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On February 13 2012 01:14 Timerly wrote:
It's also hard for many other sports like Tennis but it's perfectly possible.
Then it comes down to viewership numbers, sponsors willing to stick their neck out (because of viewership numbers) and also tennis matches charges for entrance fees (Aussie Open example, AUD20-40 for a groundpass, AUD80-100 to actually get into the stadium; the finals themselves were AUD600-800+).
I think it's a bad idea to compare SC2 and eSports in general to established sports like tennis and football, simply because of the scale of things, the sponsors they can attract and the amount sponsors are willing to put up is vastly different. As an end-goal target, then yes perhaps it is a good goal, but there's still a lot of ground to cover in between. I hope SC2 and eSports lasts and grows, but there's still a long way to go before it becomes stable I feel. To get there, we're going to need dedicated people with money to use like FXOBoss and Sundance and Mr Chae who are able to attract sponsors and stick their necks to experiment and see what format works and what doesn't.
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On February 13 2012 01:27 Talin wrote:
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 and have a reasonable 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. 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.
jesus christ watch some BW for background knowledge of starcraft in korea before making extremely...dubious comments. yes i'm being kind.
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On February 13 2012 01:28 shadymmj wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 01:27 Talin wrote:
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 and have a reasonable 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. 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.
jesus christ watch some BW for background knowledge of starcraft in korea before making extremely...dubious comments. yes i'm being kind.
I assure you I am extremely familiar with the "background knowledge" and BW scene, but I still haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about or how it has anything to do with what I'm talking about.
How about you make your point instead of making "dubious" comments yourself?
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really? people don't want to watch live matches in the studio until the semi finals? is that what you're suggesting?
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On February 13 2012 01:00 bouhko wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 00:38 Proflo wrote: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.
.... I was simply defending Boss' claim that a subscription based service is the best way to yield profit from SC2 content if it is to be yielded at all... Your argument was simply put stupid... to say:
"Now, if subscription becomes the norm for ALL stream, people will just stop watching. "
is completely irrational... obviously that isn't going to happen... and wouldn't even be attempted by 99% of the community/smaller events...
Boss was simply saying that if a company has invested a significant amount of money into creating a production that is actually of a higher quality than that which we see on TV as GOMTV has and they already have made a name for themselves the most effective way of yielding profit would be charging a subscription for all users... This makes complete and utter sense and gom would and in all likely-hood will profit greatly in the subscriptions they gain from even the first month of discontinuing thier free service. The fact of the matter is that the GSL is widely accepted as the highest field of play with some of the best casters and a larger portion of the community would be willing to pay to view this tournament than they would any other.
You should not post overly wordy responses using poor grammar about topics that you don't even understand... I wont be replying to anything but a rational and well thought out response to this because I am done wasting my time responding to these garbage posts.
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Like many have said, there is too much free content to charge PPV for events.
I am a fan of competition, not of Starcraft. I can watch the smaller games and find similar entertainment and have never watched UFC or MMA PPV matches.
Also, you run into the issue that, unlike UFC where a HUGE percentage of the fan base are not tech saavy, with the SC2, you will have a million and a half pirates and restreams that, yes, they will get shut down on the spot, but there will be too many people that will not shut them down. Sites with large community managers and helpers will shut them down (Twitch, own3d) but people will watch it on livestream and ustream for free, among a bevy of other streaming websites that have no community team whatsoever.
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On February 13 2012 01:27 Talin wrote:
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.
I agree that cutting production costs in some cases is definitely an option for making tournaments more viable/profitable the GSL example just doesn't make sense.... A large amount of GOMTV's income comes from Korean fans and the ability to go see a live match as well as the sense of legitimacy that comes with having players and casters in the same room increases the production value greatly... Gom has already purchased all of the equipment and owns the studio they lose literally the cost of electricity for having the lights on for having the players play at the venue... Well... they occasionally buy pizza and drinks for viewers who come to watch live  ... Either way they would only stand to lose money by having everything but the RO4 completely online...
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On February 13 2012 01:37 shadymmj wrote:
really? people don't want to watch live matches in the studio until the semi finals? is that what you're suggesting?
There isn't enough people in SC2 that do to justify the production costs for it, the popularity is nowhere near the level of BW, and even BW is falling off the map lately and only gets enough attention near the conclusion (semifinals/finals) of OSL/SPL.
Moreover, GOM's schedule is a lot tighter than OGN's (even when you take Proleague into account), there's almost always some stage of GSL/GSTL going on constantly. When you consider all the Code A matches (which is basically a qualifier tournament), and having a GSL every 2 months, it's just too much to pay for. If you haven't noticed, they don't really get big audiences there at all.
Ultimately, if they don't have the money to sustain live studio production, they don't have a choice. It's the most reasonable way to save money without hurting the viewer count.
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On February 13 2012 01:38 Zlasher wrote:
Like many have said, there is too much free content to charge PPV for events.
I am a fan of competition, not of Starcraft. I can watch the smaller games and find similar entertainment and have never watched UFC or MMA PPV matches.
Also, you run into the issue that, unlike UFC where a HUGE percentage of the fan base are not tech saavy, with the SC2, you will have a million and a half pirates and restreams that, yes, they will get shut down on the spot, but there will be too many people that will not shut them down. Sites with large community managers and helpers will shut them down (Twitch, own3d) but people will watch it on livestream and ustream for free, among a bevy of other streaming websites that have no community team whatsoever.
False... Of course there will be restreams... and while you may not realize it there are restreams of UFC and MMA ppv's as well as Every single TV show/movie/piece of software ever. Of course people will still be able to access the content for free that is how the internet works... that does not mean that 100% of people will watch it for free instead of paying... There are currently at least 3-4 restreams of the GSL in HD every single time it broadcasts but people still tune in to the MUCH lower quality gom stream b/c it is legal. While there would definitely be a loss of net viewers if GSL became subscription-only there would be a vast increase in paid viewers... I watch GSL when I can and know 6-7 other people who I play sc with and also watch GSL... We all watch the free stream and 5 of us would 100% buy the subscription on the spot if there was no longer a free stream.
There are restreams and illegal vods of everything on the internet... obtaining links for these streams on a daily basis with them being shut down often would be volatile at best... and even if a consistent stream could be found it would not significantly cut into gom's profits unless it was established for at least a month or more.
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Of course there are restreams of sporting events. My point is that the viewership of UFC to a much higher degree than esports, would put up with that. The fighting sport industry has always been based around PPV which is why it is viable, because it is engrained in the mindset that people pay to watch it. That isn't the case in esports where everything is free to watch. To think that the level of pirate viewers in esports would be same as in UFC/MMA is insane, it will be ten-fold more.
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On February 13 2012 02:08 Zlasher wrote:
Of course there are restreams of sporting events. My point is that the viewership of UFC to a much higher degree than esports, would put up with that. The fighting sport industry has always been based around PPV which is why it is viable, because it is engrained in the mindset that people pay to watch it. That isn't the case in esports where everything is free to watch. To think that the level of pirate viewers in esports would be same as in UFC/MMA is insane, it will be ten-fold more.
true and so the industry will cannibalize itself
its all about money and if u can't get money out event viewers through live event tickets and PPV buys then the industry won't exist.
Currently, we have a tonne of North American "eSports viewers" who complain about everything and pay nothing.
When MLG can sell 18,000 tickets at $100 for a single 4 hour event then eSports will have "arrived" in North America. Until then we'll continue to get these cobbled together events plagued by a myriad of "technical issues".
Generally, most "eSports fans" do not have the disposable income to throw away on live events.
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On February 13 2012 01:50 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 01:37 shadymmj wrote:
really? people don't want to watch live matches in the studio until the semi finals? is that what you're suggesting? There isn't enough people in SC2 that do to justify the production costs for it, the popularity is nowhere near the level of BW, and even BW is falling off the map lately and only gets enough attention near the conclusion (semifinals/finals) of OSL/SPL. Moreover, GOM's schedule is a lot tighter than OGN's (even when you take Proleague into account), there's almost always some stage of GSL/GSTL going on constantly. When you consider all the Code A matches (which is basically a qualifier tournament), and having a GSL every 2 months, it's just too much to pay for. If you haven't noticed, they don't really get big audiences there at all. Ultimately, if they don't have the money to sustain live studio production, they don't have a choice. It's the most reasonable way to save money without hurting the viewer count.
i dont know if it is really a financial loss to hold live studio events, but removing them off the map until the semis will trigger an avalanche of bad sentiment for the game's future.
you'd hope that it would grow in korea, and while I know for a fact that foreign sc2 interest in on the decline, i really don't have any knowledge of the korean scene. removing live studio events from the schedule is never a good thing, and should be a last resort. it signals that the game is shrinking or getting unsustainable.
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On February 13 2012 02:20 shadymmj wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 01:50 Talin wrote:On February 13 2012 01:37 shadymmj wrote:
really? people don't want to watch live matches in the studio until the semi finals? is that what you're suggesting? There isn't enough people in SC2 that do to justify the production costs for it, the popularity is nowhere near the level of BW, and even BW is falling off the map lately and only gets enough attention near the conclusion (semifinals/finals) of OSL/SPL. Moreover, GOM's schedule is a lot tighter than OGN's (even when you take Proleague into account), there's almost always some stage of GSL/GSTL going on constantly. When you consider all the Code A matches (which is basically a qualifier tournament), and having a GSL every 2 months, it's just too much to pay for. If you haven't noticed, they don't really get big audiences there at all. Ultimately, if they don't have the money to sustain live studio production, they don't have a choice. It's the most reasonable way to save money without hurting the viewer count. i dont know if it is really a financial loss to hold live studio events, but removing them off the map until the semis will trigger an avalanche of bad sentiment for the game's future. you'd hope that it would grow in korea, and while I know for a fact that foreign sc2 interest in on the decline, i really don't have any knowledge of the korean scene. removing live studio events from the schedule is never a good thing, and should be a last resort. it signals that the game is shrinking or getting unsustainable.
How exactly do you know for a fact that interest is on the decline? Do you have access to some magic ball that the rest of us don't?
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He sounds disgusting, even though he has a point. Plus, it's not with foreigner play that people are gonna start dropping the bucks...
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On February 13 2012 02:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 02:08 Zlasher wrote:
Of course there are restreams of sporting events. My point is that the viewership of UFC to a much higher degree than esports, would put up with that. The fighting sport industry has always been based around PPV which is why it is viable, because it is engrained in the mindset that people pay to watch it. That isn't the case in esports where everything is free to watch. To think that the level of pirate viewers in esports would be same as in UFC/MMA is insane, it will be ten-fold more. true and so the industry will cannibalize itself its all about money and if u can't get money out event viewers through live event tickets and PPV buys then the industry won't exist. Currently, we have a tonne of North American "eSports viewers" who complain about everything and pay nothing. When MLG can sell 18,000 tickets at $100 for a single 4 hour event then eSports will have "arrived" in North America. Until then we'll continue to get these cobbled together events plagued by a myriad of "technical issues". Generally, most "eSports fans" do not have the disposable income to throw away on live events.
I think an important difference is, that in eSports a single person can organize and stream+comment an online tourney (binary beast, Twitch TV + TL for promotion). This is not possible in real sports. This is the reason why there is so much free content. The amount of free and cheap content is the reason why people will not pay for expensive productions. They simply don't have to.
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On February 13 2012 02:32 RajaF wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 02:20 shadymmj wrote:On February 13 2012 01:50 Talin wrote:On February 13 2012 01:37 shadymmj wrote:
really? people don't want to watch live matches in the studio until the semi finals? is that what you're suggesting? There isn't enough people in SC2 that do to justify the production costs for it, the popularity is nowhere near the level of BW, and even BW is falling off the map lately and only gets enough attention near the conclusion (semifinals/finals) of OSL/SPL. Moreover, GOM's schedule is a lot tighter than OGN's (even when you take Proleague into account), there's almost always some stage of GSL/GSTL going on constantly. When you consider all the Code A matches (which is basically a qualifier tournament), and having a GSL every 2 months, it's just too much to pay for. If you haven't noticed, they don't really get big audiences there at all. Ultimately, if they don't have the money to sustain live studio production, they don't have a choice. It's the most reasonable way to save money without hurting the viewer count. i dont know if it is really a financial loss to hold live studio events, but removing them off the map until the semis will trigger an avalanche of bad sentiment for the game's future. you'd hope that it would grow in korea, and while I know for a fact that foreign sc2 interest in on the decline, i really don't have any knowledge of the korean scene. removing live studio events from the schedule is never a good thing, and should be a last resort. it signals that the game is shrinking or getting unsustainable. How exactly do you know for a fact that interest is on the decline? Do you have access to some magic ball that the rest of us don't?
viewership numbers of even popular tourneys/streams have declined at least ~30% compared to some 6 month ago.
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On February 13 2012 02:39 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 02:32 RajaF wrote:On February 13 2012 02:20 shadymmj wrote:On February 13 2012 01:50 Talin wrote:On February 13 2012 01:37 shadymmj wrote:
really? people don't want to watch live matches in the studio until the semi finals? is that what you're suggesting? There isn't enough people in SC2 that do to justify the production costs for it, the popularity is nowhere near the level of BW, and even BW is falling off the map lately and only gets enough attention near the conclusion (semifinals/finals) of OSL/SPL. Moreover, GOM's schedule is a lot tighter than OGN's (even when you take Proleague into account), there's almost always some stage of GSL/GSTL going on constantly. When you consider all the Code A matches (which is basically a qualifier tournament), and having a GSL every 2 months, it's just too much to pay for. If you haven't noticed, they don't really get big audiences there at all. Ultimately, if they don't have the money to sustain live studio production, they don't have a choice. It's the most reasonable way to save money without hurting the viewer count. i dont know if it is really a financial loss to hold live studio events, but removing them off the map until the semis will trigger an avalanche of bad sentiment for the game's future. you'd hope that it would grow in korea, and while I know for a fact that foreign sc2 interest in on the decline, i really don't have any knowledge of the korean scene. removing live studio events from the schedule is never a good thing, and should be a last resort. it signals that the game is shrinking or getting unsustainable. How exactly do you know for a fact that interest is on the decline? Do you have access to some magic ball that the rest of us don't? viewership numbers of even popular tourneys/streams have declined at least ~30% compared to some 6 month ago.
Are you basing this on officialy released numbers, or on your own observations? Because if it's the second one, you have no clue, just like the rest of us.
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On February 13 2012 01:27 elt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2012 01:14 Timerly wrote:
It's also hard for many other sports like Tennis but it's perfectly possible. Then it comes down to viewership numbers, sponsors willing to stick their neck out (because of viewership numbers) and also tennis matches charges for entrance fees (Aussie Open example, AUD20-40 for a groundpass, AUD80-100 to actually get into the stadium; the finals themselves were AUD600-800+). I think it's a bad idea to compare SC2 and eSports in general to established sports like tennis and football, simply because of the scale of things, the sponsors they can attract and the amount sponsors are willing to put up is vastly different. As an end-goal target, then yes perhaps it is a good goal, but there's still a lot of ground to cover in between. I hope SC2 and eSports lasts and grows, but there's still a long way to go before it becomes stable I feel. To get there, we're going to need dedicated people with money to use like FXOBoss and Sundance and Mr Chae who are able to attract sponsors and stick their necks to experiment and see what format works and what doesn't.
Nice way to miss my point (which was just not predetermined game length).
The same problem is btw the UFC comparison. It's a completely US based thing, close to nobody in Europe buys PPV access to anything. Even Pay TV is on the decline. Credit cards are a big factor there because around Europe nobody uses them as lightly as people in the US. It's something like 3? credit cards per citizen there, here it's way below 1.
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On February 13 2012 02:37 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: This is the reason why there is so much free content. The amount of free and cheap content is the reason why people will not pay for expensive productions. They simply don't have to.
the quality of the "free content" produced by 1 guy is poor compared to a UFC PPV.
go to a UFC event... talk to a few people ring side.
find me any "esports fans" that have the kind of money the guys sitting ringside at the UFC have
do the same for a Yankees home game, a Maple Leafs home game or a Lakers home game.
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The high end tournaments seem to already be doing this ?
Unless you are inferring that we lose the free stream.
$5 is fair for ONE event in hd
I think what we should have is, like GSL, you pay for the season.
Or if you wish, since each season is only one month, you pay for the year.
GSL prices are pretty fair.
Though I'm sure kespa will take care of all the business/professionalism talk when the time comes.
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EPT
