EPTHere's an analogy: in competitive American team sports, the games are broadcast for free, and we watch ads to cover the cost. Any successful long term esports model will have to have a similar idea.
Monetizing Starcraft / LordJerith rant. Thoughts? - Page 2
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jsemmens
United States439 Posts
Here's an analogy: in competitive American team sports, the games are broadcast for free, and we watch ads to cover the cost. Any successful long term esports model will have to have a similar idea. | ||
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KingOfAmerica
United States246 Posts
The community absolutely needs to make at least a moderate cultural shift in their willingness to vote with their dollars. If you want high quality professional gaming organizations, they need income. Teams and leagues are not government subsidized, they are businesses. Ad revenue is doing great things for the community, and the advent and prevalence of streaming organizations is a great help, but it really isn't enough. Look back at the history of esports, there are a ton of failed enterprises. Running either a team, or a league, is an inherently expensive activity if you want to do it right. (please don't flame me for this, I am just trying to add context) I've got an MBA with a focus on entrepreneurial activity, and work in corporate finance... the problems of business capitalization and revenue generation are what I do for a living. Esports is really important to me. I have applied alot of the associated rigor and methodology to this problem in regards to the esports model, and I always arrive at the conclusion that as a community we will need to be able to accept paying a bit more then we do now if we want sustained, high quality content. And let's be real here. UFC charges $50 for a several hour PPV event. MLG or GSL provides WAY more content (and superior content IMO) for a fraction of that cost. TLDR: If a league is charging a certain amount for access to their stream or event, it is not because they don't appreciate you as a fan and aren't committed to giving you the best content at the lowest possible cost. It's just an economic reality, and we need to accept it if we want esports to maintain the status quo, much less grow in the way it deserves to. | ||
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Deleted User 61629
1664 Posts
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dAPhREAk
Nauru12397 Posts
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Blackfoger
81 Posts
As far as PPV can also take any other sports like football baseball basketball they do successful due to advertising. There are many other avenue's of monetization. SC2 community is small already don't need to alienate more people because the current market of viewers are mostly lower income college males. | ||
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Terranist
United States2496 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:34 Inori wrote: I've never seen UFC PPV but I'm 99% sure their production quality is miles ahead anything any esports organization is able to provide. So don't forget to up it up if you're going to compare to them. how do you define production quality? if you go back and look at early UFC, like when they wore robes in the octagon, it looked quite amateurish. esports is still in its infancy while UFC has hit full stride (with major help from spike TV of course). | ||
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m4inbrain
1505 Posts
Ah and ofcourse, i so wont pay for streams which have their price in $=€. If i want to be ripped off, ill go to a local car dealer. I dont think that would work. Stuff like TBs invitational etc, .. Nah. Too much good streams which are not GSL/MLG/IGN, to actually make that work. And if nothing else works, day9 daily will be free.  And yeah, it may sound cheap, but theres a relatively low limit for what i would pay for a stream, especially regarding the fact that there are always free streams to watch (even the playerstreams, which they cant stop because they would have to pay the players more salary) - sometimes even with casting (like TLO). Edit: and even if i sound like a dick now.. Apart from GSL, no production from any tournament actually is worth paying (much) for. Its all pretty much low amateur level, so if you want to charge prices like the big dudes, deliver the same quality. And by that i mean for example professional grade greenscreening, professional "cameramen" for interviews, crowdshots etc (not some shaky dude with wobblefingers), stuff like that. A really high quality/professional production, from a to b. With stuff to fill gaps between games (and i dont mean a picture that says "waiting for X"), etc. As soon as you charge, you are a service provider, so i actually can expect stuff made professional - in the end, thats the only part a organisator can do. The major part is done by the players, which actually dont see any of that money, so i dont pay for awesome games (because they come from the players) - but an awesome production. | ||
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blade55555
United States17423 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:36 Blackfoger wrote: Jerry honestly has no idea what it means to be a successful organization to start, yes I am going there.... His team vVv has not produced results nor are they salaried. When you have very successful business models such as EG that work hard to advertise. As far as PPV can also take any other sports like football baseball basketball they do successful due to advertising. There are many other avenue's of monetization. SC2 community is small already don't need to alienate more people because the current market of viewers are mostly lower income college males. Yeah unless he's changed he doesn't believe in salaries when I joined vVv as the original sc2 team before leaving really fast. Its possible he's changed that but I doubt it lol. so far reading the thread both arguments are actually pretty good in terms of for it and against it while I am fine with either but you do have to think that the normal audience is teenagers/college students I am pretty sure (may be wrong!). | ||
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NoobStyles
Australia257 Posts
The think the community (fans, not the people trying to extract money from them) needs to be very careful about what they ask for. Im not really sold on the idea of esports being "big" actually making it any better for me. | ||
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L3gendary
Canada1470 Posts
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Robinsa
Japan1333 Posts
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tdt
United States3179 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:30 KingOfAmerica wrote: This is a big soap box issue of mine. Everyone wants high quality content, but nobody wants to pay for it. The righteous nerd rage that erupts when people are asked to pay 9.99 for 40 hours of content is enough to black out the sun. The community absolutely needs to make at least a moderate cultural shift in their willingness to vote with their dollars. If you want high quality professional gaming organizations, they need income. Teams and leagues are not government subsidized, they are businesses. Ad revenue is doing great things for the community, and the advent and prevalence of streaming organizations is a great help, but it really isn't enough. Look back at the history of esports, there are a ton of failed enterprises. Running either a team, or a league, is an inherently expensive activity if you want to do it right. (please don't flame me for this, I am just trying to add context) I've got an MBA with a focus on entrepreneurial activity, and work in corporate finance... the problems of business capitalization and revenue generation are what I do for a living. Esports is really important to me. I have applied alot of the associated rigor and methodology to this problem in regards to the esports model, and I always arrive at the conclusion that as a community we will need to be able to accept paying a bit more then we do now if we want sustained, high quality content. And let's be real here. UFC charges $50 for a several hour PPV event. MLG or GSL provides WAY more content (and superior content IMO) for a fraction of that cost. TLDR: If a league is charging a certain amount for access to their stream or event, it is not because they don't appreciate you as a fan and aren't committed to giving you the best content at the lowest possible cost. It's just an economic reality, and we need to accept it if we want esports to maintain the status quo, much less grow in the way it deserves to. Deserves what it can command in economic rents. esport has several issues in extracting large rents. First of all its traget audiance is very young men with little money. Second it's not mainstream whatsoever. basically you're paid what you're worth. Accounting major but I've taken finance classes and there's a reason Eli manning makes more than a teacher. 30 vs 30 million from whom they can collect economic rents from. | ||
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1sz2sz3sz
Andorra173 Posts
I dont pay for any tournaments because I dont care THAT much about a game to spend money to watch people play it. I also run adblocker. Ill stick with my LQ streams and HQ restreams when available. I also find it ridiculous GOM already charges out the ass for their subscription (20$ a month if you want to watch the dual stream when it used to be free for all LOL) while Koreans get to watch it for free (just adverts) | ||
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m4inbrain
1505 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:30 KingOfAmerica wrote: And let's be real here. UFC charges $50 for a several hour PPV event. MLG or GSL provides WAY more content (and superior content IMO) for a fraction of that cost. Well, no. Actually, MLG does not. The whole system is different. If i pay for a stream from MLG, the players (which generate the awesome content) dont see much/any of that money. I pay strictly for the production/marketing of the awesome content, which again, is NOT generated by MLG, but just broadcasted. Edit: btw, in eSport, its actually not necessary to charge that much, because you dont have the "side-dish" like in UFC (i guess thats wrestling, which i watched 20 years ago, was called WWF? back then). Someone who wants to watch a big tournament, wants to watch exactly that. No music-gigs etc needed - just high quality and stable stream, + good casters. Thats all. If you add any more stuff like music etc to the tournament, charge the live audience for that. Because paying for music-acts which i already have on my HDD, well.. no. If you dont have live audience, but more like an online tournament, well, theres no reason to charge a lot, because production costs are low. You can twist and turn it as long as you want, you cant charge that much for starcraft 2. Too much alternatives, too little content (and a lack of interest in that as well, like music and stuff). edit2: @ below me, i would never EVER pay 20$ for a showmatch. Except maybe they would play it on naked babes, with naked babes dancing around. And boobs. Never. | ||
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canikizu
4860 Posts
- A lot of viewers are kids, students who don't have that much money to ppv. - A lot of viewers are from the countries that don't have the way to purchase the contents/goods on the internet. - A lot of viewers don't have good internet connection to enjoy HD. - A lot of viewers don't handle certain languages well. I know a lot of people who watch games for the sake of watching, not listening to the commentators because they don't understand English very well. - A lot of viewers can't catch the events because they live in the other side of the world. So yeah, PPV is a very niche market, and I doubt it would be successful, at least right now. Sure if you do showmatches such as Flash vs mvp, there will be a nice number of viewers, but I really doubt it's gonna reach 10k with the price tag of, say, $20. | ||
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nakedsurfer
Canada500 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:40 m4inbrain wrote: Actually, i would not mind to pay for good quality, but then again, you wouldnt have any excuse for broken streams anymore. If i pay for a stable HQ stream, i want that stable HQ stream, i give a shit about any problems you may encounter - make it work. If you cant, well, dont charge for the stream. Oh, and no ads, of course. Not even the "sneaky ones" with like Dr. Pepper Bottles all over the table (which is an ad as well). Ah and ofcourse, i so wont pay for streams which have their price in $=€. If i want to be ripped off, ill go to a local car dealer. I dont think that would work. Stuff like TBs invitational etc, .. Nah. Too much good streams which are not GSL/MLG/IGN, to actually make that work. And if nothing else works, day9 daily will be free. And yeah, it may sound cheap, but theres a relatively low limit for what i would pay for a stream, especially regarding the fact that there are always free streams to watch (even the playerstreams, which they cant stop because they would have to pay the players more salary) - sometimes even with casting (like TLO). Edit: and even if i sound like a dick now.. Apart from GSL, no production from any tournament actually is worth paying (much) for. Its all pretty much low amateur level, so if you want to charge prices like the big dudes, deliver the same quality. And by that i mean for example professional grade greenscreening, professional "cameramen" for interviews, crowdshots etc (not some shaky dude with wobblefingers), stuff like that. A really high quality/professional production, from a to b. With stuff to fill gaps between games (and i dont mean a picture that says "waiting for X"), etc. As soon as you charge, you are a service provider, so i actually can expect stuff made professional - in the end, thats the only part a organisator can do. The major part is done by the players, which actually dont see any of that money, so i dont pay for awesome games (because they come from the players) - but an awesome production. I tototally agree with this. Plus in GSL, the players aren't flown in 3 days beforehand so there is no "im jet-lagged" or any other bull shit excuses players/spectators can make so we can have the best performance by the players. Theres no schedualing problems and theres no real downtime. They have a few commercials in-between so players can set up or the casters can have a small break but theres no 1-2 hour period of jacking off. If i'm going to pay 25$ for a 3 day event then it better damn well be an amazing 3day event where I can watch it continuously instead of watch it for like 2 hours and forget about it since there was this retard pause inbetween. | ||
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Lavit2099
United States390 Posts
If Blizzard taught us anything: cater to the casual fans and watch your numbers and monies grow. Btw, this was tried with PPSL and it failed so terribly that 8.95 become a meme overnight. EDIT: $25 for a three day event better come with a happy ending. | ||
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Logros
Netherlands9913 Posts
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tdt
United States3179 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:54 1sz2sz3sz wrote: I dont like how people think we`ll pay for everything I dont pay for any tournaments because I dont care THAT much about a game to spend money to watch people play it. I also run adblocker. Ill stick with my LQ streams and HQ restreams when available. I also find it ridiculous GOM already charges out the ass for their subscription (20$ a month if you want to watch the dual stream when it used to be free for all LOL) while Koreans get to watch it for free (just adverts) I don't mind running ads to help out. I just dual streams mute IE and actually watch the games on FF wth adblocker. Win Win I get ad free viewing Tounaments/players still get paid. | ||
Adebisi
Canada1637 Posts
On February 09 2012 15:36 Blackfoger wrote: As far as PPV can also take any other sports like football baseball basketball they do successful due to advertising. There are many other avenue's of monetization. SC2 community is small already don't need to alienate more people because the current market of viewers are mostly lower income college males. Please, these "lower income college males" have a fucking ridiculous disposable income in the vast majority of cases. However much an SC2 tournament stream costs will not break their bank. | ||
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