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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. |
I think MLG would make all streams free too if they were allowed to sell your userinformations . But seriously i think the prize harms MLG more then they will profit. 20$ are a lot of money for some people. I would rather preferre a system like the GSL where you can choose between different settings etc. I think MLG should have one "freerun" to show people how "awesome" this event will be and then they should ad a 10$ cost per event.
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On February 15 2012 08:32 rotegirte wrote: Maybe they delivered a superior product, period?
A superior product does not guarantee success, though it helps a lot. You could make a superior car to your competitor, but charge less than the cost to make it and you're screwed.
This statement though in no ways implies a position on what MLG is doing. Rather I am pointing out the fact that having a superior product and it being free does not equal financial success.
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Well you can get an entire season of GSL for $14.99-24.99.
I'm all about buying tickets to the live events but 20 dollars for a weekend seems pretty unreasonable compared to the other "ppv" contents available.
I'm sure the games will be great quality, though and supporting eSports is always a good thing.
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On February 15 2012 08:48 Lucid86 wrote: Well you can get an entire season of GSL for $14.99-24.99.
A "season" of the GSL is just a tournament spread out over a length of time. I'm not even sure offhand that its more broadcasted games than the Winter Arena.
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Oh here is something good!
most important factors that make MLG a good event =
Good casters Good players Good fans
They pay the players and the casters flights, hotels, all expenses etc. So i demand that as well, because without people actually watching there is no MLG
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aww man... i really want to watch this event, but it appears as if that will not be able to happen. I simply cannot afford 20 dollars for this 3 day tournament. It is questionable if i could even afford the 10 dollars for say a low quality stream, but at least I could somewhat justify it to myself at that cost. Looks like I'll just have to watch the VODS in 1 week.
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Will be interesting to see how this turns out for MLG.
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On February 15 2012 08:52 Dante_A_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 08:48 Lucid86 wrote: Well you can get an entire season of GSL for $14.99-24.99.
A "season" of the GSL is just a tournament spread out over a length of time. I'm not even sure offhand that its more broadcasted games than the Winter Arena.
If you don't understand the value of a tournament spread out over a length of time then don't try to use it as an argument.
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On February 15 2012 08:52 Dante_A_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 08:48 Lucid86 wrote: Well you can get an entire season of GSL for $14.99-24.99.
A "season" of the GSL is just a tournament spread out over a length of time. I'm not even sure offhand that its more broadcasted games than the Winter Arena.
Code S alone is 67 matches. Code A is at least 50. Up and Down is another 75.
MLG Arena is, I believe, 60~ matches.
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On February 15 2012 08:45 Dante_A_ wrote: The outrage over this feels very childish (literally) to me. I've seen people complain that:
- Because MLG was formerly free, they owe the community further free tournaments.
- MLG should be OK with losing money right now (insert a litany of reasons).
- If a small 1 day tournament can charge $5, MLG's large 3-day tournament with the top casters should charge $5!
We need to pay for things we consume in this world. If your not willing to pay for the MLG, thats a sign you give it a very low value. You have to pay for everything else in the world. I get the sense that a lot of the outrage is coming from younger people who haven't yet paid any bills or lived on their own (that isn't a flame, but is my honest feeling). Its understandable immaturity, but not something that is really offering any sound arguments.
*Can't understand all this outrage*
*Calls everyone who disagrees with him immature*
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With a splash-screen like this, is it a wonder people are upset that the Arena is not considered part of the Pro Circuit? I gotta say, MLG really needs to clean up it's act on interacting and communicating with customers.
A list of issues from the top of my head:
1) The 'no longer releasing replays due to technical issues', which turned into: we would like to make money from casting the replays after the events.
2) The issue of only allowing one HQ-stream per customer, a change without informing customers (but which was rectified after community outcry)
3) The MLG/GSL naniwa fiasco which fizzled out in a he said-she said of two differing stories between the two organizations
4) Signing up for a 3-month gold/silver-membership is in fact a subscription with auto-renewal. Oh, didn't we tell you?
5) And now we have the current situation, where MLG seems to have planned an event with a much bigger overhead than usual and not enough income to cover it. To save the situation, suddenly the event is PPV and their current paying customers are left hanging (I realize that MLG just tried making another save by giving a 5 dollars discount).
It seems to me like MLG has a big issue with being honest with their customers. If you need additional revenue, even if it is because you've chewed off more (cost of flying in and hosting 32 players) than you can bite, better to say it up front than to try and hustle cost-saving/income-raising measures through and pray-hope that your customers don't realize what is going on. Was the arenas really planned as being billed separately from the beginning? If so, why are the Arena-splash screens dominated by the Championship name? The way I understand it, the Arena is a glorified qualifier for the Winter Championship, yet somehow it costs more.
Going PPV on such short notice and with a relative big price seems to me extremely short-sighted. As has been pointed out by others, this event is for the already convinced. There will be no new viewers after a weekend of PPV. Maybe what you've decided is, that the growing of esports is best left to providers of free everyday tournaments and streams and that MLG offers an exclusive experience for the aficionados, the ones willing to pay 20 dollars for the experience. If so, however, please don't make overtures to the 'growing of esports' when trying to convince us of buying your product. That is not what it is about.
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On February 15 2012 08:56 Lucid86 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 08:52 Dante_A_ wrote:On February 15 2012 08:48 Lucid86 wrote: Well you can get an entire season of GSL for $14.99-24.99.
A "season" of the GSL is just a tournament spread out over a length of time. I'm not even sure offhand that its more broadcasted games than the Winter Arena. Code S alone is 67 matches. Code A is at least 50. Up and Down is another 75. MLG Arena is, I believe, 60~ matches. What I love about GSL the most is not the amount of games or anything but that I get awesome SC2 games almost every day during the week. I like that so much more than sitting in front of my laptop all weekend long and watching SC2 games, esp at 1-5am CET.
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On February 15 2012 08:42 Titorelli wrote: Btw omg so much hate in this thread! Cant all these bitter haters just not buy the Winter Arena stream and leave MLG and those who want to buy it alone?
Because not all of us want MLG to "just fail". Because putting out more content is a good thing. Because trying to monetize on a higher quality of content is a good thing. Because doing test-runs is a good thing.
Because the very nature of test-runs is to gather feedback. Because an individual's personal budget is finite by definition. The majority of people on earth can't possibly buy all the things they want to. Because a healthy industry should reward and punish. Because there might be a better price point to satisfy a greater common denominator of everyone involved.
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On February 15 2012 08:45 Dante_A_ wrote: The outrage over this feels very childish (literally) to me. I've seen people complain that:
- Because MLG was formerly free, they owe the community further free tournaments.
- MLG should be OK with losing money right now (insert a litany of reasons).
- If a small 1 day tournament can charge $5, MLG's large 3-day tournament with the top casters should charge $5!
We need to pay for things we consume in this world. If your not willing to pay for the MLG, thats a sign you give it a very low value. You have to pay for everything else in the world. I get the sense that a lot of the outrage is coming from younger people who haven't yet paid any bills or lived on their own (that isn't a flame, but is my honest feeling). Its understandable immaturity, but not something that is really offering any sound arguments. Nothing is free. That includes consumers money.
I can watch stuff on my tv for free. The same way i can watch a day9 daily or how i can could watch mlgs for free: ads.
That's one way, there are other ways. It's not wrong of MLG to charge, they can demand what they want for their product. BUT it's up to the consumer to decide if he/she wants to pay or not to pay. It's that easy. There are ALOT of free tournaments out there that can be watched for free (by alot i really just mean ALL of them) and they are doing just fine. You know how i know this? Otherwise their wouldn't be this many tournaments.
That's how capitalism works. I see alot of naive people here seemingly willing to "throw" their money at whatever. Capitalism works just as much in favour of corporations as it does for the consumer, wich is kinda the main point don't you feel?
MLG has a great product and if people wanna pay that's fine. I don't see how an outrage from the community is a bad thing. Consumers like to voice their opinion, and a smart producer of a product will listen. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't charge money for their content, just a good way to go about it.
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On February 15 2012 08:13 SeaSwift wrote: I'm probably going to be buying a ticket this time. Not just to "support eSports", but because I think it's worth it. I would prefer to pay $20 to watch the best players play than pay nothing to watch mediocre players play, honestly.
However, I would not buy one every time if this became a regular occurence. Again, not because I don't want to support eSports, but because I could not afford it. I don't have any stats for this, but I suspect a great many people are in the same boat: aged < 30, and therefore not on such a high income that luxuries are affordable on a frequent basis. As a one-time thing, sure, but I can't pay for both GSL and MLG regularly.
It's a shame that this came as a surprise to people - on Twitter Sundance kept making allusions to pouring money in last year as an investment, and that they were going to be "leaner and meaner" (read: expect to actually make money). The amount of money might have been ($20 is a lot for one weekend is a lot, $10 would be preferable) but surely nobody expected to be able to watch MLG free forever?
Every MLG so far has been sick, and I hope this one is too! You are paying $20 to watch Code B and A Koreans and Code C Foreigners. It is no upgrade from the standard MLG circuit or any decent tournament. It is also only for 3 days worth of content and for a small prizepool (both contribute to lesser skilled games since players won't be so intensely practicing/analyzing opponents). The VoDs of which will also be available a week later for free.
You could instead pay $15 for an entire Season of GSL which includes all the best Code A and Code S players competing at the highest level. You also get the VoDs from this season so you can go back and catch up on the games so far, or watch them at your convenience since the time for the live casts is so late.
So really, what the $20 gives you is: Foreigner player drama and well-timed live broadcast. Because everything else is trumped 30x over by GSL.
Wait, just remembered you live in Scotland. So MLG is actually okay-timed and GSL is okay-timed for you as well. So your only justification is really $20 to watch foreigners get stomped by Koreans, and the drama that follows a foreigner taking a match off of a Korean.
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On February 15 2012 08:52 Dante_A_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 08:48 Lucid86 wrote: Well you can get an entire season of GSL for $14.99-24.99.
A "season" of the GSL is just a tournament spread out over a length of time. I'm not even sure offhand that its more broadcasted games than the Winter Arena. You should try to think it through for yourself as to why a "spread out tournament" is way better than a 3-day tournament before someone else makes you look like a fool.
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I haven't read so much rationalizing on being a free-rider since SOPA. The SC2 scene can't be fueled only by the good-will (or stupidity) of investors.
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In my personal opinion, this is an absolutely terrible idea. anyone can see the polls that close to 90% of players who vote say they wont pay, and these are players that frequent the teamliquid site often, so more casual players are even less likely to pay. I feel like MLG is trying to test this out and see how the community responds, and what they are going to learn is that they lose more money from the ads that arent seen then they make off of the few paying customers they get.
Also, im not advocating it, but every single pay-per-view in the world is streamed online and available for free. of course this is not a major sporting event, but im sure there are quite a few computer geeks out there who know full well they can make money off of this by streaming it on their own site without charging, and running ads. i wonder where those 90% of players who don't want to pay will be watching.
Atleast GSL is smart about it, and lets you watch in terrible quality until you get so fed up with it that you break down and pay.
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i can pay $20 or i can just tune into a restream on owned or twitch and laugh at how stupid MLG is. I like that second option.
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The biggest thing about MLG, to me, is the quality of matches. When you play a 3 day tournament, you have 0 time to prepare builds, strategies, let alone rest. There is no time to build hype game to game. As a viewer, it's practically impossible to schedule a 20 hour event into your life. This was the main concern and reasoning for why GOM changed the format of the GSL and GSTL to run ~3 months instead of Month-to-Month.
...I really want to watch my friend DDE play in this tournament, kid has so much talent, but so much nerves as well.
But, MLG has got it wrong this time. PPV is not the way to go for a infant sport (as the boxing analogy was given earlier). I haven't really watched MLG to be honest because of the low quality of the free stream, obscenely frequent ads, and inability to find the right game at the right time.
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