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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 would like to see eSports go onto a global level, that is accepted by society and can be seen as a potential career. There is so much money in the video gaming industry, billions, yet we don't have anything to show for it.
What about you Sir or Madam? What is important to you?[/QUOTE]
My loved ones. I could care less if somebody who plays a video game wins 100k at one tournament. I agree, that it would be nice to see e-sports grow. You start with a $20 dollar price point and you are already isolating many of potential fans and significantly increase the risk of hurting the sport. If this flops (which I hope it will for previously stated reasons), it does significant damage to the sport and makes people afraid of a PPV model. This shouldn't be the case because the PPV model is viable, it just needs to be slowly introduced.
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On February 17 2012 06:44 Slardar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 06:41 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 06:24 Slardar wrote:On February 17 2012 05:58 Youtakenocandle wrote:On February 17 2012 05:54 Slardar wrote:
Everyone is forgetting, the $20 is not for just the event. Indirectly you are paying for all your favorite players to be flown out there, given food, and a free hotel. You're supporting the teams, sponsors, everything. MLG did the least dick move, they spent all their money helping out the players and teams. People are selfish, including myself. You can't expect people to care about all that. The provided entertainment should be worth $20. I'm one of the people that would have bought a ticket at $10, but 20 just feels wrong for an event like this. I get that but what can $20 even get you nowadays?! A single pizza with 1 topping or a popcorn and soda at the movie? Literally nothing, but if I want to see an MLG where we have $100,000 first place prize, I'm probably going to start investing into them. Why is it important to you to see a MLG with a 100,000 first place prize? Honestly, that has NO effect on you at all unless you are in the MLG with an actual chance to win it. I would like to see eSports go onto a global level, that is accepted by society and can be seen as a potential career. There is so much money in the video gaming industry, billions, yet we don't have anything to show for it. What about you Sir or Madam? What is important to you?
So until esports becomes bigger you refuse to support it. Then you'll be surprised why it never reaches the level you want it to.
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On February 17 2012 06:47 Gamegene wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 06:44 Slardar wrote:On February 17 2012 06:41 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 06:24 Slardar wrote:On February 17 2012 05:58 Youtakenocandle wrote:On February 17 2012 05:54 Slardar wrote:
Everyone is forgetting, the $20 is not for just the event. Indirectly you are paying for all your favorite players to be flown out there, given food, and a free hotel. You're supporting the teams, sponsors, everything. MLG did the least dick move, they spent all their money helping out the players and teams. People are selfish, including myself. You can't expect people to care about all that. The provided entertainment should be worth $20. I'm one of the people that would have bought a ticket at $10, but 20 just feels wrong for an event like this. I get that but what can $20 even get you nowadays?! A single pizza with 1 topping or a popcorn and soda at the movie? Literally nothing, but if I want to see an MLG where we have $100,000 first place prize, I'm probably going to start investing into them. Why is it important to you to see a MLG with a 100,000 first place prize? Honestly, that has NO effect on you at all unless you are in the MLG with an actual chance to win it. I would like to see eSports go onto a global level, that is accepted by society and can be seen as a potential career. There is so much money in the video gaming industry, billions, yet we don't have anything to show for it. What about you Sir or Madam? What is important to you? It's not going to happen because MLG offers 100,000 dollars. It'll be the other way around.
That is what I said in my previous arguments.
@Crux - Of course... we're not talking about loved ones, nothing compares. We're taking about passions you love, if you think it would be awesome to see SC2 on TV, with massive $ Prizepools, you have to support it.
@Frak - I can only assume you're saying that to Crux.
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On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it.
I think a lot of people share the thought.
On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills...
The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?].
A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number?
In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value.
This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event.
If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums.
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On February 17 2012 05:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 05:46 RvB wrote:On February 17 2012 05:38 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 17 2012 05:15 Excludos wrote:On February 17 2012 04:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 17 2012 04:32 Excludos wrote:On February 17 2012 04:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I like what Doa and Destiny and Rumcake said last night before the Axslav vs. Gretorp showmatch:
Do they have a right to charge us money for this event?
Absolutely. It's not like there isn't plenty of free MLG content out there. They're simply testing the waters with a pay-per-view concept. It's not like everyone is going to charge us money for viewing every event all of a sudden.
Do they have a right to charge $20, as opposed to a different amount of money?
Absolutely. Quite frankly, we're spoiled rotten by having nearly everything starcraft-related being free. 20 dollars is nothing. The whole "boo hoo I'm a poor college student" is nonsense. You probably tweet that from your iphone while buying a case of beer. If you really want to see it, you can shell out the few dollars. If you don't think it's worth 20 dollars, then don't buy the product and enjoy the other free content. But it's MLG's event, so they can name their price. They'll find out how big of an audience they end up getting, and adjust accordingly next time.
The problem is that MLG gold members probably assumed they would have free access to special events like these, simply by virtue of buying passes already. Discounts don't really cut it, and I pretty much agree with the slight betrayal that those people are feeling. But as far as everyone else goes... seriously, suck it up. Plenty of sports have some pay-per-view content. 99.99% of our stuff is absolutely free. Some of the whining about business is really exaggerated. Right. You see we are poor -because- we have an interest in computers. Do you really want me to go without a propper phone so I can watch starcraft 2 for a day? Sure I have a good computer, but that is my hobby. Without it, I wouldn't have this interest in sc2 to begin with. But alas. I'm sure you have all the right in the world to say how $20 is nothing in your fulltime job. edit: also. of course MLG can put the price they want. Who are we to stop them? If they want to charge 1000 bucks for an hour of watching. Go ahead. But they will lose some viewers in the process. We're trying to argue whats best for MLG, the community and esports in general here. Not what you personally can afford to pay. Except I'm also a poor college student (I don't have a full time job) and I can shell out 20 bucks if I need to. And so can you, considering you have no problem going out for dinner and drinks but don't want to pay for this content. How do I know you can do this? Here's exactly what you posted before me: On February 17 2012 04:26 Excludos wrote:
You're ruining esports!
I kind of see why, but I think $20 is too much for most people for only 2 days of sc2. Especially for students, and we make up for a big cunch of the community. I will be attending a local barcraft thought, if its not filled up like last time. But last time the bar closed before the finals was even started, because its so late. So even that isn't really optimal. On top of that a ton of people don't have a local barcraft to go to, so the idea of "Don't want to pay? Just attent a local barcraft!" is not a solution. Barcraft is super awesome. I went to one before and it was a blast. But if you have no problem going out to the bar, you can never go around talking about how you're too destitute to scrap up 20 bucks for a product. Instead, you should be admitting that you don't want to, that you don't feel it's worth it. But you can afford it. There's a difference. Make a proper argument. It would be worth it if I was a millionare. But since I'm a student, its not worth it. I CAN afford it no problem, but I have other things I want to spend my money on more. Unlike a millionaire, who really doesn't care about 20 bucks. In short: Students are less likely to pay for it. Gjeez. Didn't think you would pick so much on the spesific words used instead of the actual arguement, which still stands. So you don't actually care about the content of this event. You only care about money, which you have no problem throwing away on other transient things, but arbitrarily have decided to not put towards watching this event. And you also think that students- the biggest market for this event- are less likely to pay for it (despite there existing plenty of people willing to spend money on MLG passes and other events), you don't think that millionaire's care about spending wisely, and you believe that your argument (which was initially that you can't afford it *because* you're a student) still stands. All right, well I can't really argue with that any more. Enjoy the rest of your day. Why can't you argue with him? He says he doesn't have enough money to just spend it on whatever he wants he has to set priorities and he thinks that MLG isn't worth spending 20$ on atleast that's what I got out of it. And he's not alone I am in the exact same situation I have to set priorities where to spend my money on and 20$ for an MLG ticket is just to much to justify it. His argument was initially the superficial "I'm a student; therefore, it's impossible for me to afford something for $20." It wasn't about prioritizing or the quality of the MLG content. Later on he backtracked and admitted that he would have no problem affording such a thing (when I pointed out that he was already spending plenty of his non-existent money on other luxuries, as were other students including myself), and so he started to sidestep what he had been saying and then just rambled about buying it if he were a millionaire.
Lol what? You're just making shit up as you go. I never said it was impossible. I specifically used the words: I can't afford it. You're literately picking a random username, argues against something he didn't say, and then makes shit up as you go.
edit: The exact words I used was: $20 is too much, especially for a student.
How in the world did you read "I'm a student; therefore, it's impossible for me to afford something for $20." from that?
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On February 17 2012 05:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 05:46 RvB wrote:
He says he doesn't have enough money to just spend it on whatever he wants he has to set priorities and he thinks that MLG isn't worth spending 20$ on atleast that's what I got out of it.
And he's not alone I am in the exact same situation I have to set priorities where to spend my money on and 20$ for an MLG ticket is just to much to justify it.
His argument was initially the superficial "I'm a student; therefore, it's impossible for me to afford something for $20." It wasn't about prioritizing or the quality of the MLG content. Later on he backtracked and admitted that he would have no problem affording such a thing (when I pointed out that he was already spending plenty of his non-existent money on other luxuries, as were other students including myself), and so he started to sidestep what he had been saying and then just rambled about buying it if he were a millionaire.
It always amuses me:
How something - anything - that, in the real world, would be something any reasonable person would
immediately understand and accept as something perfectly normal, natural and reasonable ...
A: "Yeah ... dunno about that MLG ticket. They're asking too much. I'm a student on a limited budget
and it's not something its worth to me to spend on it right now"
B: "Mmm. Yeah that's cool. You see that chick over there in the heels? Totally hot."
Online? Becomes:
What you see here.
Are you kidding me?
Asking you "what didn't you understand about what he said" would be pointless, because you already
DO understand what he said.
You're just trying to save face.
MLG understands what he said. Believe it.
Right now they are trying to hold up under the backlash right now, crossing their fingers
and praying that the number of people that disagree with him and will pay up (like you) ... outnumber
the number of people that agree with him and will not (like me)
But don't sit here on the board and continue trying to convince us that we are wrong and silly for this
position, or that you don't understand it, or that you are going to convince us otherwise.
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I for one wont be paying, I have a GSL ticket. I would love to watch the MLG games but I am not going to buy tickets to every league so I may as well pay for the best league with the most matches.
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On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums.
You know what amazes me with how they valued their product. How can they look at the GSL who also does it ppv and offers it with better production spread over a longer amount of time etc. and still come out with a higher price?
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Why are people trying to go in weird directions to make pseudo-deep arguments.
If you want eSports to thrive as a business, then treat it as such and it's quite simple... If you think this event is worth $20 all things considered, then buy it. If you think it isn't, then don't. Trying to support eSports with charity purchases won't really sustain the industry.
The Wellplayed article covered this pretty well as a whole. SirScoots said something similar if I recall correctly.
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On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums.
Love to spread my own vile to the forums? I have like 10 posts in a year of being a member. I'm no where near an evil person. I do hope they get burned though because asking your team how much we should charge and blindly throwing a number out there based on their opinion is a poor business decision. I watched all of Lo3 last night so I heard every one of Sundance's arguments which pretty much said "we made mistakes, we get it". I'm a firm believer that you should get "burned" when you make mistakes. I'm about to have to pay a 20,000 mistake due to picking a certain school for my fiance to go to.
Whether you like it or not polling demographics actually does help. Why do you think Obama uses the word "corporate" so much? Focus groups said that corporations have a negative connotation to it. Not everybody that answers a poll question is honest but that's why you pick a good size poll of the demographic you are looking for. It's not an exact science but it is better than the model they used for pricing. I am not the demographic they would even be looking for. I'm 30 and I make a considerable amount of money so $20 isn't important to me. I DO think they should switch to a PPV model and I do think it would be successful if they were smart about it. I've invested into multiple businesses and advised multiple small business owners on product prices so I do have some idea what I'm talking about. I'm not a professional of the esports world but I do know how to sell and market products. I also know the 10 dollars would've caused an uproar as well but you do have to start some where and 10 dollars isolates fewer fans than 20 dollars does. It's like raising gas prices 20 cents verses 2 dollars. Nobody is going to like it but 2 dollars will cause changes in lifestyles while 20 cents probably wouldn't.
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On February 17 2012 07:26 crux0724 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums. Love to spread my own vile to the forums? I have like 10 posts in a year of being a member. I'm no where near an evil person. I do hope they get burned though because asking your team how much we should charge and blindly throwing a number out their based on their opinion is a poor business decision. I watched all of Lo3 last night so I heard every one of Sundance's arguments which pretty much said "we made mistakes, we get it". I'm a firm believer that you should get "burned" when you make mistakes. I'm about to have to pay a 20,000 mistake due to picking a certain school for my fiance to go to. Whether you like it or not polling demographics actually does help. Why do you think Obama uses the word "corporate" so much? Focus groups said that corporations have a negative connotation to it. Not everybody that answers a poll question is honest but that's why you pick a good size poll of the demographic you are looking for. It's not an exact science but it is better than the model they used for pricing. I am not the demographic they would even be looking for. I'm 30 and I make a considerable amount of money so $20 isn't important to me. I DO think they should switch to a PPV model and I do think it would be successful if they were smart about it. I've invested into multiple businesses and advised multiple small business owners on product prices so I do have some idea what I'm talking about. I'm not a professional of the esports world but I do know how to sell and market products. I also know the 10 dollars would've caused an uproar as well but you do have to start some where and 10 dollars isolates fewer fans than 20 dollars does. It's like raising gas prices 20 cents verses 2 dollars. Nobody is going to like it but 2 dollars will cause changes in lifestyles while 20 cents probably wouldn't.
The uproar is irrelevant, what matters is results. TL does not represent the whole of the community and even then it wasn't unanimously panned here. Personally I find $20 a perfectly reasonable price point, if not low depending of what they put out. Again, sweaty men beating each other to submission in high definition sells for $55 today. If someone is a broke college student that can't afford that I sympathize, but don't act like the whole world should spin around that just because it's ESPORTS.
Now to question the business decisions of a seven figure company without presenting any evidence, you'll need more credentials than "advised multiple small business owners"
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
Well for me this is really sad because I love to watch MLG but won't ever pay to do watch anything. Not even Starcraft. From a business perspective it obviously makes sense tho.
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On February 17 2012 07:23 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums. You know what amazes me with how they valued their product. How can they look at the GSL who also does it ppv and offers it with better production spread over a longer amount of time etc. and still come out with a higher price?
Well if u phrase it that way its hard :p... I have a different take at the Winter Arena vs GSL season comparison: while the latter takes longer they are both still 1 tournaments. I don't think that they should get credit for making the one tournament last super long. In number of hours of games broadcasted, I'm sure that GSL does take it but its not like 3 days vs. 90 [I would guess GSL has at most triple the number of game-hours?]. Then GSL is still cheaper, but the ratio stops looking grotesque.
Why would MLG think their fewer games are worth more than GSL's more games? I don't know because the only tournament I love is GSTL :p Let me give it a try: Of all the GSL games, a lot of them include less-than-fan-favorite Korean players. I don't think that there is much value in that (especially for the "foreign" customer). I would say that of the players at MLG most of the "foreign" customer base likes the players, which is not the case for the GSL. A ratio would be needed and I don't know how to calculate it, but let's say [hypothetically!!] that the average MLG game is 1.4 times more interesting than the average GSL game. Then if GSL has triple hours of MLG, but 71% (1.4/1) of the game quality then the pricing ratio would be that GSL should be 2.1 times as expensive as MLG.
While I can't rationalize like this why MLG ends up being 33% more expensive than GSL with this example [**edit: Wrong, GSL costs 1.75 times more than GSL] , I am sure that there are other adjustments you could do to increase MLG's value [ex1: the MLG quad view thing is awesome, unique and adds value / ex2: compare not only to GSL but to other kinds of PPV content]. As to how sane a person should be to continue adding adjustments until you get that MLG is more valuable, that's a different issue.
edit: since Soap reminded me that I'm a noob and I don't even remember the GSL price, that last paragraph makes little sense. i added a little note on the last paragraph.
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On February 17 2012 07:38 Soap wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 07:26 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums. Love to spread my own vile to the forums? I have like 10 posts in a year of being a member. I'm no where near an evil person. I do hope they get burned though because asking your team how much we should charge and blindly throwing a number out their based on their opinion is a poor business decision. I watched all of Lo3 last night so I heard every one of Sundance's arguments which pretty much said "we made mistakes, we get it". I'm a firm believer that you should get "burned" when you make mistakes. I'm about to have to pay a 20,000 mistake due to picking a certain school for my fiance to go to. Whether you like it or not polling demographics actually does help. Why do you think Obama uses the word "corporate" so much? Focus groups said that corporations have a negative connotation to it. Not everybody that answers a poll question is honest but that's why you pick a good size poll of the demographic you are looking for. It's not an exact science but it is better than the model they used for pricing. I am not the demographic they would even be looking for. I'm 30 and I make a considerable amount of money so $20 isn't important to me. I DO think they should switch to a PPV model and I do think it would be successful if they were smart about it. I've invested into multiple businesses and advised multiple small business owners on product prices so I do have some idea what I'm talking about. I'm not a professional of the esports world but I do know how to sell and market products. I also know the 10 dollars would've caused an uproar as well but you do have to start some where and 10 dollars isolates fewer fans than 20 dollars does. It's like raising gas prices 20 cents verses 2 dollars. Nobody is going to like it but 2 dollars will cause changes in lifestyles while 20 cents probably wouldn't. The uproar is irrelevant, what matters is results. TL does not represent the whole of the community and even then it wasn't unanimously panned here. Personally I find $20 a perfectly reasonable price point, if not low depending of what they put out. Again, sweaty men beating each other to submission in high definition sells for $55 today. If someone is a broke college student that can't afford that I sympathize, but don't act like the whole world should spin around that just because it's ESPORTS. Now to question the business decisions of a seven figure company without presenting any evidence, you'll need more credentials than "advised multiple small business owners"
I don't need any credentials because I'm not advising MLG. The reason MLG is charging 20 dollars is because they are bleeding. They are in the red and can't continue their current model so they have to make money or die. More than likely, they need to make a lot of money (based on the 20 dollar initial pricing). Anybody who doesn't question that business isn't thinking properly. Sundance himself last night said MULTIPLE times how many poor business decisions they have made. Companies that make good and wise business decisions aren't in the red. They had to lay off multiple people before Christmas because they are losing money. They only had 10% of their projected gold memberships for the year. Sundance said he's invested more money than he has made in the business. I'm not sure why you wouldn't be questioning the business decisions.....
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On February 17 2012 07:38 Nuzoybot wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 07:23 RvB wrote:On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums. You know what amazes me with how they valued their product. How can they look at the GSL who also does it ppv and offers it with better production spread over a longer amount of time etc. and still come out with a higher price? Well if u phrase it that way its hard :p... I have a different take at the Winter Arena vs GSL season comparison: while the latter takes longer they are both still 1 tournaments. I don't think that they should get credit for making the one tournament last super long. In number of hours of games broadcasted, I'm sure that GSL does take it but its not like 3 days vs. 90 [I would guess GSL has at most triple the number of game-hours?]. Then GSL is still cheaper, but the ratio stops looking grotesque. Why would MLG think their fewer games are worth more than GSL's more games? I don't know because the only tournament I love is GSTL :p Let me give it a try: Of all the GSL games, a lot of them include less-than-fan-favorite Korean players. I don't think that there is much value in that (especially for the "foreign" customer). I would say that of the players at MLG most of the "foreign" customer base likes the players, which is not the case for the GSL. A ratio would be needed and I don't know how to calculate it, but let's say [hypothetically!!] that the average MLG game is 1.4 times more interesting than the average GSL game. Then if GSL has triple hours of MLG, but 71% (1.4/1) of the game quality then the pricing ratio would be that GSL should be 2.1 times as expensive as MLG. While I can't rationalize like this why MLG ends up being 33% more expensive than GSL with this example, I am sure that there are other adjustments you could do to increase MLG's value [ex1: the MLG quad view thing is awesome, unique and adds value / ex2: compare not only to GSL but to other kinds of PPV content]. As to how sane a person should be to continue adding adjustments until you get that MLG is more valuable, that's a different issue.
GSL season is $35 in high definition (worse than MLG though) and without ads, which is what MLG is offering. Of course it's a matter of how much one values those features, but on a generalized comparison let's have the same products.
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so is this going to be on pay per view or does PPV mean something through the internet??
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On February 17 2012 07:47 wishbones wrote:
so is this going to be on pay per view or does PPV mean something through the internet??
Pay per view. Will be a 20 dollar charge to watch the stream for the weekend.
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On February 17 2012 07:24 Mordiford wrote:
Why are people trying to go in weird directions to make pseudo-deep arguments.
If you want eSports to thrive as a business, then treat it as such and it's quite simple... If you think this event is worth $20 all things considered, then buy it. If you think it isn't, then don't. Trying to support eSports with charity purchases won't really sustain the industry.
The Wellplayed article covered this pretty well as a whole. SirScoots said something similar if I recall correctly.
Stop equating the future of eSports with the future of MLG. eSports is larger than the North American company who has been bleeding money for more than 10 years. MLG wouldn't give a single fuck about SC2 if it didn't bring in the numbers for them to try and milk for a profit. In fact I believe that the reason MLG is rushing this so fast is specifically because of 10 years of losses and debt breathing down their necks and trying to camouflage that as "eSports NOW OR NEVER GUYS!". Buyer beware.
I rather give my money to a company that isn't in such a bad position through debt that they don't have the time to wait for the growth of a very young game that is still evolving. If that means the end of MLG, so be it.
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On February 17 2012 07:47 Soap wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 07:38 Nuzoybot wrote:On February 17 2012 07:23 RvB wrote:On February 17 2012 07:03 Nuzoybot wrote:On February 17 2012 06:37 crux0724 wrote:
Blindly thinking your product is worth X amount without proper polling is pretty stupid and I hope they get burned for it. I think a lot of people share the thought. On the other hand, Sundance said on his interview that they had people who had valued how much they should charge for it. I guess that using number of hours (20hrs times 4 streams) that you get they came up to that number. They said they looked at other events that used PPV and then tried to go from that; using comparable products/companies to do valuation is what most people do [ex: if company ABC charges $40 for 5 hours of content, then you multiple is $8 per hour]. If that is not how valuation is done, I am looking for some of the smart people on TL to teach me some new finance skills... The problem with any kind of valuation is that the output is very sensible to the assumptions you make to get there [ex: are ABC and MLG comparable in terms of product? if ABC content is more valuable, what kind of a discount (ex:50%) should i use for MLG?]. A very nice corporate valuation book says that "Valuation is part art, part science". While the science part is easy [ex: calculating the multiple], the art part is not [ex: calculating the discount]. For something such as MLG, the art part is in fact almost impossible to get: how do you compare other PPV shows to MLG? for starters you normally get 1 channel, does that mean that MLG should just multiply times 4 if they provide 4? probably not. if not, what number? In my opinion, doing a poll to see what people think the value of an arena tournament (something they've never seen) is absolutely rubbish: people will only tell you how much they are willing to pay, not what they think the value is [especially if they don't know the product yet]. Price is not equal to value. Furthermore, to the delusional people that think that if the price was $10 it would be no problem and they would have higher revenues as much more people would buy [and use the poll in Alex Garfield's post as evidence], I propose an experiment: tell every person on that poll that they can now buy it for $10 and see if the 70% that answered yes would actually pay. People lie in polls and especially in online polls, and the sampling is poor: that is why online presidency polls all throw different winners, and why those polls have little to no value. This does not mean that people should just shut up and pay $20, as I am sure that a lot of people will not do so. It does mean that I think people should stop giving MLG shit for their price, as Sundance said: they were gonna do the arena, and they needed a number for their first event. If you don't like the price, vote with you wallet. If you say "I hope they get burned for their stupid price", I think you should just vote with your wallet and shut up because you are an evil person (very far way from an evil genius :p) who loves to spread his/her vile to the forums. You know what amazes me with how they valued their product. How can they look at the GSL who also does it ppv and offers it with better production spread over a longer amount of time etc. and still come out with a higher price? Well if u phrase it that way its hard :p... I have a different take at the Winter Arena vs GSL season comparison: while the latter takes longer they are both still 1 tournaments. I don't think that they should get credit for making the one tournament last super long. In number of hours of games broadcasted, I'm sure that GSL does take it but its not like 3 days vs. 90 [I would guess GSL has at most triple the number of game-hours?]. Then GSL is still cheaper, but the ratio stops looking grotesque. Why would MLG think their fewer games are worth more than GSL's more games? I don't know because the only tournament I love is GSTL :p Let me give it a try: Of all the GSL games, a lot of them include less-than-fan-favorite Korean players. I don't think that there is much value in that (especially for the "foreign" customer). I would say that of the players at MLG most of the "foreign" customer base likes the players, which is not the case for the GSL. A ratio would be needed and I don't know how to calculate it, but let's say [hypothetically!!] that the average MLG game is 1.4 times more interesting than the average GSL game. Then if GSL has triple hours of MLG, but 71% (1.4/1) of the game quality then the pricing ratio would be that GSL should be 2.1 times as expensive as MLG. While I can't rationalize like this why MLG ends up being 33% more expensive than GSL with this example, I am sure that there are other adjustments you could do to increase MLG's value [ex1: the MLG quad view thing is awesome, unique and adds value / ex2: compare not only to GSL but to other kinds of PPV content]. As to how sane a person should be to continue adding adjustments until you get that MLG is more valuable, that's a different issue. GSL season is $35 in high definition (worse than MLG though) and without ads, which is what MLG is offering. Of course it's a matter of how much one values those features, but on a generalized comparison let's have the same products.
Evidentally, MLG charged 50 dollars for the HD providence without ads. I didn't know that until last night and Sundance himself said that people should've been mad at him for charging that much.
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EPT
