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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 01:48 Frankon wrote:Show nested quote +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.
It could be advertisement without commercials. Though you're probably right.
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On February 14 2012 23:52 Frostmister wrote:
I really wanted to watch my favorit player now that hes finally showing up somewhere, to bad I dont have enough internet money to do so =(
Assembly will at least serve as a bandage ;>
Is there any pool someone can link me with whos watching what between MLG/Assembly? Would be greatly appreciated.
I will watch Assembly;)
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On February 15 2012 01:16 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 00:47 Assirra wrote:On February 15 2012 00:16 Crownlol wrote:
Wow look at you people. I'd probably have paid up to $35 for upping the quality of the entertainment and legitimizing the industry. Until you're willing to part with a *tiny* sum of money, progaming will still be relegated to jokes and basements.
The ONLY way to mainstream eSports is with money. Our money. This is the first step. Soon there's an eESPN, barcrafts everywhere, and gaming is actually cool in the mainstream community.
Frankly, the negative reaction to this is only indicative to the internet community's desire to expect something for nothing at every turn. Something for nothing? People are willing to play but.there is this little thing called competition. Let's see. Here we have MLG arena, something completely new goes for 3days for 20dollar. On the other hand we have GSL, a tested and working model that goes on for 3months for 15 gsl light, 25 gsl premium. Not only it's longer, tested and works, contains better players but its way longer. Now tell me why i should even think about giving my money to MLG when i can't even see if i like it for free on a lower quality. No one ought to speak for you. As for myself, the GSL is a complete waste of money because it's at an atrocious hour. And if we're considering VOD's, well then MLG's are free and GSL's are not. Furthermore, I find the MLG Arena lineup of players more entertaining, as well as the (expected) commentators. I also like events that occur completely within one weekend, although I do prefer protracted events as a general rule. But the important fact here is that I strongly prefer having both on the scene rather than just one or the other. I also expect the Arena to have better content in the sense that I'll get to know the players better than I do with GSL. One thing that has been shown in the past year is that MLG produces more exciting and entertaining series than GSL does. GSL has a higher overall skill level and that's the only thing going for it. But in the opinion of just about everyone, MLG's skill level is high enough that it doesn't matter. And finally, I'm willing to spend some money on an interest that I deeply enjoy without having guarantees that it'll work out perfectly. If you are unwilling to try something until people with more passion and more money than you have invested in it and proven that it'll work, then that's simply one of your faults and shouldn't reflect poorly on anything or anyone but yourself.
lol where do u get off criticizing other ppl for their own POV? in terms of debates about game design/balance and other things in that realm, ok, ur opinion has a special value cus ur a pro gamer and u can tell the avg poster to just stfu. But when talking about how sc2 events should be monetized, then ur opinion is no more important, if not less important, than the avg viewer/non pro gamer. because if the demographic MLG is trying to cater to are pro gamers rather than the avg viewer, than this is gonna go nowhere.
u have ur own opinion, go ahead and express it. but please dont even for a second think that it is any more important than the poster above you cus its not. your last sentence and the first sentence is totally unecessary. of course pro gamers like urself are going to have more passion in sc2 than the avg sc2 player/veiwer...DUH? are u really saying that in order for MLG PPV to succeed and esports in general, every1 has to have enough passion and invest into it like U? get out of ur pro gamer bubble and open up urself to the opinion of the average sc2 fan.
my opinion is GSL is a much better value than what MLG is offering. the play in GSL > MLG and thats all that matters. Iwant to see the highest levle of play. GSL matches have much more preparation into them, no players are jetlagged (for the mosmt part) and everyone is playing at the most optimal level. in live tournaments that span many hours, its about who makes the least mistakes. play is much less refined and although it can be just as, or more, exciting, i still prefer GSL over MLG and i think many others do too.
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As much as I enjoy the MLG coverage it seems to be cutback after cutback followed by price hikes.
Good luck to them but I can happily wait a week and watch the vods!
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On February 15 2012 01:56 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:48 SovSov wrote: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.
It's quite simple, I'm not paying because I disagree with MLG's choice to pay for the flight/hotel costs of all the players they have invited. The NFL doesn't ask me to pay for the plane ticket of the New York Giants every game. I'm not obligated to support what I feel like are bad business decisions.
If you feel like supporting e-sports this way, go ahead; I'll support e-sports by watching Assembly. What you've been doing to people in this thread is talking down to them because they don't share the same value of their dollar as you do and that needs to stop.
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On February 15 2012 01:53 SovSov wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:50 Prochainezo wrote: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 $1/hour high quality content that cost you thousands of dollars to set up, then why the hell would a sponsor think anyone would be willing to spend money on their products?This is a point that has been made so many times by numerous people within the industry. It is not just my opinion. It is how it works. I wonder if you realise the harm uninformed opinions like yours do on these kind of sites. Even if you aren't buying, you should be encouraging others to do so if they can afford it. Otherwise you are helping no-one, and perhaps even doing harm. Grow up. Tell me one single competition/sport/entertaining that grown from 90k viewer to mainstream with a PPV. Just one. GL with that. All actual mainstream entertainments grown because it's popular. Not because the public paid to watch it. I've not big knowlegde with business (or english as you can read), but i'm pretty well informed about entertaining, and there is not a single exemple that this economical model ever evolved in mainstream. ECW, went from free on cable and making no money to moderate success through the use of PPV. Unfortunately PPV is still a relatively new model that people are working out. But I have provided what you asked for, PPV can work and has worked as long as the fanbase are willing to support it. Oh boy, ECW. Didn't they go bankrupt? ECW is actually a perfect example of PPV not working in a niche-market. Maybe SC2 should be compared to ECW instead of UFC.
Yup, they went bankrupt eventually after having all their talent stolen. I'm gonna go ahead and say that 'stealing talent' is unlikely to occur in starcraft. So my example still holds. Please, try harder.
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I think the main problem is that a lot of the viewers are underage and the fact that they know less people will watch it they make the tickets ultra-expensive (for a lot of us 20$ is a lot of cash) which hurts the viewership even more.
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20$ is quite a lot for me. And considering the awkward time for Europe I think i'll pass this one.
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On February 15 2012 01:56 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:48 SovSov wrote: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.
Boxing has had ages to build up a solid fanbase. SC2 has been around competitively for a bit over a year. You have to first explore how many people you could get without having hefty prices on your products and then move on from there. There's still so many things to explore regarding how to get the most amount of viewers whilst getting to most amount of profit in the long run and no one has got the exact right formula yet. Once you've reached the full potential of viewers then you can start charging prices that the fanbase could stand behind and then gradually increase it as viewers are happy with the product they are getting. Out of the blue overpricing a product that can be found elsewhere is just plain bad business and there's no way to hide that fact. Viewers come first and they bring the money, not the other way around. At least when it comes to sports.
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On February 15 2012 01:56 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:48 SovSov wrote: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.
Again, boxing and wrestling were not "unknown sports that relied on their hardcore base". These sports have been around longer than Basketball and American Football. They grew in popularity over many years. Comparing them to SC2 is nonsense.
You must also consider that:
MLG events cost money to attend live
Gold Service is offered for HQ streams
Ad revenue
These 3 things are all sources of income for MLG. Trying to extract more money in more ways out of the customers only stagnates the foundation already laid.
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GOGO MLG, you'll lose ALOT of viewers when you decide to charge people to view a random tournament, 20 bucks for some streamed games lawl... Could someone who has too much money stream the ppv stream when it is going live?
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On February 15 2012 02:03 setzer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:56 Prochainezo wrote:On February 15 2012 01:48 SovSov wrote: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. It's quite simple, I'm not paying because I disagree with MLG's choice to pay for the flight/hotel costs of all the players they have invited. The NFL doesn't ask me to pay for the plane ticket of the New York Giants every game. I'm not obligated to support what I feel like are bad business decisions. If you feel like supporting e-sports this way, go ahead; I'll support e-sports by watching Assembly. What you've been doing to people in this thread is talking down to them because they don't share the same value of their dollar as you do and that needs to stop.
Well if you disagree out of principle then I can't stop you.
Out of interest though, how else would you propose they hold a major tournament and secure so many top quality players when their prizepool would not justify teams sending their best players? Again, you have to trust MLG probably understand a bit better than you do why they make these decisions.
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On February 15 2012 01:48 Frankon wrote:Show nested quote +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.
On February 15 2012 02:00 nihlon wrote:
It could be advertisement without commercials. Though you're probably right.
Geez guys, why do people keep buying into the bs that there are going to be commercials? Let's look at a quick example here:
http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/46/events/halftime-show
Now this year's superbowl halftime show was sponsoed by Bridgestone. However, did this mean that they spammed commercials during the half time show? No they didnt! Yes they had commercials before/after the show, but here's the key thing: they did not play commercials in the middle of content.
If nothing is going on, there's nothing wrong with displaying logos and such. If they start playing an actual commercial, yea I would agree that shouldn't be part of the PPV experience. But you guys make it sound like you want MLG to have no advertising period. Are you that stupid?
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Poland3747 Posts
On February 14 2012 08:32 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 08:30 JJH777 wrote:
What the hell? 20$? I paid 15 for this season of GSL and am getting like 10x the content (if not more) plus higher quality production + higher quality play + higher quality casters. their horrible outfits make them the worst casters in the world. harsh but true
While I agree that suits are terribly stupid, I don't think that justifies that statment unless your sole purpose of watching a tournament is glaring at commentators.
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On February 15 2012 02:07 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 08:32 Liquid`NonY wrote:On February 14 2012 08:30 JJH777 wrote:
What the hell? 20$? I paid 15 for this season of GSL and am getting like 10x the content (if not more) plus higher quality production + higher quality play + higher quality casters. their horrible outfits make them the worst casters in the world. harsh but true While I agree that suits are terribly stupid, I don't think that justifies that statment unless your sole purpose of watching a tournament is glaring at commentators.
Or just sarcasm
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20$ is to much in my country:D it's like 1/20 of my earnings, sory but you wont get many people from poland:D
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On February 15 2012 02:03 Prochainezo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 01:53 SovSov wrote:On February 15 2012 01:50 Prochainezo wrote: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. Yup, they went bankrupt eventually after having all their talent stolen. I'm gonna go ahead and say that 'stealing talent' is unlikely to occur in starcraft. So my example still holds. Please, try harder.
You can't argue that they had success through PPV if they organization went under shortly after, regardless of reason. So maybe my argument is not valid because it can't cite PPV not working, but your argument can't cite PPV working.
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Poland3747 Posts
On February 15 2012 02:09 frozenrb wrote:
20$ is to much in my country:D it's like 1/20 of my earnings, sory but you wont get many people from poland:D
1/20?
20$ = 64PLN
minimal fee in Poland in 2012 = 1116.86 PLN.
I thought that's impossible but it is.
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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.
Ok, if it's a new model (and Wrestling as mainstream...hum...borderline, but i give you this point), maybe you should say "PPV MIGHT be a good choice", and not "grow up, you don't know anything about business".
99.99% of entertainments grown without PPV but with popular fan base. You're argument is motivated by one signe exemple, and you threw all the others away ? Hum...
I'm not convinced.
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I don't mind that they're making the event PPV.
It's a business decision, and then it is upto them and their viewers to decide whether it is worth it or not.
What I absolutely despise is people saying that if I don't pay for this one event (despite paying for an MLG membership, and paying for GSL) that I'm hurting eSports.
Take your holier than thou attitude elsewhere, I will buy what I can and when I want to. If I can't/don't want to buy MLG, that should be my decision, and I should not be suddenly accused of hurting eSports.
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EPT
