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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=247210Show nested quote +On July 24 2011 23:25 TotalBiscuit wrote:
This is what I know. Yes, you can go over $5k with special dispensation from Blizzard. However, it is policy for them to then require 50% of your ad revenue. I know of several large tournaments that have had to do this. If SHOUTcraft Invitational were to do this, it would mean less money getting into the hands of players, which is completely against what the tournament is all about. It makes no sense for SCI to do this, rather than just run more than one event.
Should include Kennigit's response as he closed the thread tbh:
On July 25 2011 05:26 Kennigit wrote:
This isn't entirely accurate, and as far as i'm aware most tournament organizers are under NDA once they go over 5K so you won't get a proper explanation....its not as money grubbing as the OP makes it out to be. Closing, unless TB actually isn't under NDA (you can PM me).
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Has been said already, but it's true:
If Blizzard doesn't get revenues from tournaments, they have no incentive to balance and support the game for the next 10-15 years.
And Blizzard has invested a LOT more into this game than some game like FIFA2011 that gets released every year and also costs like 50$+.
"Blizzard got billions of dollars..." Is that a reason for companies like BASF to give money away for free? Blizzard made a game that is influencing our lives immensely. Especially teamliquid members are a lot into SC2 and therefore should be happy that there is this one single company called Blizzard who makes great strategy games. You want to play Age of Empires instead? Sure, go for it!
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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
Ok, this is effectively a 'Blizzard killing e-sports' thread.
Blizz created SC2 in order to make money - they have two options: 1) make money from SC2 as an e-sport (by taking tourney ad revenue) or 2) make money by catering to a purely casual market and REALLy killing e-sports.*
Yes, people (myself included) generally have reservations about their passion being owned but a corporate entity, but I see no evidence that this is having a negative effect on SC2 as an e-sport or otherwise. Throwing terms like 'souless' around does nothing but undermine your argument.
Whether SC2 is owned by a corporate entity that behaves as such by turning profit from its venture or not is irrelevant. What the point remains is how that venture remains sustainable, whether it can continue to develop: Blizz making money from it is key to SC2.
Indeed, for SC2 to be a financially sustainable venture e-sports must continue. Therefore it is within the interests of Blizz to do all that is possible to ensure that SC2 e-sports continue to grow.
And anyway, the money that Blizz makes from SC2 is either pumped back into SC2 development, pumped into future ventures, or as a returns share holders investments. Two out of these I am fine with, the other I'm currently indifferent to.
And those serves cost a bundle too.
*And, yes Blizz will be catering to this market anyway with the forthcoming custom map market place thing, but the e-sports core on the game will be a separate entity.
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On October 12 2011 20:23 NunedQ wrote:
yeah, if the prize pool is over 5k, Blizzard gets half (i think) of the ad revenue.
This is precisely what I've heard on the subject, but I'd imagine there are and have been exceptions. And I really don't know what they do if there isn't any ad revenue, or if the ad revenue is non-profit. An example of non-profit ad revenue would be something like the Shoutcraft Invitational, where all of the ad revenue is simply channeled back into the prizepool for the next tournament.
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To everyone who promotes the point of view that it is fair for Blizzard to get revenue from tournaments played on their game, I would like to ask you to take a minute of your time and think about the follwoing analogy:
Would you consider it fair if car manufactureres got a part of the revenue from any racing event, because it is done using their products? I am quite confident that you wouldn't.
Seriously, this double measure has to stop. When something is electronic, it is suddenly never "yours". In order to play in the tournament, everyone had to buy the game. As much as every car racer had to buy a car to begin with. And that is the profit. That, and the sheer amount af advertisement that competition creates for the respective product. The fact that you buy sometihng and then you have to pay again in order to use it in a different way, is openly outrageous. If it was a physical product, everyone would think that it's absolutely crazy. But as long as it is something "virtual", suddenly everyone is so cool with that.... Why?
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Another perspective on this, Dota2 doesn't count because there's only been one event and it was purely for publicity, but if you look at the games with companies paying money for tournaments (S2 with HoN, Riot with LoL, etc), they're all games that they get a continuous return from through microtransactions. Everyone who watches SC2 either already owns the game or is just a casual viewer who doesn't want to buy an RTS game they don't have time to dedicate to getting decent at. You could make an argument for HotS, but then what about when LotV is out?
So I have no problem with Blizzard doing this, as long as they don't get greedy. All of their games have methods of sustained revenue: WoW's subscription, SC2's tournaments and D3's real money auction house. Provided they don't make it so it's not financially viable to run a tournament over $5k, or they don't start selling new Marauder skins for $10, I'm personally fine with it.
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On October 12 2011 20:48 ddrddrddrddr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 20:41 Broodwurst wrote:
These tournaments make money with Blizzards game, of course they want a piece of that in return.
If your whole business is based on someone elses work i don't really see how you can expect anything else. Big tournaments are not just your local event that tries to cut even, they (aim to) make a profit. They saw the return when we bought the bloody game.
You do realize there's a difference between personal or corporate usage?
Just because you bought 1000 mp3s doesn't mean you can charge people for listening to them.
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On October 12 2011 20:11 roymarthyup wrote:
what would be stopping a competitor from maybe making a better or equal game and then letting any tournament use that game free of charge
the fact that making said game would be near impossible?
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50% of ad revenue is insanely high. I believe that Blizzard deserves a cut, just like the licensing fee from Kespa/GomTV. However it should be a token amount, to ensure quality. Blizzard benefits from tournaments even if they don't receive any monetary revenue; every single tournament is free advertising for them. If it wasn't for the tournament scene, I would've never picked up SC2. I started as a spectator and eventually become a player.
The NFL doesn't pay 50% of its ad revenue to Wilson just because the NFL broadcasts games of people using their product. SC2 is a bit different because the entire game is produced by the manufacture, so they probably do deserve a cut, but certainly not that much. Something like 5% of ad revenue or 10% of the prize pool (whichever is larger) would be much more appropriate.
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On October 12 2011 21:39 opisska wrote:
To everyone who promotes the point of view that it is fair for Blizzard to get revenue from tournaments played on their game, I would like to ask you to take a minute of your time and think about the follwoing analogy:
Would you consider it fair if car manufactureres got a part of the revenue from any racing event, because it is done using their products? I am quite confident that you wouldn't.
Seriously, this double measure has to stop. When something is electronic, it is suddenly never "yours". In order to play in the tournament, everyone had to buy the game. As much as every car racer had to buy a car to begin with. And that is the profit. That, and the sheer amount af advertisement that competition creates for the respective product. The fact that you buy sometihng and then you have to pay again in order to use it in a different way, is openly outrageous. If it was a physical product, everyone would think that it's absolutely crazy. But as long as it is something "virtual", suddenly everyone is so cool with that.... Why?
That's not a real analogy. That's an analogy to computer manufacturers getting money from SC2 tournaments. A better anology would be the question if someone who invented the "game" of racing sports should get money for allowing people to "play" this racing sports game. Of course, the person who invented racing games probably lives some thousand years ago since it's such a basic idea.
EDIT: Broodwurst's analogy to music is very good. You buy the music but you're not allowed to make an event with it.
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On October 12 2011 21:45 RoboBob wrote:
50% of ad revenue is insanely high. I believe that Blizzard deserves a cut, just like the licensing fee from Kespa/GomTV. However it should be a token amount, to ensure quality. Blizzard benefits from tournaments even if they don't receive any monetary revenue; every single tournament is free advertising for them. If it wasn't for the tournament scene, I would've never picked up SC2. I started as a spectator and eventually become a player.
The NFL doesn't pay 50% of its ad revenue to Wilson just because the NFL broadcasts games of people using their product. SC2 is a bit different because the entire game is produced by the manufacture, so they probably do deserve a cut, but certainly not that much. Something like 5% of ad revenue or 10% of the prize pool (whichever is larger) would be much more appropriate.
I think a better analogy would be how much money it costs a football team team to use a stadium, not a football lol.
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Can we stop the 50% ad revenue statement? Its never been a fact, and the one source (TB-thread) has been closed by Kennigit with the following statement. (thanks xBillehx post)
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).
Stop with the 50%. Really, without a source everyone might as well shout its 10% or 95%. This changes the discussion entirely, i think most people could live with 5% ad revenue, and none with 95%. Apparently 50% doesn't sit right with most people either.. Besides that i don't think Blizzard has one straight policy for all tournaments. They probably would segment their revenue gain.
IE 20% for tournaments from 5k - 10
30 % for tournaments 10K - 25K etc..
This due to the fact that most bigger tournaments get alot of revenue simply due to sponsors and higher viewer counts. Tournament organisation happy, blizzard happy. And thats not even a detailed specific contract - which the GSL probably has...
Without a source, (and apparently we won't get one since its NDA) this discussion is mute. The best thing you can argue is wether or not blizz should gain Anything from a tournament - Supporting the developement of SC2 and the cost of server bandwith (even though bnet sucks, it still costs money maintaining it).
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nothing i think
not sure though
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" All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including without limitation any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions and recordings, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, and any related documentation) are owned or licensed by Blizzard. The Game is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international treaties and conventions, and other laws. The Game may contain materials licensed by third parties, and the licensors of those materials may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this License Agreement. You have no interest, monetary or otherwise, in any feature or content contained in the Game or associated with the Account."
Blizzard EULA. Anyone who can log on battle.net signed this.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/sc2eula.html
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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
I feel exactly the same, I wouldn't mind as much if they actually spent this money to improve their game and doing more promotion for example.
But currently, I feel this whole game is almost entirely community-driven only, except for the most crucial parts:
Money
Balancing
What to implement onto the game (as in what features are installed)
Things that would really help out the community like clan support are just not here for no reason at all.
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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.
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I think financially the entire esports scene is rather unimportant for Blizzard.
Probably all the copies sold in a rather small market like Spain or Italy makes up for every tournament fee from an entire year.
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On October 12 2011 21:45 RoboBob wrote:
50% of ad revenue is insanely high. I believe that Blizzard deserves a cut, just like the licensing fee from Kespa/GomTV. However it should be a token amount, to ensure quality. Blizzard benefits from tournaments even if they don't receive any monetary revenue; every single tournament is free advertising for them. If it wasn't for the tournament scene, I would've never picked up SC2. I started as a spectator and eventually become a player.
The NFL doesn't pay 50% of its ad revenue to Wilson just because the NFL broadcasts games of people using their product. SC2 is a bit different because the entire game is produced by the manufacture, so they probably do deserve a cut, but certainly not that much. Something like 5% of ad revenue or 10% of the prize pool (whichever is larger) would be much more appropriate.
Actually it's not that high, ad revenue is only a portion of total revenue. It doesn't comprise subscriptions, participant/spectator passes, sales (e.g. food, t-shirts)... maybe not even partnerships.
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Seriously, people are complaining?
Blizzard created the game, they have a right to license and use the game as it is their property. Whether it sucks that they're doing it is a different story. But Blizzard's main goal is to make money, why would they intentionally forgo profits that they could obtain? That's a disservice to the people who own shares in the company.
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EPT
