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So. I agree that we should all leave feedback for MLG. However this is where i'm kind of a noob.
Since i'm expecting this post to get buried. can someone pm me where a good spot to leave Feedback for mlg?
and perhaps the OP can like edit it at the bottom of his post?
But as for my feelings. i am just a disgruntled gold member lol. the 2nd post in this thread describes my feelings completely
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On February 15 2012 04:40 Roynalf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:29 Boblhead wrote:On February 15 2012 04:23 Zeetox wrote:Let me see, I have 20$ to spend, and a decision: 20 hours of MLG Arena or full GSL Season + a few bears. Totally not getting the MLG pass, especially if I have free Assembly stream at the same time  If they made it 5$, I would consider getting it, and I think that it is a reasonable price, if they are also getting not too low ad revenue. were can you get bears for under $20? Sundance is getting too fucking greedy, by expecting people to pay a ridiculous price. Since he decides to compare it to UFC were you pay $40 for 1 night, but does he realize that even with basic cable Spike tv does all the pre fights in HD, and then after that the main even is required for ppv. Now if it was this way and they broadcasted a free HQ (Which every company should do) like all the way up to at least semi finals then have you pay $5 for the semi-finals and finals they would instantly get probably anywhere from 15-20k ppl (Guesstimating) would probably buy it. But comparing this shit to UFC is ridiculous. Saying this is the way of western esports is a joke. Well in Finland you get few bears with 20 euros http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karhu
clearly you didn't get the joke....
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On February 15 2012 04:42 Trizz wrote: PPV is a HORRIBLE idea. Not everyone can afford spending money on SC2 events. They keep talking about wanting to make eSports grow, you'll only lose people putting up PPV things.
Tournaments can't afford to lose money on sc2 either.
Its expensive to provide a venue, fly in, and provide accommodations to all the top sc2 talent from around the world. What other tournament is footing the cash to make something like this happen? GSL sure isn't. If you want to see a truly international cast of the best players, no one comes close to this MLG arena and no one is providing the support to players and teams to make it happen.
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The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. Id gladly pay $70 for the year because you get hundreds of games you get to see the best players in the world week on week. With MLG's model they do a weekend every once in a while so why are they charging GSL prices for more sporadic content. I for one watched nearly every MLG last year and they have all been pretty good.
I was thinking of buying the gold membership for this year but when I heard of the price change and gold not covering all of the events I immediately went nope. Its good that they allow the vods to be watched for free though for the events which is a moderate comprimise since im in Ireland anyway so its a pain to watch live but then you have to put up with constant spoilers on reddit (so in this case I probably wouldn't go on reddit for a few days until I see the matches I want).
I wouldn't pay 10 dollars for 1 weekend and I definitely wouldn't spend 20. Like I get to watch NASL now for free in 1080p IPL puts out daily content for free too in 720p. Id gladly pay something like 30-40 dollars to IPL since they like GSL put out a lot of content consistantly throughout the year and if MLG did something around the price point for the entire year I would probably get it too but not having to pay the consistant 20 dollars here and there to make it cost like 100 dollars throughout the year that is just terrible and its exploitation for money of a community that loves the game.
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I really don't understand what the concern is... is $20 really that much money to people? I'm shocked. I've already spent $11 today on coffee and lunch. Did any of the upset folks see Transformers 2 in theatres? I can't imagine your reactions after sitting through that movie. You must have been ready to KILL someone after bearing witness to that steaming turd.
That said, I do kind of feel like the MLG Gold members got boned, though.
This is the worst possible reaction for the community to have. If I'm a sponsor of a SC2 event or team, I'm looking at this and saying "holy shit, these people are up in arms about $20? Are my sponsorship dollars really worth anything if they're that unwilling to spend money on something they love?"
Also, comparing the cost of MLG Winter Arena to the GSL is irrelevant. You need to view this tournament in a vacuum and ask yourself if its worth your $20. If it's not for whatever reason--you can't afford it, you'd rather spend your money on something else--then that's fine. If MLG doesn't generate enough revenue, they'll make adjustments.
I fully support the decision to make this PPV. It does kind of suck for the underage crowd who don't have credit cards and may not have access to one, though.
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On February 15 2012 04:49 Smackzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:42 Trizz wrote: PPV is a HORRIBLE idea. Not everyone can afford spending money on SC2 events. They keep talking about wanting to make eSports grow, you'll only lose people putting up PPV things. Tournaments can't afford to lose money on sc2 either. Its expensive to provide a venue, fly in, and provide accommodations to all the top sc2 talent from around the world. What other tournament is footing the cash to make something like this happen? GSL sure isn't. If you want to see a truly international cast of the best players, no one comes close to this MLG arena and no one is providing the support to players and teams to make it happen. What do you mean no one's providing the support to teams/players it happen? MLG providence had an extremely deep lineup, including numerous koreans, all of which (save for the handful of players that did the global invitational) were flown by their teams. The fact of the matter is there's always been a dynamic between teams providing accommodation for their players while the tournaments provide a setting and venue for them to play in (with the exception of blizzard run tournaments). Hell even WCG dropped their accommodations policy last year for sc2 players, yet players still showed up. Instead of maintaining that relationship, mlg decided to change it up and are making the viewers pay for it.
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What has happened for the past few big MLG events is that my friends and I would all gather up at my house and watch the events together on the finals day. One of my friends had a silver membership and we were all set up to go and watch it in HD.
We all have lives, jobs, studies to attend to, and are not going to gather together 3 days straight and have slumber parties and pillow fights just to take advantage of the fact that only one person will be paying for the event. Their argument of pooling money together and watching it all together goes out the window here (it being a 3 day event). In this case, the $20 ppv idea is ridiculous and the only options we have is that we can either all pay for it to watch it on our own when we have time on the Friday or Saturday, then gather together on Sunday to watch it as a group (which puts the total cost for our group to be $160+) or just have one person pay for it (where he will have full Friday and Saturday access, limiting those days events to only him) and we all gather for the Sunday event as per usual ($20). The second idea here is probably what Scumbag Sundance had in mind but he obviously didn't think it through.
One other thing I'd like to point out (unless it was already mentioned in a news post) that the advertisements in the downtime of the streams better be limited or non-existent if they intend to go with this sort of business model.
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On February 15 2012 04:04 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 03:17 OpticalPhonon wrote:However, what's even more insulting to their customers is when Sundance tweets bullshit like this: "I personally (and MLG) have invested more money into the scene than we have earned. By choice. You have a choice as well. Have a good night." The community has shown time and time-again that they're willing to spend money (sending MKP to Orlando, all those Kickstarter documentaries, contributing to TB's shoutcrafts, etc.). To then accuse them of being cheap in order to try and sell them a product -- which many people with Gold memberships thought they'd already paid for -- is unbelievably sleazy. To be a bit fair to Sundance, there is a difference between charitably helping people out and offering a product for money. You cannot rely on charity. You can't run a business purely on charity. That's why charities are non-profit organizations. The community certainly is willing to help out individuals who are in a bad way, or funding Kickstarter programs, or whatever. But the community seems to have a certain sense of entitlement when it comes to actually getting the product itself (ie: matches). The community seems to believe that matches should be free. Are you claiming that those documentaries are charities? With "The Sons of StarCraft" you get a copy of the movie when you pledge $20, so you're clearly buying something from the filmmakers and nowhere on that page do they use the word "donate." Also, they'll presumably sell copies of the movie once it's finished. While it is a passion project, the filmmakers still want to make money from it.
But that's besides the point: I don't agree with your assertion that "The community seems to believe that matches should be free." If anything, the consensus seems to be that "freemium" is the way to go. Events like GSL, NASL, HSC, and, up until recently, MLG have all followed this model and received little to no criticism for it. Maybe this model isn't sustainable and PPV is the future -- there's already pages of discussion on that in here and in the main PPV thread and I have no insight into the finances of these tournaments. My only issue is with the bait and switch MLG pulled while moving into the PPV realm. VirgilSC2 has written about this earlier in this thread and so I won't repeat his points here.
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This is a rather scumbag move when you have thousands of people pay for a year subscription last year believing you would get to watch all MLG content for the next year and then they do this. I would of never paid for the year of Gold if I knew this crap was to happen. If I were to cancel my subscription would I get a refund?
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On February 15 2012 04:53 FlukyS wrote: The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. MLG is not competing against GSL. Totally irrelevant.
For example: McDonalds charges $3.29 for a cheeseburger + fries (I have no idea what they actually charge) and a restaurant charges $12.99 for a cheeseburger + fries. These price points don't matter because they're not competing with each other.
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On February 15 2012 05:01 hibbleton wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:53 FlukyS wrote: The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. MLG is not competing against GSL. Totally irrelevant. For example: McDonalds charges $3.29 for a cheeseburger + fries (I have no idea what they actually charge) and a restaurant charges $12.99 for a cheeseburger + fries. These price points don't matter because they're not competing with each other. They are competing, but they have different audiences. The audience for GSL and MLG is the same
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They should have low quality stream like last year. Not sure why they have to be so greedy.
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On February 15 2012 05:01 hibbleton wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:53 FlukyS wrote: The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. MLG is not competing against GSL. Totally irrelevant. For example: McDonalds charges $3.29 for a cheeseburger + fries (I have no idea what they actually charge) and a restaurant charges $12.99 for a cheeseburger + fries. These price points don't matter because they're not competing with each other. They might not be directly competing, but the end product is essentially the same. Both are serving burgers/fries while both gsl and mlg are serving high level starcraft 2 matches. If you can't get that thought through your head then i just dont know what to say.
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On February 15 2012 04:49 Smackzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 04:42 Trizz wrote: PPV is a HORRIBLE idea. Not everyone can afford spending money on SC2 events. They keep talking about wanting to make eSports grow, you'll only lose people putting up PPV things. Tournaments can't afford to lose money on sc2 either. Its expensive to provide a venue, fly in, and provide accommodations to all the top sc2 talent from around the world. What other tournament is footing the cash to make something like this happen? GSL sure isn't. If you want to see a truly international cast of the best players, no one comes close to this MLG arena and no one is providing the support to players and teams to make it happen.
I don't see the point of saying MLG is doing more this year. Everything MLG added this year is going to be funned by the community. This isn't really an improvement. This is similar to if a president said all food is now free and increased income tax by 10%. All the great proposed improvements MLG came up for this year, are all going to funded for by its fan base. I personally don't think it's fair or good for esports
This hasn't been discussed but MLG's prize pools have always been terrible. The company just comes off to greedy in my eyes. Last year the money they charged players to enter the tournament, was more then the total prize pool. So where did all the money go that was funded from entrance tickets, advertising and paid HD streams? I think some executives are really making some big money over at MLG and with this PPV format they intend to make much more. Now I'm all for a company making a profit but MLG seems to be over the top greedy, they seem to be more interested in profits then anything else.
These decisions will untimely hurt MLG ratings, massively. I find it ironic they are aliening their viewers after bragging so much last year about how many views they had. Most likely they will lower the price to $10 and the community will see them as heroes. I have decided with this ploy I will not pay anything to watch MLG, I am currently discussed with their business practices.
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On February 15 2012 05:03 Tarotis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 05:01 hibbleton wrote:On February 15 2012 04:53 FlukyS wrote: The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. MLG is not competing against GSL. Totally irrelevant. For example: McDonalds charges $3.29 for a cheeseburger + fries (I have no idea what they actually charge) and a restaurant charges $12.99 for a cheeseburger + fries. These price points don't matter because they're not competing with each other. They are competing, but they have different audiences. The audience for GSL and MLG is the same It's not fair to say they're competing at all. That implies that I have to choose between one or the other, which isn't the case. I can choose both of them, I can choose one or I can choose neither.
These tournaments all exist independently and it's up to you to choose which ones you want to watch and how much you're willing to spend. MLG has done a fantastic job of putting together an amazing lineup of players and I'm happy to give them my $20 to watch them.
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On February 15 2012 05:05 Ricemagical wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 05:01 hibbleton wrote:On February 15 2012 04:53 FlukyS wrote: The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. MLG is not competing against GSL. Totally irrelevant. For example: McDonalds charges $3.29 for a cheeseburger + fries (I have no idea what they actually charge) and a restaurant charges $12.99 for a cheeseburger + fries. These price points don't matter because they're not competing with each other. They might not be directly competing, but the end product is essentially the same. Both are serving burgers/fries while both gsl and mlg are serving high level starcraft 2 matches. If you can't get that thought through your head then i just dont know what to say. Maybe my analogy wasn't the best but the fact remains it doesn't matter what the GSL charges for their high level StarCraft 2 matches. MLG is charging $20 for theirs and it's up to you if you want to pay for it or not.
For what it's worth, I have a GSL yearly subscription and I'll be buying the MLG Winter Arena PPV.
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On February 15 2012 05:09 hibbleton wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 05:03 Tarotis wrote:On February 15 2012 05:01 hibbleton wrote:On February 15 2012 04:53 FlukyS wrote: The truth is for a weekend of play for $20 its way too high like look at GSL. MLG is not competing against GSL. Totally irrelevant. For example: McDonalds charges $3.29 for a cheeseburger + fries (I have no idea what they actually charge) and a restaurant charges $12.99 for a cheeseburger + fries. These price points don't matter because they're not competing with each other. They are competing, but they have different audiences. The audience for GSL and MLG is the same It's not fair to say they're competing at all. That implies that I have to choose between one or the other, which isn't the case. I can choose both of them, I can choose one or I can choose neither.
Thats actually completely wrong. Its like saying "Giants vs Patriots is no competition, i could cheer for both teams".
Or saying that the eu-car industry is not competing against the us-car industry, because you could buy both cars, right? You will say now, yeah, i cant compare that because cars are so expensive, where the GSL and stuff is peanuts compared to that - right. But it boils down to exactly that. Of course you can pay for both leagues. But most of the people will just pay for ONE. And thats the one with better value.
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Great post, great logic, thank you.
I would gladly pay $10 for the event, but I think $20 is way too much. If you think about everything that we get as Gold Members, or everything we get as GSL subscribers, or everything we get as members of just about any other event, I just think that $20 is way too much for what we'd be getting. $10 I'd do without even thinking about it, $20 I just can't. I want to watch high quality StarCraft 2 content, and I want to support eSports, but yeah. It's not that $20 is a lot of money, because it's not (to me anyway), it's just that it becomes too much money when you compare it to what we're getting for similar elsewhere.
3 days of streaming for $20 ... not very enticing, especially if it's anything like other MLG events (Which are amazing btw, I'm not bashing MLG at all) where quite a bit of the air time is filled with downtime, advertisements, and shots of the crowd between matches. Which is something I don't mind because normally I'm thinking "Aw yeah it's okay I only paid a very small amount of money for this and it's awesome!." - I think they'd be more likely to sell this at the $20 price point if there wasn't another major event scheduled for the same time slot - I still think it would be overpriced, but I think they'd get more sales. As someone that easily makes enough money to be able to afford the event I know that for me it's a very easy choice to watch the other event that weekend instead, so I imagine for people less fortunate it's an even easier choice.
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This thread to me just looks like a way of justifying PPV's with a lower cost. I don't like the idea of PPV period, and I feel like this community will agree to anything as long as a nice person writes a long post with an apologetic theme to it.
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There really should be a "wouldn't pay as long as mlg coincides with other major and free to watch tournaments" option in the poll
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