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On February 17 2012 09:19 draumr wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 08:49 P0ckets wrote:On February 17 2012 08:37 Blasterion wrote:
So I don't get it, what good is my Gold membership if I still have to pay to watch this? We get access to 4 other events apparent and 5 dollars of Winter Arena, which in comparison to what I got last year sucks. I mean I bought it back I November and got two event for last year in two months. Now for this up coming year there will only be 4? I mean it really seems like they are fucking us on the content, and they could make it better by including the Winter Arena but they don't want to. Saying 4 events compared to 6 isn't as bad as it seems. Just like the GSL massively changed their format, MLG did as well. They are actually going to have more content per event, as each event is a season, with qualifiers for each event, or so I believe. Could be wrong on the exact format, but I know it is different. People honestly need to take a step back and forget everything they have thought about e-sports up to this point. It has spoiled us. If you like e-sports being a little tiny thing with some people that play the game a lot being able to play it, than don't support this decision. If you want it to be sucessful, like BW in Korea was, than you need to accept the fact that we have to have a different order of business. We have to think of different ways. GSL changing how they do business shows that it isn't working well for them, we know companies like dreamhack and IEM aren't making money. PPV is one of the options we have to increase sells. A tiered content list is another one, which MLG is doing with this being a PPV and other content(the circuit) being free. It isn't as simple as MLG running ads during downtime. Dr.pepper will NOT give them more money to run more ads. They are already getting plenty of saturation on the ad front; any more is pointless. I remember someone at twitch writing an article about how ads can only be played so many times per session. It is a good read if you don't know how ads work very well, and although it is a different system we can assume that they work in a very similar way across the board. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=300563 For those interested. You can argue the price point, but I would advise against using online polls and "feels like too much". As Sundance and others have pointed out, online polls are fucking garbage. I would say a majority of people will go with the cheapest option the majority of the time in polls, even if they will end up paying more for a final product. Some people have been trying to think of it mathematically, and although that is difficult for us because we have very few of the numbers needed to properly do it, that is the line of thought people should continue down, if they so desire to keep discussing it. I don't have much to say about the gold membership; MLG fucked up on some front. Whether it was communication, thought process, changing their minds, whatever, they fucked up. Sundance admitted they fucked up, and said it was unfortunate, but it had to be done. We can bitch and moan all we want, but it is obvious at this point that it isn't changing a damn thing. I would HIGHLY suggest if you were a gold member to write a legitimate email to every employee at MLG letting them know how you feel; not one that is written out of pure anger. Personally I will be paying the 20 dollars for this event. I feel it will be worth it for multiple reasons. I generally pay for UFC events, which is far less hours of entertainment for almost triple the price. If i watch even 5-6 hours of games I will be happy. Most games I buy nowadays I beat in 20-40 hours depending on the game, and generally pay 50-60 bucks for, so as long as I go by that 10-20 hours of entertainment for 25 bucks is how I look at it as far as game money goes, and this falls within that standard, even though this falls in the entertainment bracket of finances more than game bracket for me. I like what MLG is doing with flying the players, and I like the referral program. I don't know if I will pay for every Arena event if they are all 20 bucks, depending on how many their are, but at the same time I might if they show to be amazing events. This is an experiment for Sundance, and I am willing to pay to test the waters and see if it is successful or not. My hope is that people can sit and think about what MLG is asking, and decide if it is worth the 20 bucks to them. If it isn't, think about how much you are willing to pay and divide that among friends. If you have a local barcraft go to that. If you aren't willing to pay anything, and aren't hurt with timing issues like EU or work, than sadly you probably aren't willing to help buy the products of sponsors, or help generate revenue for anyone, and probably aren't as relevant for tournaments and sponsors anyways. I'm sorry to say it, but this isn't a charity anymore, I hope those of you who don't want to pay understand! Be glad, as Sundance said, that you have other free content for the weekend. Just as a thought, even if the other tournies end up getting FAR more viewers, rest assured MLG makes more money, and the teams spend far less(obviously). I would almost be willing to bet even if the event has horrible viewership, below what many expect even, they still make at least on par with what they would have. This was the worse possible way to introduce it, or at least up their with how horrible it could have been as far as PR goes, and I still have a feeling it will show Sundance that the future is PPV.
Yeah but last year there were 6 events that were available and now this year there is 5 and instead of giving the users all 5 they decide to nix one and make it four. It is the fact that they have 5 but are not willing to give it.
Also if MLG is bleeding money it would make more sense for them to not cover the player's expenses or give Gold a 5 dollar off discount. Because of these two facts I don't believe MLG is even in that bad of shape. I mean if they were floundering like he said in the Interview he would not cover player expenses or give the gold a discount since he would not be able to afford it.
And I have already written to several MLG employees in a reasonable manner without anger, but unfortunately I have yet to hear from them and I wrote Sundance yesterday and the MLG support staff early Tuesday.
Also there is the huge fact that he can't keep his current customers happy. It is shitty business planning to have everyone you just paid you money wish for you and your company to get bent. I mean if he saw this back lash coming why didn't he stop it or do anything? I mean it is either he didn't see it or didn't give a fuck what he did to us gold members, and I believe the latter.
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On February 17 2012 10:03 P0ckets wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:
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..... If the MLG is bleeding then why are they paying for the player's flights, board, and meals when they majority of them if not all will have teams or sponsors that are able to cover those expenses? On top of that if they need the money so much how can they even afford to give Gold members like me a discount? If it was so screwed they wouldn't be able to give us a discount. IMO his whole we need money spiel is a charade to get more people to buy his product out of sympathy because he knows we are sucks for the "if you don't support us e-sports will die" line.
Did you watch Lo3 last night? If you did you wouldnt need to be asking half of these questions if you didn't then you should probably watch it. MLG isn't doing well and he said none of his competitors are doing well either. The model has to change in order to make money so I agree with that just not the rate of change. I'm very confident that MLG doesn't make much money based on their business model. Very few SC2 players make decent money just because there isn't a whole lot of money in the system. They are still surviving from investors and promises they made investors.
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On February 17 2012 10:11 crux0724 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 10:03 P0ckets wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:
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..... If the MLG is bleeding then why are they paying for the player's flights, board, and meals when they majority of them if not all will have teams or sponsors that are able to cover those expenses? On top of that if they need the money so much how can they even afford to give Gold members like me a discount? If it was so screwed they wouldn't be able to give us a discount. IMO his whole we need money spiel is a charade to get more people to buy his product out of sympathy because he knows we are sucks for the "if you don't support us e-sports will die" line. Did you watch Lo3 last night? If you did you wouldnt need to be asking half of these questions if you didn't then you should probably watch it. MLG isn't doing well and he said none of his competitors are doing well either. The model has to change in order to make money so I agree with that just not the rate of change.
I watched it, and if they wanted to do better don't pay for everyone's plane ticket, don't pay for their hotel, don't pay for their food and don't give discounts. Because MLG is doing all oft that it definitely isn't bleeding. When a company starts losing money it goes into Cost Containment, which means it cuts unnecessary things like travel, discounts, and free items. Since they haven't done this I don't believe it is as bad as he makes it out. Plus the majority of us are suckers for the "if you don't support this e-sports will die" line. I mean come on there are better ways to cut cost and corners than bleeding your supporters.
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On February 17 2012 10:15 P0ckets wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 10:11 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 10:03 P0ckets wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:
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..... If the MLG is bleeding then why are they paying for the player's flights, board, and meals when they majority of them if not all will have teams or sponsors that are able to cover those expenses? On top of that if they need the money so much how can they even afford to give Gold members like me a discount? If it was so screwed they wouldn't be able to give us a discount. IMO his whole we need money spiel is a charade to get more people to buy his product out of sympathy because he knows we are sucks for the "if you don't support us e-sports will die" line. Did you watch Lo3 last night? If you did you wouldnt need to be asking half of these questions if you didn't then you should probably watch it. MLG isn't doing well and he said none of his competitors are doing well either. The model has to change in order to make money so I agree with that just not the rate of change. I watched it, and if they wanted to do better don't pay for everyone's plane ticket, don't pay for their hotel, don't pay for their food and don't give discounts. Because MLG is doing all oft that it definitely isn't bleeding. When a company starts losing money it goes into Cost Containment, which means it cuts unnecessary things like travel, discounts, and free items. Since they haven't done this I don't believe it is as bad as he makes it out. Plus the majority of us are suckers for the "if you don't support this e-sports will die" line. I mean come on there are better ways to cut cost and corners than bleeding your supporters.
Well, you could possibly be right but I would bet they are in the red. One would think that being 15+ trillion dollars in debt would cause the government to go into "cost containment" but they are still scheduled to go into at least 900 billion deeper next year. A company run poorly is going to be run into the ground and from all the signs I see, this company is run poorly. Regardless, I'm done with this subject and I do hope you are right that they are and will become a more successful business. I just won't support them financially until they lower their rates or improve their PR.
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On February 17 2012 10:26 crux0724 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 10:15 P0ckets wrote:On February 17 2012 10:11 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 10:03 P0ckets wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:
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..... If the MLG is bleeding then why are they paying for the player's flights, board, and meals when they majority of them if not all will have teams or sponsors that are able to cover those expenses? On top of that if they need the money so much how can they even afford to give Gold members like me a discount? If it was so screwed they wouldn't be able to give us a discount. IMO his whole we need money spiel is a charade to get more people to buy his product out of sympathy because he knows we are sucks for the "if you don't support us e-sports will die" line. Did you watch Lo3 last night? If you did you wouldnt need to be asking half of these questions if you didn't then you should probably watch it. MLG isn't doing well and he said none of his competitors are doing well either. The model has to change in order to make money so I agree with that just not the rate of change. I watched it, and if they wanted to do better don't pay for everyone's plane ticket, don't pay for their hotel, don't pay for their food and don't give discounts. Because MLG is doing all oft that it definitely isn't bleeding. When a company starts losing money it goes into Cost Containment, which means it cuts unnecessary things like travel, discounts, and free items. Since they haven't done this I don't believe it is as bad as he makes it out. Plus the majority of us are suckers for the "if you don't support this e-sports will die" line. I mean come on there are better ways to cut cost and corners than bleeding your supporters. Well, you could possibly be right but I would bet they are in the red. One would think that being 15+ trillion dollars in debt would cause the government to go into "cost containment" but they are still scheduled to go into at least 900 billion deeper next year. A company run poorly is going to be run into the ground and from all the signs I see, this company is run poorly. Regardless, I'm done with this subject and I do hope you are right that they are and will become a more successful business. I just won't support them financially until they lower their rates or improve their PR.
Comparing a private run business with a government that is long since paid and bought for by banks and big corporations that profit (the banks profit bigtime) from the government (borrowing and) going into debt is a bad comparison. But this is a whole other story.
So no, MLG can't be doing that bad if they decide to pay for flights + hotels for players and THEN turn around and say "ok, we need to make this a PPV because we're losing money". No, that isn't how it works. I'm pretty sure this move by them is costing them more money than they would like, but they're shipping the bill to the community because they're banging on the big drums. And if you ask me, that's a shitty way of going about things.
Just like the federal government is sending the bill to your children and grandchildren for the huge debt they're racking up.
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On February 17 2012 10:15 P0ckets wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 10:11 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 10:03 P0ckets wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:
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..... If the MLG is bleeding then why are they paying for the player's flights, board, and meals when they majority of them if not all will have teams or sponsors that are able to cover those expenses? On top of that if they need the money so much how can they even afford to give Gold members like me a discount? If it was so screwed they wouldn't be able to give us a discount. IMO his whole we need money spiel is a charade to get more people to buy his product out of sympathy because he knows we are sucks for the "if you don't support us e-sports will die" line. Did you watch Lo3 last night? If you did you wouldnt need to be asking half of these questions if you didn't then you should probably watch it. MLG isn't doing well and he said none of his competitors are doing well either. The model has to change in order to make money so I agree with that just not the rate of change. I watched it, and if they wanted to do better don't pay for everyone's plane ticket, don't pay for their hotel, don't pay for their food and don't give discounts. Because MLG is doing all oft that it definitely isn't bleeding. When a company starts losing money it goes into Cost Containment, which means it cuts unnecessary things like travel, discounts, and free items. Since they haven't done this I don't believe it is as bad as he makes it out. Plus the majority of us are suckers for the "if you don't support this e-sports will die" line. I mean come on there are better ways to cut cost and corners than bleeding your supporters.
I think you don't quite understand the concept, it's meant for consolidated businesses which may have been lax with costs over time. I doubt MLG has ever been profitable with SC2, the problem is clearly revenue: it currently consists only of sponsorships (unstable, especially since are tied to the console games that are going down the drain, Sundance spoke about barely being able to stream Halo at all) and membership fees (mediocre and grossly underperforming). To have more revenue they're offering a new product, charging what seems fit for that product and players need to be flown there because without them the product doesn't exist. All makes sense to me.
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On February 17 2012 09:27 Soap wrote:edit: post above is excellent. Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 08:54 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 08:03 Soap wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 07:38 Soap wrote: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..... If $20 is too much then I question the viability of any and all leagues. That is, we are to be graced with a tournament whenever there's a trade fair or LAN that could spare the space. If you have a way for MLG to further trim costs, I and probably them would love to see it. We don't know if $20 dollars is too much. Personally, I think it is. What I do know is $20 dollars is signicantly more likely to be too high as opposed to $10 dollars. I think you made a reference to UFC being $55 dollars and my response to that is that they have developed a product and increased pricing based on demand. You start pricing low and you increase it because of demand you don't start off with the maximum you think you can get because if you lower your price you show that you are a failure (which MLG has already proven to be mistake prone) and if you up your price you lose most of your customers because you are already charging what you feel the maximum is. Sundance said he wouldn't raise prices so he thinks that's the maximum at this time. There are plenty of ways to trim costs. First off you don't spend 100,000 dollars to fly people to an event that you aren't sure if you can afford. Inform the population about the PPV and offer them early sales at a discounted price so you can get an estimate on how much you can afford on travel and players. Do not move up an event and inform the community of PPV a few weeks before because it screams panic move that you planned for poorly. Do not pick an expensive city to have your HQ in. Do not give away 60,000 silver memberships if you are trying to sale gold memberships. Do not raise prize money UNTIL you can afford it. It doesn't matter if the players complain, if you can't afford it, you can't do it. Don't piss all over your gold members and then make a quick reaction to give them a discount after you pissed on them. Edit: Their current business model is charge X amount of dollars and hope it works out. That's about the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket in terms of planning. They honestly have no idea how many people they are going to get and probably have an overly optimistic goal of viewers. I sure as heck wouldn't invest money into a business that is ran like that and seeing how unprofessional Sundance was on Lo3, he is not who I would have running my company. If you want to be treated like a respectable business, you need to act the part. There's is no guarantee $10 would sell more than twice. Even then, you have a problem with how it feels to investors and potential partners (especially cable providers) - if you value your product at $10, then it must be really shit as far as PPV goes. And all expansion would be at that $10 price point. There's no point on increasing because of demand because it doesn't cost more to provide (actually costs less because of the extra leverage over content delivery networks) If you don't fly players you don't have a proper tournament, see the events last year with one of four assorted koreans taking it all with a couple foreigners even standing a chance, while a lot of the worldwide talent simply can't afford the trip. I doubt office costs are that relevant to an operation the size of MLG. The Arena is being held there because they had to scrap the plans for a brand new place, according to Sundance on LO3. I'd expect MLG received some sort of compensation for those memberships gave away through the HotPocket promo. If it wasn't enough then yeah, they screwed up badly. Especially if they didn't expect it to propagate through the internet. The future of MLG does not hang in the Arena success, after all it's just a side event. I'd say the success of the whole SC2 scene hangs in the audience actually being worth enough.
The success of the whole SC2 scene? That would be taking SD's point of view for granted, which not everybody agrees on. Logically, a failure only proves MLG's concrete model, company structure, pricing points, efficiency of operations, public relations, web presence and advertisement not sufficient to draw a large enough crowd for this specific product at this specific prize, given this specific roll-out. It is the same logic of SirScoots and Alex Garfield to remind us that such a test run is sensible and necessary, while not to be mistaken with a generally applicable role model.
It can also be an indicator to market analysis, but not exclusively. To say the test gives absolute answers to consumer behavior would require a perfect execution, which is never to be achieved by default. So in case of failure SD could draw the conclusion of "there is no place for ppv". Truth is, there still perfectly might be. With another company, doing things better. Maybe a company that happens to have more financial lee-way. To afford a good enough product at a different price. With less hick-ups along the way of implementation. Or a whole different idea of content.
So a success would implicate one right way, whereas a failure should be more carefully analyzed.
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They expect to make money off of this. People like Husky and HD shatter their chances at making too much money. I think that this is an absolute fail on their behalf.
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On February 17 2012 10:58 rotegirte wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 09:27 Soap wrote:edit: post above is excellent. On February 17 2012 08:54 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 08:03 Soap wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 07:38 Soap wrote: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..... If $20 is too much then I question the viability of any and all leagues. That is, we are to be graced with a tournament whenever there's a trade fair or LAN that could spare the space. If you have a way for MLG to further trim costs, I and probably them would love to see it. We don't know if $20 dollars is too much. Personally, I think it is. What I do know is $20 dollars is signicantly more likely to be too high as opposed to $10 dollars. I think you made a reference to UFC being $55 dollars and my response to that is that they have developed a product and increased pricing based on demand. You start pricing low and you increase it because of demand you don't start off with the maximum you think you can get because if you lower your price you show that you are a failure (which MLG has already proven to be mistake prone) and if you up your price you lose most of your customers because you are already charging what you feel the maximum is. Sundance said he wouldn't raise prices so he thinks that's the maximum at this time. There are plenty of ways to trim costs. First off you don't spend 100,000 dollars to fly people to an event that you aren't sure if you can afford. Inform the population about the PPV and offer them early sales at a discounted price so you can get an estimate on how much you can afford on travel and players. Do not move up an event and inform the community of PPV a few weeks before because it screams panic move that you planned for poorly. Do not pick an expensive city to have your HQ in. Do not give away 60,000 silver memberships if you are trying to sale gold memberships. Do not raise prize money UNTIL you can afford it. It doesn't matter if the players complain, if you can't afford it, you can't do it. Don't piss all over your gold members and then make a quick reaction to give them a discount after you pissed on them. Edit: Their current business model is charge X amount of dollars and hope it works out. That's about the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket in terms of planning. They honestly have no idea how many people they are going to get and probably have an overly optimistic goal of viewers. I sure as heck wouldn't invest money into a business that is ran like that and seeing how unprofessional Sundance was on Lo3, he is not who I would have running my company. If you want to be treated like a respectable business, you need to act the part. There's is no guarantee $10 would sell more than twice. Even then, you have a problem with how it feels to investors and potential partners (especially cable providers) - if you value your product at $10, then it must be really shit as far as PPV goes. And all expansion would be at that $10 price point. There's no point on increasing because of demand because it doesn't cost more to provide (actually costs less because of the extra leverage over content delivery networks) If you don't fly players you don't have a proper tournament, see the events last year with one of four assorted koreans taking it all with a couple foreigners even standing a chance, while a lot of the worldwide talent simply can't afford the trip. I doubt office costs are that relevant to an operation the size of MLG. The Arena is being held there because they had to scrap the plans for a brand new place, according to Sundance on LO3. I'd expect MLG received some sort of compensation for those memberships gave away through the HotPocket promo. If it wasn't enough then yeah, they screwed up badly. Especially if they didn't expect it to propagate through the internet. The future of MLG does not hang in the Arena success, after all it's just a side event. I'd say the success of the whole SC2 scene hangs in the audience actually being worth enough. The success of the whole SC2 scene? That would be taking SD's point of view for granted, which not everybody agrees on. Logically, a failure only proves MLG's concrete model, company structure, pricing points, efficiency of operations, public relations, web presence and advertisement not sufficient to draw a large enough crowd for this specific product at this specific prize, given this specific roll-out. It is the same logic of SirScoots and Alex Garfield to remind us that such a test run is sensible and necessary, while not to be mistaken with a generally applicable role model. It can also be an indicator to market analysis, but not exclusively. To say the test gives absolute answers to consumer behavior would require a perfect execution, which is never to be achieved by default. So in case of failure SD could draw the conclusion of "there is no place for ppv". Truth is, there still perfectly might be. With another company, doing things better. Maybe a company that happens to have more financial lee-way. To afford a good enough product at a different price. With less hick-ups along the way of implementation. Or a whole different idea of content. So a success would implicate one right way, whereas a failure should be more carefully analyzed.
This only became "a test" or "an experiment" after the uproar happened about how stupid the price is. GSL has already done PPV for an event for $5, nobody caused an uproar and it was highly profitable for GSL. Sundance has no clue what the hell he is talking about most of the time, as evidenced by Lo3 where he contradicted himself or tried to just say "i get it" instead of explaining what it is he "gets". MLG bleeds through millions of dollars every year, and got ~$5.5 million or so in VC over the past 6 months, on top of the $10mil they got for last year and millions more for the years prior to that. This isn't a test or an experiment, this is MLG trying to get whatever money they can in a last ditch effort because they have failed to make a working business model in the PAST DECADE they've been around. Nobody should be doing experiments with a 10 year old company at this point.
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had they announced that it would be PPV when they announced the event, the reaction wouldn't have been as severe
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On February 17 2012 11:05 G2Wolf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 10:58 rotegirte wrote:On February 17 2012 09:27 Soap wrote:edit: post above is excellent. On February 17 2012 08:54 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 08:03 Soap wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 07:38 Soap wrote: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..... If $20 is too much then I question the viability of any and all leagues. That is, we are to be graced with a tournament whenever there's a trade fair or LAN that could spare the space. If you have a way for MLG to further trim costs, I and probably them would love to see it. We don't know if $20 dollars is too much. Personally, I think it is. What I do know is $20 dollars is signicantly more likely to be too high as opposed to $10 dollars. I think you made a reference to UFC being $55 dollars and my response to that is that they have developed a product and increased pricing based on demand. You start pricing low and you increase it because of demand you don't start off with the maximum you think you can get because if you lower your price you show that you are a failure (which MLG has already proven to be mistake prone) and if you up your price you lose most of your customers because you are already charging what you feel the maximum is. Sundance said he wouldn't raise prices so he thinks that's the maximum at this time. There are plenty of ways to trim costs. First off you don't spend 100,000 dollars to fly people to an event that you aren't sure if you can afford. Inform the population about the PPV and offer them early sales at a discounted price so you can get an estimate on how much you can afford on travel and players. Do not move up an event and inform the community of PPV a few weeks before because it screams panic move that you planned for poorly. Do not pick an expensive city to have your HQ in. Do not give away 60,000 silver memberships if you are trying to sale gold memberships. Do not raise prize money UNTIL you can afford it. It doesn't matter if the players complain, if you can't afford it, you can't do it. Don't piss all over your gold members and then make a quick reaction to give them a discount after you pissed on them. Edit: Their current business model is charge X amount of dollars and hope it works out. That's about the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket in terms of planning. They honestly have no idea how many people they are going to get and probably have an overly optimistic goal of viewers. I sure as heck wouldn't invest money into a business that is ran like that and seeing how unprofessional Sundance was on Lo3, he is not who I would have running my company. If you want to be treated like a respectable business, you need to act the part. There's is no guarantee $10 would sell more than twice. Even then, you have a problem with how it feels to investors and potential partners (especially cable providers) - if you value your product at $10, then it must be really shit as far as PPV goes. And all expansion would be at that $10 price point. There's no point on increasing because of demand because it doesn't cost more to provide (actually costs less because of the extra leverage over content delivery networks) If you don't fly players you don't have a proper tournament, see the events last year with one of four assorted koreans taking it all with a couple foreigners even standing a chance, while a lot of the worldwide talent simply can't afford the trip. I doubt office costs are that relevant to an operation the size of MLG. The Arena is being held there because they had to scrap the plans for a brand new place, according to Sundance on LO3. I'd expect MLG received some sort of compensation for those memberships gave away through the HotPocket promo. If it wasn't enough then yeah, they screwed up badly. Especially if they didn't expect it to propagate through the internet. The future of MLG does not hang in the Arena success, after all it's just a side event. I'd say the success of the whole SC2 scene hangs in the audience actually being worth enough. The success of the whole SC2 scene? That would be taking SD's point of view for granted, which not everybody agrees on. Logically, a failure only proves MLG's concrete model, company structure, pricing points, efficiency of operations, public relations, web presence and advertisement not sufficient to draw a large enough crowd for this specific product at this specific prize, given this specific roll-out. It is the same logic of SirScoots and Alex Garfield to remind us that such a test run is sensible and necessary, while not to be mistaken with a generally applicable role model. It can also be an indicator to market analysis, but not exclusively. To say the test gives absolute answers to consumer behavior would require a perfect execution, which is never to be achieved by default. So in case of failure SD could draw the conclusion of "there is no place for ppv". Truth is, there still perfectly might be. With another company, doing things better. Maybe a company that happens to have more financial lee-way. To afford a good enough product at a different price. With less hick-ups along the way of implementation. Or a whole different idea of content. So a success would implicate one right way, whereas a failure should be more carefully analyzed. This only became "a test" or "an experiment" after the uproar happened about how stupid the price is. GSL has already done PPV for an event for $5, nobody caused an uproar and it was highly profitable for GSL. Sundance has no clue what the hell he is talking about most of the time, as evidenced by Lo3 where he contradicted himself or tried to just say "i get it" instead of explaining what it is he "gets". MLG bleeds through millions of dollars every year, and got ~$5.5 million or so in VC over the past 6 months, on top of the $10mil they got for last year and millions more for the years prior to that. This isn't a test or an experiment, this is MLG trying to get whatever money they can in a last ditch effort because they have failed to make a working business model in the PAST DECADE they've been around. Nobody should be doing experiments with a 10 year old company at this point.
well in case you hadnt notcied, noone has figured out a working bussiness model yet
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Obviously it's "an experiment", if it flops at $20 they wouldn't leave at that in any circunstance.
On February 17 2012 10:58 rotegirte wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 09:27 Soap wrote:edit: post above is excellent. On February 17 2012 08:54 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 08:03 Soap wrote:On February 17 2012 07:45 crux0724 wrote:On February 17 2012 07:38 Soap wrote: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..... If $20 is too much then I question the viability of any and all leagues. That is, we are to be graced with a tournament whenever there's a trade fair or LAN that could spare the space. If you have a way for MLG to further trim costs, I and probably them would love to see it. We don't know if $20 dollars is too much. Personally, I think it is. What I do know is $20 dollars is signicantly more likely to be too high as opposed to $10 dollars. I think you made a reference to UFC being $55 dollars and my response to that is that they have developed a product and increased pricing based on demand. You start pricing low and you increase it because of demand you don't start off with the maximum you think you can get because if you lower your price you show that you are a failure (which MLG has already proven to be mistake prone) and if you up your price you lose most of your customers because you are already charging what you feel the maximum is. Sundance said he wouldn't raise prices so he thinks that's the maximum at this time. There are plenty of ways to trim costs. First off you don't spend 100,000 dollars to fly people to an event that you aren't sure if you can afford. Inform the population about the PPV and offer them early sales at a discounted price so you can get an estimate on how much you can afford on travel and players. Do not move up an event and inform the community of PPV a few weeks before because it screams panic move that you planned for poorly. Do not pick an expensive city to have your HQ in. Do not give away 60,000 silver memberships if you are trying to sale gold memberships. Do not raise prize money UNTIL you can afford it. It doesn't matter if the players complain, if you can't afford it, you can't do it. Don't piss all over your gold members and then make a quick reaction to give them a discount after you pissed on them. Edit: Their current business model is charge X amount of dollars and hope it works out. That's about the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket in terms of planning. They honestly have no idea how many people they are going to get and probably have an overly optimistic goal of viewers. I sure as heck wouldn't invest money into a business that is ran like that and seeing how unprofessional Sundance was on Lo3, he is not who I would have running my company. If you want to be treated like a respectable business, you need to act the part. There's is no guarantee $10 would sell more than twice. Even then, you have a problem with how it feels to investors and potential partners (especially cable providers) - if you value your product at $10, then it must be really shit as far as PPV goes. And all expansion would be at that $10 price point. There's no point on increasing because of demand because it doesn't cost more to provide (actually costs less because of the extra leverage over content delivery networks) If you don't fly players you don't have a proper tournament, see the events last year with one of four assorted koreans taking it all with a couple foreigners even standing a chance, while a lot of the worldwide talent simply can't afford the trip. I doubt office costs are that relevant to an operation the size of MLG. The Arena is being held there because they had to scrap the plans for a brand new place, according to Sundance on LO3. I'd expect MLG received some sort of compensation for those memberships gave away through the HotPocket promo. If it wasn't enough then yeah, they screwed up badly. Especially if they didn't expect it to propagate through the internet. The future of MLG does not hang in the Arena success, after all it's just a side event. I'd say the success of the whole SC2 scene hangs in the audience actually being worth enough. The success of the whole SC2 scene? That would be taking SD's point of view for granted, which not everybody agrees on. Logically, a failure only proves MLG's concrete model, company structure, pricing points, efficiency of operations, public relations, web presence and advertisement not sufficient to draw a large enough crowd for this specific product at this specific prize, given this specific roll-out. It is the same logic of SirScoots and Alex Garfield to remind us that such a test run is sensible and necessary, while not to be mistaken with a generally applicable role model. It can also be an indicator to market analysis, but not exclusively. To say the test gives absolute answers to consumer behavior would require a perfect execution, which is never to be achieved by default. So in case of failure SD could draw the conclusion of "there is no place for ppv". Truth is, there still perfectly might be. With another company, doing things better. Maybe a company that happens to have more financial lee-way. To afford a good enough product at a different price. With less hick-ups along the way of implementation. Or a whole different idea of content. So a success would implicate one right way, whereas a failure should be more carefully analyzed.
Good point. GSL seems to be well off subscriptions despite several factors against such as timezone, image quality, foreign players. I should have been more specific that is about the success of the league format that could legitimize SC2 as a sport in the west. NASL and IPL are not as expressive as MLG and have a longer road to go, can we count on them? I don't really need to comment on NASL and IPL's idea of furthering ESPORTS was an 21+ event in a casino, I'm confortable with putting all my eggs on MLG (not necessarily my money though, that depends on what they provide)
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I have super mixed feelings about this now.
Hearing Sundance describe it, I get what he's saying but it's almost like he knows he's shooting himself in the foot but going through with it anyway. I understand this could seriously change e-sports forever if this was a really successful event, but the fact he's willing to alienate fans for the sake of a particular price point is a little upsetting to me.
The gold member thing is disgraceful, I can't believe how dishonest that whole thing feels.
Will I pay.................
Tough one, as much as I hate to say it I probably will because I want to give it a chance, but I really REALLY hope Sundance gets the message that $20 is steep.
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Many legit reasons all over this place
Heres why i Wont be paying.
first i live in europe and it seems as a ripoff consider i usually was semi afk - half asleep or to a club and just having the pc open for mlg to get some viewership credits.
furthemore im not much into sc2 anymore apart few matches and im mostly for the lol ;p
Secondly i dont like to pay for esports , i find it ridiculous at least in their current amateurish formats
Third i fucking hate fake dillimas like pay or esports are dying when every should know that charging something in its infancy only kills it in the long run and have no mistake that esports are just an infant atm
fourth ... srsly in the worst economic depression since 1930 uou thought lets charge for a non significant event ( for the most of us at least) gj the timing was perfect ( not)
Fourth do you guys ever took any pr or marketing classes. so you wanna be the first to pull a ppv in esports and you come with a single pay plan
Again awfull job . why not put a descent 360p stream for couple of bucks heck even charge 2 bucks for each lol , sc2 etc stream. you can easily make 100-200k off that as a profit.
Why then add some 480p for 4-5 bucks with an xtra feat and maybe a 10 dollar plan with 720p and couple of features and then the 20 dollar unlimited stream all features etc etc.
I dont rly see why couple of hundred thousands as extra revenue will be bad in depression times
Fifith the power of mlg comes form the audience , half lame arena tournaments ... no thanks
Ofc you attitude gimme me a couple of million dollars ( least 50k passes x20 like you mentioned in the interview) or else go fuck ur selves im going to my front beach house was the cherry in the pie for me.
With this attitude i think you better start packing
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On February 17 2012 03:41 guluru wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 02:59 Panthae wrote:I dislike the comparison to the movies. Everyone keeps saying 20$ is nothing, it's the same as going to the movies, but that's such a bad argument. Obviously 20$ isn't a TON of money, but I enjoyed watching MLG all day and going to the movies at night, now I'm being limited to one or the other, or pay 40$. That is the issue here, I think. It's that you get everyone involved in e-Sports by monetizing viewers with Ads and now you are forcing them to pay to watch the greatness you helped build... I think it's disrespectful to the community that MADE MLG. It's like saying: ''Alright guys, we had a rough few years but with everyone's support we are HUGE now! Go eSports!! But now that we're big, it's time to pay for what you guys help make.'' I honestly think if MLG was more open as to WHY we are paying the 20$ it'd be easier to accept. If MLG was to say, listen we want to support players better and get korean players here, we can only do that if we receive more money from you guys, here's a subscription service that will give you a stream of the player area, exclusive interviews, high quality on all the streams and a free t-shirt. FUCK I WOULD PAY 30$ FOR THAT! As it is right now though, it sounds like: ''Pay 20$ for what's been free up until now, with nothing new to add. I'm a big fan of MLG, I've been to every barcraft montreal so far, but I feel disrespected when I can't watch an awesome tournament that would never have happened were it not for the thousands of ads I saw for it unless I pay 20$. I'll be supporting the free euro scene I help build instead this weekend, but I'll be sad the whole time that I can't be watching what I really want.  I really disagree with a lot of things you say. I'm in college and I agree that $20 is nothing, which is probably why I will buy a pass. But you said that they are disrespecting the community that MADE MLG. This community did not make MLG. This community is what made it a lot bigger, but it did not make it at all. I've been watching MLG since the Halo 2 days and going to events. Those people made MLG, this community added more people. MLG has been open as to why you are paying $20 and you aren't paying for something that was free. Arena has never existed and therefore was never free. The Championships, which is is what most people seem to be getting confused, are still free. That is exactly like last year. All they did was add new content that is now PPV. If you don't want to pay, then don't. Everything will be exactly the same for you then, you still have your MLG Championship events like last year.
I'm sorry. They didn't make MLG. They made MLG profitable. My bad.
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On February 17 2012 11:40 Panthae wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 03:41 guluru wrote:On February 17 2012 02:59 Panthae wrote:I dislike the comparison to the movies. Everyone keeps saying 20$ is nothing, it's the same as going to the movies, but that's such a bad argument. Obviously 20$ isn't a TON of money, but I enjoyed watching MLG all day and going to the movies at night, now I'm being limited to one or the other, or pay 40$. That is the issue here, I think. It's that you get everyone involved in e-Sports by monetizing viewers with Ads and now you are forcing them to pay to watch the greatness you helped build... I think it's disrespectful to the community that MADE MLG. It's like saying: ''Alright guys, we had a rough few years but with everyone's support we are HUGE now! Go eSports!! But now that we're big, it's time to pay for what you guys help make.'' I honestly think if MLG was more open as to WHY we are paying the 20$ it'd be easier to accept. If MLG was to say, listen we want to support players better and get korean players here, we can only do that if we receive more money from you guys, here's a subscription service that will give you a stream of the player area, exclusive interviews, high quality on all the streams and a free t-shirt. FUCK I WOULD PAY 30$ FOR THAT! As it is right now though, it sounds like: ''Pay 20$ for what's been free up until now, with nothing new to add. I'm a big fan of MLG, I've been to every barcraft montreal so far, but I feel disrespected when I can't watch an awesome tournament that would never have happened were it not for the thousands of ads I saw for it unless I pay 20$. I'll be supporting the free euro scene I help build instead this weekend, but I'll be sad the whole time that I can't be watching what I really want. I really disagree with a lot of things you say. I'm in college and I agree that $20 is nothing, which is probably why I will buy a pass. But you said that they are disrespecting the community that MADE MLG. This community did not make MLG. This community is what made it a lot bigger, but it did not make it at all. I've been watching MLG since the Halo 2 days and going to events. Those people made MLG, this community added more people. MLG has been open as to why you are paying $20 and you aren't paying for something that was free. Arena has never existed and therefore was never free. The Championships, which is is what most people seem to be getting confused, are still free. That is exactly like last year. All they did was add new content that is now PPV. If you don't want to pay, then don't. Everything will be exactly the same for you then, you still have your MLG Championship events like last year. I'm sorry. They didn't make MLG. They made MLG profitable. My bad.
Since when is Starcraft 2 profitable yet? I thought it was basically universally accepted that it wasn't....>_>
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Really interested to see the turn out on this, i'll personally be putting in my 20$. Though 20$ might be steep, if a business model like this can be successful ESports is going to grow rapidly
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On February 17 2012 12:41 Megabuster123 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 11:40 Panthae wrote:On February 17 2012 03:41 guluru wrote:On February 17 2012 02:59 Panthae wrote:I dislike the comparison to the movies. Everyone keeps saying 20$ is nothing, it's the same as going to the movies, but that's such a bad argument. Obviously 20$ isn't a TON of money, but I enjoyed watching MLG all day and going to the movies at night, now I'm being limited to one or the other, or pay 40$. That is the issue here, I think. It's that you get everyone involved in e-Sports by monetizing viewers with Ads and now you are forcing them to pay to watch the greatness you helped build... I think it's disrespectful to the community that MADE MLG. It's like saying: ''Alright guys, we had a rough few years but with everyone's support we are HUGE now! Go eSports!! But now that we're big, it's time to pay for what you guys help make.'' I honestly think if MLG was more open as to WHY we are paying the 20$ it'd be easier to accept. If MLG was to say, listen we want to support players better and get korean players here, we can only do that if we receive more money from you guys, here's a subscription service that will give you a stream of the player area, exclusive interviews, high quality on all the streams and a free t-shirt. FUCK I WOULD PAY 30$ FOR THAT! As it is right now though, it sounds like: ''Pay 20$ for what's been free up until now, with nothing new to add. I'm a big fan of MLG, I've been to every barcraft montreal so far, but I feel disrespected when I can't watch an awesome tournament that would never have happened were it not for the thousands of ads I saw for it unless I pay 20$. I'll be supporting the free euro scene I help build instead this weekend, but I'll be sad the whole time that I can't be watching what I really want. I really disagree with a lot of things you say. I'm in college and I agree that $20 is nothing, which is probably why I will buy a pass. But you said that they are disrespecting the community that MADE MLG. This community did not make MLG. This community is what made it a lot bigger, but it did not make it at all. I've been watching MLG since the Halo 2 days and going to events. Those people made MLG, this community added more people. MLG has been open as to why you are paying $20 and you aren't paying for something that was free. Arena has never existed and therefore was never free. The Championships, which is is what most people seem to be getting confused, are still free. That is exactly like last year. All they did was add new content that is now PPV. If you don't want to pay, then don't. Everything will be exactly the same for you then, you still have your MLG Championship events like last year. I'm sorry. They didn't make MLG. They made MLG profitable. My bad. Since when is Starcraft 2 profitable yet? I thought it was basically universally accepted that it wasn't....>_>
It is my understanding that no league is making money at this time. From the discussion on Live on Three, it sounds like Sundance expects that they need to a solid return on investment(not profit, but at least money coming in) by the end of the year.
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On February 17 2012 12:46 XKirby wrote:
Really interested to see the turn out on this, i'll personally be putting in my 20$. Though 20$ might be steep, if a business model like this can be successful ESports is going to grow rapidly
why pay 20$ when another tournament will be free? i certainly wont be paying. id pay for top of the line entertainment with the best players ala code S gsl. no way im paying for MLG even considering the lineup.
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On February 17 2012 13:49 VenerableSpace wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 12:46 XKirby wrote:
Really interested to see the turn out on this, i'll personally be putting in my 20$. Though 20$ might be steep, if a business model like this can be successful ESports is going to grow rapidly why pay 20$ when another tournament will be free? i certainly wont be paying. id pay for top of the line entertainment with the best players ala code S gsl. no way im paying for MLG even considering the lineup.
I don't care about any of the players in the free tournament and I would like to support MLG. Luck we both have options. Hope you enjoy the Assembly.
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EPT
