|
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 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 04:49 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:37 drgoats wrote:
Yes you did, but since then they have doubled their content. Of course things will have to change. It is an unfortunate situation but people with gold passes need to realize that doubling their content doesn't come free. It all adds up with every purchase. The biggest problem I have with this is they aren't growing their fanbase from this and the only publicity they're getting is this crap. Self-sustaining or not. They aren't bringing new money into their business with this model. This isn't an emerging market like BoSs pointed out in his blog. There's all sorts of logistical issues with this and how it was carried out. It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price. I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage. I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ.
How did they cut everything, the have their tournament in NYC which is very expensive, they fly in all the players and pay for their accomodation. Which is all fine but they obviously can't afford it and are now searching for a way to pay for it.
|
On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 04:49 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:37 drgoats wrote:
Yes you did, but since then they have doubled their content. Of course things will have to change. It is an unfortunate situation but people with gold passes need to realize that doubling their content doesn't come free. It all adds up with every purchase. The biggest problem I have with this is they aren't growing their fanbase from this and the only publicity they're getting is this crap. Self-sustaining or not. They aren't bringing new money into their business with this model. This isn't an emerging market like BoSs pointed out in his blog. There's all sorts of logistical issues with this and how it was carried out. It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price. I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage. I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ.
Where did MLG have to spend money specifically on SC2? Purchasing computers? Those get paid off over time not like a loan, but in the fact that the more events they get used in the more they're a worthwhile asset. Prize pool? It wasn't that big compared to other events during it's inital year and was smilar to Halo (i think) in 2011. You argue that GSL wouldn't exist without our subscriptions, but nobody told them to pay first place 50k. If they paid the winners 10K a victory would people still have played in the other seasons? And other than the startup costs (which MLG is far beyond) what else did GSL have to pay for other than staff and monthly bills? Could they generate the 30k a season from sponsors? I think they could Sony Erricson is a big company.
|
For esports to grow and prosper tournaments need to be putting all of their efforts into pulling in more viewers. Esports is not nearly popular enough yet for companies to be broadcasting PPV competitions in a profitable way. If MLG adopt this policy for their future tournaments, eventually you'll end up with a couple of thousand loyal customers who are willing to pay for the ticket and you've then lost ~100k viewers (amazing exposure opportunity) to tournaments that offer a more attractive viewing experience.
They had the right idea with their gold membership concept. People who have the money will pay for the better service, but you're not going to be losing any viewers because you still have the perfectly reasonable free stream running. If they reached out to more people then simple logic tells you that you're going to come across more people that are willing to pay for the gold membership. Take Sky TV for example. They offer 3 months subscription free to new customers or something like that. They're luring in customers will an ATTRACTIVE deal (not, "oh pay 20 dollars for this, we promise we're really really good") and then hoping that they customers will be impressed with the service that they receive and will eventually pay the full subscription. Even companies many multitudes larger than MLG clearly see bringing in new customers as the most important aspect of achieving sustainable business growth. I just fail to see how the big dogs of MLG can all conglomerate and come up with an idea as shocking as this. It makes NO business sense.
|
On February 16 2012 07:17 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 04:49 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:37 drgoats wrote:
Yes you did, but since then they have doubled their content. Of course things will have to change. It is an unfortunate situation but people with gold passes need to realize that doubling their content doesn't come free. It all adds up with every purchase. The biggest problem I have with this is they aren't growing their fanbase from this and the only publicity they're getting is this crap. Self-sustaining or not. They aren't bringing new money into their business with this model. This isn't an emerging market like BoSs pointed out in his blog. There's all sorts of logistical issues with this and how it was carried out. It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price. I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage. I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. How did they cut everything, the have their tournament in NYC which is very expensive, they fly in all the players and pay for their accomodation. Which is all fine but they obviously can't afford it and are now searching for a way to pay for it.
Since there headquarters is in NYC then it is probably one of the cheapest places that they could have held the tournament honestly.
|
To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer
...
How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car.
Perfect example of all the wishful thinking, fallacies and plain stupidity we read on this thread. There's no miracle solution for business and all the "options" you mention have already been tried. Did you forget that MLG fired several persons (Slasher) that worked on media content not directly related to events? Didn't you realize that, unlike IPL, MLG doesn't use prime convention centers, but tries to goes to more medium sized towns or suburbs on highly populated areas (as a European, i've discover several new places in North America as Providence or Raleigh thanks to MLG. More importantly, do you even know how a "negotiation" works? You say "Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial". May i ask what leverage MLG has to ask for more money from sponsors? 250K unique hits? Wow, i'm pretty sure the marketing and the sales director from Dr Pepper are going to be really impressed... Renegotiating the terms of a contract is not as easy as you believe...
And as a side note, greedy Sundance and MLG didn't paid their cars thanks to you or the e-sports scene, and that's what's worrisome. I posted the SEC fillings from MLG yesterday. They have sold 50 millions dollars on equity parts and 7 millions on debt backed securities. Today, MLG exists and expands thanks to the gullibility of retarded investors trying to hit the new -and unknown- internet fancy. God bless America because it seems there's a lot of stupid private equity funds trying to set a foot on "new technologies" and "media related ventures". But this system is just not sustainable. You can live on equity forever, you have to turn a profit.
I'm not saying people should pay MLG. I have never bought anything from MLG and i'm not going to start now. I'm just saying that the "freemium" business model doesn't exist. You have a venture capital based models (MLG but also platforms like justinTV) trying to monetize trafic. It seems it didn't work. Now, they want to try the PPV model. It's probably going to fail and it's going to shatter the illusions of lots of people of the "scene"
|
On February 16 2012 07:20 NoobSkills wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 04:49 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:37 drgoats wrote:
Yes you did, but since then they have doubled their content. Of course things will have to change. It is an unfortunate situation but people with gold passes need to realize that doubling their content doesn't come free. It all adds up with every purchase. The biggest problem I have with this is they aren't growing their fanbase from this and the only publicity they're getting is this crap. Self-sustaining or not. They aren't bringing new money into their business with this model. This isn't an emerging market like BoSs pointed out in his blog. There's all sorts of logistical issues with this and how it was carried out. It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price. I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage. I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. Where did MLG have to spend money specifically on SC2? Purchasing computers? Those get paid off over time not like a loan, but in the fact that the more events they get used in the more they're a worthwhile asset. Prize pool? It wasn't that big compared to other events during it's inital year and was smilar to Halo (i think) in 2011. You argue that GSL wouldn't exist without our subscriptions, but nobody told them to pay first place 50k. If they paid the winners 10K a victory would people still have played in the other seasons? And other than the startup costs (which MLG is far beyond) what else did GSL have to pay for other than staff and monthly bills? Could they generate the 30k a season from sponsors? I think they could Sony Erricson is a big company.
If they lower prize pool for all these events the consequence is a worse player pool and worse quality of play. If you want an inferior product than by all means ask GSL to be free but if you want actual quality than there needs to be enough money in the scene to support having quality.
Also I disagree with the premise that if MLG is PPV is makes it impossible to grow the brand. If PPV turn out to be successful than they, like all entertainment companies before them, can afford to have more free/freemium content. Plent of entertainment companies start out PPV to cover bills then when they start turning a profit are able to expand into some free events in order to grow brand even more.
|
On February 16 2012 07:15 zezamer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:
As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. Or they just list sponsor revenue somewhere else so it looks like they are loosing money. I'd do that. It's good PR.
Its never good PR to advertise yourself as a failing company. Companies always try to talk UP how good they are so that they can garner more investors but talking down your company is short of corporate suicide.
|
On February 16 2012 06:16 Hrrrrm wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 04:28 Escape wrote:
Just want to remind everyone that you pay about 2x as much for PPV events like UFC, and it's only for 1 evening.
You get 3 solid evenings of matches for only $20 here with MLG. Yes, I know, you may not think the quality is as comparable, but at least it's cheaper and for more.
I think we should see how good their content is be before we judge.
Go check out how well UFC PPV was doing in it's second year in existence. Guess what? Not that well. In fact they were going bankrupt and it wasn't until Zuffa and Dana White got involved that UFC started to pick up some traction. The true explosion was the Ultimate Fighter on FX which basically provided people "free"(as long as you had cable/satellite aka no extra PPV cost) UFC fights to the masses. That first Ultimate Fighter picked up a fuck ton of fans mainly due to the Finale with Griffin vs Bonnar. It was completely amazing and UFC lucked out with that being broadcasted to the masses.
Just to elaborate on this a little, even after Zuffa purchased the UFC, they lost money, and lost a lot of money. They were basically going to gut the company but Lorenzo wanted to try and hit a home run with a reality show, as you said 'the ultimate fighter.' Dana White adamantly opposed the decision and thought it would be a disaster, good thing he's not the ceo, eh? The Ultimate Fighter Season 1 and subsequent free events on Spike are what turned the UFC and MMA (as a whole, since pride was starting to go under during this time) around. Now they are the biggest and 'best' show in the market. They squash competitors, have network and cable tv spots to not only hype PPV events, but also produce original free content. They have really built an empire.
Anyway, that's all. I wish people would stop (not you) making UFC and SC2 comparisons, they're so far off in development it's not even funny. It's a wasted and silly comparison.
|
On February 16 2012 07:27 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:17 RvB wrote:On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 04:49 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:37 drgoats wrote:
Yes you did, but since then they have doubled their content. Of course things will have to change. It is an unfortunate situation but people with gold passes need to realize that doubling their content doesn't come free. It all adds up with every purchase. The biggest problem I have with this is they aren't growing their fanbase from this and the only publicity they're getting is this crap. Self-sustaining or not. They aren't bringing new money into their business with this model. This isn't an emerging market like BoSs pointed out in his blog. There's all sorts of logistical issues with this and how it was carried out. It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price. I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage. I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. How did they cut everything, the have their tournament in NYC which is very expensive, they fly in all the players and pay for their accomodation. Which is all fine but they obviously can't afford it and are now searching for a way to pay for it. Since there headquarters is in NYC then it is probably one of the cheapest places that they could have held the tournament honestly.
So why do they have their HQ in such an expensive city, and even leaving that out that still doesn't mean they cut all costs since they're flying every player over and accomodate them. Which is not a bad thing but if the costs go out of hand you can't expect people to buy passes to 'support e-sports'.
|
On February 16 2012 07:32 legaton wrote:And as a side note, greedy Sundance and MLG didn't paid their cars thanks to you or the e-sports scene, and that's what's worrisome.
People like you disgust the living shit out of me. For Fuck's Sake MLG is not some Haitian, who's just lost their home in an earthquake. If anything, MLG is its very own earthquake. I'm getting sick of people playing on the heart stings of people who are unwilling to bail them out of poor business decisions.
If we want to donate to ESPORTS we'll do it on our own terms, and not because some self-righteous fuck tells us to support a money grabbing scheme by a company who bit off more than it could chew.
EDIT: I clearly picked the wrong person to call a self-righteous fuck and for that I apologize. I admit I hadn't read your full post before responding to it. There are a bunch of peple in this and other threads, however, to whom my post applies 100%.
|
On February 16 2012 07:51 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:27 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 07:17 RvB wrote:On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 04:49 StarStruck wrote:
[quote]
It all adds up with every purchase.
The biggest problem I have with this is they aren't growing their fanbase from this and the only publicity they're getting is this crap.
Self-sustaining or not. They aren't bringing new money into their business with this model. This isn't an emerging market like BoSs pointed out in his blog.
There's all sorts of logistical issues with this and how it was carried out. It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price. I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage. I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. How did they cut everything, the have their tournament in NYC which is very expensive, they fly in all the players and pay for their accomodation. Which is all fine but they obviously can't afford it and are now searching for a way to pay for it. Since there headquarters is in NYC then it is probably one of the cheapest places that they could have held the tournament honestly. So why do they have their HQ in such an expensive city, and even leaving that out that still doesn't mean they cut all costs since they're flying every player over and accomodate them. Which is not a bad thing but if the costs go out of hand you can't expect people to buy passes to 'support e-sports'.
Its actually still the perfect spot to have a headquarters since so many other major businesses do the same. The covering of the costs for the players are the reason that the player choose to go to the event and not just ignore it because it isnt cost efficient. If you want an MLG with same attendance quality as Dallas than they can cover nothing but even Dallas im sure lost money.
|
I feel pretty mislead by MLG. I purchased MLG Gold so I could have "HQ" access to all streams for all SC2 tournaments they run. I did not pay for this to be told I have to pay more.
|
Seriously? I bought MLG Gold only to be told that I need to pay even more? If MLG thinks they are getting any more money from me they are very very wrong. I feel scammed.
|
On February 16 2012 07:54 SACtheXchng wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:32 legaton wrote:And as a side note, greedy Sundance and MLG didn't paid their cars thanks to you or the e-sports scene, and that's what's worrisome. People like you disgust the living shit out of me. For Fuck's Sake MLG is not some Haitian, who's just lost their home in an earthquake. If anything, MLG is its very own earthquake. I'm getting sick of people playing on the heart stings of people who are unwilling to bail them out of poor business decisions. If we want to donate to ESPORTS we'll do it on our own terms, and not because some self-righteous fuck tells us to support a money grabbing scheme by a company who bit off more than it could chew. EDIT: I clearly picked the wrong person to call a self-righteous fuck and for that I apologize. I admit I hadn't read your full post before responding to it. There are a bunch of peple in this and other threads, however, to whom my post applies 100%.
Cutting the quotes the way you did is intellectually dishonest, as i just stated haven't and won't pay for MLG. I do agree they did a lot of bad decisions. Most notably, they sold the pitch of a booming industry, with a 150% yearly growth of viewer-ship. If they based their activities on those numbers, they probably overextended and they are now paying the prize for it.
Still, people should stop thinking that "free content" exists. There's always someone covering the costs of it, and somewhere, somebody needs to generate revenue. Sponsorship and ads are an awful business models as the viewer-ship is way to small to make ad revenue a viable source of growth for esports, and sponsorship puts you on a position of total dependence towards the primary sponsors (the day ASUS or Intel changes his policy towards progaming, the european tournaments are instantly dead).
Therefore, it is fair to search for a new business model. I just don't believe there is one, for plenty of reasons. And i'm not even worried as i would really love to see something closer to the fighting scene here (more diversity, more fun, less serious business, less uptight, less corporation ridden, less annoying "stars" and drama related stars).
|
On February 16 2012 08:15 legaton wrote:
Cutting the quotes the way you did is intellectually dishonest
I agree (you see what I did there?  ), and I admitted in my edit that you were the wrong recipient of my attack.
|
On February 16 2012 08:04 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 07:51 RvB wrote:On February 16 2012 07:27 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 07:17 RvB wrote:On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:On February 16 2012 04:57 drgoats wrote:
[quote]
It does add up after each purchase and when you get to the final total it is pretty much on par with the GSL in price.
I am not too sure if they need to bring in new business. There are plenty of free tournaments out there that will draw in the new viewers. I consider that they are approaching this like the end game. If you really like SC2 then you must go see MLGs coverage.
I do agree that their are some issues with how this played out but that is just part of the transition. To me that model is the future of eSports. The GSL is already doing it and they are highly touted. No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._. Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one. If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else. MLG is in the business to make money; not break even. I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers. Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better. Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. How did they cut everything, the have their tournament in NYC which is very expensive, they fly in all the players and pay for their accomodation. Which is all fine but they obviously can't afford it and are now searching for a way to pay for it. Since there headquarters is in NYC then it is probably one of the cheapest places that they could have held the tournament honestly. So why do they have their HQ in such an expensive city, and even leaving that out that still doesn't mean they cut all costs since they're flying every player over and accomodate them. Which is not a bad thing but if the costs go out of hand you can't expect people to buy passes to 'support e-sports'. Its actually still the perfect spot to have a headquarters since so many other major businesses do the same. The covering of the costs for the players are the reason that the player choose to go to the event and not just ignore it because it isnt cost efficient. If you want an MLG with same attendance quality as Dallas than they can cover nothing but even Dallas im sure lost money.
I can see your point with the HQ, but I am not convinced at all on covering all the costs. They've had stacked line ups last year without covering everything, and since it was so hyped up they attracted a lot of viewers which is what the teams go for anyway. They didn't cut all costs there are still costs that could be cut.
I can see why MLG wants to step over to ppv to become (more) profitable but the way they did it now is just terribly planned and executed from their part plus the relative value of the product not being 20$ for most people.
|
First of all, I'm not posting very often here but after reading pages and pages of "mental diarrhea" , I feel like I have to.
Ok let's analyze the whole "incident".
If you have been studying or are interested in anything concerning Business Administration you should know that they DID ( or SHOULD have done it ) a lot of research before doing something that big.
MLG should have done a break-even-point-calculation ( or something primitive comparable to that even though I really really think they calculated through that very reasonable ).
They got the information about how many people purchased memberships of any kind ( Gold or whatever ). Than they have probably taken a reasonable percentage based on the growth of people buying for their content in the last years.
I guess they calculated with something like 50% of their GOLDmember to pay for their PPV. They might have added like 10% new customers or something based on their growth of viewers for the last years.
Everything together should AT LEAST pay their expenses and grand them a 20% profit.
I'm sure based on those calculations, the decision should be pretty fine.
The negative part could be a huge decrease for their goodwill.
It is really hard to handle such an uproar or "shitstorm" they caused by blindly releasing something like that before seeing how it could work out. How their "free" viewers will treat them or how they will react to it, is yet to be seen.
Hopefully they considered every aspect very carefully since they are now competing ( even though you people won't like to hear it and please don't try to decline it ) with institutions like GSL.
I wish the best of luck for MLG, but I honestly doubt that this move will pay out for them
|
The fact of the matter is Gold Members were mislead pretty badly. We were told that we would be able to have HQ stream and the Quadview for all of their future events with it's purchase. In good faith and as loyal customers we fronted the money for the entire year expecting a year's worth of content. Now the implement the Winter Arena, which takes up several months that the gold members paid. At this time there will be a lack of content for the Gold members due to the focus on the Winter Arena. This then cuts back the value on the Gold membership. Now something that was once 1 year is now 9 months. MLG should really compensate it's Gold members by extending their membership by the amount of days the Winter Arena takes place, give us access to the Winter Arena, or partially refund us for that time.
Many people are saying this doesn't help expand e-sports but in actually we do want Esports to grow but not at the sake of business ethics and alienation of the fan base. Offering a service and then not delivery is one thing but offering a service, not delivery, and then saying if you pay extra we can deliver what we originally promised is another. I mean if you paid for a year of Gold MLG was supposed to provide you with HQ streams and quad view of all future MLG event. But then to go ahead and renege on that offer is ridiculous and then trying to "ease the pain" with 5 bucks makes it seem even worse. It is kind of like as if they don't care about the faith we put into the organization when we bought a years worth of Gold.
Also the fact that MLG has decided to instead move away from the standard ( team paying for flight and board) and moving to where they pay for everything is ridiculous especially when they come back to the customers and say you need to pay more so we can pay for all this when it should be the responsibility of their team or sponsors.
I mean when it comes down to it we Gold members in good faith decided to support the MLG for an entire year and forked up the cash. We were told what we were supposed to receive for this service when we signed up only to later find out that they aren't delivering. Then on top of not delivering they have the potential to deliver to content but only if we pay more and get a slight discount, which seems like a big FU in my book. I would be fine if the Winter Arena was a completely separate thing and MLG ran normal events along side it, but that is not the case. I personally feel like I was betrayed and am now being swindled.
|
I would have to say that assigning value to entertainment is all relative.
thinking about any sports coverage with the BBC, it is ad free and time between play is filled with commentators and players discussing the matches and everything associated, there is no downtime. Sure there is a license fee but then one weekend works out as very little.
Then you could have a trip to the cinema. Alternatively theres something like netflix or recording a film that has been on tv.
There is so much available Starcraft 2 related content, much of which is free or has a voluntary subscription. Why not have a low quality stream with ads and empty downtime as well as high quality streams with no adds and caster/player discussions and interviews?
How good will the event actually be, not just in the quality of the matches, but the extra content that is being promised. Will it be worth it in comparison to other tournaments? That remains to be seen, personally I have no desire to see every single game and will likely watch the vods of matches I find interesting and wait to hear the feedback on the event.
|
On February 16 2012 08:20 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 08:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 07:51 RvB wrote:On February 16 2012 07:27 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 07:17 RvB wrote:On February 16 2012 07:04 Adreme wrote:On February 16 2012 06:50 NoobSkills wrote:On February 16 2012 06:23 mx.raaawwwr wrote:On February 16 2012 05:55 drgoats wrote:On February 16 2012 05:18 StarStruck wrote:
[quote]
No, it isn't and that wasn't even the point I was making. ._.
Group all the events together and then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's quite a bit when you pay for each one.
If you aren't bringing in new money then what is the purpose? I don't see how they're growing their business from Winter Arena when you look at all their expenses. Normally this would come off as a cash grab, but like I said. MLG is practically paying for everything. We're focusing on the scale of this one event. Not anything else.
MLG is in the business to make money; not break even.
I question the decision-making. The announcement was late just like their remodel of pricing; they handled the build-up poorly and they continue to confuse their consumers.
Not only that, but if you are going to do a PPV. You better do your best to market it and provide as much build-up to it as possible.
I have no doubt in my mind that my fellow barcrafters will have a lot of fun watching this but gosh almighty. They could have done this a lot better.
Plus their fanbase could definitely be stepped up a notch to limit the risk of holding such an event and they aren't doing themselves any favors when they close off exposure. I will add it up: MLG 4 arenas - $20 each Gold pass for championships - $30 $110 total $13.75 per tournament for all of MLG's content GSL 4 GSLs - $70 - 80 (they keep lowering prices as the year moves forward) ~$20 per tournament If you start adding in their other events like the GSTL's you are looking at over $20 per tournament and over $150 for the year. So basically MLG tournaments cost less than GSL tournaments assuming that you are unable to watch the free stream of GSL. A counter argument could be that MLGs only run on a couple of days while the GSL just keeps on delivering. This is true but do not forget that MLG did offer the qualifiers for the arenas free of charge. That will turn out to be a little less than 4 months of free MLG content. As for the rest of your post I pretty much agree with most of what you say. I am not saying that they handled this right I just understand why it is happening. MLG had to make a tough decision and was going to take a lot of shit for it. They are probably hoping this will blow over and I am pretty sure that it will. Personally I get GSL Light which is 75$ 75$ is all I pay. For a few hundred hours of Gameplay For MLG arena its 1$ per hour. Not sure if that's worth it. I'll just end up watching the VODs anyway. You guys who are comparing MLG to GSL should probably just stop. Neither event should be charging period. BroodWar which, yes was big in Korea, but didn't receive much benefit from us foreigners had a VERY long run and up until recently did not have to search hard at all to find sponsor that would cover the costs of an event. In the begining they had to build the scene and they did. Then they profited from the end result until SC2 started killing BW. Don't need to hear an arguement that it was on TV, TV works the same way a free event online works because TV is free despite the fact that you pay a bill monthly. To put all this simply. You should not have to charge the viewers. MLG should find a way to better use their funding I don't know the perfect solution, but this isn't even a realistic solution. Cut event costs. Renegotiate with sponsors for money earned per commercial. Find a way to stop adblock users. Cut out prize pools for irrelivent games. Change venues to a cheaper yet still accessible location. Cut down production value. Get more out of what you already own the for weekend. All sorts of things could be done long before charing the customer. Also to those who don't think MLG is misusing funds. I think this manuver shows that the staff at MLG doesn't put a lot of thought into decision making. You guys really need someone to just do the logistics of how efficent your decisions are. Think about how badly the fucked up. First time they're holding an event and with no past event to rely on for analysis they go PPV Now those who might have decided to purchase it if the next arena cost money have nothing to base their decision on. They risk their new style event by changing the format in which people view it. They alienate gold members (who also shouldn't have existed in the first place) by not considering the fact that they think they already own a MLG yearly pass. Despite having the better tournament during the weekend are going to now have less viewers than Assembly. How big is that dart board of greed in Sundance's office? Though In the end when I think they might retract the PPV portion of this event I think it was all a ploy a chance to see if they could make even more money. To see how the community will react to the scenario they were presented with and then when their name is on every thread on every gaming website charge nothing allowing MLG to be in the thoughts of everyone's minds just before the event. And hey, if this uproar never happened and they got away with a subscription process Sundance gets a new car. As successful as SC2 was at MLG they still spent more money on it then they have made. You cant manage a business where you spend more than you make and they need to have it be profitable for players to go to there events so they cant touch the prizepool. They cut basically everything that they possibly could cut in order to still have an event but if you want events they need to be able to make money somewhere. If GSL didnt charge for there event there would be no GSL. It is literally that simple. Unless you are making the add revenue from television and have major corporate sponsors like BW had than you need to have a formula where you pay to either watch the event or watch it in HQ. How did they cut everything, the have their tournament in NYC which is very expensive, they fly in all the players and pay for their accomodation. Which is all fine but they obviously can't afford it and are now searching for a way to pay for it. Since there headquarters is in NYC then it is probably one of the cheapest places that they could have held the tournament honestly. So why do they have their HQ in such an expensive city, and even leaving that out that still doesn't mean they cut all costs since they're flying every player over and accomodate them. Which is not a bad thing but if the costs go out of hand you can't expect people to buy passes to 'support e-sports'. Its actually still the perfect spot to have a headquarters since so many other major businesses do the same. The covering of the costs for the players are the reason that the player choose to go to the event and not just ignore it because it isnt cost efficient. If you want an MLG with same attendance quality as Dallas than they can cover nothing but even Dallas im sure lost money. I can see your point with the HQ, but I am not convinced at all on covering all the costs. They've had stacked line ups last year without covering everything, and since it was so hyped up they attracted a lot of viewers which is what the teams go for anyway. They didn't cut all costs there are still costs that could be cut. I can see why MLG wants to step over to ppv to become (more) profitable but the way they did it now is just terribly planned and executed from their part plus the relative value of the product not being 20$ for most people.
Even if you "cut" the cost of travel expenses from MLG's budget, it doesn't mean this cost is going to disappear. Players will need to fly as most top players live either in Korea or in Europe. You are just transferring the burden of paying for travel expenses from event organizers to teams (it worked this way for years until the korean "strike" in NASL and IPL). Therefore, the question of how you monetize the generated traffic still stands. If teams should pay these expenses, how are they going to do to turn a profit? As far as i know, the situation for most teams is as gloomy as for events organizers. In France, i know that at least two mid-tier teams (Mistral, Virus) were financed by their owners. E-sahara is the hobby of a rich guy that works on oil... On huge team, covering the negative operating cash flow is called "investing".
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
