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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. |
On February 14 2012 07:54 Grumbels wrote:
Please don't let this become a 100 page thread filled with bitter arguments and complaints. :o
Oh, well...
Scenario 1: The majority of non-payers watch Assembly instead. Bad for MLG, good for Assembly.
Scenario 2: The majority of non-payers attend a BarCraft already established. Bad for MLG, good for BarCrafts (=SC community), hence good for eSports and a bunch of bars across the world.
I personally think it's admirable that MLG is so dedicated to eSports that they are willing to sacrifice their own revenue for the sake of eSports and the competition.
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20$ just kinda seems like a lot doesn't it? I mean $20 gives me a month of GSL. I just don't see why they have it that high. I mean, the leading tournament content provider has already set a standard of $20 for an entire season.
Agreed. They should include qualifiers into PPV too and stop streaming it for free so the price is more reasonable. 
I will pay.
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As a gold member, I am not happy with this change at all. I will not be purchasing a PPV pass as it is far too pricey compared to other offerings out there.
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On February 14 2012 11:46 Plansix wrote:
Exactly. This is when we separate the people who love E-sports from the others.
I'm a huge NFL fan, I watch every game on Network TV every week. I've been doing so since I was 5 years old. I clear my sunday afternoons as much as I can for 4 months a year so I can watch this sport. I will not go NEAR the NFL network because I have to actually pay money to watch the one game a week they show - even though they often make it a game between two good teams. I love football, love it - to the point where its been a fairly large part of my falls and early winters for multiple decades. But if suddenly I had to pay to watch games, I'd simply do without. Don't get all high and mighty because you are willing to shell out 20 bucks.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 14 2012 11:38 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 11:35 Jibba wrote: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"? 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. This is simply not true. 5-10 years is a short term outlook. All of the recent housing bubbles happened within that timeframe.
Secondly, sc2 have broken 100k unique 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. No, they massaged bad statistics about how many streams were opened (usually because the stream crashed), that never featured unique viewers. GSL may have broken that many, though.
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 We don't know what Youtube did in 2011. They didn't run a profit in 2010. They did begin running a lot more live events and partnerships last year so we'll see but even without a profit, it ties into Google's overall system. And that's with economies of scale to its advantage.
I agree with everyone who says MLG should curve costs by not having more audience-less NYC live events, but I don't agree that the current system is working for everyone else, or anyone at all. Maybe MLG could incorporate a much larger, open LAN system like Dreamhack, but it probably won't work so well in NA.
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On February 14 2012 11:46 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Wowowowow, didn't you see the post of the guy below him, "its 20 dollars some of us don't have." I'm in college, I don't have the $20 to spend like that, please don't judge me, and say your in some special club that loves Esports more than the rest of us, just because you have the extra cash laying around to pay for this. I wish I could pay for quality content, but I can't. Does not mean you are separated into a higher class of Starcraft fans.
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This big tournaments like mlg, ipl, nasl etc are just trying to outgrow eachother and by that they are actually outgrowing e-sports itself resulting in not so much profitable events. The sad part is that what mlg is doing is making people believe or pretending that this is what we want and asked for and the right way to grow e-sports which i think is just bullshit.
Some examples would be:
- Big venues in casinos, hotels or whatever? Why we want or need this? Homestory cup was one of the most enjoyable tournaments ever because all ppl want is to see player's emotions and personalities, an audiance as big as a bar full of people is enough to achieve this. Anyone remember last nasl? the venue was empty but this big e-sport events are just competing with each other and they just can't have a smaller venue than their competition.
-5 hd streams ? Why? I bet all most ppl ever wanted was 2 streams complementing each other down times and a decent schedule.
How the hell is having ppv only tournaments going to help e-sports grow? Shouldn't we be focusing in actually raising the number of viewers and the overall interest and awareness of people that still don't know what starcraft or e-sports is? I actually started following starcraft after watching one of the first MLGs which would have never happened if it wasn't free. MLG is no different than any other corporation it's not mainly about you or what will be better for e-sports it's about profits and defeating competition
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Man Live on three is gonna be sooo good, can't wait
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That's a shame. MLG is my favorite event, now I can't watch it. 
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On February 14 2012 11:46 Shantastic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 07:54 Grumbels wrote:
Please don't let this become a 100 page thread filled with bitter arguments and complaints. :o Oh, well... Scenario 1: The majority of non-payers watch Assembly instead. Bad for MLG, good for Assembly. Scenario 2: The majority of non-payers attend a BarCraft already established. Bad for MLG, good for BarCrafts (=SC community), hence good for eSports and a bunch of bars across the world. I personally think it's admirable that MLG is so dedicated to eSports that they are willing to sacrifice their own revenue for the sake of eSports and the competition.
What if they did not make money last year. Or only broke even? I can't be sure, but that fact they feel the need to charge makes me think they did less than well last year.
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It's amusing to see how few people actually read the entire post.
I will admit that I was thinking "WTF MLG" while reading most of it. But then at the end I saw that they will be releasing the VOD for free. It's only PPV if you want to watch it live. I think that's completely fair considering all the money MLG is investing into this event.
Poor MLG really botched this press release. It should have stated at the very beginning that the VOD will be free. There would be so much less rage.
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Honestly, I understand that this is probably what MLG and other organizations need to do in order to better monetize their business.
Few if any tournament organizations are actually making money without a heavy reliance on sponsorships. I wouldn't mind if tournaments got a little money on their own.
I know I will pay. And even if its a vast majority of people who won't pay, MLG will probably make more money on those that do than offering the event for free.
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Assembly stream here I come 
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Just wondering...why would I pay 20$ for two or is it three days of games? When I could watch GSL all be it in bad quality for free? Just saying.
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On February 14 2012 11:35 nvs. wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 11:26 Psyqo wrote:
This kind of pisses me off, as I bought Gold last summer with the intention of viewing an MLG every 2 months or so. And now Gold is only for what, 4 Champ events a year? Seems disingenuous on their part.. feel like the rug was pulled out underneath me. Ya, glad I didn't buy Gold membership. >.> What these memberships actually get you seem to be getting less and less.
Kinda sums up how I feel . MLG model doesn't seem to be really fixed or clear yet. Coupled with the fact the there's Assembly on the same weekend, ain't a good timing either. $10 would be more affordable and reasonable.
Hopefully MLG puts on a stellar performance, with zero downtime, no adverts, awesome productions etc.
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They want to charge for a weekend event, the same amount of money as GSL charges for 3 months worth of events? Especially considering MLG's technical problems that they have a lot, their large amount of downtime between matches, stream lag, etc... I mean I love to watch MLG, I went to a Barcraft for MLG Raleigh, I've purchased several months of HQ MLG programming, but unless they have an OUTSTANDING event here with no ads, low downtime and outstanding matches from all the competitors then I don't think I want to pay this much money for so short an event.
This also kind of reminds me why I hate when everyone talks about wanting to "grow eSports." It goes from a little event where it's about the passion and the gameplay and the story and turns it into a money making machine. I mean I want everyone who produces and competes at the top level in professional sc2 to able to support themselves, thus why I happily purchase the GSL every month/season that I can, but every event requiring more and more money from me is not okay when their sponsorships, revenues and advertisements have literally not stopped growing. I feel like my viewership is being used with the intent to grow eSports to make some corporations even more money, instead of being there as a platform to serve the viewership the greatest matches possible.
tl;dr: It's okay for eSports to grow, but I think we need to be very careful about how and when we use our money to prevent it being taken over by profit seekers.
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On February 14 2012 11:46 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Having $20.00 of disposable income is what separates people who love e-sports from others? ok.
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On February 14 2012 11:51 KevinBacon wrote:
This big tournaments like mlg, ipl, nasl etc are just trying to outgrow eachother and by that they are actually outgrowing e-sports itself resulting in not so much profitable events. The sad part is that what mlg is doing is making people believe or pretending that this is what we want and asked for and the right way to grow e-sports which i think is just bullshit.
Some examples would be:
- Big venues in casinos, hotels or whatever? Why we want or need this? Homestory cup was one of the most enjoyable tournaments ever because all ppl want is to see player's emotions and personalities, an audiance as big as a bar full of people is enough to achieve this. Anyone remember last nasl? the venue was empty but this big e-sport events are just competing with each other and they just can't have a smaller venue than their competition.
-5 hd streams ? Why? I bet all most ppl ever wanted was 2 streams complementing each other down times and a decent schedule.
How the hell is having ppv only tournaments going to help e-sports grow? Shouldn't we be focusing in actually raising the number of viewers and the overall interest and awareness of people that still don't know what starcraft or e-sports is? I actually started following starcraft after watching one of the first MLGs which would have never happened if it wasn't free. MLG is no different than any other corporation it's not mainly about you or what will be better for e-sports it's about profits and defeating competition
MLG is going for the niche approach here: If 10k, a mere fraction of their typical MLG viewership purchase the $20 viewing pass, they could cover a lot of their costs. MLG is becomes more financially stable, and viewers who did not purchase PPV go and watch other tournaments and increase their viewership.
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thank god assembly is at the same weekend.
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I already have a gold membership. No way am I giving them any more money. I strongly dislike having to pay for this stuff. I'm a broke college kid. Easy decision. Assembly it is.
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EPT
