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Monetizing Starcraft / LordJerith rant. Thoughts? - Page 37

Forum Index > SC2 General
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turdburgler
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
England6749 Posts
February 12 2012 15:32 GMT
#721
On February 13 2012 00:13 FXOBoSs wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:10 Talin wrote:
What makes you believe GSL is enough of a high quality product to attract enough customers to survive if they adopted a subscription model (and for the number of customers not to slowly drop off over time)?

It all comes down to whether GOM believes they can sell what they're currently offering for free or not and whether they will take a risk to find out. IMO they can't sell it, not with the abundance of completely free content available at all times.



They already survive on subscriptions only. Do you get ads on your stream? No? Then they don't make money from you.


not entirely true, their sponsorship money is based on viwership, so although a free viewer doesnt make them 'much' money, if they are just watching through jtv they arent costing them anything either.
leecH
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany385 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-12 15:36:06
February 12 2012 15:33 GMT
#722
On February 13 2012 00:13 FXOBoSs wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:10 Talin wrote:
What makes you believe GSL is enough of a high quality product to attract enough customers to survive if they adopted a subscription model (and for the number of customers not to slowly drop off over time)?

It all comes down to whether GOM believes they can sell what they're currently offering for free or not and whether they will take a risk to find out. IMO they can't sell it, not with the abundance of completely free content available at all times.



They already survive on subscriptions only. Do you get ads on your stream? No? Then they don't make money from you.


LG, Coca Cola, hot6, gaterade, razer headsets and so on..

so product placements are no ads?

also gom tv cant make money with their free stream on me, personally, because i cant watch it because guess what i have to go to work to get the money im supposed to throw at random bussiness people, accoring to some people.
Timerly
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany511 Posts
February 12 2012 15:33 GMT
#723
Dodged like 70% of my post but ok I guess? Wasn't even talking about FXO events (heck if I care how you run your own business).

there is no merchandise thats worth buying


Mainly because there's NO merchandies available. If I could buy a jacket of every team I'd gladly pay a hefty sum for it. Strike a deal with the teams, open a central webshop where you can buy merchandise from all the teams. I can make custom jackets with decent quality for about 50 Euros. Can't imagine them being more expensive when you order a couple dozen. So many overlooked opportunities, it's not even funny.

Also, don't you think if people were prepared to pay (more) for the then exclusive stream they'd already charge for it? That'd be money on the table. There's a pretty good chance you'd lose a whole lot more people who watch for free than you'd gain for your subscription services. At some point this stuff breaks even and I honestly don't think the number of people who would pay if it wasn't available free but don't already do it is very high. Enter restreams btw.
Proflo
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States148 Posts
February 12 2012 15:38 GMT
#724
On February 13 2012 00:20 bouhko wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:02 FXOBoSs wrote:
On February 12 2012 23:21 bouhko wrote:
On February 12 2012 18:27 FXOpen wrote:

Subscriptions are the ONLY way to make quick revenue from e-sports and forcing them is going to eventually be the norm. It will come to the point where GSL will not let people watch if they haven't subscribed. And rightly so. Why the hell should someone who spends a solid 500k on equipment, let you watch for free? This doesn't apply to small start ups such as my own events. But something like GSL which is BETTER quality than TV (if you have HQ) does not belong on free to air. And you do not DESERVE to watch it for free. Alot of time, effort money and skill has gone into their production. That being said, most people do subscribe to their content.. Rightly so.

First, you don't have ANYTHING to tell about where GSL belongs to. It's up to gom if they want to charge 100k$ for it or let it be free. You do not DESERVE to make me pay for your product either. I'll buy them if I find them interesting.

Now, if subscription becomes the norm for ALL stream, people will just stop watching. I mean, I started watching some random games on youtube, then moved on to watch tournament streams and then I subscribed to the GSL. If you remove all the free content, you won't get anybody new interested into paying for SC2 content.

Now the other problem is one of demand. The GSL is already running somehow year-long (Code A, Code S, GSTL). So I can watch 1h of high-quality SC2 per day. I don't really want/have the time to watch more. It's not I don't want to pay more, it's just I have no use for it. But I sometime watch some foreign tournament streams. If they stop being free, I'll just stop watching them
and you'll loose advertisement money.

Also, you are completely wrong on the business side of things. A LOT of tech start-ups company started up with free products : Google, Facebook, Linkedin, ... I could go on and listen hundred of succesful companies that make money out of ad-sponsored products. And I can guarantee you that running Google or Facebook cost more than the 500k$ needed to setup a studio :-)

I mean, by reading this thread, you can clearly see that there are some people that are willing to pay for some SC2 shows, but that they don't want to pay for everything. Now, these people are your consumers and if you want to run a SC2-related business, it's up to you to find a business model that allow you to make a living and satisfy your consumer. Telling your consumer what they should do is a really, really bad idea imho.


As stated before, if e-sports has 300million views per minute, I will happily bow down to comparing them to facebook google and youtube. That makes ad revenue easily viable for successful business.

Do the math on supporting a business with 3.50-4.50 CPM on only major countries. Then tell me that e-sports and facebook are one in the same.

As I stated earlier, for e-sports business to be successful on ad revenue alone (Free media) you need 50k viewers at once to make it worth while. Which very very few are doing. Exposure is valuable if you use it properly, which its not being done. And a sponsorship model only works if you have other forms of revenue.

Its entirely possible to get sponsorship + fee + ad based model to work and be lucrative.

Products should be very much worth while to purchase before you purcahse them. For instance FXOpen's events ARE NOT ready to be purchase only.. And it will be a year or two until they are at that level. We have equipment to buy staff to hire etc etc etc.. GSL however, has quality better than television. IF you dont want to pay for it, I suggest you dont watch it, because eventually you most probably will have to pay for it. The quality is too good to be free.

The holier than now mentality of "supporting e-sports" is only a phrase used. There are plenty of people who actively support e-sports, but the majority do not. They use adblocker, they tune out when there is a 2 minute delay or break on a live stream, they bitch they moan they groan. You only have to search through countless reddit and TL threads to know this.

The community itself drops the average CPM rate by doing what they do best, complain about something they dont like. It might even be the loud minority, but still the noise makes a financial effect on the industry.

For someone to say "hey, i deserve this for free, and I should be allowed to use adblock" is totally stupid and essentially I would push for such person to be banned from every stream on the planet (although thats never going to happen).

I stick to my guns in saying that if you aren't prepared to pay for HIGH QUALITY content, such as the current GSL (not season 1 2 or 3) then you should probably stop viewing the GSL all together because fro them to keep a free stream in the 2nd half of this year would be financially stupid for them. The quality of games and production is too high to give for free...

Again, this would all change if you could provide 300 million viewers per minute to their stream. Then they can be happy to provide 0.20 cpm ads to all its viewers and make good money.

Well, Facebook and Google started pretty small. I mean there are a lot of small startups (just go to techcrunch) that also manage to have free products. My point was that paid-only product is not the only way to go.

I agree that people claiming to support e-sport and using Adblock are being hypocrite. Now, as I said, I'm paying for GSL and many people are.

I think the most important thing is that I think it's normal to start small. As I said before, I think there also is a demand problem. Most of the people who are ready to pay for SC2 content are probably paying for the GSL (since it's the best available right now). The GSL provides a huge amount of matches and I don't think most people would have the time to watch GSL + another paid event. But there obviously is some room for some free streams that can fill the GSL blanks and also attract new players.

Now, I hope in some years, as the community growth, maybe you'll have enough people to sustain two, three or four GSL-like events with paid subscribers. But I don't think this time has come yet. In the meatime, I think going subscriber only would be kind of risky for any foreign tournament.

Also, maybe foreign tournaments could try to innovate. What about offering one stream per player + a main stream ? I would love being able to see the player screens and their movements in parallel. And I might definitely considering paying for that.

You should stop talking about that which you clearly don't understand... The Starcraft 2 community is not going to quadruple in size in the future.... The fact is that the community size and viewer counts are already on the decline after only 2 years(except for korea, the only place with sc2 community growth) and while new expansions to the game may bring small spikes in community numbers they will by no means expand growth to anywhere near double its current size... let alone quadruple...

Comparing this to facebook and google is pure idiocy... the demographic that this community encompasses is largely male and between the ages of 12-30... with most of the community in college and a large percentage poor students.... What this means is that not only are ads targetted at this demographic providing a smaller return to companies, but they are also given to a smaller audience... almost everyone in the world finds themselves in need to google or social networking but not nearly as many are gamers interested in the RTS genre.... If you want to continue to have pipe dreams about the future of starcraft 2 thats fine, just refrain from posting that idiocy here....
With ad prices falling due to lower returns coupled with adblock being rampant and few people willing to actually support esports it is extremely difficult to create a system that effectively couples fees and ads and manages to in the end pull out a profit.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
February 12 2012 15:38 GMT
#725
On February 13 2012 00:13 FXOBoSs wrote:
They already survive on subscriptions only. Do you get ads on your stream? No? Then they don't make money from you.



There definitely are ads for the sponsors on the GSL stream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
BBshakenbake
Profile Joined January 2012
Sweden13 Posts
February 12 2012 15:39 GMT
#726
Me and a couple of friends have put our brains together on this whole monetization thing this weekend and came up with this: Project Hive. Please give us some feedback, are we on the right track?
CHILL GET OUT
Proflo
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States148 Posts
February 12 2012 15:45 GMT
#727
On February 13 2012 00:39 BBshakenbake wrote:
Me and a couple of friends have put our brains together on this whole monetization thing this weekend and came up with this: Project Hive. Please give us some feedback, are we on the right track?

Good luck, if you actually put in effort and stay behind it.... It might work... I have a sneaking suspicion that this will end up with either a lack of effort on your part or an attempt to make money off of the idea...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Jojo131
Profile Joined January 2011
Brazil1631 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-12 15:54:24
February 12 2012 15:54 GMT
#728
On February 13 2012 00:28 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
Your basic business model is flawed, since it originates from a time where streaming/serving video content was not possible for individuals like today.


I'm curious though, what (do you or anyone else think) would be the best business model to approach this?
Boonbag
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
France3318 Posts
February 12 2012 16:00 GMT
#729
i still dont get why you guys don't try to sell content to any cable channel
bouhko
Profile Joined January 2012
193 Posts
February 12 2012 16:00 GMT
#730
On February 13 2012 00:38 Proflo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:20 bouhko wrote:
On February 13 2012 00:02 FXOBoSs wrote:
On February 12 2012 23:21 bouhko wrote:
On February 12 2012 18:27 FXOpen wrote:

Subscriptions are the ONLY way to make quick revenue from e-sports and forcing them is going to eventually be the norm. It will come to the point where GSL will not let people watch if they haven't subscribed. And rightly so. Why the hell should someone who spends a solid 500k on equipment, let you watch for free? This doesn't apply to small start ups such as my own events. But something like GSL which is BETTER quality than TV (if you have HQ) does not belong on free to air. And you do not DESERVE to watch it for free. Alot of time, effort money and skill has gone into their production. That being said, most people do subscribe to their content.. Rightly so.

First, you don't have ANYTHING to tell about where GSL belongs to. It's up to gom if they want to charge 100k$ for it or let it be free. You do not DESERVE to make me pay for your product either. I'll buy them if I find them interesting.

Now, if subscription becomes the norm for ALL stream, people will just stop watching. I mean, I started watching some random games on youtube, then moved on to watch tournament streams and then I subscribed to the GSL. If you remove all the free content, you won't get anybody new interested into paying for SC2 content.

Now the other problem is one of demand. The GSL is already running somehow year-long (Code A, Code S, GSTL). So I can watch 1h of high-quality SC2 per day. I don't really want/have the time to watch more. It's not I don't want to pay more, it's just I have no use for it. But I sometime watch some foreign tournament streams. If they stop being free, I'll just stop watching them
and you'll loose advertisement money.

Also, you are completely wrong on the business side of things. A LOT of tech start-ups company started up with free products : Google, Facebook, Linkedin, ... I could go on and listen hundred of succesful companies that make money out of ad-sponsored products. And I can guarantee you that running Google or Facebook cost more than the 500k$ needed to setup a studio :-)

I mean, by reading this thread, you can clearly see that there are some people that are willing to pay for some SC2 shows, but that they don't want to pay for everything. Now, these people are your consumers and if you want to run a SC2-related business, it's up to you to find a business model that allow you to make a living and satisfy your consumer. Telling your consumer what they should do is a really, really bad idea imho.


As stated before, if e-sports has 300million views per minute, I will happily bow down to comparing them to facebook google and youtube. That makes ad revenue easily viable for successful business.

Do the math on supporting a business with 3.50-4.50 CPM on only major countries. Then tell me that e-sports and facebook are one in the same.

As I stated earlier, for e-sports business to be successful on ad revenue alone (Free media) you need 50k viewers at once to make it worth while. Which very very few are doing. Exposure is valuable if you use it properly, which its not being done. And a sponsorship model only works if you have other forms of revenue.

Its entirely possible to get sponsorship + fee + ad based model to work and be lucrative.

Products should be very much worth while to purchase before you purcahse them. For instance FXOpen's events ARE NOT ready to be purchase only.. And it will be a year or two until they are at that level. We have equipment to buy staff to hire etc etc etc.. GSL however, has quality better than television. IF you dont want to pay for it, I suggest you dont watch it, because eventually you most probably will have to pay for it. The quality is too good to be free.

The holier than now mentality of "supporting e-sports" is only a phrase used. There are plenty of people who actively support e-sports, but the majority do not. They use adblocker, they tune out when there is a 2 minute delay or break on a live stream, they bitch they moan they groan. You only have to search through countless reddit and TL threads to know this.

The community itself drops the average CPM rate by doing what they do best, complain about something they dont like. It might even be the loud minority, but still the noise makes a financial effect on the industry.

For someone to say "hey, i deserve this for free, and I should be allowed to use adblock" is totally stupid and essentially I would push for such person to be banned from every stream on the planet (although thats never going to happen).

I stick to my guns in saying that if you aren't prepared to pay for HIGH QUALITY content, such as the current GSL (not season 1 2 or 3) then you should probably stop viewing the GSL all together because fro them to keep a free stream in the 2nd half of this year would be financially stupid for them. The quality of games and production is too high to give for free...

Again, this would all change if you could provide 300 million viewers per minute to their stream. Then they can be happy to provide 0.20 cpm ads to all its viewers and make good money.

Well, Facebook and Google started pretty small. I mean there are a lot of small startups (just go to techcrunch) that also manage to have free products. My point was that paid-only product is not the only way to go.

I agree that people claiming to support e-sport and using Adblock are being hypocrite. Now, as I said, I'm paying for GSL and many people are.

I think the most important thing is that I think it's normal to start small. As I said before, I think there also is a demand problem. Most of the people who are ready to pay for SC2 content are probably paying for the GSL (since it's the best available right now). The GSL provides a huge amount of matches and I don't think most people would have the time to watch GSL + another paid event. But there obviously is some room for some free streams that can fill the GSL blanks and also attract new players.

Now, I hope in some years, as the community growth, maybe you'll have enough people to sustain two, three or four GSL-like events with paid subscribers. But I don't think this time has come yet. In the meatime, I think going subscriber only would be kind of risky for any foreign tournament.

Also, maybe foreign tournaments could try to innovate. What about offering one stream per player + a main stream ? I would love being able to see the player screens and their movements in parallel. And I might definitely considering paying for that.

You should stop talking about that which you clearly don't understand... The Starcraft 2 community is not going to quadruple in size in the future.... The fact is that the community size and viewer counts are already on the decline after only 2 years(except for korea, the only place with sc2 community growth) and while new expansions to the game may bring small spikes in community numbers they will by no means expand growth to anywhere near double its current size... let alone quadruple...

Comparing this to facebook and google is pure idiocy... the demographic that this community encompasses is largely male and between the ages of 12-30... with most of the community in college and a large percentage poor students.... What this means is that not only are ads targetted at this demographic providing a smaller return to companies, but they are also given to a smaller audience... almost everyone in the world finds themselves in need to google or social networking but not nearly as many are gamers interested in the RTS genre.... If you want to continue to have pipe dreams about the future of starcraft 2 thats fine, just refrain from posting that idiocy here....
With ad prices falling due to lower returns coupled with adblock being rampant and few people willing to actually support esports it is extremely difficult to create a system that effectively couples fees and ads and manages to in the end pull out a profit.

Well, if the majority of watcher are poor students, then charging money for all streams is even more stupid because the watchers don't even have the means to pay. Which is kind of proving my point about how going subscription-only is not a good idea for any foreign event right now.
u sixpoll ?
HaXXspetten
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Sweden15718 Posts
February 12 2012 16:02 GMT
#731
Surely there are better ways... the internet is in fragile enough state as it is, please don't add this to the list as well
iiGreetings
Profile Joined March 2011
Canada563 Posts
February 12 2012 16:03 GMT
#732
Hmmm, It's something that would have to go through lots of discussion to be effective, I honestly don't know if that is the correct answer however it seems like a good idea. The thing is, that mlg needs the base equity as a company to start up something huge on TV.
Adapt and React I MKP, PartinG, EffOrt ♥
Schnullerbacke13
Profile Joined August 2010
Germany1199 Posts
February 12 2012 16:03 GMT
#733
On February 13 2012 00:54 Jojo131 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:28 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
Your basic business model is flawed, since it originates from a time where streaming/serving video content was not possible for individuals like today.


I'm curious though, what (do you or anyone else think) would be the best business model to approach this?


Think small. Homestory Cup is a good example.
If that is not possible, well then maybe there is no business model. The community produces and consumes content by itself. Some individuals may get popular enough to make a living out of it.

In case SC2 moves into main stream one may rethink the 'business' idea. I do not see this currently. BW had some major drivers increasing its popularity: it was 4 free (no copy protection) and the korean PC-bang culture. These factors lead to a huge popularity and player base, so the hype could grow. I don't see SC2 to reach this popularity anytime soon. I think that's why BarCraft was promoted strongly a while ago. You need to create social multiplication. As long nerds are sitting alone in front of their computers and watch each other playing games, nothing will take off :-)
21 is half the truth
Sapphire.lux
Profile Joined July 2010
Romania2620 Posts
February 12 2012 16:05 GMT
#734
On February 13 2012 00:13 FXOBoSs wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:10 Talin wrote:
What makes you believe GSL is enough of a high quality product to attract enough customers to survive if they adopted a subscription model (and for the number of customers not to slowly drop off over time)?

It all comes down to whether GOM believes they can sell what they're currently offering for free or not and whether they will take a risk to find out. IMO they can't sell it, not with the abundance of completely free content available at all times.



They already survive on subscriptions only. Do you get ads on your stream? No? Then they don't make money from you.

Weird post. They have "ads" like cola/ hot6 etc. Those don't matter? :p

If the view count gets higher and higher i think gom will go full free HD (like in Korea?), if they get the big international sponsors. Anyway, they do have the quality in all aspects to go PPV. No foreign tournament comes even close to that though. Particularly in the player skill department. And even if they did (have the uber quality), the viewers will be split between them and they would probly all loose.

Make it PPV and most likely the viewership will drop and drop until nobody cares. Keep it free and it's not generating enough money either. So maybe Gom will be the only org to make a business out of SC2 and the others will go belly up. It would be sad, but i'm ok with it. The smartest will find a way to make a profit, just like in any other business.

I also think this is probly the only situation in the world where the "content producers" blame the market, the customer for them not making a profit. Weird as fuck.
Head Coach Park: "They should buff tanks!"
SkimGuy
Profile Joined December 2010
Canada709 Posts
February 12 2012 16:10 GMT
#735
On February 13 2012 01:00 Boonbag wrote:
i still dont get why you guys don't try to sell content to any cable channel

It's been discussed before. It's very difficult to make Starcraft fit for TV. What would you do, run a 3 minute commercial in the middle of a 30 minute TvT? Sponsors want set times for advertisements and due to the unpredictable nature of SC2 games in terms of duration, it's very hard to do.
Timerly
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany511 Posts
February 12 2012 16:14 GMT
#736
It's also hard for many other sports like Tennis but it's perfectly possible.
Boonbag
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
France3318 Posts
February 12 2012 16:16 GMT
#737
On February 13 2012 01:10 SkimGuy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 01:00 Boonbag wrote:
i still dont get why you guys don't try to sell content to any cable channel

It's been discussed before. It's very difficult to make Starcraft fit for TV. What would you do, run a 3 minute commercial in the middle of a 30 minute TvT? Sponsors want set times for advertisements and due to the unpredictable nature of SC2 games in terms of duration, it's very hard to do.



dude they've been doing it for 11 years on ogn
Titorelli
Profile Joined March 2011
2492 Posts
February 12 2012 16:23 GMT
#738
On February 13 2012 00:38 Proflo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 00:20 bouhko wrote:
On February 13 2012 00:02 FXOBoSs wrote:
On February 12 2012 23:21 bouhko wrote:
On February 12 2012 18:27 FXOpen wrote:

Subscriptions are the ONLY way to make quick revenue from e-sports and forcing them is going to eventually be the norm. It will come to the point where GSL will not let people watch if they haven't subscribed. And rightly so. Why the hell should someone who spends a solid 500k on equipment, let you watch for free? This doesn't apply to small start ups such as my own events. But something like GSL which is BETTER quality than TV (if you have HQ) does not belong on free to air. And you do not DESERVE to watch it for free. Alot of time, effort money and skill has gone into their production. That being said, most people do subscribe to their content.. Rightly so.

First, you don't have ANYTHING to tell about where GSL belongs to. It's up to gom if they want to charge 100k$ for it or let it be free. You do not DESERVE to make me pay for your product either. I'll buy them if I find them interesting.

Now, if subscription becomes the norm for ALL stream, people will just stop watching. I mean, I started watching some random games on youtube, then moved on to watch tournament streams and then I subscribed to the GSL. If you remove all the free content, you won't get anybody new interested into paying for SC2 content.

Now the other problem is one of demand. The GSL is already running somehow year-long (Code A, Code S, GSTL). So I can watch 1h of high-quality SC2 per day. I don't really want/have the time to watch more. It's not I don't want to pay more, it's just I have no use for it. But I sometime watch some foreign tournament streams. If they stop being free, I'll just stop watching them
and you'll loose advertisement money.

Also, you are completely wrong on the business side of things. A LOT of tech start-ups company started up with free products : Google, Facebook, Linkedin, ... I could go on and listen hundred of succesful companies that make money out of ad-sponsored products. And I can guarantee you that running Google or Facebook cost more than the 500k$ needed to setup a studio :-)

I mean, by reading this thread, you can clearly see that there are some people that are willing to pay for some SC2 shows, but that they don't want to pay for everything. Now, these people are your consumers and if you want to run a SC2-related business, it's up to you to find a business model that allow you to make a living and satisfy your consumer. Telling your consumer what they should do is a really, really bad idea imho.


As stated before, if e-sports has 300million views per minute, I will happily bow down to comparing them to facebook google and youtube. That makes ad revenue easily viable for successful business.

Do the math on supporting a business with 3.50-4.50 CPM on only major countries. Then tell me that e-sports and facebook are one in the same.

As I stated earlier, for e-sports business to be successful on ad revenue alone (Free media) you need 50k viewers at once to make it worth while. Which very very few are doing. Exposure is valuable if you use it properly, which its not being done. And a sponsorship model only works if you have other forms of revenue.

Its entirely possible to get sponsorship + fee + ad based model to work and be lucrative.

Products should be very much worth while to purchase before you purcahse them. For instance FXOpen's events ARE NOT ready to be purchase only.. And it will be a year or two until they are at that level. We have equipment to buy staff to hire etc etc etc.. GSL however, has quality better than television. IF you dont want to pay for it, I suggest you dont watch it, because eventually you most probably will have to pay for it. The quality is too good to be free.

The holier than now mentality of "supporting e-sports" is only a phrase used. There are plenty of people who actively support e-sports, but the majority do not. They use adblocker, they tune out when there is a 2 minute delay or break on a live stream, they bitch they moan they groan. You only have to search through countless reddit and TL threads to know this.

The community itself drops the average CPM rate by doing what they do best, complain about something they dont like. It might even be the loud minority, but still the noise makes a financial effect on the industry.

For someone to say "hey, i deserve this for free, and I should be allowed to use adblock" is totally stupid and essentially I would push for such person to be banned from every stream on the planet (although thats never going to happen).

I stick to my guns in saying that if you aren't prepared to pay for HIGH QUALITY content, such as the current GSL (not season 1 2 or 3) then you should probably stop viewing the GSL all together because fro them to keep a free stream in the 2nd half of this year would be financially stupid for them. The quality of games and production is too high to give for free...

Again, this would all change if you could provide 300 million viewers per minute to their stream. Then they can be happy to provide 0.20 cpm ads to all its viewers and make good money.

Well, Facebook and Google started pretty small. I mean there are a lot of small startups (just go to techcrunch) that also manage to have free products. My point was that paid-only product is not the only way to go.

I agree that people claiming to support e-sport and using Adblock are being hypocrite. Now, as I said, I'm paying for GSL and many people are.

I think the most important thing is that I think it's normal to start small. As I said before, I think there also is a demand problem. Most of the people who are ready to pay for SC2 content are probably paying for the GSL (since it's the best available right now). The GSL provides a huge amount of matches and I don't think most people would have the time to watch GSL + another paid event. But there obviously is some room for some free streams that can fill the GSL blanks and also attract new players.

Now, I hope in some years, as the community growth, maybe you'll have enough people to sustain two, three or four GSL-like events with paid subscribers. But I don't think this time has come yet. In the meatime, I think going subscriber only would be kind of risky for any foreign tournament.

Also, maybe foreign tournaments could try to innovate. What about offering one stream per player + a main stream ? I would love being able to see the player screens and their movements in parallel. And I might definitely considering paying for that.

You should stop talking about that which you clearly don't understand... The Starcraft 2 community is not going to quadruple in size in the future.... The fact is that the community size and viewer counts are already on the decline after only 2 years(except for korea, the only place with sc2 community growth) and while new expansions to the game may bring small spikes in community numbers they will by no means expand growth to anywhere near double its current size... let alone quadruple...

Comparing this to facebook and google is pure idiocy... the demographic that this community encompasses is largely male and between the ages of 12-30... with most of the community in college and a large percentage poor students.... What this means is that not only are ads targetted at this demographic providing a smaller return to companies, but they are also given to a smaller audience... almost everyone in the world finds themselves in need to google or social networking but not nearly as many are gamers interested in the RTS genre.... If you want to continue to have pipe dreams about the future of starcraft 2 thats fine, just refrain from posting that idiocy here....
With ad prices falling due to lower returns coupled with adblock being rampant and few people willing to actually support esports it is extremely difficult to create a system that effectively couples fees and ads and manages to in the end pull out a profit.

Thank you for that post. I was too lazy myself to point out how stupid is it to compare Google / facebook to SC2.

And how can ppl keep ignoring that the current model simply does not work out!? Companies like MLG are spending more money than they are making (to my knowledge). It just cannot continue like that something has to happen. I understand that we are in a huge predicament. Charge the viewers and you wont get any hehe or continue like this and you go bankrupt
"Everybody poops.... after Tasteless kills them" Artosis
btx0
Profile Joined December 2009
Germany184 Posts
February 12 2012 16:25 GMT
#739
On February 13 2012 01:10 SkimGuy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 13 2012 01:00 Boonbag wrote:
i still dont get why you guys don't try to sell content to any cable channel

It's been discussed before. It's very difficult to make Starcraft fit for TV. What would you do, run a 3 minute commercial in the middle of a 30 minute TvT? Sponsors want set times for advertisements and due to the unpredictable nature of SC2 games in terms of duration, it's very hard to do.

Snooker runs on Eurosport and is very similar to sc in terms of game length, anything from a perfect break in 10 minutes to an hour long safety duel is possible, they run a few minutes of commercials after every game and that's it.

Yes it's European TV and a lot of things are different, just saying that unpredictable game length works perfectly fine in some cases.
Talin
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Montenegro10532 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-12 16:28:47
February 12 2012 16:27 GMT
#740
Or do the sensible thing and reduce production costs, cut the extraneous stuff that you don't need (Starcraft fans only really want to watch Starcraft), do more online tournaments instead of LAN events and have a reasonable and balanced prize pool.

Come to think of it, there's really no reason why GSL should be played live in studio until RO4 or GSTL finals, especially with the schedule they have. There is no LAN in Starcraft 2, it makes no significant difference to the games whether the players sit in the same room or not.
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