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On February 09 2012 18:03 m4inbrain wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectices like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? Well, ever heard about Hartz4? As a german, im sure you know that term. What do you think, its just a german problem? I have to work hard for my money, others just DONT HAVE IT. I dont know what you do for a living, but i have rent to pay, a car to insure, a family to feed. Maybe if you are some decadent child with absolutely no relationship to money, yeah, then its easy to take 25 bucks from somewhere and dump it into crap. I cant (and wont). And yeah i have to pay GEZ from my own money, not the money from my parents (or pirated). Even more reason. Actually, its really ridiculous how many people dont have any sense for money. Mindboggling.
you say while arguing that you deserve to be entertained for free
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On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectives like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? And I for me allready pay for MLG, HSC and GSL. The Tournies I watch regularly.
And that attitude is the internet's great contribution to humanity.
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i would never pay for any non-korean tournament; foreigners simply aren't good enough. also i don't want to support someone who puts LoL finals in the middle of sc2 broadcast
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i haven't paid for any stream and will not ever pay. Not because i don't have the money, but i don't find it that important to me. For example GSL is on during work hours and i can't watch the free stream. So, i never watch GSL.
And the idea that starcraft 2 can be compared to UFC or WWE to request a PPV is atrocious. There are countless tourneys and streams in SC2. How may UFCs are there in the world. Only 1. You can ask for PPV when you have exclusivity, but right now sc2 events do not have it. Players can be seen at multiple tourneys and the production value is not worth spending money on it.
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On February 09 2012 18:03 m4inbrain wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectices like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? Well, ever heard about Hartz4? As a german, im sure you know that term. What do you think, its just a german problem? I have to work hard for my money, others just DONT HAVE IT. I dont know what you do for a living, but i have rent to pay, a car to insure, a family to feed. Maybe if you are some decadent child with absolutely no relationship to money, yeah, then its easy to take 25 bucks from somewhere and dump it into crap. I cant (and wont). And yeah i have to pay GEZ from my own money, not the money from my parents (or pirated). Even more reason. Actually, its really ridiculous how many people dont have any sense for money. Mindboggling.
So if you call SC2 crap then you shouldn't pay for it and go with it.
As i said Life is not for free. If you can't afford something, then you can't. If you want something really hard and can't afford it now, you need to safe for it.
I'm sorry for your problems but dude thats not even 80% of the people who recieve hartz4 and please don't try to add some characteristical views to some persons posts if you don't know them. I always had a job when i was at school had about 15€ from my parents to spend till I was 18 and bought games and had fun. Now I'm 23 and I have more money to spent then ever because I work, do I have too much money? No. Because i spent the money on things I like.
Do I like good food? Hell yea, and thats why I like a good and tasty chunk of meat and buy it instead of noodles.
And just look into some random household in germany, guess what the all have 40"++ LCD TVs, 1-4 PCs, 6-16Mbit minimum flatrate, mobiles with flatrate models ... and you now want to tell me because of the 10-20% who REALLY can't afford it they shouldn't charge? Strange world you live in, I guess they told me lies in business class at university.
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On February 09 2012 18:05 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 18:03 m4inbrain wrote:On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectices like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? Well, ever heard about Hartz4? As a german, im sure you know that term. What do you think, its just a german problem? I have to work hard for my money, others just DONT HAVE IT. I dont know what you do for a living, but i have rent to pay, a car to insure, a family to feed. Maybe if you are some decadent child with absolutely no relationship to money, yeah, then its easy to take 25 bucks from somewhere and dump it into crap. I cant (and wont). And yeah i have to pay GEZ from my own money, not the money from my parents (or pirated). Even more reason. Actually, its really ridiculous how many people dont have any sense for money. Mindboggling. you say while arguing that you deserve to be entertained for free
If you actually read his previous posts and not just that one you would know he's not arguing that at all.
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On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectives like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? And I for me allready pay for MLG, HSC and GSL. The Tournies I watch regularly. I listened to it and while I agree that it would be good if people spent more money to support the events they like, I either think he's joking or don't know what he's talking about with all the yelling about that organizations should charge away.
Or maybe he's right and everyone should start charging for stuff. Hell I should start charging for my 3k members forum, imagine all amazing things I could do if those damn blood sucking users just quit being cheap and paid me!
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I don't know what gets into people sometimes. Would all e-sports businesses like to be self sufficient without depending on advertisers and such? Sure. Just don't tell me because it works in some other demographic with another product that would be applicable here. First of all, a large portion of the SC2 viewers is pretty young, too young to have a credit card at that. Does not make PPV easier. Then you got the phenomenon that you're dealing with nerds. These guys are used to getting everything for free through ad revenue (Google, Facebook, Youtube...). Try to sell these people something and they'll go "but you can put ads there and not charge". Which is exactly what's happening right now. Sure, you can charge for single events to test the waters (GOM did so with their cup) and experiment with giving exclusive content (Code A anyone?) but this bears tons of problems, too. GOM did right in offering differently priced packages so they could allow everybody to pay about as much as one can afford/is willing to pay. They went overboard with the number of options and their distinguishability and now we've got a good number of angy "light" subscribers.
Personally, I don't like the way it works right now, especially with GOM. When you charge good money and provide good production value then PLEASE deliver that in an appropriate fashion. I'm talking 1080p good quality sound for paying users. Which is what EVERY tournament willing to charge should do btw. When you pay for something you don't want compromise. Capturing and encoding in 1080p is not that big of a deal, capture cards are a one time investment and even standard CPUs can handle encoding this stuff. If you don't have the bandwidth, talk to your provider, it's not a billion dollars. Broadcasting crappy streams just looks cheap. There's a billion things we have to fix first before you can even begin thinking about charging PPV.
In addition to all this we also have tons of examples of sports that don't get PPV-marketed and do very well even in a niche. Handball (at least around here) is on purely ad supported free TV. So is volleyball. Could you charge PPV for a small audience? Sure but nobody except that audience would know about the sport's professional scene. This way whole countries get involved in a handball world cup even though usually only very few watch it the rest of the year.
E-sports could be very comparable to the formula 1 though once game companies finally get this straight. In the beginning, the formula didn't make a profit, it was simply there to show off the car manufacturers skills. Same thing happened to LoL mind you, without Riot pumping in a million dollars in prize money, where would it be e-sports wise? There's surely an interest in that happening from Blizzard's side, too. It's just that Kotick doesn't approve it because it's not part of his personal view of the world. Remember that SC2 is a product which in itself can use the marketing.
I could go on and on about how you have to know your audience and see the strategic vision of e-sports growing before you can monetize it like a cash cow but I doubt anyone in that field has the patience to see something in an investment state too long. Surely the short lifespan of most games doesn't help this, mind you. I'll leave it at that but this man needs to get together with other people, especially high league ops, before he can talk about monetarization like that.
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On February 09 2012 17:56 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 16:56 m4inbrain wrote:On February 09 2012 16:49 flowSthead wrote:On February 09 2012 16:32 m4inbrain wrote:
Just thought a bit about it.. Its actually kinda stupid to say "well, ad-revenue isnt enough anymore - lets charge viewers". If you have strictly a "no pay, no view"-restriction, you will lose more than 50% of the viewership. More likely more than that. So the ad-revenue will go down pretty harsh.
Theres actually no base at all at the moment to charge like 20$ for a MLG. If there is a big game which becomes famous - well, ill watch it later as VOD. Even if they charge for the VODs, some guy from somewhere will share the VOD with me. If there is not, well.. Ill watch another tournament which charges less/offers more.
On our "mainstreet" we have, i think, 6 different hardware-stores. Private, not like DELL or something. 3 of them closed recently, because they tried to price their stuff lower than the other stores and went into bankrupcy (spelled wrong i think). There wouldnt be "awesome esport", there would be "mlg vs ign vs dh vs etc", all of them would try to steal viewers from another tournament. Again: the base is not big enough for that. First of all, your 50% is a totally made up statistic. If you have a source I would love to read it, but otherwise where do you get that number? It could be 90% or it could be 10%. 50% is completely random. As for your hardware example, that is a bad example. There are so many places to go buy hardware from and you will be buying the same hardware. If I want to watch DRG vs MMA in an epic best of 7 then I have to pay for the Blizzard Cup. I can't watch DRG vs MMA at some MLG for free because there is no guarantee that I will get that same epic best of 7. It's not comparable. What might happen is I go to watch LoL or Dota instead of SC2 (if you're into that; if all you watch is SC then it won't matter). Its actually no statistic at all (but feel free to start a poll). But a reasonable guess. Watch streamchats, forums etc - you will get the reason. And of course its comparable. How do you know that your MMA vs DRG will be epic? Could be DRG dronerushing MMA. And apart from that: just look around you. Every single game/sport that has "business" involved is dominated by ONE big league/tournament. Why is that? Someone in this thread actually had the right idea, just think about world of warcraft. How many p2p-MMOs do you see on the market, and better: how do they compare to WoW in terms of subscriptions? Yeah. You guessed right, the only one noteworthy is SWTOR. And well, i just cancelled by sub after the first month, and so did many others. You cant(!) have 4 big leagues next to each other. That doesnt work. Because business is also about expanding. If you want to expand, you need to kill the other leagues, because no one would actually pay 25$ a month to 4 different leagues. That just wont happen. think ufc is the only mma promoter? think it was always the biggest? it became dominate by producing a better product than its competitors, which got driven out cuz they couldnt keep up. that caused all the best fighters to go to ufc and gave them more money and to host bigger, more frequent events.
As i said, i dont even know what MMA is (or UFC for that matter), or how their organization works. But then again, who is the biggest "promoter" (well, the biggest League or whatever its called in wrestling) at the moment?
there are too many tournaments.
I agree on that. But thats not part of the discussion, its about fees, or did i get something wrong?
you're always going to have free content in user streams and smaller online tournaments. people who are into computer games, who can afford to spend 60$ on sc2, are not THAT stressed for money. they can afford to pay for a product that is as entertaining and high quality as what mlg and ipl have put out, and given that more stable, profitable business model that product will only get better.
You know, i paid 55€ for SC2. Thats 73$. And i already said, im willing to pay for good quality (and with that i dont mean the streamresolution). But, and thats just a fact (and this time it is, you can just watch it in 1h) : GSL has by far the highest quality of them all. So how do you justify charging the same prices with worse production? The content is actually more or less the same. Its Starcraft 2. Sure, players of high calibre are prone to produce more thrilling games, but then again, you have really good games from other players as well, like darkforce or violet.
Thats what im talking about. I gladly pay for IGN, if they get their production up to par with GSL (frankly, i dont like GSL at all). But at the moment? Nah. Why should i, as long as they are worse than GSL (worse in case of prod etc), wheres the reason?
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On February 09 2012 18:05 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 18:03 m4inbrain wrote:On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectices like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? Well, ever heard about Hartz4? As a german, im sure you know that term. What do you think, its just a german problem? I have to work hard for my money, others just DONT HAVE IT. I dont know what you do for a living, but i have rent to pay, a car to insure, a family to feed. Maybe if you are some decadent child with absolutely no relationship to money, yeah, then its easy to take 25 bucks from somewhere and dump it into crap. I cant (and wont). And yeah i have to pay GEZ from my own money, not the money from my parents (or pirated). Even more reason. Actually, its really ridiculous how many people dont have any sense for money. Mindboggling. you say while arguing that you deserve to be entertained for free
You should work on your readcompetence, i said already like 5 times that im willing to pay, if the quality is good enough.
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On February 09 2012 18:07 Manimal_pro wrote:
i haven't paid for any stream and will not ever pay. Not because i don't have the money, but i don't find it that important to me. For example GSL is on during work hours and i can't watch the free stream. So, i never watch GSL.
And the idea that starcraft 2 can be compared to UFC or WWE to request a PPV is atrocious. There are countless tourneys and streams in SC2. How may UFCs are there in the world. Only 1. You can ask for PPV when you have exclusivity, but right now sc2 events do not have it. Players can be seen at multiple tourneys and the production value is not worth spending money on it.
Basically this (but i can imagine me paying for something in the future  ).
I can't watch GSL live so i don't watch it at all. If i could watch it live, i would atually even pay... But i don't pay "just" for Vods when the only thing i can grab live in a whole season are the finals (if i'm at home).
BTW:
I have to pay for TV/Radio/PC (basically taxes)... That makes it technically "not free" but i would have to pay this anyway (or not use a TV, Radio, PC, any Multimedia/Internet-device... So what do i get from it?
TONS of diffrent sports (Formula 1, Moto GP; Football, Tennis, Skiing, Snowboarding... + TONS of other sports on private, add supported, TV.
So... Why should i suddenly have to pay to wach SC2? PPV is not really THAT common here and if you decide to get it, you get LOADS of content for it... Not just 1 event.
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On February 09 2012 18:09 Akta wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectives like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? And I for me allready pay for MLG, HSC and GSL. The Tournies I watch regularly. I listened to it and while I agree that it would be good if people spent more money to support the events they like, I either think he's joking or don't know what he's talking about with all the yelling about that organizations should charge away. Or maybe he's right and everyone should start charging for stuff. Hell I should start charging for my 3k members forum, imagine all amazing things I could do if those damn blood sucking users just quit being cheap and paid me!
Yea because hosting forums is a new economy ... oh wait.
And I'm totally talking about charging everyone for everything ... just shows you didn't get the topic dude. Thats not how discussions work to interpret random things into it.
On February 09 2012 18:05 Maetl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectives like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? And I for me allready pay for MLG, HSC and GSL. The Tournies I watch regularly. And that attitude is the internet's great contribution to humanity.
Are we talking about the same internet yea? I grew up with it. I know the time where websites were build static.
Did it change? For sure. Did new business models grew out of it? Hell yea. Are they all for free? Erm, no.
NEW business CAN'T grew and sustain itself WITHOUT a proper business modell.
Now you say: but we have streams and stuff and derp. Sure we do, and sure it works for facebook perfectly. But does FB need to fly guys around the world, setup big stages and things in venues? Go all out in production and sustaining that production with high quality infrastructre? No.
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Hi, I'm an adult male 21 years old and I like watching competitive SC2. I'm from America, but when I watch I want to see the best play possible, regardless of if it requires me to wake up at 3am to do so. I can spend a couple hours each day watching SC2, so for that I'm willing to pay up to ~$250 a year for quality streams, provided the players playing are the best caliber and there's some production quality to it.
Given these criteria, I really think the only two/three I'd pay for is GSL, MLG, and Dreamhack. Maybe throw in HSC simply because of the niche it has that absolutely no other tournament can boast. Of COURSE I want to see grillmaster White-ra.
IPL, IEM, NASL and the like are still interesting to watch, and I do, but being perfectly honest if I was forced to pay to watch them, I never would. They obviously still boast championship winning caliber players, and not that the production is that bad, but it doesn't hold a candle to the aforementioned that I would pay to watch. There's such a saturation of content that I'm allowed to be very choosy, and if the "second rate" tournaments and team leagues were all PPV I couldn't care less to watch them, until their champions played at the ones I was watching.
I'm sure there's many other opinions to this, and to be clear I'm not hating on the non GSLs of the SC2 community, and even love grass roots events, but I would have zero qualms about not paying to watch inferior quality tournaments, as long as I had enough SC2 to keep me abated. And even if there were no on-going tournaments for awhile, it's not like Day9's dailies are stale if you queue up a bunch of archived videos, nor is it boring to watch my favorite players first person stream for awhile.
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I would prefer less tournaments but far more better organized with the viewing experience enhanced and polished. A blizzcon takes a year to properly digest for example.
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Putting a gaming tourney on the same platform as a UFC is a hell of a stretch. First off the UFC is the premier league, they're on top of the industry, it's not just another MMA league, it's THE MMA league. They absorb most of the best fighters around to try and keep themselves as the pinnacle (and also get rid of competitors). Currently for SC2 you have dozens of tourneys, if you're going to start charging like a UFC all you're doing is cannibalizing the scene while its in its infancy, or killing your organization.
The professional fighting community also has a regulatory body overseeing everything. You have rules set up and enforced by both the UFC itself as well as the state it's being held in (Nevada State Athletic Commission for instance). The rules are known and followed or penalties are levied. Currently for SC2 there are the rules of a given tourney and even those don't seem to be followed 90% of the time. So with the UFC you have these known rules across the board, trying to make each fight a level playing field with state rules being followed between leagues (UFC, strikeforce, whatever).
UFC also provides some great production value. I think the SC2 leagues have been working to improve this some but it's about more than a flashy bump graphic. I think MLG does a really good job on the commentating side of things. Don't see how anyone could really argue they have bad commentators with the likes of Tasteless, artosis, day9, itmejp, djwheat, husky, etc. You might prefer one over another but they have the best in the business. But they have these massively long pauses between rounds sometimes. That simply cannot happen if you charge people. "Thanks for the money, enjoy staring at this crowd for 30 minutes." I understand that sort of the nature of the beast running a huge tourney with dynamic game lengths and all that but it does hurt the production quality. Some B roll is definitely needed to fill up time, and not the same NOS commercial or Dr. Pepper gamer house makeover thing.
Look at how the UFC does things if you want to even dream of charging like them. Fight 1 ends in a 45 second KO. Well, better tell the next set of fighters its go time. Interview the winner, show tape of the 2 fighters coming out talking about the fight, show them walking in, tale of the tape, alright lets rock. The advantage hey have is that a fighter only fights once a day so it's not like "HuK, hurry up and win and get your ass to the blue stream so we can go!" Again, its sort of the tricky nature of the beast. I would think logistically there has gotta be a way to smooth those sorts of things out to some degree. There's gotta be a way to be respectful of the players, give them a rolling lunch hour or something while keeping things running smoothly.
There are plenty of other things that set a PPV production like the UFC apart form a gaming tourney. I think right now a tourney like MLG has to think be thinking of a way to make a more profitable business model while fully understanding where the scene is right now and where they are in the scheme of things. It's far smarter to let things grow more before you try and drain money out of it. When the time does come that you can implement your business model and actually make things legit you better have your act together. It needs to be respectful of players while still having very concrete, enforced rules. It needs to have seamless, high quality production. Needs to help grow the esports base and legitimize it not be a money grab. Also, the first company to do it needs to have balls of steel.
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I think the problem is that (as far as we can tell from the rumored numbers) top players and casters are getting too much of the pie before the pie is even baked, based on some hope/belief/projection that it will be this year or the next or whatever. That is a very risky model, but with some luck it will all still work out.
So, would I want to pay "a lot" of money (say 20-30$) to watch a weekend tournament? Only if I'd know that this money was necessary to keep things healthy and stable, but definitely not if it's to fill pockets of people who are hoping to suck this game dry and move on to the next (and I'm not talking about anyone in particular now, neither organization nor player/caster, and especially not about MLG even though it might sound like it).
Btw, since the UFC comparison was brought up (although it's pretty pointless), fighters there made peanuts until the whole thing exploded, and even now I'd say only the top10 fighters in each division (or most of them) are making more money than needed to make ends meet, i.e. six figures or more. Yes, their top fighters make millions each year, but the company makes millions pretty much every other week.
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On February 09 2012 18:15 bluQ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 18:09 Akta wrote:On February 09 2012 17:56 bluQ wrote:On February 09 2012 17:53 bubblegumbo wrote:
Monetizing the numerous big Western Tournaments would be a a mistake unless it is at a very reasonable cost. There are about 4-5 big tournaments such as the NASL, MLG, IPL, IEM already and if all of them were to charge $50 for every season, what is going to happen? Multiply that by 6 if we count the GSL and we don't even need to argue anymore.
I dont know what kind of rich family the target audience live in that would gladly pay more than $100 a year for watching SC2 and that's only assuming 1 season per year. We are talking about the budgets of normal fans of a niche industry aging from 14 to early 30s here. Finding more sponsors and buying more adverts while continuing the present model is the most reasonable way to maintain the popularity of this scene. Going PPV in the manner of other hardcore sports only makes sense when there is only one big tournament and league, and even then that would only work in NA, not in other countries that don't have that. Are u kidding me? Did you listen his rant? How often do you go to cinema, drinking senseless, eating at MC if u ahve a full fridge? Dude those perspectives like yours are from guys who got illusioned by the "internet". The life is not for free. You normally CAN'T listen to music everywhere everyday everytime for free. You CAN'T watch movies and series for free everytime everywhere everyday. Did you even know you pay for TV? And I for me allready pay for MLG, HSC and GSL. The Tournies I watch regularly. I listened to it and while I agree that it would be good if people spent more money to support the events they like, I either think he's joking or don't know what he's talking about with all the yelling about that organizations should charge away. Or maybe he's right and everyone should start charging for stuff. Hell I should start charging for my 3k members forum, imagine all amazing things I could do if those damn blood sucking users just quit being cheap and paid me! Yea because hosting forums is a new economy ... oh wait. And I'm totally talking about charging everyone for everything ... just shows you didn't get the topic dude. Thats not how discussions work to interpret random things into it. I don't think you understand. Why couldn't my forums be a new economy? According to his arguments I should be able to make a lot of money on it.
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On February 09 2012 18:15 bluQ wrote:Are we talking about the same internet yea? I grew up with it. I know the time where websites were build static. Did it change? For sure. Did new business models grew out of it? Hell yea. Are they all for free? Erm, no. NEW business CAN'T grew and sustain itself WITHOUT a proper business modell. Now you say: but we have streams and stuff and derp. Sure we do, and sure it works for facebook perfectly. But does FB need to fly guys around the world, setup big stages and things in venues? Go all out in production and sustaining that production with high quality infrastructre? No.
I have no idea what you are trying to say, or what you think you are responding to. My little contribution was the idea that the attitude that all information and ideas ought to be easily and free accessible, including those currently "protected" by modern copyright law, is a very Good Thing.
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On February 09 2012 15:20 Dromar wrote:
Perhaps some of the businesses need to drown in order to raise the demand for the more successful business models?
Just a thought.
Interesting idea...
PPV? No friggin' way. GTFO. Why does everyone want to compare E-Sports to the UFC? NO THANK YOU. I would much rather see it follow in the footsteps of MLB or the NFL.
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It would kill esports, unless its like IEM charging $10 for a 3 day tournament for HQ then thats fine, anything more than $10 isnt worth buying
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EPT
