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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 07:52 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:49 Sway.746 wrote:
It doesn't matter that they'll make more money this time, because right now they should be in viewer-building mode. What if they believe SC2 has reached its limit?
Charging PPV only makes sense if they think SC2 is dying, and the only way they can still extract money is to charge a lot for the few people who will still watch.
If that were the case, though, then you'd think they would reduce overhead expenses (like flying in players from all over the world). I don't think it's a very good assertion that they believe SC2 has reached the height of its popularity.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 15 2012 07:53 Sway.746 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:49 Jibba wrote:On February 15 2012 07:36 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:33 Jibba wrote:On February 15 2012 07:29 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:23 Jibba wrote:On February 15 2012 07:19 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:14 Mithriel wrote:
Im really curious about difference in revenue between a free stream with quite a lot of ads and the 20$ no free stream variant. See what the best business decision would be. Though we could get the perfect numbers only in a perfect world to calculate which would be best ( or what price would draw most people) If they only get 3% of the viewership, but are making $20 per person instead of purely the ad revenue, then they're making substantially more money. However, now their customer base has shrunk thirty-fold, and they're almost certainly still not profitable. If they ever want to be profitable, they will have to lower their cost structure or have more viewers (and charging for, and thereby alienating a large percentage of your potential and current audience hinders that a LOT). Poor long-term decision, I think. Remember viewers also cost them money too, so less viewers reduces their bandwidth cost. It's not simply the difference in ad revenue like it would be for TV. Perhaps it's different with the Twitch.tv package they're demoing now. Bandwidth cost is close to zero compared to their other costs. There is absolutely no way that it was a factor in this decision. I don't know what their deal with Akamai was, but I think you're underestimating bandwidth. It's not an unsubstantial amount. If they're paying too much for bandwidth then it's another problem altogether. If they're losing money on bandwidth by streaming content with ads then they were really, really doing it wrong. Well Akamai was charging $.07 per GBps last year, Amazon was $.05, but MLG had an agreement with Akamai. Assuming medium quality (750Kbps) and with 3.6 million hours of video watched for Providence, that's over $80,000 for that. For the entire circuit, it's over $300,000. I'm sure they had some other deal besides that, that's just the standard rate Akamai would charge. If you're a content company that is losing money on every viewer, you're doing it wrong. Having your main product have a negative margin is terrible business practice. I have no idea why they've gotten investments time and time again. I agree, and that's why mainstream ESPORTS is a folly. But that's what they're all doing. The "best" are limping by and everything that requires substantial production takes a loss. If you've got Samsung or IGN behind you, it's just easier to absorb it.
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Poland3752 Posts
On February 15 2012 03:03 Klipsys wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 03:01 mememolly wrote:On February 15 2012 02:56 Klipsys wrote:
So many broke nerds it’s disgusting. Some of you should get jobs and contribute instead of being spoiled consumers. Honestly, it's like a bunch of poor children crying about wanting free shit. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, and if you're over 18, you should be EMBARRESED. These people put on a show for us to enjoy, and you want them to constantly do it for FREE? I don't think anyone here really understands how business work....
no one asked MLG to put those events on you know, they do it to make money, don't act like MLG have some moral high ground here and are being undermined by the uncompromising "broke nerds", people just don't want to be ripped off/insulted, $20 is ripping people off Are you new to planet earth? Are you seriously OFFENDED (LOL?) that they're charging money for this? Do you honestly believe everything esports should be free? How do you expect these people to feed their families? You're delusional if you think they should make everything free for everyone.
Google makes stuff free for people and bam! The make profit!
Facebook is free and BAM! I don't think Mark has any problems with feeding his family.
What a joke.
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On February 15 2012 07:50 Femari wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:48 Dodgin wrote:On February 15 2012 07:46 Femari wrote:On February 15 2012 07:45 Timerly wrote:
This poll is the market research they (hopefully) did before. If they didn't then to hell with that kind of unprofessional business. They determined 20$ to be the correct price point (I disagree but hey, I don't have that much data either). Now the big question is how negative the publicity will be considering the whole Twitter/gold member/Assembly problematic. Well they do have to pay prize money as well as 48 flights. Flights are expensive. That's the thing, they didn't have to pay for all the flights. Players have teams that can pay for the flights. Not all teams can afford flights. And since you can't give benefits to just one party, you have to give it to them all. So they have to pay for the 48 flights.
No they don`t. They could have made it so that only the top 3 players from each qualifier receives expenses paid for. It benefits the players that perform the best in the qualifier.
Lets take a jump back in time when MLG only invited 4 koreans per MLG. Was there still hype? YES. Was there other koreans who came as well? YES.
All of a sudden they are big baller shot callers saying they will pay for 48 flights, hotel expenses, higher prize pools...but the gotcha is...oh by the way....the arenas are PPV and 20 dollars so you can fullfill our grand visions.
Hell even if they reduced it in half it would be nice. The prize pool is much higher than last year and that is also incentive for some teams to send their players if they didn`t earn a spot where their expenses are paid.
edit - though I should add it would be embarrassing for MLG if they suddenly decided to cut back on things they already announced as part of their tour. It would indicate bad management.
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That's not just losses being absorbed though, that's also marketing for Samsung/IGN. I mean that was the main reason we had WCG in the first place. Considering Twitch seems to have a positive margin on their streams I doubt a stream with ads would get a negative margin per se, especially when we're talking lower quality free streams.
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On February 15 2012 07:48 Dodgin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:46 Femari wrote:On February 15 2012 07:45 Timerly wrote:
This poll is the market research they (hopefully) did before. If they didn't then to hell with that kind of unprofessional business. They determined 20$ to be the correct price point (I disagree but hey, I don't have that much data either). Now the big question is how negative the publicity will be considering the whole Twitter/gold member/Assembly problematic. Well they do have to pay prize money as well as 48 flights. Flights are expensive. That's the thing, they didn't have to pay for all the flights. Players have teams that can pay for the flights.
Really? Because I'm pretty sure most the Koreans wouldn't be at the event if MLG didn't pay for their flights
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I love it how people are defending this with the idea: They need to do this to make them profitable.
Have you people never heard the phrse: "You have to spend money to make money."?
Some of the biggest companies out there suffered significate short falls for long periods before they made a profit. You can't rush these things, esports is a long term investment. It's something that is growing at a phenominal rate and patience is required if you are to make a sucessful profitable buisness. If MLG can no longer continue to fun using their current model then they should try to approach it differently, or bow out gracefully.
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On February 15 2012 07:57 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:53 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:49 Jibba wrote:On February 15 2012 07:36 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:33 Jibba wrote:On February 15 2012 07:29 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:23 Jibba wrote:On February 15 2012 07:19 Sway.746 wrote:On February 15 2012 07:14 Mithriel wrote:
Im really curious about difference in revenue between a free stream with quite a lot of ads and the 20$ no free stream variant. See what the best business decision would be. Though we could get the perfect numbers only in a perfect world to calculate which would be best ( or what price would draw most people) If they only get 3% of the viewership, but are making $20 per person instead of purely the ad revenue, then they're making substantially more money. However, now their customer base has shrunk thirty-fold, and they're almost certainly still not profitable. If they ever want to be profitable, they will have to lower their cost structure or have more viewers (and charging for, and thereby alienating a large percentage of your potential and current audience hinders that a LOT). Poor long-term decision, I think. Remember viewers also cost them money too, so less viewers reduces their bandwidth cost. It's not simply the difference in ad revenue like it would be for TV. Perhaps it's different with the Twitch.tv package they're demoing now. Bandwidth cost is close to zero compared to their other costs. There is absolutely no way that it was a factor in this decision. I don't know what their deal with Akamai was, but I think you're underestimating bandwidth. It's not an unsubstantial amount. If they're paying too much for bandwidth then it's another problem altogether. If they're losing money on bandwidth by streaming content with ads then they were really, really doing it wrong. Well Akamai was charging $.07 per GBps last year, Amazon was $.05, but MLG had an agreement with Akamai. Assuming medium quality (750Kbps) and with 3.6 million hours of video watched for Providence, that's over $80,000 for that. For the entire circuit, it's over $300,000. I'm sure they had some other deal besides that, that's just the standard rate Akamai would charge. If you're a content company that is losing money on every viewer, you're doing it wrong. Having your main product have a negative margin is terrible business practice. I have no idea why they've gotten investments time and time again. I agree, and that's why mainstream ESPORTS is a folly. But that's what they're all doing. The "best" are limping buy and pretty much everything that requires substantial production takes a loss. If you've got Samsung or IGN behind you, it's just easier to absorb it.
I think mainstream eSports can do really well with a freemium model like GSL (although I think they've confused things by adding too many ticket choices).
Right now, GSL has a good number of paying viewers, and a lot of people watching for free or pirating the VODs. They have a good funnel of people watching for free -> people paying. It's relatively painless to start watching the GSL, the pricepoints are good and make sense, and it's the highest quality games, casting, and production value (Code S, at least, think of Code A as a bonus).
GSL might not be profitable right now, I have no idea, but they have viewers, they have sponsors, and they have paying subscription viewers.
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On February 15 2012 07:46 Femari wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:45 Timerly wrote:
This poll is the market research they (hopefully) did before. If they didn't then to hell with that kind of unprofessional business. They determined 20$ to be the correct price point (I disagree but hey, I don't have that much data either). Now the big question is how negative the publicity will be considering the whole Twitter/gold member/Assembly problematic. Well they do have to pay prize money as well as 48 flights. Flights are expensive.
Unless I get live streams of the flights.
I simply don't care.
It looks to me that they are using their player lineup, to cash in on the community.
My problem with this whole thing is simply that they chose to not include this 20$/PPV information when they announced the event.
Wouldn't have had this mess had they said so from the start.
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I don't mind this too much... But it feels a little bit to soon maybe? They are kind of easing us in to it by only making a part PPV, but idk... Seems like they will lose more than they will gain from this. It's pretty hard to have a good conversation about this though seeing as we have no clue how much money they have made from previous events and such.
I think i would have paid for it if i lived in the US, but now it's on soooo late at night for me i don't think i could be able to even watch half of it.
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Calgary25991 Posts
On February 15 2012 08:02 Spooony wrote:
I love it how people are defending this with the idea: They need to do this to make them profitable.
Have you people never heard the phrse: "You have to spend money to make money."?
Some of the biggest companies out there suffered significate short falls for long periods before they made a profit. You can't rush these things, esports is a long term investment. It's something that is growing at a phenominal rate and patience is required if you are to make a sucessful profitable buisness. If MLG can no longer continue to fun using their current model then they should try to approach it differently, or bow out gracefully.
That's why they changed their approach to PPV, as you suggested.
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On February 15 2012 07:39 JustJonny wrote:twitter again... MrMLGAdam Winter Arena Bcast ?s answered, 100% no ads, Gold Member Discount. http://bit.ly/A3r3d5 Please check out the premium viewing page $5 off for gold members, no ads (on primary streams)
almost spit out my food, $5 off for gold members? wow, thanks so much MLG! I think this 'news' just makes it worse. Might as well have left it at $20 for all then try this shit.
/vomit
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How come this problem isn't pinned on the organizations themselves?
If MLG truly is "not profitable at all" then why is that our problem? They should be the ones toning downsize their tournaments so that it can work correctly. Then, once they make a profit and SC2 grows more popular, they can up the size.
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On February 15 2012 08:04 SovSov wrote:
How come this problem isn't pinned on the organizations themselves?
If MLG truly is "not profitable at all" then why is that our problem? They should be the ones toning downsize their tournaments so that it can work correctly. Then, once they make a profit and SC2 grows more popular, they can up the size.
ESPORTS competes with other forms of entertainment, if one downsizes it risks being not noticed at all. See ESV which theoretically has the best competition besides GSL, and yet struggles to beat 5k viewers. NASL on the other hand was regularly making 20k off iNcontroL-fueled hype.
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I'm certain, that they (MLG) crunched the numbers and determined, that they could get away with charging 20$ and make a nice profit. I'm wondering though, if the change to a ppv-model could have a negative effect on their exposure and thus worsen the turnout of their next event to the point where they'd be compelled to return to offering low-quality-streams for free again.
Personally, I'm a bit disappointed about the silver-/gold-memberships not covering the arenas. I'm don't think that I'll be renewing mine under those circumstances...
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I think the well played article on the subject is very well written, and people should check it out:
http://wellplayed.org/forum/articles/thread/why-mlgs-winter-arena-being-ppv-is-the-b
I still have no intention of purchasing a ticket for the Winter Arena, but ultimately it's because I don't think it's worth the money. I don't know if this will be a major failure or a financial success for MLG, but it will provide important information to all other tournaments nonetheless.
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sundance is finally tapping into the gold mine that is starcraft 2.
gg mlg
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On February 15 2012 08:07 Soap wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 08:04 SovSov wrote:
How come this problem isn't pinned on the organizations themselves?
If MLG truly is "not profitable at all" then why is that our problem? They should be the ones toning downsize their tournaments so that it can work correctly. Then, once they make a profit and SC2 grows more popular, they can up the size. ESPORTS competes with other forms of entertainment, if one downsizes it risks not being noticed at all. See ESV which theoretically has the best competition besides GSL, and yet struggles to beat 5k viewers.
It might struggle to beat 5k viewers but, they have been increasing steadily and there is something to say about stability. For ESV's format of mainly replays of Koreans in the afternoon/night competing with the likes of IPL/MLG/NASL/Player streams and the rest of all the content in prime time in NA that is pretty freaking amazing. If they keep it up long enough then there could come a time that they could approach a company and say that with some cash infusion and sponsorship they can go from replays to live matches and immediately that viewership will increase. But it takes time.
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On February 15 2012 07:57 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 03:03 Klipsys wrote:On February 15 2012 03:01 mememolly wrote:On February 15 2012 02:56 Klipsys wrote:
So many broke nerds it’s disgusting. Some of you should get jobs and contribute instead of being spoiled consumers. Honestly, it's like a bunch of poor children crying about wanting free shit. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, and if you're over 18, you should be EMBARRESED. These people put on a show for us to enjoy, and you want them to constantly do it for FREE? I don't think anyone here really understands how business work....
no one asked MLG to put those events on you know, they do it to make money, don't act like MLG have some moral high ground here and are being undermined by the uncompromising "broke nerds", people just don't want to be ripped off/insulted, $20 is ripping people off Are you new to planet earth? Are you seriously OFFENDED (LOL?) that they're charging money for this? Do you honestly believe everything esports should be free? How do you expect these people to feed their families? You're delusional if you think they should make everything free for everyone. Google makes stuff free for people and bam! The make profit! Facebook is free and BAM! I don't think Mark has any problems with feeding his family. What a joke.
Do you have any idea how many other companies do that and have utterly failed? Google and Facebook are the exceptions, not the norm.
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EPT
