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On October 13 2011 09:04 qyk05328 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 08:47 familyguy123 wrote:
If I buy a ball and play football with it, do I have to pay monthly fee to Nike for using it? Would Nike require half my ad revenue on any games played with it?
+ Show Spoiler +.... the answer to that question is obviously no, but this is so incredibly off key i don't know where to start. first, you don't need to pay for the use of nike's football beyond the initial cost, and neither do you for sc2. there's no parallel, unless youre describing the use of nike footballs in NFL or other revenue-generating games, in which case i would assume the answer is yes. i know for a fact Spalding charges the NBA and if Nike were to have a monopoly (which I'm not sure it does...) it would charge them too.
but even if that weren't the case, it's not because nike is fulfilling some moral or legal obligation to football fans or players. it's just plain unenforceable. were it to be the case nike could ENFORCE this (like blizzard could enforce playing fees), then you can be sure as hell they would too, if it made business sense for them.
the only reason why blizzard doesn't for sc2 (even though it set a precedent with WoW) is that its a different business model. WoW is for the addicted and compulsive player, sc2 is going to be an eSport and needs a wide audience to gain traction in terms of tournament viewership, along with which comes more copies sold / ad revenues.
you can be sure as hell if sc2 were the same combination of addicting / unsuitable for mass viewership as WoW, theyd follow a subscriber model too.. but they don't. it's never about their moral obligation to you, and neither is it with Nike. in fact, if you want to talk moral obligation, hell LEGAL obligation, Blizzard is legally and morally obligated to maximize its shareholders' profits. + Show Spoiler +that obligation to those whose livelihoods depend on it (i.e. blizzard employees with stock options), or the equity owners who took risk in ownership of the business, ought to be compensated first and foremost. unless of course, pissing you off clashes with the customers' preferences in a way that threatens its own bottomline, but its never about you NOR SHOULD it be If you start liquidating all the company assets that too would increase the short term profits for the shareholders, but in the long term would be devastating for the company. In the same way, burning your clients goodwill by milking respected franchises dry would eventually ruin the company. However, by that time the higher management would have cached their options and left, only the shareholders would pay the bill. Would this be the responsible and moral way of conducting business or should we look beyond the next quarter profits? I think you can look all around you and see where this business model leads.
This is bs. Why?
Because you're crazy if you think that MLG or IEM or whatever isn't going to prominently display SC2, the biggest and most popular RTS game at the moment. Blizzard can do this and maximize shareholder value in the long run because people are willing to pay.
Why can't Riot do this? If Riot did this companies wouldn't bother with LoL (in fact, some of them have to get paid in order to display the game). So this is smart strategy from Blizzard, since they've built up the brand enough that they can charge others to use it.
So this doesn't hurt long-term profitability while benefiting short-term profits. Doesn't sound like it hurts.
You may not be happy with it but people (including new customers, once they're older) are still going to buy Warcraft IV and SC3. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't buy those games because Blizzard charges a fee to tournaments.
The only argument is if these tournaments then choose not to host SC2, then marketing suffers, and less people buy SC2. But I doubt that would happen because Blizzard knows that these tournaments do make a profit off of showing SC2. Obviously I haven't taken all the fixed costs into account, but MLG only gives out 14k in prize money... they make $70 or whatever from each player pass alone. Then take into account the real money makers (spectator passes and sponsorship) and they've probably pulled a profit, even after taking into account the fees they owe Blizzard.
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On October 13 2011 11:12 Ownos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 21:32 xBillehx wrote:On October 12 2011 20:52 Tonem wrote:This is the best source I could find.. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=247210On July 24 2011 23:25 TotalBiscuit wrote:
This is what I know. Yes, you can go over $5k with special dispensation from Blizzard. However, it is policy for them to then require 50% of your ad revenue. I know of several large tournaments that have had to do this. If SHOUTcraft Invitational were to do this, it would mean less money getting into the hands of players, which is completely against what the tournament is all about. It makes no sense for SCI to do this, rather than just run more than one event. Should include Kennigit's response as he closed the thread tbh: On July 25 2011 05:26 Kennigit wrote:
This isn't entirely accurate, and as far as i'm aware most tournament organizers are under NDA once they go over 5K so you won't get a proper explanation....its not as money grubbing as the OP makes it out to be. Closing, unless TB actually isn't under NDA (you can PM me).
Kennigits response would suggest that it's a case-by-case basis and they want to keep people hush on it. Guys like MLG/GSL and such probably get much more leeway.
Also Kennigit is saying that what TB is doing in disclosure is technically not allowed due to the NDA of the other party, essentially if subpoena'd (not that it would ever get to that place due to the low-risk nature) he would have to disclose his source or go to jail. (Most famous case of this is the two San Fran baseball reporters). So TL is right in ensuring that legal grounds are upheld on the forum.
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/14946011/
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On October 12 2011 20:41 roymarthyup wrote:
sigh thinking more and more about this makes me so sad at how blizzard is turning into this gigantic soulless corporation. i know not everything is soulless, but this one concept is just insane how they take the money that comes from other peoples hard work of creating and running a tournament
im high masters practicing alot cuz i wanna compete in tournamants for fun but i dunno how i feel about supporting such a concept... i just dont feel its fair for blizzard to take cuts from tournaments that they didnt create and build
i hope some company comes around and designs a super good esports game and doesnt charge money for tournaments to use it
or heck, blizzard with its billions of dollars should simply buy-out MLG and gomtv and every other tournament and simply run it themselves, and by that i mean blizzard would also be buying out all the employees of those other companies and having them run it for them.
I could actually support such a concept. If blizzard is running its own tournament, then sure, it gets all the money from it. I find that fair. And if blizzard buys out all the tournaments then it would make sense for them to get all the revenue from it. I see no problem with that.
But what blizzard is doing is taking cuts of tournament profits without buying out those tournaments... They are getting a cut of other peoples hard work... Sigh this concept i dont know if i can bring myself to support it
??? it makes perfect sense. blizzard created sc2, other people are using blizzard's creation to make profits for themselves. yeah there's work in organizing tournaments but none of this would be possible without sc2. no matter what you think, it isn't absurd for blizzard to demand other organizers to pay them a sum for using their intellectual property to make money.
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On October 12 2011 20:41 roymarthyup wrote:
sigh thinking more and more about this makes me so sad at how blizzard is turning into this gigantic soulless corporation. i know not everything is soulless, but this one concept is just insane how they take the money that comes from other peoples hard work of creating and running a tournament
im high masters practicing alot cuz i wanna compete in tournamants for fun but i dunno how i feel about supporting such a concept... i just dont feel its fair for blizzard to take cuts from tournaments that they didnt create and build
i hope some company comes around and designs a super good esports game and doesnt charge money for tournaments to use it
or heck, blizzard with its billions of dollars should simply buy-out MLG and gomtv and every other tournament and simply run it themselves, and by that i mean blizzard would also be buying out all the employees of those other companies and having them run it for them.
I could actually support such a concept. If blizzard is running its own tournament, then sure, it gets all the money from it. I find that fair. And if blizzard buys out all the tournaments then it would make sense for them to get all the revenue from it. I see no problem with that.
But what blizzard is doing is taking cuts of tournament profits without buying out those tournaments... They are getting a cut of other peoples hard work... Sigh this concept i dont know if i can bring myself to support it
So it's totally ok for someone to make money off of a product you made and continue to pay to support and balance without throwing you some of the revenue? They had no hand in making it, they don't pay teams of people to balance it, they don't pay for battle.net to keep running, they aren't funding Heart of the Swarm etc. Why should they make money off of YOUR product and then not give any of it to you?
Starcraft 2 belongs to Blizzard. It doesn't belong to the tournaments. Blizzard has every right to demand a cut of profits other people are making off their product.
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On October 13 2011 08:28 qyk05328 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 08:19 aksfjh wrote:On October 13 2011 07:53 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 07:45 Kipsate wrote:On October 13 2011 07:36 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 06:11 Plansix wrote:On October 13 2011 04:07 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 03:44 Plansix wrote:On October 13 2011 03:12 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 02:58 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
They will always be concerned with the bottom line. They are a business first and formost and that is was a responsable business does.
Well, you see, Blizzard employees people and provides a high quality product compaired to rest of the industry. It takes a lot of money and time to make the products they provide. If they arn't making money, they need to pull people off of supporting their game and work on cranking out a new product.
If you look at a lot(but not all) RTS games, you don't hear about balance patches nearly a full year after release. Blizzard is the exception to that rule and supports game years after release. They are still release patchs for Diablo 2, for god sakes. That game is over a decade old.
i'm sorry if i sounded like an ignorant douche to be lectured about the obvious. i'm glad blizzard keeps up with the old games, and frankly, its because people still play it and it doesn't exactly compare to say, games like age of empires 2 which no one plays anymore, there is no need for maintaining it. granted, blizzard dont need to but they do because, perhaps, they care - about their image or about their customers. i'm just sayin, with the release of sc2, my view towards them did change a bit for the worse but that doesn't mean i hate em by any means. it just feels unfortunate but in the end its just business so it is what is but can't help myself to say something when people are chanting for paid name change - and blizzard is more than happy to do so. its something like this that bothers me. The reason for the paid name change it to keep people from changing their name over and over. It makes it more difficult for other players to report people when they can't do so by simply saying "player X is an ass-hat". It has other benfits as well, but mostly it keeps people locked to one idenity and allows them to address cheating/harrassment. Xbox live does the same thing, for the sole reason that a pay-wall prevents people constently switching their names. And I don't feel you're are ignorant. I do think people hold Blizzard to an unreasonable standard. They have shown time and time again that they do care about the community, want SC2 to explode and are willing to support tournments all over the world. Esports is huge, people are making a living playing Starcraft and compeating in huge tournments. Everything is amazing and no one is happy. blizzard's claim (and advocates) regarding paid name change along with lack of LAN and no cross region play has been debunked by the community by providing better alternatives and more reasonable motive behind why blizzard did what they did with sc2. (id like to keep this short, explaining those will create a long post, pm if you'd like to hear those) Wait, I am confused. You stay that their claims have been debunked by the community providing alternatives. So the community has said "It would be better THIS way" and that makes Blizzards reasoning invalid. How the hell does that work exactly? I go into buy milk and they say it is $2 and I inform them "Look, Ive done the math and I know why our charging $2. Let me provide the reasonable alternative of $1, because what you are looking for isn't acceptable". That doesn't sound like something that would fly in the real world. I would never argue that they don't want money and I am sure there is a bit of "Yeah, well we know they want this to be free, but we are charging for it." But still, I want money, so do they. They arn't charging me monthly or expecting me to pay per game. as you've said, people will abuse the system if it were allowed, however there is absolutely no need to charge money for name change. allow one free name change per month or per season, a reasonable timeframe. people will BM, pretend to be other players, hack/cheat, whatever and all that will be done by the minority. why should everyone else pay for name change when it should be free (as it always has been pre-wow)? unlimited name change did no harm in the past, why all of a sudden does it cause harm now? blizzard will do what they want and no ordinary person have control over it. i'm just sayin, why try to have the cake and eat it too? thats how i see it in my eyes and i'm just stating my opinion(shared with others) that it shouldn't be that way. From a business point of view, if there is demand for a name change and people are willing to pay for it.. Then why should you have it be free? exactly. thats my point, i dislike the fact that people are willing to pay extra for things that i feel, should be included as it has in the past. and its a little glimpse of hope from me that blizzard will look past such thing and give something back to the community. Millions of people play SC2 literally dozens of hours a month. They paid a 1 time fee of $50-60 for that HUGE chunk of time, and for an experience that is always being worked on by a design team. To contrast, people spent $50-60 on Portal 2, a game that people likely never even played for more than 20 hours. You can argue that things like name changes should be free, but you're already getting a LOT out of a game that you paid very little for considering how much time is invested. Don't get mad when they try to capitalize on the great deal you're getting. If I buy a ball and play football with it, do I have to pay monthly fee to Nike for using it? Would Nike require half my ad revenue on any games played with it?
If Nike invented the game of football and you were broadcasting people playing football and making money from advertising, yes they would require ad revenue.
Broadcasting fees is standard procedure I don't get what people are getting uppity about. And I highly doubt it's half of ad revenue, TB is the only source from that and isn't very reliable, every reliable source is under NDA for a reason.
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They get like 60 dollars per participant.
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If you start liquidating all the company assets that too would increase the short term profits for the shareholders, but in the long term would be devastating for the company. In the same way, burning your clients goodwill by milking respected franchises dry would eventually ruin the company. However, by that time the higher management would have cached their options and left, only the shareholders would pay the bill. Would this be the responsible and moral way of conducting business or should we look beyond the next quarter profits?
I think you can look all around you and see where this business model leads.
this is quite silly. nevermind your butchering of financial terminology, this is a) completely irrelevant and b) theoretically incorrect.
a) i'm not arguing whether it's bad to ostensibly support shareholders, and then bone them later. i'm arguing as a starting point, blizzard's moral fiber ought to be measured by whether their behavior is responsible to shareholders, not consumers.
so long as they're being socially responsible (irrelevant here), they shouldn't care what consumers say as long as they're return maximizing.
b) i don't think the premise of my argument requires me to defend myself against the hypothetical divestment of the sc2 business and the conflict of interest. there is no agency problem here, in theory.
a sale of sc2 advertising revenue rights could hurt or help shareholders, it depends on wholly on the price blizzard gets. if for instance, what they get paid was very high, say higher than they could reasonably expect in discounted cash flows over the life of sc2, then shareholders WIN. the cash received should come out in the form of dividends, and in this scenario the managers with 'cached' options win too because they get paid dividends too. stock price would fall, as analysts price in the lowered future discounted cash flows, but the dividends would more than make up for it.
conversely, if the price they get is terrible, dividends get paid, but the price would fall to a point overcoming gains. in this shareholders lose, but managers lose too. no RATIONAL manager would do what you've laid out. in fact, what you say makes no sense at all, because in either case options would lose their value.
there are of course agency problems in practice, and the assumption of 'rational' is not realistic either, but as a theoretical argument what you say is nothing more than nonsense, and irrelevant too.
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On October 13 2011 12:15 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 20:41 roymarthyup wrote:
sigh thinking more and more about this makes me so sad at how blizzard is turning into this gigantic soulless corporation. i know not everything is soulless, but this one concept is just insane how they take the money that comes from other peoples hard work of creating and running a tournament
im high masters practicing alot cuz i wanna compete in tournamants for fun but i dunno how i feel about supporting such a concept... i just dont feel its fair for blizzard to take cuts from tournaments that they didnt create and build
i hope some company comes around and designs a super good esports game and doesnt charge money for tournaments to use it
or heck, blizzard with its billions of dollars should simply buy-out MLG and gomtv and every other tournament and simply run it themselves, and by that i mean blizzard would also be buying out all the employees of those other companies and having them run it for them.
I could actually support such a concept. If blizzard is running its own tournament, then sure, it gets all the money from it. I find that fair. And if blizzard buys out all the tournaments then it would make sense for them to get all the revenue from it. I see no problem with that.
But what blizzard is doing is taking cuts of tournament profits without buying out those tournaments... They are getting a cut of other peoples hard work... Sigh this concept i dont know if i can bring myself to support it So it's totally ok for someone to make money off of a product you made and continue to pay to support and balance without throwing you some of the revenue? They had no hand in making it, they don't pay teams of people to balance it, they don't pay for battle.net to keep running, they aren't funding Heart of the Swarm etc. Why should they make money off of YOUR product and then not give any of it to you? Starcraft 2 belongs to Blizzard. It doesn't belong to the tournaments. Blizzard has every right to demand a cut of profits other people are making off their product.
this guy is right. why is everyone here a hippie lol and they are they taking breaks from their occupy wall street protest
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If you want Starcraft 2, or any other game like it, this is what it takes, so I don't mind whatsoever. They could instead put their efforts into making a new World of Warcraft expansion or some other ridiculously overpriced repetitive game that will sell millions of copies. Starcraft 2 has only sold 4.5 million copies to this day, Call of Duty Black Ops sold more than that in their week of release. So this is their way of making their money worth it other than just fan service. Unfortunately that's the way business works.
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Some people really have a flawed logic.
If I buy a ball and play football with it, do I have to pay monthly fee to Nike for using it? Would Nike require half my ad revenue on any games played with it?
HAAHHAAAHAHAHAAAHAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAH!!!!
Wait for iiiit.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!
If it was designed for competitive play there'd be LAN and little to no patching. Patching undermines Blizzard's ability to balance the game. If they were wrong then why can't they be wrong now? And no, I don't care about piracy arguments regarding LAN since someone will probably mention it.
Now Blizzard HAS TO add LAN, because this user doesn't care for piracy. Your logic will make your babies explode.
I think this thread needs to be closed. We are arguing on the obvious (well, not so obvious for some) and there are no sources for claims.
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On October 13 2011 12:34 Arisen wrote:
They get like 60 dollars per participant.
Dude, do you have ANY fact/source to back that up? I hear all this random bullshit, but nothing concrete.. It ranges from 5% (lol) of prizepool, to fee per player, fee per viewer and god knows what
Do you realize, that all that Blizzard is stating on their tournament site, is that tournaments with a prizepool above 5000$, has to get a written permission from Blizzard - Nothing else.
If anyone has experience with this, has written proof from Blizzard, you know what to do;
www.wikileaks.com
Remember to erase your information in e-mails, date/time etc.
:-)
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On October 13 2011 16:19 ELA wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:34 Arisen wrote:
They get like 60 dollars per participant. Dude, do you have ANY fact/source to back that up? I hear all this random bullshit, but nothing concrete.. It ranges from 5% (lol) of prizepool, to fee per player, fee per viewer and god knows what Do you realize, that all that Blizzard is stating on their tournament site, is that tournaments with a prizepool above 5000$, has to get a written permission from Blizzard - Nothing else. If anyone has experience with this, has written proof from Blizzard, you know what to do; www.wikileaks.comRemember to erase your information in e-mails, date/time etc. :-)
I would take this off. Regardless of your moral belief, someone posting on wikileaks confidential information under a NDA he or she signed is legally wrong (and if he or she didn't sign the NDA, then he has illegally obtained the information anyway). I'm not sure TL would be okay with promoting illegal behaviour =/.
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On October 12 2011 22:10 MarKeD wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 21:33 FaKeSC2 wrote:
If Blizzard doesn't get revenues from tournaments, they have no incentive to balance and support the game for the next 10-15 years.
Shouldn't they owe it to consumers? What did I actually pay for with this game? I doubt many buy starcraft 2 for the single player (lol), if we're paying full price for pretty much what is 3 games, of which the multilayer is the main reason for purchasing the game should be balanced and supported. The fact is blizzard could afford to do this quite easily, valve updated tf2 for many years for free, and at no point was in anywhere near as expensive as Starcraft 2. The fact is Blizzard-Activision is a souless corporation, out to make as much money as they possibly can. It's just sad to me that there aren't really any games that can compete with starcraft 2, so they get away with it.
Here lies your problem what is stopping others from making a game that competes with starcraft2. How much profit is too much profit? Keep in mind that Corporations and businesses make money in the form of profit? Workers make money in the form of salaries. I sure as hell wouldn't want someone coming up to me saying that I'm soulless for making money from where I work and that I now earn too much money from working so I have to start getting less. So why should we treat corporations that way? What they do with their product is their right. If you don't like it you can boycott the game apparently if they are soulless and evil you will get plenty of people to rally alongside you.
Would you rather them take some profit from tournaments or give us a monthly fee like WOW does. You must of been one of those people who gets to the terms and conditions and just pushes accept. I mean who cares what it says I just wanna play. Well if you read and thought they were soulless and didn't want to take part with this evil capitalism. Then let me put here the first paragraph of the terms and conditions.
THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE GAME (DEFINED BELOW), YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE GAME. IF YOU REJECT THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER YOUR PURCHASE, YOU MAY CALL (800) 757-7707 TO REQUEST A FULL REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE.
They are even willing to give anti-capitalism guys a refund how nice.
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On October 13 2011 16:24 FairForever wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 16:19 ELA wrote:On October 13 2011 12:34 Arisen wrote:
They get like 60 dollars per participant. Dude, do you have ANY fact/source to back that up? I hear all this random bullshit, but nothing concrete.. It ranges from 5% (lol) of prizepool, to fee per player, fee per viewer and god knows what Do you realize, that all that Blizzard is stating on their tournament site, is that tournaments with a prizepool above 5000$, has to get a written permission from Blizzard - Nothing else. If anyone has experience with this, has written proof from Blizzard, you know what to do; www.wikileaks.comRemember to erase your information in e-mails, date/time etc. :-) I would take this off. Regardless of your moral belief, someone posting on wikileaks confidential information under a NDA he or she signed is legally wrong (and if he or she didn't sign the NDA, then he has illegally obtained the information anyway). I'm not sure TL would be okay with promoting illegal behaviour =/.
You know, I was actually editing my post after reading this - But I'll be damned if I do.
I honestly believe that we, as e-sports fans, has the right to know if there are being transfered money from tournament organizers to Blizzard.. I dont think we need to know how much, but I think we have the right to know if this is happening
Also:
The opinions expressed by our users do not reflect the official position of TeamLiquid.net or its staff.
Also, see my sig :-)
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People just want to have their cake and eat it too, the world doesn't work that way.
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On October 13 2011 16:28 terranghost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 22:10 MarKeD wrote:On October 12 2011 21:33 FaKeSC2 wrote:
If Blizzard doesn't get revenues from tournaments, they have no incentive to balance and support the game for the next 10-15 years.
Shouldn't they owe it to consumers? What did I actually pay for with this game? I doubt many buy starcraft 2 for the single player (lol), if we're paying full price for pretty much what is 3 games, of which the multilayer is the main reason for purchasing the game should be balanced and supported. The fact is blizzard could afford to do this quite easily, valve updated tf2 for many years for free, and at no point was in anywhere near as expensive as Starcraft 2. The fact is Blizzard-Activision is a souless corporation, out to make as much money as they possibly can. It's just sad to me that there aren't really any games that can compete with starcraft 2, so they get away with it. Here lies your problem what is stopping others from making a game that competes with starcraft2. How much profit is too much profit? Keep in mind that Corporations and businesses make money in the form of profit? Workers make money in the form of salaries. I sure as hell wouldn't want someone coming up to me saying that I'm soulless for making money from where I work and that I now earn too much money from working so I have to start getting less. So why should we treat corporations that way? What they do with their product is their right. If you don't like it you can boycott the game apparently if they are soulless and evil you will get plenty of people to rally alongside you. Would you rather them take some profit from tournaments or give us a monthly fee like WOW does. You must of been one of those people who gets to the terms and conditions and just pushes accept. I mean who cares what it says I just wanna play. Well if you read and thought they were soulless and didn't want to take part with this evil capitalism. Then let me put here the first paragraph of the terms and conditions. THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE GAME (DEFINED BELOW), YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE GAME. IF YOU REJECT THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER YOUR PURCHASE, YOU MAY CALL (800) 757-7707 TO REQUEST A FULL REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE.They are even willing to give anti-capitalism guys a refund how nice.
It might be a technicality but you can very well host a major tournament without ever buying SC2 / Accepting the EULA. It's not the EULA/TOS which is important here but general copyright laws (and in Germany the UWG might be also of interest)
It's definitely fair for Blizzard to get a share but is it really fair that the players (who produce the content in the end) don't get their share too? Blizzard might have created the game but it's the players and their intellectual work put in a match who are the reason why people watch it and by taking the alleged 50% Blizzard is as much exploiting the players as companies making money off Starcraft II would be if they didn't pay their share to Blizzard. if Blizzard get 25% and the participating Teams/Players the other 25% e-Sport could really enter a golden era - which in the long run would even profit Blizzard again.
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I just want to say a couple things about common arguments in this thread.
Why would Blizzard continually pay money into putting in a support staff (eg. Dustin Browder, now whether you think he's useful is a different story) if they're not getting any revenue outside of a one-time purchase fee?
is unreasonable to expect a modern company to support a game after launch without some way for them to continue to receive income. People who do are, frankly, insane.
For the same reason they supported broodwar, warcraft 3 and diablo 2 for years after release? Or that riot supports their rts games after release(DOW2 is a modern game and is still patched) Valve just released a free dlc co-op campaign with voice acting for portal 2 so I don't think it is fair to say we have to chose between tournament fees or no support companies seemed to have figured out a reason to support games without it.
People also keep saying stuff like this.
Because without Blizzard they wouldn't be hosting the event at all.
They did the work of creating the game that you are using to make money off of.
It is not just tournaments that are making money on starcraft though. Destiny, Husky and Day9 are all making enough to live without another job and they couldn't do that without blizzard so blizzard should demand some percent of ad revenue and if they don't they are being an irresponsible business that are not maximizing profit to their shareholders. Should blizzard start charging all the casters and players who make money off of streaming or youtube videos? And of course the streaming and video sites themselves also make a profit off of this content. Oh and the also pro teams and websites like team liquid don't forget about them.
Also Microsoft should start charging blizzard(plus every other business ever) a percent of revenue if they use or sell windows software to try and make a profit.
We don't even know if the tournaments are profitable the IGN guy said that MLG shouldn't brag about raising investment money because that means they are losing money. They might all just be hoping for future growth to make them profitable and that might not come.Would blizzard lower or eliminate fees for a tournament that loses money?
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On October 13 2011 16:28 terranghost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 22:10 MarKeD wrote:On October 12 2011 21:33 FaKeSC2 wrote:
If Blizzard doesn't get revenues from tournaments, they have no incentive to balance and support the game for the next 10-15 years.
Shouldn't they owe it to consumers? What did I actually pay for with this game? I doubt many buy starcraft 2 for the single player (lol), if we're paying full price for pretty much what is 3 games, of which the multilayer is the main reason for purchasing the game should be balanced and supported. The fact is blizzard could afford to do this quite easily, valve updated tf2 for many years for free, and at no point was in anywhere near as expensive as Starcraft 2. The fact is Blizzard-Activision is a souless corporation, out to make as much money as they possibly can. It's just sad to me that there aren't really any games that can compete with starcraft 2, so they get away with it. Here lies your problem what is stopping others from making a game that competes with starcraft2. How much profit is too much profit? Keep in mind that Corporations and businesses make money in the form of profit? Workers make money in the form of salaries. I sure as hell wouldn't want someone coming up to me saying that I'm soulless for making money from where I work and that I now earn too much money from working so I have to start getting less. So why should we treat corporations that way? What they do with their product is their right. If you don't like it you can boycott the game apparently if they are soulless and evil you will get plenty of people to rally alongside you. Would you rather them take some profit from tournaments or give us a monthly fee like WOW does. You must of been one of those people who gets to the terms and conditions and just pushes accept. I mean who cares what it says I just wanna play. Well if you read and thought they were soulless and didn't want to take part with this evil capitalism. Then let me put here the first paragraph of the terms and conditions. THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE GAME (DEFINED BELOW), YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE GAME. IF YOU REJECT THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER YOUR PURCHASE, YOU MAY CALL (800) 757-7707 TO REQUEST A FULL REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE.They are even willing to give anti-capitalism guys a refund how nice.
IMO most of the EULA, if not the whole thing, should be void. They took my money without any agreement, and obviously when you buy a product you are under the assumption that you are actually buying it, not licensing it. They certainly didn't even make me aware that a EULA existed when I paid for it. Don't know if that would fly in court or not, but selling someone something and then an hour later when they get home, forcing them to sign a lengthy contract to actually use what they just paid for, seems pretty shady. The whole "IF you do not agree to the terms of this agreement, you are not permitted to install copy or use the game" it really pisses me off, I just paid for it. They shouldn't be permitted to tell me what I can do with it as long as I'm not committing piracy. I'm no lawyer, just my opinion.
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On October 13 2011 14:00 familyguy123 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:15 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 12 2011 20:41 roymarthyup wrote:
sigh thinking more and more about this makes me so sad at how blizzard is turning into this gigantic soulless corporation. i know not everything is soulless, but this one concept is just insane how they take the money that comes from other peoples hard work of creating and running a tournament
im high masters practicing alot cuz i wanna compete in tournamants for fun but i dunno how i feel about supporting such a concept... i just dont feel its fair for blizzard to take cuts from tournaments that they didnt create and build
i hope some company comes around and designs a super good esports game and doesnt charge money for tournaments to use it
or heck, blizzard with its billions of dollars should simply buy-out MLG and gomtv and every other tournament and simply run it themselves, and by that i mean blizzard would also be buying out all the employees of those other companies and having them run it for them.
I could actually support such a concept. If blizzard is running its own tournament, then sure, it gets all the money from it. I find that fair. And if blizzard buys out all the tournaments then it would make sense for them to get all the revenue from it. I see no problem with that.
But what blizzard is doing is taking cuts of tournament profits without buying out those tournaments... They are getting a cut of other peoples hard work... Sigh this concept i dont know if i can bring myself to support it So it's totally ok for someone to make money off of a product you made and continue to pay to support and balance without throwing you some of the revenue? They had no hand in making it, they don't pay teams of people to balance it, they don't pay for battle.net to keep running, they aren't funding Heart of the Swarm etc. Why should they make money off of YOUR product and then not give any of it to you? Starcraft 2 belongs to Blizzard. It doesn't belong to the tournaments. Blizzard has every right to demand a cut of profits other people are making off their product. this guy is right. why is everyone here a hippie lol and they are they taking breaks from their occupy wall street protest
Actually. I'm a supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, because the people being protested DON'T actually contribute anything meaningful to society and yet demand money from the masses.
I'd appreciate it if you didn't quote my posts and then politicize them. Thank you.
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