Put down the pitchforks, or lower them, at least. - Page 31
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daemir
Finland8662 Posts
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honed
Canada482 Posts
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d1ngdong
United States33 Posts
http://esfiworld.com/sc2/news/mlg-referral-program-details-and-participation | ||
VGhost
United States3608 Posts
I really wasn't expecting MLG to run events with no free option, as it's quite different from anything they've done before. That said, I'm an advocate of shifting to partly or even mainly paid events. On the other hand, for a weekend event I feel like my "break point" is somewhere around $12-$15 - if I see a price drop like that for the next similar thing I'll probably buy it even if I can't watch the games for some reason, just to demonstrate the point. | ||
lolsil
United States37 Posts
anyone remember the CGS? remember how that turned out? | ||
Chargelot
2275 Posts
On February 15 2012 12:03 honed wrote: wheres the "bought, and gladly would for 30" option Say that after the event is done. Not to mention the assumption that most people are operating with finite resources. I would gladly pay $1,000,000.00 for this if I only had 10000x that much in discretionary funds. If I had $20 to spend on entertainment, and I had to choose between a single weekend of MLG, and a month of GSL, which would make more sense? MLG must directly compete with higher quality services offering higher quantities of product for the same price. Imagine if Wolfgang Puck was selling large meals for the price of a Big Mac. Would you honestly claim that not only would you purchase the big mac over Puck's food, but you'd also pay more for it? If you have, for this example, infinite resources, or are so loyal to MLG that you would consider a single weekend of their cast to be worth more than a whole month of the GSL, then by all means, claim that you would pay more. But like I said, lets wait for the event to happen before we exclaim its greatness. | ||
Twistacles
Canada1327 Posts
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-mooski-
United States4 Posts
$20 is only 2 hours of work. I will happily pick up 2 extra hours to offset the cost of this. Think of it this way: 2 hours of work for an epic weekend AND making a huge contribution to the development of e-sports? I find it incredibly hard to imagine that the large majority of SC2 fans cannot find 2-3 hours in the large amount of time between PPV events to make $20. And for the younger viewers who don't have a job? I think it is safe to assume most of you can convince your parents to give you $20 to do some work around the house. I plan on inviting a few friends over for the weekend to split the cost and make it next to nothing, and make the event even more entertaining to those without a barcraft available to them. My point? Skip the greasy fast food for a day or two, get off your bum and work for a measly 2 hours, etc. In the grand scheme of things gathering $20 for an amazing event is really not that hard. | ||
TheAssclown
United States38 Posts
On February 15 2012 12:25 -mooski- wrote: I'm sure this has been mentioned in the 30 pages before me.. $20 is only 2 hours of work. I will happily pick up 2 extra hours to offset the cost of this. Think of it this way: 2 hours of work for an epic weekend AND making a huge contribution to the development of e-sports? I find it incredibly hard to imagine that the large majority of SC2 fans cannot find 2-3 hours in the large amount of time between PPV events to make $20. And for the younger viewers who don't have a job? I think it is safe to assume most of you can convince your parents to give you $20 to do some work around the house. I plan on inviting a few friends over for the weekend to split the cost and make it next to nothing, and make the event even more entertaining to those without a barcraft available to them. My point? Skip the greasy fast food for a day or two, get off your bum and work for a measly 2 hours, etc. In the grand scheme of things gathering $20 for an amazing event is really not that hard. This is just the wrong because people are not asking if MLG is worth a few meals at fast food... its about what the value of the actual event is... Look at this comparing apples to apples and not the way you are looking at this... What does IPL Charge and is the product they offer just as good? What does DreamHack Charge and is it as good? What does Homestory Cup charge and is it as good? What about the GSL? Even compare it to MLG... 4 MLG Championship events that mean more then the PPV and its free LQ or all the same things the PPV Offer HQ and more for $30 for all 4 events... thats $7.50 per event... So a Weekend of Starcraft with very good production has already been given a relative market value and $20 per event is just to high... | ||
-mooski-
United States4 Posts
On February 15 2012 12:41 TheAssclown wrote: This is just the wrong because people are not asking if MLG is worth a few meals at fast food... its about what the value of the actual event is... Look at this comparing apples to apples and not the way you are looking at this... What does IPL Charge and is the product they offer just as good? What does DreamHack Charge and is it as good? What does Homestory Cup charge and is it as good? What about the GSL? Even compare it to MLG... 4 MLG Championship events that mean more then the PPV and its free LQ or all the same things the PPV Offer HQ and more for $30 for all 4 events... thats $7.50 per event... So a Weekend of Starcraft with very good production has already been given a relative market value and $20 per event is just to high... Look I'm not thrilled about it, I would rather it be free as well and I do think that $20 is too high. I was simply trying to put $20 in perspective. I will be purchasing a ticket to enjoy the weekend and support e-sports, but I will also be contacting MLG and telling them I will not be purchasing any future tickets unless there is a large reduction in price. | ||
Sajaki
Canada1135 Posts
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Jedclark
United Kingdom903 Posts
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canikizu
4860 Posts
On February 15 2012 12:25 -mooski- wrote: I'm sure this has been mentioned in the 30 pages before me.. $20 is only 2 hours of work. I will happily pick up 2 extra hours to offset the cost of this. Think of it this way: 2 hours of work for an epic weekend AND making a huge contribution to the development of e-sports? I find it incredibly hard to imagine that the large majority of SC2 fans cannot find 2-3 hours in the large amount of time between PPV events to make $20. And for the younger viewers who don't have a job? I think it is safe to assume most of you can convince your parents to give you $20 to do some work around the house. I plan on inviting a few friends over for the weekend to split the cost and make it next to nothing, and make the event even more entertaining to those without a barcraft available to them. My point? Skip the greasy fast food for a day or two, get off your bum and work for a measly 2 hours, etc. In the grand scheme of things gathering $20 for an amazing event is really not that hard. Not many people in 150 countries all over the world have the job that pay $10/hour. It's not that people absolutely can't afford $20, I know some kids who are going to spare 1 week of breakfast to get that. But the problem is the precedence. If this event becomes such a successful events, other organizations are going to do that. For all we know, 2 out of 3 tournaments in the future are going to be PPV. I can afford $20 if this kind of tournament only happens once every 2,3 months, not once every 1 or 2 weeks, just can't. | ||
Leysha
United States22 Posts
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babylon
8765 Posts
On February 15 2012 13:53 canikizu wrote: Not many people in 150 countries all over the world have the job that pay $10/hour. It's not that people absolutely can't afford $20, I know some kids who are going to spare 1 week of breakfast to get that. But the problem is the precedence. If this event becomes such a successful events, other organizations are going to do that. For all we know, 2 out of 3 tournaments in the future are going to be PPV. I can afford $20 if this kind of tournament only happens once every 2,3 months, not once every 1 or 2 weeks, just can't. Take it in the other direction. For all we know in the future, the SC2 tournament scene will collapse because they're not making enough money and the sponsors no longer see it as a worthwhile thing to invest in. See what's wrong with just sitting down and saying, "Oh no, what if this is successful, all the tournaments are gonna do it, and then where will our free entertainment be?" There's nothing wrong with doing a test-run on a bad weekend just to see how much they can get out of the community. Somebody's gotta do it. I'm not paying $20 for various reasons, but I don't fault MLG for doing something like this. (In fact, I applaud them for their balls.) | ||
Thombur
95 Posts
On February 15 2012 13:35 -mooski- wrote: Look I'm not thrilled about it, I would rather it be free as well and I do think that $20 is too high. I was simply trying to put $20 in perspective. I will be purchasing a ticket to enjoy the weekend and support e-sports, but I will also be contacting MLG and telling them I will not be purchasing any future tickets unless there is a large reduction in price. Right there is the big problem with this event. MLG themselves drag this kind of thinking out of the playerbase by appealing for them to "support e-sports". If this is successful because you accept this price then you accept that all future events will probably cost at least as much, probably more, since the industry will try and milk out as much money as they possibly can (of they will, they run businesses). | ||
rotegirte
Germany2859 Posts
On February 15 2012 14:03 babylon wrote: Take it in the other direction. For all we know in the future, the SC2 tournament scene will collapse because they're not making enough money and the sponsors no longer see it as a worthwhile thing to invest in. See what's wrong with just sitting down and saying, "Oh no, what if this is successful, all the tournaments are gonna do it, and then where will our free entertainment be?" There's nothing wrong with doing a test-run on a bad weekend just to see how much they can get out of the community. Somebody's gotta do it. I'm not paying $20 for various reasons, but I don't fault MLG for doing something like this. (In fact, I applaud them for their balls.) There is a significant amount of people (compare the various polls and general responses) that don't fault MLG for trying. MLG is faulted for foreseeable issues within execution, which are namely 1) steep price increase 2) creation of fait accompli Few people can fathom how MLG could have thought it would be a good idea to introduce such a model exactly how they went about it. From scheduling, announcement, price policy to treatment of existing customers. It's a perfect storm of things that could have been avoided while still transitioning into a new payment structure. And regarding the industry: 1) The absolute prerequisite to be agreed upon is that consumer dollars are finite. No matter how much you "could have earned more", in the end everybody has a limited budget. 2) A subjective prerequisite for me personally is having absolute freedom of choice. I alone choose what to spend my money on. My decision can be lead by arguments, advertisement, impulse and/or madness. As a consumer, I am accountable to none but myself. 3) While it is true that "to make any money at all" is a serious matter to solve in itself, there is no implication of it having to be MLG. The best model should succeed, nothing more, nothing less. If a model fails it could be simply because it sucked. At the very least, to solely blame either side is short-sighted. In between all the "support esports" appeals, one business should not forget that a market works both ways. | ||
OuchyDathurts
United States4588 Posts
Some random thoughts on the whole situation. Maybe they're silly but maybe they're worth consideration. I'd email them in to MLG as food for thought but I'm not entirely sure where to send them. What about charging in an a la carte method for those who can't catch the whole weekend? (Numbers are made up, can be changed around obviously) What if they charged say $5 a day and $10 for all 3? If you could only sit down and watch the sunday championship games then you throw down $5 and can still catch your games. Theoretically that's still more money in their pockets than they would get from someone that could only watch a day or 2 and just said "f it". What about monetizing through barcrafts? Make it a completely opt in situation so some of the smaller "mom and pop" style barcrafts can just pay the $20 and watch their games. But maybe have a "barcraft package" where a larger barcraft can buy in for say $200 (made up, but bars do have to pay a LOT more for PPV packages than the normal consumer in general). For that price maybe MLG sends them a little swag bag for the barcraft to raffle off or whatever. A few T shirts, a sweatshirt, mousepads, whatever. Maybe they throw to a live webcam during a break as well to give them props. Obviously the price point would need to be at a place where MLG makes a profit after giving the barcraft stuff, but still not so much where the barcraft would feel screwed. I dunno, to me, on paper at least, it seems like those are a few avenues that haven't been looked at that could do well. | ||
Meta
United States6225 Posts
The people who are diehard about purchasing all the content you're offered, you're setting yourself up to line the pockets of every single future business that sees money in esports. Good for you, I guess, but esports has existed just fine on free-to-watch platforms for over a decade. And those platforms are what I'm going to be watching. | ||
Flamingo777
United States1190 Posts
On February 15 2012 14:54 Meta wrote: I really hope the PPV system makes them a profit. I just won't be adding to it, only partly because I don't have that money. The people who are diehard about purchasing all the content you're offered, you're setting yourself up to line the pockets of every single future business that sees money in esports. Good for you, I guess, but esports has existed just fine on free-to-watch platforms for over a decade. And those platforms are what I'm going to be watching. I agree with this, however I hope a reformed system is able to make a profit. P.S. Thank you Alex, that was a very informative post! | ||
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