The Executives: The Business of Gaming - Page 7

On February 28 2012 13:15 Bagration wrote:


I would not say that IPL is starting any price wars or undercutting any competition. Sure MLG had its PPV Arena, but its main event in Columbus is still going to be free. Besides, competition is good for the scene, as it forces the tournaments to constantly improve their products. Finally, one can argue that the scene right now is oversaturated, with too many tournaments all competing for the same viewers at the same time, and by having a fewer, stronger tournaments would be better than many small tournaments.

IPL has lost a significant amount of money, I believe David Ting once said in an interview more than 6 figures. However, with IGN fielding the overhead costs, they are basically treating that as an advertising expense, as IGN has bought a lot of goodwill from the SC2 and LoL communities. Mr Ting also mentioned that his goal was to make IPL break even for the next year.

On February 29 2012 00:54 Trowa127 wrote:
That is exactly my point. They are artificially pricing their product at very low levels as Newscorp probably see 'esports' as a growth market and are willing to fork out some cash for exposure in a potentially lucrative sector. You saw the MLG PPV thread, there were a lot of people commenting on how you can get a month of IPL content for $5 so they wouldn't be paying for MLG (not defending MLG's pricing here, just illustrating a point); think about the message this sends out to leagues without the backing of multi-billion dollar corporations willing to drop six or seven figures in a year for no real return.

What I'm trying to say, is that if other leagues start folding because they can't make money, and IGN eventually decides IPL isn't paying off and shut the whole thing down, we go from over saturation to very few leagues at all. Its just not sustainable.

For the record this isn't me slating IPL at all. Its a great quality product and is obviously good value (how can it not be when they lose six figures on IPL3 alone?). I just don't see many people worrying about the future of broadcast sc2.

On February 29 2012 02:40 divito wrote:

It really depends on what IGN's real goal is. They may not be looking at a strictly monetary return for their IPL project. For years, WCG has been backed as a marketing arm for Samsung (and whichever other companies tag on for the year by buying some booth space). Either way, IGN/IPL could be looked at in the same light, unless they have some other overarching plan that hasn't been fully seen just yet.