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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. |
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.
I'm sorry, but how are you justifying wrestling, boxing and MMA as "new sports that had to build themselves from scratch?" Do you even know the history behind those? Please check your facts and learn your history before trying to dismiss people's arguments.
The reason those types of sports use PPV is because the fights are special events that don't happen every day (like they can with football, basketball, etc). Fighters can't fight every single day. It is simply a difference in the way the sport is handled. Then, when the fights do happen they don't last terribly long. This is what sets up an easy PPV model for those sports to use, because they can't benefit from continued ad revenue from daily or weekly TV time that other sports enjoy. Now after considering the reason behind fighting sports being PPV, tell me which you think StarCraft is more comparable to? Fighting sports or traditional sports?
I'm so sick of this UFC argument and comparing it to StarCraft. It is complete bogus and just a buzz-argument that sheep copy and paste from some higher-up who used the terrible example.
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On February 15 2012 01:30 Artrey wrote:
MLG, that is the tournament with 50% crowd shots with the same music riff going on for hours, right? And with 5 streams, I bet we get 5x crowd shots between games instead of two streams and a decent schedule. ;o)
Transitioning from 10$ for 3 months (MLG silver, mostly worked to watch ~2 tournaments with one silver pass IIRC) to 20$ for one weekend is obviously going to feel like a total ripoff for every fan. So effectively I would have to pay 4 times as much for basically the same service.
There will be no crowds there... Just non stop Nos or Dr. Pepper commercial in the breaks.
And to all people saying that there will be no commercials...
Dr Pepper Pregame Show - hard to imagine that it won't be any commercials afters seeing this in the MLG program.
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First of all, I want to say that everyone shouldn't be bitching so much. MLG have decided to make an experiment, which in my opinion will indubitably fail. So the only thing you can do is just don't buy the pass to make them feel a bit stupid.
Even though I don't care about the money that much, I will not buy it for a couple of reasons. Here is some criticism:
1. Too high price for this event.
2. I'm a European and the viewing times suck for me.
3. There is another pretty good tournament at the same time, which is free.
4. There is one thing that Chill said a couple of pages backwards that I completely agree with.
5. I paid for a Gold Membership, and there is no need to even explain how fucked up this is that I don't get any bonuses from it.
And last but not least, as I said, i don't care that much about the money, but I am not going to buy it because we have to teach MLG a lesson. I hope others understand this.
I am hope Sundance reads this thread, there is some good constructive criticism.
If not, everyone should probably share what they think on twitter @MLGSundance. T
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On February 15 2012 01:46 Agathon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:15 Prochainezo 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. 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.
ECW, went from free on cable and making no money to moderate success through the use of PPV. Unfortunately PPV is still a relatively new model that people are working out. But I have provided what you asked for, PPV can work and has worked as long as the fanbase are willing to support it.
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On February 15 2012 01:44 Lord_J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:33 Timerly wrote: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.
its not about willingness to spend money but rather the relative value of the product. Why should I spend $20 when there are multiple tourneys, even one on the same weekend, that delivers for FREE on a similar value?
until MLG can convinced me otherwise, they're just not going to get my money.
If you spend like you are a businessman, you should know better
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20 dollars isn't actually the problem.
It's the fact that it's only PPV.
Also I'm pretty sure those who will pay will pay regardless, but how will you grow something if you hafta pay to try it out... >_> not likely.
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On February 15 2012 01:50 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:46 Agathon wrote:On February 15 2012 01:15 Prochainezo 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. 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. ECW, went from free on cable and making no money to moderate success through the use of PPV. Unfortunately PPV is still a relatively new model that people are working out. But I have provided what you asked for, PPV can work and has worked as long as the fanbase are willing to support it.
Oh boy, ECW. Didn't they go bankrupt? ECW is actually a perfect example of PPV not working in a niche-market. Maybe SC2 should be compared to ECW instead of UFC.
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On February 15 2012 01:43 VRage wrote:
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
Can you show me where it is stated that the PPV will have instant VOD access of the Arena games?
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Lord_J
Kenya1085 Posts
On February 15 2012 01:50 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:44 Lord_J wrote:On February 15 2012 01:33 Timerly wrote: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. its not about willingness to spend money but rather the relative value of the product. Why should I spend $20 when there are multiple tourneys, even one on the same weekend, that delivers for FREE on a similar value? until MLG can convinced me otherwise, they're just not going to get my money. If you spend like you are a businessman, you should know better
If you don't think MLG is worth $20, then don't buy it. But don't post here saying that you can't afford $20 for a weekend of entertainment while pretending that sponsors are lining up to market their products to you.
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On February 15 2012 01:44 Lord_J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:33 Timerly wrote: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.
At the same token, marketeers seem more than happy to push shitty toys/movies/games on kids because they know that they will tell their parents that this is what they want. I assumed you meant kids as kids staying at home? With the right marketing you can make everything profitable. Just watch all the shitty movies that has come out over the years and had people watching it simply because of good marketing. Clash of the Titans is a good example, horrible film but aimed at the right demographic and marketed in the right places, violá, it made a shitload of money.
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On February 15 2012 01:55 Lord_J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:50 iky43210 wrote:On February 15 2012 01:44 Lord_J wrote:On February 15 2012 01:33 Timerly wrote: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. its not about willingness to spend money but rather the relative value of the product. Why should I spend $20 when there are multiple tourneys, even one on the same weekend, that delivers for FREE on a similar value? until MLG can convinced me otherwise, they're just not going to get my money. If you spend like you are a businessman, you should know better If you don't think MLG is worth $20, then don't buy it. But don't post here saying that you can't afford $20 for a weekend of entertainment while pretending that sponsors are lining up to market their products to you.
its a forum, people posts opinions about things. get over it
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Am I the only one shocked with the price? I mean the sc2 game was 3x that in first day of retail....
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On February 15 2012 01:47 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:23 Chill 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.
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.
People value their time differently. If you can afford it, you want it, and you think it's worth the price, then you should buy it.
The correct price will be different for everyone, finding the one that suits most people is the correct approach. Simply shouting "support esports!!" is not.
There used to be a shop I liked using in my town center which belonged to a big well known company. When it became clear it might end up bankrupt I didn't go in and buy everything for 4+ times the value just to support it, nor would anyone expect me to.
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On February 15 2012 01:48 SovSov wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:33 Prochainezo wrote: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. I'm sorry, but how are you justifying wrestling, boxing and MMA as "new sports that had to build themselves from scratch?" Do you even know the history behind those? Please check your facts and learn your history before trying to dismiss people's arguments. The reason those types of sports use PPV is because the fights are special events that don't happen every day (like they can with football, basketball, etc). Fighters can't fight every single day. It is simply a difference in the way the sport is handled. Then, when the fights do happen they don't last terribly long. This is what sets up an easy PPV model for those sports to use, because they can't benefit from continued ad revenue from daily or weekly TV time that other sports enjoy. Now after considering the reason behind fighting sports being PPV, tell me which you think StarCraft is more comparable to? Fighting sports or traditional sports? I'm so sick of this UFC argument and comparing it to StarCraft. It is complete bogus and just a buzz-argument that sheep copy and paste from some higher-up who used the terrible example.
No no no. You completely missed the point. Ignore PPV for a second, its just a coincidence that it is how they are all run at the moment. My point is they all went from unheard of sports to now mainstream moneymakers by exploiting their hardcore audience to the fullest potential. My point is simply that the money has to be injected from somewhere. Boxing/Wresling/UFC survived off of shirts/tickets and being able to pay their talent a very small amount because it was a start-up sport. Now MLG cant do any of those things, so the only option left is to charge for the stream.
Ignore the fact they all currently use PPV, thats just an unhappy coincidence of how they all came to do bussiness.
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On February 15 2012 01:54 Frankon wrote:
Can you show me where it is stated that the PPV will have instant VOD access of the Arena games?
It's listed as a feature in the news you can read in the OP.
On February 14 2012 07:50 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
For just $20, you’ll get:
- Instant access to VOD
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Nevermind didn't read it correctly.
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Just 2 thoughts crossed my mind when i read this thread:
1.) $20 for a single event seems a lot but well... time will tell if mlg makes a profit here (mlg has nice content, players etc.) .. it's up to the mlg guys. Of course everybody is unhappy and mad because they can't watch this event for free.
2.) $20 for a single event even for gold-members is just a rip-off. I mean all the ads last mlg like: " I'm a mlg gold member, i can get all the content etc." => just lol
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It just seems like this entire MLG Arena event is planned wrong, as in, cart before the horse.
The announcement went out a while ago that MLG will be paying for travel and lodging for most players, or at least partial stipends for some corner cases. The community said "Wow, awesome!"
Now we see the bill, and the math they did said $20, PPV only. I'm sure there were many a calculations run, but this was the conclusion. The community says "No!"
If first they had done the math and present it to the community, would that not have saved a lot of disappointment, anger and frustration on all fronts? I have a hard time understanding the sequence of events.
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hmmm it seems like it wont just work at all but away from that i have a couple of extra questions.
1. are the 20 dollars only for the SC2 content?.
2. are there ANY ads after the 20 dollars?
3. Can i just instantly rewind a stream so i dont have to watch the crowd shots and instead watch games that i missed or will i just have to wait after the whole event is done to be able to watch the matches i missed?.
4. do i get something else away from the sc2 content from the weekend? like a month of silver mlg or the possibility of entering a raffle for some stuff?.
thats pretty much the interrogants i have about the sistem.
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On February 15 2012 01:58 Humposaurus wrote:
20 bucks for 1 weekend??? Bit too much for just some streamed games. If it was 20 bucks for a whole season then perhaps, does this also mean there won't be even a free stream anymore?
All I want to know is will I be able to watch it in 1 or 2 months, whatever, on youtube or something or will it be a copyrighted video forever ?
edit nvm ....
all matches will of course be made available free to everyone as VOD, one week after the Arena wraps up.
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EPT
