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Criticism is allowed. Undue flaming is not. Take a second to think your post through before you submit.
Bans will be handed out.
Should go without saying, but don't link restreams here either. |
You're drunk on power. Because your free and membership views were doing so well last year you think you can push us around this year and be so bold to try and make us pay TWENTY DOLLARS FOR 3 DAYS?!?!? Have you lost your damn minds?? This is pure greed in its purest form, MLG bigwigs think they can get rich quick, they think they can turn this into a UFC level of success BEFORE WE'VE EVEN COME CLOSE TO REACHIGN THAT LEVEL OF POPULARITY!
Our scene is no where near that form. We have so many alternatives and albeit MLG is a huge event I greatly look forward to, its not worth it for someone who makes 8bucks an hour to pay 3hrs worth of their hard work. Have you completely forgotten what your majority fanbase is? They're kids like me who are still working small jobs and paying to go to school. Who just cant afford it.
As I was reading it from the start when I saw you were gonna be making it a PPV I said to myself
"Well it better only be $5 or else this is a huge fail and a huge greedy move."
Then I saw the 20 and it was "Nope, no way. Never"
This is a sad day in esports. If this was a year from now and the scene had continued to exponentially grow as it did from 2010 to 2011. Then MAYBE this would work. But its not. And you need to hurry up and change this now. Make different packs.
Free for 240p... 5 dollars for 480p. 10 for 720p and 20 for HD. And VOD's should all be included, if you payed to watch it during stream you should be able to watch it forever.
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I see no reason paying so much money (or money at all) for streams.not worth for me atleast.
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Won't watch that event, will still tune in for the other events.
I've supported 'ESPORTS' ( as if that is some kind of collective entity that grows if you throw money at parts that we think might not be worth it ) by buying shirts, but if I can still watch streams of tournaments I'll be fine. I've started out with watching broodwar so a little less quality won't hurt me.
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I wont be paying for this, hopefully games will be released not too long later, or people will even lose interest on what happened with the event.
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On February 15 2012 01:32 SovSov wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 18:48 syllogism wrote:On February 14 2012 18:47 [EMP]ArtOfWar wrote:
I sincerely hope that they are doing this just to "tryout" how far they can squeeze the money cow.
And learn from it. How much profit do you think MLG has made out of sc2 so far? How much do you think they will? More than Halo or Call of Duty has ever provided them. It seems odd that the most successful eSport for MLG to this date is the one they decide to monetize so that they can "save eSports". This is what leads me to believe it is just greed motivating this decision, since we have the biggest community and the kindest community (most willing to pay money for content). If they tried to make something like Halo PPV it would literally get about 6 viewers because no one gives a shit about Halo enough.
You are kidding right, have you ever been to an MLG? When you look at the halo crowd you see MLG shirts and hats everywhere. When you look at the starcraft crowd you see a bunch of people MLG is making no money off.
Thats why Halo is still on the pro circuit, the fans understand they have to prove they are willing to spend money so that MLG can make the decision to support their scene.
Right now, MLG is making nothing off of starcraft fans, then only reason that they arent losing money is because of investors who, as Alex from EG said, you dont want to be relying on unless you want your bussiness to crash and burn.
200k people on a free stream doesnt pay for shit, and quite frankly its worth nothing because nobody will take it seriously unless it is making money.
Now answer the question again, How much profit has MLG made from SC2 so far?
If your answer isn't $0, then im afraid you arent living in the real world.
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I'm not gonna donate one penny to that fancy ass NY city office of them, so sad cause i really wanted to watch this but it just does't feel right somehow...
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On February 14 2012 23:55 Tarotis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 23:53 NewK wrote:On February 14 2012 23:51 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On February 14 2012 23:36 Munchkin wrote:
I'm having a hard time understanding the the bit about Gold Membership...
I bought it thinking I'd have access to MLG events for the next year.
Maybe I am not reading this right.. but this is not the case anymore?
What exactly did I pay for ...?
Well, at this point it looks like you and I bought tickets that give us access to about half the content MLG will produce in the coming year, assuming the Arena events continue to be produced. No. There's 7 arena events and 4 pro circuits. So you get acces to 1/3 of the events. MLG is so greedy it's not even funny. I'm never ever buying gold again. DreamHack provides free HD streams with less ads and better production. Sundance is just really greedy and only in it for the money, getting sick of it. I'll stick to watching the vods/LQ streams. You do realize that nobody makes money out of e-sports yet? Things have to change and PPV's are one option, though I prefer seasonal tickets. Still, 20 is too much, I'd be ok with 10
[citation needed].
the fact that MLG has been through stages of growth and decline over a period of 10 years seem like a contradiction to your claim. Remember they've been around since 2002, they're not running on a deficit for 10 years people...
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idk about american sports, because they arent really real sports in any sense of the word, but pretty much every premiership club seems to be loss making. still one of the most successful events in the world.
so dont give me all that business shit
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On February 15 2012 01:33 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:10 Xcobidoo wrote:On February 15 2012 01:06 Prochainezo wrote:On February 15 2012 00:56 floor exercise wrote:On February 15 2012 00:52 Prochainezo wrote:
Wow so many people here don't realise they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Finally after a year of hoping that Starcraft would explode as an esport, an opportunity comes along where we can prove that it can be monetised and can be a sustainable bussiness that will have real profits (and not just free stream viewers) to show to bigger sponsors and secure larger investment... and you guys can't justify $1/hour of content.
I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to give people my money! Yup, this fanbase is retarded. No wonder nobody is making any money. I wonder if you could run a million dollar company getting $0 injected from such a large portion of your hardcore fanbase. Infact, I challenge you to think of one sport that doesn't rely on people happily buy entry tickets/merchandise/food and drink on site to support themselves. Until all you people realise this is the real world, and millions of dollars doesn't just grow on trees, then starcraft will never get anywhere. I'll say it again, you guys are so shortsighted it hurts. And how do you think the fanbase for sports that have been around forever were built up. By charging insane prices in their infancy? No way josé, they were built brick by brick until it could sustain itself by selling merchandise etc. Each season making their product better when people were ready to pay more. That's the way empires are built. Favoring money over growth is how a bubble is blown and a card house is stacked. There are two kinds of sports to consider here. 1. The ones that already have a huge fanbase (baseball,basketball,football,soccer) because they are games that everyone is familiar with. 2. The ones that are starting from nothing and have to slowly build themselves. I will analyse both so you understand quite how wrong you are. 1. This is the easiest, you already have the fanbase, so you just need to make people aware of your content. Investors should be easy to find seeing as everyone is familiar with your game. Sponsors are happy to associate themselves with something everyone is familiar with. Bussiness may be slow at first, but with so many potential consumers and so much financial backing you can grow until you are big enough sustain yourself. This I beleive is what you mistakenly think starcraft is capable of. This is also the main reason why we cant compare starcraft to other sports, now onto the second case. 2. You are a small promoter looking to build a sports bussiness from scratch. There is a small hardcore fanbase, that you know you will have to rely on to succeed. Eventually you hope to reach a point where you can gain enough interest to obtain big sponsors and hopefully make people more fimiliar with your sport. This is how wrestling/UFC/boxing all began, and to survive they had to milk their fanbase for all it was worth until they could sustain themselves and prove to investors/sponsors they were legit. Certainly for those 3 sports there were times when it was the T-shirt sales that were keeping the promoters afloat. Now consider which catagory starcraft most likely falls into. As with any start-up sport, the money has to be injected from the fanbase, whether you obtain that money by PPV/t-shirt sales/ticket sales doesn't matter. It needs to come from somewhere though. Now consider where MLG makes money. All of the fans are too cheap to buy merchandise. Tickets do not account for the millions spent on the events because of the high tech equipment required to run them. Sponsors see that most people aren't familiar with starcraft, and are currently not paying enough to keep the bussiness afloat. Investors are the only thing keeping MLG in the black, but as Alex Garfield said, relying only on investors is a sure way for your bussiness to crash and burn. Now MLG is doing the right thing, by offering HQ PPV content alongside its regular free stream season, and you are all acting like its completely unreasonable. Frankly, if I were Sundance, I would have given up on this community a long time ago.
Its not alongside a free stream you moron. Stop typing in a thread where you dont even know whats going on k.
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Not really sure what people are moaning about as previous memberships charged through MLG
I cancelled my MLG membership so i can buy the PPV
I cant wait for this DRG, Nestea, MC, Huk
They could charge me 50 dollars and id pay it. I purchase all GSL as I only want to see the best players play.
Instant VOD access is a big plus so when i fall asleep in the night I can watch matches the next Morning.
And as for the extra content features..... so so excited for this also
Stay in - Get some mates over and drink n watch :-D happy days
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On February 15 2012 01:06 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 00:56 floor exercise wrote:On February 15 2012 00:52 Prochainezo wrote:
Wow so many people here don't realise they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Finally after a year of hoping that Starcraft would explode as an esport, an opportunity comes along where we can prove that it can be monetised and can be a sustainable bussiness that will have real profits (and not just free stream viewers) to show to bigger sponsors and secure larger investment... and you guys can't justify $1/hour of content.
I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to give people my money! Yup, this fanbase is retarded. No wonder nobody is making any money. I wonder if you could run a million dollar company getting $0 injected from such a large portion of your hardcore fanbase. Infact, I challenge you to think of one sport that doesn't rely on people happily buy entry tickets/merchandise/food and drink on site to support themselves. Until all you people realise this is the real world, and millions of dollars doesn't just grow on trees, then starcraft will never get anywhere. I'll say it again, you guys are so shortsighted it hurts.
im not gonna link you sports because thats easy. but league of legends is another game which is experiencing growth and wants to be considered an esport. the vast vast vast majority pay nothing and get everything. the very few people buying skins and champs pays for riot to personally invest in tourneys and a pro scene which is also delivered free. you can make buckets giving 90% of your stuff for free, as long as you have a decent business in general thats never going to be a deal breaker.
another business for whom most people pay nothing, facebook and google. now im not going to say "hurr durr esports gets a billion users" what im pointing out is the 'free at the point of use' model works, it has worked, still works and shows no signs of needing payment from the little guy blindly saying we need ppv is just flat out wrong.
so lets look at what people are actually complaining about. 1. mlg delivers a shit service. this doesnt even seem worth debating but the complaints about the site, the vod system etc are still around. nobody asked for a lan, nobody asked mlg to pay flight costs. what people asked for was a decent site and decent quality stream and vods. mlg consistently has missed this point and delivered what they think we want, not what people are screaming out for.
and secondly, mlg isnt competitive. comparing gsl to mlg may or may not be fair. but in terms of core content, x game for y dollars mlg is lagging behind badly. now if mlg had come first delivered a product and we were now saying "well you have new competition" that would be fine, it would be understandable. but this has been in the pipeline for months. mlg have been planing this for litteraly half a year, and then they jump back in to the pool trying to make a bigger splash but gsl has already delivered a better product for less, for a long time. this is just pure crazy from mlg. no offence to jp (hes a great guy works hard and really gives a shit) but hes not a tier 1 caster, mlg are giving us jp, gsl are giving us tasteless.
now lets look at out of game content and production work. gsls production value has so far been unbeatable for mlg. the finals with the flashing lights, a well dressed tastosis and some cool explosives going off in the background, hell even john managed to put away his yugioh cards and give a speech. its been fantastic, and only getting better. on top of that they have taken tentative steps into producing side shows to keep their brand out there and to endeer themselves to the audience. from yellows nostalgia trip into code a to now 'off the record' they are trying something new, testing the water, and seeing how it goes. mlg on the other hand takes dive bombs into new areas while pulling out of the old. they give us skype calls and web cams while wasting money on a full studio. they remove funding for their community facing projects (sotg) and drive it into who knows what.
overall it seems like mlg are determined to force us to like what they like, rather than simply asking. their accountants seem to think investing 6 figure costs into plane tickets and studios is a good choice. but spending maybe 10% of that on a working site and a decent stream isnt worth it, they need to get their damn priorities sorted.
heres a tip mlg. cancel plane tickets and sell the studio. let jp cast from home if your gonna use skype anyway, and broadcast over jtv (all the time)to save money. delete your stupid site that no one goes on and buy tl.net and rename it mlg.net, keep all the staff.
buy back sotg and put your ads back in it, but put it in legal writing that you will have 0 influence over the content (if you want to see this in action look at the bbc in england, funding by the government, but they have 0 control).
put aside a backing pot of cash to give financial assistance to teams that can prove to you that their A class player cant afford to attend, but expect the big organisations to pay their own damn way.
stop throwing your money into a toilet trying to convince us its made of gold and just concentrate on building what people actually want to see.
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Im just spitballin' here, but think about this...
who is the main demographic of SC2 viewers?
are they primarily people with well paying jobs that can comfortably afford living expenses, food, gas, other basic needs, and on top of all that...a $20 PPV pass for one 3-day MLG event?
and I know prices vary depending on location, but a movie ticket and concessions costs me maybe $12 at the most. A large pizza is $10-12. And a round of drinks depends on how many ppl you are with. haha. So I just have a really hard time justifying this expense in my mind b/c $20 to me is 3-4 days of food from the grocery store. $20 will pay my gas to get to work and back for a week...etc.
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I am definitely paying for this, $20 for 3 days worth of content?! YES PLEASE, these kids have been spoiled for far too long. If you want this ESPORTS business to sustain itself then this is needed, do you think someone as successful with years of business experience like sundance would do this without a reason?
$20 for a full weekends worth of entertainment is a great deal. I'll also be watching assembly though, support every good tournament.
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Lord_J
Kenya1085 Posts
On February 15 2012 01:33 Timerly wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:13 Lord_J wrote:On February 15 2012 01:05 Xcobidoo wrote:On February 15 2012 00:52 Prochainezo wrote:
Wow so many people here don't realise they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Finally after a year of hoping that Starcraft would explode as an esport, an opportunity comes along where we can prove that it can be monetised and can be a sustainable bussiness that will have real profits (and not just free stream viewers) to show to bigger sponsors and secure larger investment... and you guys can't justify $1/hour of content.
What a real shame that is. MLG knew this would be an unpopular decision. But somebody has to man up and start monetising esports, and frankly if MLG can't do it, then who the hell can?
Please, just think of all the great content MLG has given us last year alone. This is the hour when your support will count the most. If this event succeeds, then esports will grow, it is as simple as that. Just this once we need to prove we are willing to part with our cash to support our hobby, just like fans of every other sport are willing to do on a far more routine and more expensive basis.
If you can afford the $20, and you don't spend it, then as melodramatic as it may sound, you are killing esports. MLG really stuck their heads out on this one, there is no way all this bad PR is worth the measly amount they will earn from this event, and the loss in ad revenue may even hurt them. But they understand better than you do what needs to happen for esports to grow.
Reading these threads really makes me wonder if an esport will ever manage to acheive mainstream popularity with such a shortsighted and cheap fanbase. Really, its making me pretty depressed.
Do the right thing guys, or dont complain when in next years time absolutely nothing has changed.
People will look back on this in years to come, and wonder why the hell such an avid and hardcore fanbase came up with so many excuses not to support their passion. Don't be one of those people. First of all sponsors don't care how much money MLG makes, only how many people are watching and how many times you see their product during the event. Less people watching = less (need for) sponsors. Sponsors do care about the demographic that's watching, though. And if 90% of that demographic is people who can't or won't spend $20 for a weekend of entertainment, then they might rightly wonder whether it's worth their money to advertise to that demographic. That's not really that easy either. Numbers count just as much as possible sales to the people watching. They count because the people they're targeting are multipliers and have so called expert properties, meaning other people will ask them for advice on what to buy even if the people themselves might not be spending the money. Because my parents ask me what stuff for computers to buy it might be a good idea to show me free streams with intel ads even if I didn't buy a computer for ages and probably won't for the next two years. So no, sponsors would probably still prefer the considerably bigger numbers if it was exclusive and here's the extra cherry on top: the bigger numbers here are ALWAYS preferrable for the sponsors because whoever would pay for the stream will probably watch it whether there's a LQ free stream or not. Obviously that's leaving out like ten other factors but please stop arguing with economics. If you don't work in that business or study it, it's not your place to judge it.
I do work in business, and if you think marketers are happy to market to kids who can't get their parents spend $20 on entertainment because their parents see them as electronics experts, then you have no idea what you're talking about.
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its not like I pissed my pants over big tourneys in the past, so I really dont care that much.
gotta pay for MLG? big whoop, I'm only interested in a couple of particular matches and there are always alternative ways to obtain the VODs if those matches are as good as I expected them to be.
korean pro's streaming is good enough and this whole bullshit about esports gettin big and how WERE HURTING ESPORTS BY NOT FEEDING IT MONEY is just that - a load of bullshit.
I'd be much more affected if for example TL/twitch/own3d decided to charge people for using their services
until then - all the best to MLG and everybody else
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As a gold member, I'm obviously refusing to pay for this as well.
I'm a subscriber to both GSL, MLG and I usually pay for HD when it's time for NASL ro16, Homestory Cup, IEM and so on. I've bought t-shirts and other ESPORTS related merchandise and will keep on doing so. But I'm putting my foot down here.
Until MLG reevaluates their payment plans, I will not pay them another dime.
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On February 15 2012 01:15 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:05 Xcobidoo wrote:On February 15 2012 00:52 Prochainezo wrote:
Wow so many people here don't realise they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Finally after a year of hoping that Starcraft would explode as an esport, an opportunity comes along where we can prove that it can be monetised and can be a sustainable bussiness that will have real profits (and not just free stream viewers) to show to bigger sponsors and secure larger investment... and you guys can't justify $1/hour of content.
What a real shame that is. MLG knew this would be an unpopular decision. But somebody has to man up and start monetising esports, and frankly if MLG can't do it, then who the hell can?
Please, just think of all the great content MLG has given us last year alone. This is the hour when your support will count the most. If this event succeeds, then esports will grow, it is as simple as that. Just this once we need to prove we are willing to part with our cash to support our hobby, just like fans of every other sport are willing to do on a far more routine and more expensive basis.
If you can afford the $20, and you don't spend it, then as melodramatic as it may sound, you are killing esports. MLG really stuck their heads out on this one, there is no way all this bad PR is worth the measly amount they will earn from this event, and the loss in ad revenue may even hurt them. But they understand better than you do what needs to happen for esports to grow.
Reading these threads really makes me wonder if an esport will ever manage to acheive mainstream popularity with such a shortsighted and cheap fanbase. Really, its making me pretty depressed.
Do the right thing guys, or dont complain when in next years time absolutely nothing has changed.
People will look back on this in years to come, and wonder why the hell such an avid and hardcore fanbase came up with so many excuses not to support their passion. Don't be one of those people. First of all sponsors don't care how much money MLG makes, only how many people are watching and how many times you see their product during the event. Less people watching = less (need for) sponsors. Just wow, that isn't how bussiness works at all. It is a shame that I have to explain this to you all, but I feel it is my duty seeing as how uninformed you all are. You can't go to a sponsor and say we have 20,000 free stream viewers. The first question they will ask is how much money you have made. If you say $0, then they dont care. The whole reason we need to monetise it is because it is only the money that informs bussiness decision. If you cant get people to pay for $1/hour high quality content that cost you thousands of dollars to set up, then why the hell would a sponsor think anyone would be willing to spend money on their products?This is a point that has been made so many times by numerous people within the industry. It is not just my opinion. It is how it works. I wonder if you realise the harm uninformed opinions like yours do on these kind of sites. Even if you aren't buying, you should be encouraging others to do so if they can afford it. Otherwise you are helping no-one, and perhaps even doing harm. Grow up.
Tell me one single competition/sport/entertaining that grown from 90k viewer to mainstream with a PPV.
Just one.
GL with that.
All actual mainstream entertainments grown because it's popular. Not because the public paid to watch it.
I've not big knowlegde with business (or english as you can read), but i'm pretty well informed about entertaining, and there is not a single exemple that this economical model ever evolved in mainstream.
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If esport companies will start charging bigger sums for each event we'll just have a scene like the nhl. You can watch all the nhl games online for free using p2p.
So now they want us to spend 80 dollars each year to watch all mlg "big" event.
Before it was like 10 dollars for silver for 3 months which covered 1 or 2 event in HD.
Now you dont even get a free stream which i think is really greedy. People say that we should support esport and spread the word of it to every corner of the earth but how can we do that when mlg goes the other way? If mlg was the first event i watched in starcraft i would never pay 20 dollar for something i have no idea of what it is or if i'm just getting intrested in sc2. Hell i dont know if i'm gonna pay 20 dollar even that i love sc2. I understand that mlg wants and needs to make money on each event to cover their cost and make it profitable. But mlg would have stopped doing this a long time ago if it wasn't profitable. I know its really hard to compare event since the economy of the companies are different but it feel so wierd that other big events all have free streams and an option to buy hd stream for a small amount like 5-10 dollars except for the nerdballers at Dreamhack which gives us free hd stream for their entire event <3.
I just wanted to share my opinion flame all you want. People choose to spend their money on whatever they want but increasing prices during depression might not be the optimal thing.
Would like to see a free stream for the event since it will draw many more viewers, i hate watching in LQ so i buy hd if i have the money.
I have seen mlg as one of the flagships that will carry sc2 to greatness in the western but this no free stream thing is an embarrassing idea and i think it will hurt esport, all though it will fill the pockets of mlg and they might be able to do something awesome with that but.. I have my doubts.
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On February 15 2012 01:23 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 00:52 Prochainezo wrote:
Wow so many people here don't realise they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Finally after a year of hoping that Starcraft would explode as an esport, an opportunity comes along where we can prove that it can be monetised and can be a sustainable bussiness that will have real profits (and not just free stream viewers) to show to bigger sponsors and secure larger investment... and you guys can't justify $1/hour of content.
Don't you see that if you buy something because you want to support it (likely temporarily) instead of because you feel you got value from it, it will create a bubble of false value? As soon as people get tired of supporting it they will stop paying and the bubble pops. Bubble pop!
Sure, I respect that, but so many people here are actively discouraging people from purchasing this content. If they can afford it, and they want it, they should all be buying it.
Otherwise that is far worse than a bubble... thats undervaluing our esport.
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EPT
