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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. |
Guess I'll just check in to see the results afterwards. I've never had problems with LQ streams as imo since I don't plan on paying to see starcraft I'm happy with what I get & if this means no stream at all then so be it.
If they'd do like GOMtv (free to watch live, pay to watch more than just the first set in VODs) then I think they wouldn't lose too many viewers but... I think they're putting a bullet in their own foot with this.
Once you start "monetizing" esports, it's only going to have a downhill effect.
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I don't see why i would ever pay 20 $ for this. I already have a GSL ticket wich gives me better players, better production and it's a lot cheaper.
I didn't know if i was going to watch MLG or Assembly but now the choice is really easy.
Not sure about about how i feel about MLG right now but i think this is going to fail pretty hardcore because the competition is way too good.
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On February 14 2012 11:35 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 11:31 iky43210 wrote:On February 14 2012 11:23 Jibba wrote:On February 14 2012 11:12 dsousa wrote: You know who survives on ads.... Google, Facebook, Zynga, Yahoo, 500 television channels, Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and every other SC2 tournament out there.
So don't cry that the ad model is broken.... maybe your cost structure is broken! Youtube lost billions of dollars for years and has only relatively recently begun to make money for Google. Most football, basketball and baseball teams are losing money, which is why they have revenue sharing from the giants. Television is dying with advertising, media is dying with advertising. And the actual truth is that SC2 is dying with advertising. People have been fed a vision of mainstream ESPORTS for too long, and they don't realize people are just taking loss leaders on a hope that's never going to happen. Even the giants in BW have been falling for years. It's a bubble and a niche, and there will never be a viewership that can sustain an advertising based/free system. Never. Alot of what you said isn't true. Youtube isn't losing money because of its ad based model, but rather its poor business management and plan. TV and Media isn't dying because of advertisement. Its the decline of viewership that is killing them, ever heard of internet? Also I don't think you understand what "bubble" means. Are you trying to claim that 10+ years of BW competitive gaming is just a "bubble"? A decline of viewership does not constitute something as a "bubble", its change in people's tastes. An era would have been the more accurate term I guess google must just be a bubble too then Youtube lost money because streaming videos is extremely expensive. It's incomparable to Facebook and Google because they don't do that. The streaming services are reliant on their investors right now. The viewership model IS the advertising model. SC2 has yet to break 100,000 unique viewers, and somehow an advertising/viewership model is sustainable here? Yes, it is a bubble. MBC is dead and the OSL/PL have been losing viewership for 5 years now.
You can't have 10 years of bubble, that is just a plain silly claim. MBC is dead not because of "bubble" popped, but the gamers and viewers have moved on.
Just like how TV is dying not because ad-model advertising doesn't work, but there are now less viewers due to shift in how people spend their time entertaining themselves.
Secondly, sc2 have broken 100k unique CONCURRENT viewers multiple times already, I'm surprised you don't know about it. Particularly MLG and GSL, and perhaps there are some more that I have missed. If you're talking about unique viewers purely, MOST tournaments would have easily surpassed it
Lastly youtube losing money IS because of poor business management. If viewership model is not sustainable, would you like to clarify WHY youtube is profitting now? Because they have finally capitalize and changed their ad model, starts to show preload ads and banner instead of nothing etc
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I'm not so sure this was the right move. Good luck though.
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Northern Ireland101 Posts
On February 14 2012 11:20 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 11:12 dsousa wrote: Sundance claiming there aren't enough SC2 fans to run an advertising business, is exactly akin to Idra saying the Z can't beat P. The fact that Sundances' tweet basically says the ad model is dead despite 98% of tournement running on that model is just like Idra QQ'ing about zerg while Stephano wins tournaments left and right.
You know who survives on ads.... Google, Facebook, Zynga, Yahoo, 500 television channels, Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and every other SC2 tournament out there.
So don't cry that the ad model is broken.... maybe your cost structure is broken! Quoted for truth. I also would be pretty disappointed if I was a gold member pass holder or whatever it´s called. Sort of a slap in the face. I liked MLG after they got their shit together after Dallas(eagles anyone?... :D) because they stepped up their game and produced good stable content. But 20 bucks is an audacious amount of money based on the market situation if you will, they better deliver for that amount of money or fail horribly and rethink their steps.
I think the general mass of people are entirely forgetting all this. MLG does not make money solely from advertisements, I think it's fair to say that wouldn't work. They have monetary deals with sponsors including other benefits, MLG membership that costs $30 a year and season passes, ad revenue from streams and an online store (remember the MLG controller?). You also got tickets for the live events and vendors at those events. Where does all that money go? The production value of MLG events isn't really all that high in comparison to other majors, I assume the money all goes into paying staff, marketing and getting players out to events.
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20$ for one weekend of Starcraft 2?
Haha, pass.
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On February 14 2012 11:34 Orracle wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 11:07 casualman wrote:
They don't. That's exactly why they're doing this--because living off advertisement revenue isn't enough to sustain MLG or isn't enough to propel them to the vision of the business that they have. Gonna go off on a SWAG here, but I'm assuming they're doing this because they ran into some problems. After they fucked over gold members(me included), a lot of us asked for refunds. At this point, they had already planned on flying out the 32 people, casters, etc - all expenses paid. They know they lost a lot of revenue from the members asking for refunds, their free stream can't generate enough revenue to cover the expenses, prize pool, etc, so they resort to a PPV show. I think they're gonna regret this. Well this isn't the case. I don't even want to speculate the consequences if it was.
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On February 14 2012 11:39 Parcelleus wrote: Best joke of 2012.
Wait is it April 1? I had to think for second :D
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It's $20 to support the best tournament in NA. It's $20 to pay for the flights and accomodations of 32 progamers. It's $20 for a weekend of fun in my own home. It's $20 to prove Esports is not a joke! It's $20 well spent.
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I'll add that I really like the idea of paying stream/free VOD better than what GSL does.
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On February 14 2012 11:42 jarf1337 wrote: It's $20 to support the best tournament in NA. It's $20 to pay for the flights and accomodations of 32 progamers. It's $20 for a weekend of fun in my own home. It's $20 to prove Esports is not a joke! It's $20 well spent. and it's the $20 a lot of us don't have T__T.
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On February 14 2012 11:23 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 11:12 dsousa wrote: You know who survives on ads.... Google, Facebook, Zynga, Yahoo, 500 television channels, Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and every other SC2 tournament out there.
So don't cry that the ad model is broken.... maybe your cost structure is broken! Youtube lost billions of dollars for years and has only relatively recently begun to make money for Google. Most football, basketball and baseball teams are losing money, which is why they have revenue sharing from the giants. Television is dying with advertising, media is dying with advertising. And the actual truth is that SC2 is dying with advertising. People have been fed a vision of mainstream ESPORTS for too long, and they don't realize people are just taking loss leaders on a hope that's never going to happen. Even the giants in BW have been falling for years. It's a bubble and a niche, and there will never be a viewership that can sustain an advertising based/free system. Never. The entire system is currently reliant on investors, and you can't keep that up.
Television and written media were sustainable for a very long time entirely on advertising revenue. However, as you say, they are dying out now, but not because the advertising model is bad, but because a large amount of that content is now free (supported by advertising) and available on the internet instead. Either way, it should not mean that SC2 can or can't be based upon advertising revenue alone.
If SC2 is too small to survive without free streams, then there is a big problem. For it to grow, it needs to become more mainstream, which means bringing in more viewers. I do not see this happening if PPV is the standard model, as it will probably result in less viewers. If SC2 tournaments are losing money, then expectations need to be reduced, flying players and casters to NYC seems really over the top, and maybe prize pools need to be smaller, casters paid less etc in order for it to survive. Obviously without the figures, this is all conjecture.
I think this is a worthy experiment, but for me personally, I wont be purchasing.
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MLG gets my money because I have the money and E-sports needs to grow.
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$20 is like 1/3 of what I spend going to the bar for one night as a college student. I am VERY happy to pay $20 for supporting ESPORTS! this is going to be money well spent for a WHOLE weekend of entertainment. Im stoked!
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What if people do support this and MLG fails, then what? Would they expect people to continue buying?
To me this is gonna be make or break for the PPV type of structure. MLG has to pull through here, they have to do something different then every other free tournament.
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I don't like the idea that the content put out by our community, our players is one day going to be behind paywalls in the name of ESPORTS. If MLG is going this way of capitalizing Esports in this fashion, I won't support it. There are business models working (IPL, GSL, Dreamhack) that don't need an up front cost to access the tournament. It's really a money grab.
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i watch almost every major starcraft 2 event, but 20 is way to steep for a starving college student. Sorry, but i'm going to have to pass on this one
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On February 14 2012 11:42 jarf1337 wrote: It's $20 to support the best tournament in NA. It's $20 to pay for the flights and accomodations of 32 progamers. It's $20 for a weekend of fun in my own home. It's $20 to prove Esports is not a joke! It's $20 well spent.
Exactly. This is when we separate the people who love E-sports from the others. Sundance has provided a preview of the service and I bet we will see more in the weeks coming. If anyone can sell a $20 tournament, it is Sundance.
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