double of what a windows would cost without any real benefit).

GOM will probably never support mac, this is just reality, so it is probably in your best interest to find an alternative such as installing windows on your mac.

On March 15 2011 03:16 Cynoks wrote:

Right because Justin.tv gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars every month while paying for a very high quality studio and an large venue during finals. OH wait. Justin.tv offers a free service and GomTV is running a business get over it.

$10 for a whole season is dirt cheap, if the quality and time zones bother you that much then the option to buy it is always there.

I complain when restaurants give away free food too, they never give you enough or exactly what you want!

Anyways I'm sure GomTV is working on making their media player available to Mac users as fast as they can. It would be less business for them if they didn't. If you really want a solution contacting GomTV would probably be a better idea than complaining here.

On March 15 2011 03:29 PraetorianX wrote:
I don't really see the problem here.

GOM Player is the best media player in the world. Why would you want anything else?

On March 15 2011 03:28 Bumblebees wrote:


I can understand what they're doing. The problem is that they already accepted payment for this service that people have come to expect. There has been no communication that I'm aware of to indicate that it was problematic or prohibited, and there has been no communication as to it's cutoff.

On March 15 2011 03:48 Zman wrote:
Maybe, they wanted to prevent people from downloading(read: saving) the stream, and decided to only allow the GOM Player UserAgent. Disabling VLC could have been collateral damage.

On March 15 2011 03:47 kamikami wrote:


When you bought the stream didn't they state/write that you must use GOM player to view it ? If so it's absolutely legal to block all other methodes that don't use GOM player. In the other hand, if they didn't say/write anything about it, it's their fault.

To watch the live stream, you must first install the latest version of GOM Player.

Currently, GOM Player is for Windows only.
Mac users can still watch the VODs but are unable to watch the live stream.

GOM Player for Mac will be released in the near future.

As of July 2007, it had 8.4 million users, compared to 5.4 million users of Microsoft's Windows Media Player.

On March 15 2011 03:00 dogmeatstew wrote:
Firstly, I'm not sure why there's so much uproar about incompatibility between a given companies software and unix based operating systems... this isn't exactly something new. With the exception of Blizzard (and very recently select Valve games) the gaming community is generally subject to "have a Microsoft developed operating system of you're out of luck".

As such, it shocks me a little that on a site dedicated to gaming we're having a discussion about how terrible it is that GOM doesn't have mac or linux support for their product. Honestly, in the software world this is pretty common, its a lot of extra coding to make your product cross compatible for what continues to be a very small audience (especially in the gaming community...).


On the other hand, there are some pretty easy workarounds that haven't been mentioned, for Linux users, try using Wine, with a fairly basic understanding of the linux architecture you can get the GOM player running through this no issue on *almost* every major linux distro (for some reason I feel like Wine doesn't work on Suse but I could be crazy...). Otherwise, VM's are always an option...

As for Mac users, if you're not willing to use a windows VM or have an alternate OS installed for the purposes of running incompatible software then realistically you can't be that dedicated to running a large percentage of existing software. If you play any other games chances are you're going to need a Windows OS so again, this issue is hardly GOM specific and I don't really see how we can blame them for it.

Plus I'm sure eventually they'll come out with a working Mac version, but seriously, coding mac applications is hard .

On March 14 2011 23:51 Rannasha wrote: This goes back to the emergence of Firefox in the browser-world where there were various websites that simply displayed a "you must use IE 6 or better" (spot the irony)

On March 15 2011 04:06 how2TL wrote:


This is a site dedicated to Starcraft, not general gaming. All versions of Starcraft have been OSX compatible.

So I don't think it's a big surprise that people on TL with Macs that can play SC2 aren't happy that not only can the OSX version of GomPlayer not stream GSL, but every work-around is being denied.

At least this is feedback for GOM so they might recognize a demand for OSX/Linux streaming.

Do you think that telling people that they shouldn't provide feedback is useful/productive to anyone?

If this issue doesn't matter to you, go to another thread. Don't crap on people's desires to watch GSL stream.

On March 15 2011 04:13 stalefish wrote:
Its not that people are complaining about there not being a stream for mac, It's that gom is taking down something that is already free for windows users, so its not like mac viewers watching their stream is hurting anyone.

On March 15 2011 04:14 dogmeatstew wrote:


Starcraft, Genral gaming, whatever its the general mindset of a culture which likes to play games, I'm sure that the majority of this site plays games that are not starcraft (evidence of this could be found in the crazy number of random streams that were shown when the beta was down...) so while this site is starcraft central its a little ignorant to state that gamers pick one game and never so much as peek at anything else. My point remains valid.

As for feedback, its great and I'm sure they'd love to hear it but as has also been mentioned, this isn't their site and the fact that they do read this forum is very convenient for us however complaints here are likely not the most productive method available.

My post is hardly about whether or not feedback to developers is helpful, I'm stating that you made a choice when you purchased a machine which runs OSX and now you're feeling the consequences of that decision. I have both windows and Linux machines in my possession and I've gotten the GOM stream running on all of them without issue.

Furthermore their site clearly states that the stream is only windows compatible so the general air of "omg I'm so offended that GOM won't stream for me on my macbook" is completely undeserved, they're giving what they explicitly said they would provide.

There's some thinking that originally, GOM didn't want everyone using the same VLC link because they couldn't load balance correctly.
If you look at the addresses generated when you go to the live pages yourself, each logged in user gets sent to a different server. If someone posts the SQ link, it basically means that all traffic is going to that one server.
Why is why I've always told people to generate their own links with their own account. It respects any load balancing that GOM is doing.

On March 15 2011 04:14 dogmeatstew wrote:


Starcraft, Genral gaming, whatever its the general mindset of a culture which likes to play games, I'm sure that the majority of this site plays games that are not starcraft (evidence of this could be found in the crazy number of random streams that were shown when the beta was down...) so while this site is starcraft central its a little ignorant to state that gamers pick one game and never so much as peek at anything else. My point remains valid.

On March 15 2011 04:34 karpo wrote:
The reason why they blocked VLC has been explained here:



Load balancing using several servers doesn't work when people ask for VLC links and up to several hundreds or thousands of people join a single server. Better to ask for a speedy Mac/Linux port of the GOM Player than whining over them shutting 3rd party software down.

Load balancing is highly important for UDP data such as voice over IP/video streaming and as a network technician you can't accurately measure the effective bandwidth requirement or optimal balance if people skew the statistics by connect directly to a single server due to VLC links.

Example:

1. Everyone uses GOM Player and GOMtv official links. Load on two servers could be 60/60 %.
2. Some use the GOM Player and some connecting directly to a server using VLC. Might be looking at 100/20 %, which leads to lag/disconnects on one server and huge unused resources on the other.


That's why they shut it down.

On March 15 2011 00:55 McKTenor13 wrote:


Im going to very very much disagree with you. Ill give you that the majority of people watching are not on macs, but that doesn't mean there's only 100. The younger the kids get, the more macs we are seeing in America. Probably half the people I know use macs. They just appeal to the masses.

A good friend of mine owns a mac and has this same problem. He loves starcraft just as much as anyone here, but he cant watch a lot because GOM doesn't allow it and neither does justin.tv a lot of the time. Just because it's not the majority doesn't mean they shouldn't have access to it.

Don't hate minorities buddy, people dont look kindly on that anymore =P

On March 15 2011 04:13 stalefish wrote:


Its not that people are complaining about there not being a stream for mac, It's that gom is taking down something that is already free for windows users, so its not like mac viewers watching their stream is hurting anyone.

On March 15 2011 04:53 eviltomahawk wrote:

Well, I think many people can't or won't choose to use the GOM player either by choice or by the fact they have an incompatible OS, so they try to find an alternative VLC link to compensate. Until recently, it took a bit of work to generate a unique VLC link, and it was much more convenient to go around on the IRC or look up the consistently made Reddit LR threads for the VLC links that other people had generated.

edits: I'm really tired from pulling an all-nighter to study for a final, so I may have tons of grammatical errors in my posts.

On March 15 2011 05:04 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:
I don't get why people hate the GOM player. I just downloaded it to watch the GSL from time to time. Its pretty harmless otherwise.

On March 15 2011 05:04 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:
I don't get why people hate the GOM player. I just downloaded it to watch the GSL from time to time. Its pretty harmless otherwise.

On March 15 2011 05:05 yamato77 wrote:

I got this from Reddit, which generates a link for only your account. I think this would bypass the problem GOM is having with load balance and allow Mac/Linux users to watch until a Mac GOM Player is created. They shut any VLC link usage down, however, which is massively disappointing, considering that I was connecting legitimately through my own account.

On March 15 2011 04:37 Centorian wrote:



Bad logic is bad.

Guaranteed this site has more Mac users than other gaming populations. Blizzard games support Mac and always have. On a Mac you are basically stuck playing Blizzard games, or Escape Velocity (old mac game).Therefore Blizzard games have a higher percentage of players who are Mac users. Just because there are players on this forum who are not running on Mac does not remove the fact that Blizzard games have a large Mac audience.

That said, I do own a PC... but its a desktop and is a pain in the ass to hook up to my TV. My macbook pro is nice and portable and easy to plug into my big tv. I don't want to watch GSL on my desktop at 3:00 AM. I'd rather be chilling in a recliner at that hour.

-Cent

* Live Streams are only available through GOM Player, which is only supported by Windows.

On March 14 2011 23:47 baoluvboa wrote:
Heard someone said that it was because using Vlc causes the servers to over load. If you use gom stream it spreads the viewers on each servers evenly but VLC link will just pick a random one and may cause that one to overload and shut down the stream.

On March 15 2011 05:29 dogmeatstew wrote:


Bad response logic is bad.

While this site has the potential to have a higher mac user population than other gaming forums (which seems reasonable as its basically the only game they can be into...) neither is this site the population of people who play blizzard games and/or the population of people who watch GSL. Just because there are players on this forum who do run MacOS does not imply that they are a significant percentage of the GSL viewers, we simply don't have data to support that and from my understand South Korea is very PC heavy and as the only significant difference between the korean and english clients is the language NA Mac users become an even smaller majority.

I'm not saying there are no mac users, I'm just saying that they're a minority and GOM is a bluishness with its own priorities. As some of my past posts have indicated, MacOS development from an existing windows client is a pain in the ass and frequently not financially worth the dev costs.

Also, dual boot your macbook with windows... easy solution.

On March 15 2011 05:45 Ben... wrote:
Why should Mac users have to buy a copy of Windows to dual boot to watch something they already paid for and up until now, could watch using a different player. I have both a Windows desktop and a MacBook Pro. I would way rather settle in to a recliner and watch GSL on my laptop than watch it on my desktop. Up until now I could but now I can't because of GOM blocking the ability to. If they took the resources they use to block other players and put that towards making a Mac version then we wouldn't have this issue in the first place.

On March 15 2011 05:45 Ben... wrote:
Why should Mac users have to buy a copy of Windows to dual boot to watch something they already paid for and up until now, could watch using a different player. I have both a Windows desktop and a MacBook Pro. I would way rather settle in to a recliner and watch GSL on my laptop than watch it on my desktop. Up until now I could but now I can't because of GOM blocking the ability to. If they took the resources they use to block other players and put that towards making a Mac version then we wouldn't have this issue in the first place.

On March 15 2011 05:29 dogmeatstew wrote:


Bad response logic is bad.

While this site has the potential to have a higher mac user population than other gaming forums (which seems reasonable as its basically the only game they can be into...) neither is this site the population of people who play blizzard games and/or the population of people who watch GSL. Just because there are players on this forum who do run MacOS does not imply that they are a significant percentage of the GSL viewers, we simply don't have data to support that and from my understand South Korea is very PC heavy and as the only significant difference between the korean and english clients is the language NA Mac users become an even smaller majority.

I'm not saying there are no mac users, I'm just saying that they're a minority and GOM is a bluishness with its own priorities. As some of my past posts have indicated, MacOS development from an existing windows client is a pain in the ass and frequently not financially worth the dev costs.

Also, dual boot your macbook with windows... easy solution.

On March 15 2011 06:12 how2TL wrote:


If "we simply don't have data", then maybe you reconsider your stance that the lack of OSX/Linux users should make them irrelevant.

Clearly there are enough people using Linux/OSX running workarounds for it to be a problem, in any case.

This thread isn't about GOMTV not providing a streaming solution for other platforms, it's that they're taking the ones that have been found away.

I'm not sure what you're bringing to this thread besides an attitude.

On March 15 2011 06:12 how2TL wrote:
This thread isn't about GOMTV not providing a streaming solution for other platforms, it's that they're taking the ones that have been found away.

On March 15 2011 05:43 AlBundy wrote:
There's nothing confusing about this issue. In the Premium Zone section of gom tv 's website, it clearly states

source: http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors2/premiumzone/

So I don't know what to say... They warned you. If you're not a windows user, the only reason why you should buy the premium service is the access to the VODs. Complaining about not being able to do something that is not intended is not the right way to get things changed.
Now I agree, we can definitely complain about the lack of a premium service including live streaming for MAC users. This is 100% valid.

Also I'm going to quote this (page 4):

I don't know if this issue is confirmed but it might be a good reason why gomtv actively blocks alternative ways of streaming.

But eventually the bigger issue lies within the Apple computers. I've been using computers for a long time now, and for as long as I remember, apple computers have always had serious compatibility issues...

edit: typos

On March 15 2011 06:22 LegendaryZ wrote:


Why is it GomTV's responsibility to allow alternative viewing options that circumvent their intended viewing experience, particularly if there is the potential for those alternative options to affect their ability to deliver the product in the way that they promised? I really don't understand why anyone would fault GomTV for essentially preserving the integrity of their product by keeping the medium for its distribution under their control, particularly coming from people who support Apple of all companies.

On March 15 2011 06:27 Sabu113 wrote:


Don't turn this into a retarded Apple MS fanboy epeen fight.

Viewers are attempting to find legitimate ways to watch their programming. If they'll actively deny it then, 1) I if not other mac users will not buy the premium service (live viewing is part of the charm) 2) look for restreams 3)substitute away from Gom permanently.

This would be different if they had a mac client, but they don't.

On March 15 2011 06:44 Sabu113 wrote:
You assumed in your opening paragraph that for some reason that because I own a mac I am an apple fanatic. You assumed that I would be a privy to all of Apple's past business decisions and a tacit supporter of its nice monopoly through the app store. Choosing that language makes it seem like the standard forum warrior Mac vs apple fight.

The goal of the thread is to create enough of ruckus that GOM realizes the urgency of the problem and provides a solution sooner rather than later. A big thread will raise eyebrows and add more credence to any case to offer a Mac Gom client now. Alternatively, hopefully the thread will generate solutions to the problem of viewing the lives stream on a mac. "Get windows" is not a real solution nor a practical one for many people. Being satisfied with what they have now is an empty statement as they have disabled alternative viewing options and as such made this thread necessary.

To be perfectly honest, I am not sure what you are adding to the discussion.

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