Sundance is at it again on twitter. The coming Arena's (both SC2 and LoL) will be free.
Sundance DiGiovanni @MLGSundance Following feeling good about making Arenas freemium. also feeling good about the drink I just poured.
Between a sponsor and strong season pass sales for Spring, this became possible
Sundance DiGiovanni @MLGSundance Following Yes I meant SC2 as well as LoL. Yes Gold members still have benefits. Yes, I’m having another drink.
Sundance DiGiovanni @MLGSundance Final note - this is possible because we did well with season passes and crushed it with Anaheim. Opened the door to more partner $. (cont)
Sundance DiGiovanni @MLGSundance We have options now. Makes my job more enjoyable. Hopefully everyone who hasn’t had a chance to watch an Arena will enjoy. Yay growth!
So Arenas will now be under the freemium model like their championship events. No word on what benefits the Gold Members will get.
EDIT: It is unconfirmed whether this is for all Arena's from now on. Summer season is freemium for certain though.
Oh, wow. I can finally watch one of these. I'd like to see the amount made from the sponsor and the past arenas to see how they could afford this. Also, wouldn't that be a sign that they could lower future prices?
Not sure 100% if hes going to considering MLG had break through records at Anaheim. I hope its free, but I hope they are not getting to ahead of themselves
PPV lowers the exposure of an event, and I think MLG knows that this hurts their bottom line with sponsors. Arena LR threads were short and the events did not receive a lot of coverage. Sure, they get money out of it, but for sponsors exposure is money.
On June 23 2012 12:21 Primadog wrote: Em... does that mean ppv is dead?
I would say not really, since a lot of people still are willing to pay for the content. I think MLG is presented with a big opportunity so they take it.
That, or because of you cannot charge for LoL so they have to do a free arena for LoL, which in turn forces them to do the free Arena for SC2.
this awesome, my one problem with PPV for MLG is that if i pay that much to watch then i feel like i have to dedicate my entire weekend to MLG and as much as I wish i could do that it isn't always an option. super pumped for this don't even care about the quality as long as it is free
On June 23 2012 12:13 NexRex wrote: Oh, wow. I can finally watch one of these. I'd like to see the amount made from the sponsor and the past arenas to see how they could afford this. Also, wouldn't that be a sign that they could lower future prices?!
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
On June 23 2012 12:35 LongBow wrote: I love free stuff. Gotta love Sundance and MLG and all their awesome sponsors. Making E-Sports better, one tournament at a time!
I'm really glad that either A: they are making more and more money from MLGs so that they can afford this handout to customers. Or B: They actually didn't make a profit during their trial during Winter Arena, and they got very little additional subscribers for the remainder of the season, and decided to switch payment models. Either way, I'm happy! =]
I refused to pay for the arenas considering I could get a whole entire season of GSL for a similar price. I'll definitly watch now though, as I do with all the free tournaments.
I'll watch all the advertisments you want me to, as long as I don't have to pay anything. Take note tournaments!
On June 23 2012 12:13 NexRex wrote: Oh, wow. I can finally watch one of these. I'd like to see the amount made from the sponsor and the past arenas to see how they could afford this. Also, wouldn't that be a sign that they could lower future prices?
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
I fucking love this community so much.
Woo, don't add me into negativity. Mine was good. I just wanted to know how much they made that helped them make this decision to make it more viewable by the more of the community.
Edit: You even took out me saying thank you and adding an exclamation point.
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
It sounds like it wasn't that the PPV model was bad so much as other things were so successful they are adding the option of a free stream.
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
No it doesn't.
Stop making shit up.
PPV wasn't a "choice". It was either PPV or nothing, now they have a choice (it fucking says in his tweets "now I have choices makes my job easier") and they're changing it. Only because they can, not because of whiny SC2 fans.
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
No it doesn't.
Stop making shit up.
PPV wasn't a "choice". It was either PPV or nothing, now they have a choice (it fucking says in his tweets "now I have choices makes my job easier") and they're changing it. Only because they can, not because of whiny SC2 fans.
lol, its funny that you bash on his argument with another argument that has no actual facts to back it up. (twiter is gud evidence durr..)
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
No it doesn't.
Stop making shit up.
PPV wasn't a "choice". It was either PPV or nothing, now they have a choice (it fucking says in his tweets "now I have choices makes my job easier") and they're changing it. Only because they can, not because of whiny SC2 fans.
lol, its funny that you bash on his argument with another argument that has no actual facts to back it up. (twiter is gud evidence durr..)
well unlike the other guy, he actually has some evidence. Sundance has said multiple times that PPV has worked and the events were viable with the sales of PPV passes. So... yeah, NovaTheFeared is wrong.
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
Not true at all. (Edit: people have already posted evidence as to why. Sundance's tweets, past threads/testimonies.)
I love MLG. And I just bought a gold membership, silly me. Hopefully we get some nice benefits. Thanks very much Sundance, hopefully we'll see even more success for y'all!
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
No it doesn't.
Stop making shit up.
PPV wasn't a "choice". It was either PPV or nothing, now they have a choice (it fucking says in his tweets "now I have choices makes my job easier") and they're changing it. Only because they can, not because of whiny SC2 fans.
lol, its funny that you bash on his argument with another argument that has no actual facts to back it up. (twiter is gud evidence durr..)
well unlike the other guy, he actually has some evidence. Sundance has said multiple times that PPV has worked and the events were viable with the sales of PPV passes. So... yeah, NovaTheFeared is wrong.
The original post was complete shit, this change shows absolutely nothing about the PPV model, and in fact Sundance directly contradicts what he said in his tweets.
Great news, the arenas have been awesome events with really top notch production. Presumably gold members will now get the HD/noads ticket instead of the previous discount. Any word on whether the Fighters Arena will return?
Well good, I never paid for the arenas, but it looks like those who did opened it up for us, and we have to thank you for that.
Related: Fuck you morons bitching about this, seriously, something good happens and you find a reason to complain. Stop being a blight on the planet./rant
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
No it doesn't.
Stop making shit up.
PPV wasn't a "choice". It was either PPV or nothing, now they have a choice (it fucking says in his tweets "now I have choices makes my job easier") and they're changing it. Only because they can, not because of whiny SC2 fans.
lol, its funny that you bash on his argument with another argument that has no actual facts to back it up. (twiter is gud evidence durr..)
well unlike the other guy, he actually has some evidence. Sundance has said multiple times that PPV has worked and the events were viable with the sales of PPV passes. So... yeah, NovaTheFeared is wrong.
The original post was complete shit, this change shows absolutely nothing about the PPV model, and in fact Sundance directly contradicts what he said in his tweets.
perhaps i should just post my previous post again? twitter is actually not evidence, especially in the hands of the CEO of the company posting it.
I think the PPV was fine with the VODs coming out only a week later for free, never understood why other people didn't just take advantage of that but whatever, glad can experience the action live again, and glad that MLG was able to prove its value to sponsors
Nice, im about to head back to school so saving a bit really helps. I've been a subscriber of the last two and I look forward to the polished content they've delivered. Hopefully my gold membership will get me a HD pass too
Maybe my insulting and his responding about this subject on Twitter triggered a network of logical cogs inside that tiny - yet admittedly, well financed - head of his.
On June 23 2012 13:32 CCsyph wrote: Maybe my insulting and his responding about this subject on Twitter triggered a network of logical cogs inside that tiny - yet admittedly, well financed - head of his.
I am sure that you changed the face of e-sports. You sir are a hero.
To those that are speculating that the arenas failed economically and combined with vocal outcry it forced our hand to change: you are far from the truth. The PPV model worked so well, we had a real leg to stand on to show this is a real business. This is great progress and we truly appreciate all of you helping us to grow (exponentially) from last season. Just posted some things on twitter around the viewing experience, but the bottom line is this: we want you to have the same reliable viewing experience for arenas that you have at Pro Circuits.
On June 23 2012 13:32 CCsyph wrote: Maybe my insulting and his responding about this subject on Twitter triggered a network of logical cogs inside that tiny - yet admittedly, well financed - head of his.
You know, having spoken to him a few times, I can say that he's actually a pretty brilliant guy who does care a lot about eSports. The main reason he gets a lot of flak is because he's also trying to keep it financially viable, and not just a money sink like so many other leagues out there.
I was hoping as harsh as a response as the original PPV model received, that the freemium would receive an equally positive response (hopefully from those same individuals) and it looks like that's been the case.
On June 23 2012 13:35 MLG_Adam wrote: To those that are speculating that the arenas failed economically and combined with vocal outcry it forced our hand to change: you are far from the truth. The PPV model worked so well, we had a real leg to stand on to show this is a real business. This is great progress and we truly appreciate all of you helping us to grow (exponentially) from last season. Just posted some things on twitter around the viewing experience, but the bottom line is this: we want you to have the same reliable viewing experience for arenas that you have at Pro Circuits.
Updates to come, but they are good.
Starcraft should never become a PPV, I didn't pay for it but I'm not taking this as a 'We won' thing because Anaheim itself should of shown you guys how much of an audience you have on a free stream, there was even 10k viewers on the Liveon3 afterwards
On June 23 2012 13:32 CCsyph wrote: Maybe my insulting and his responding about this subject on Twitter triggered a network of logical cogs inside that tiny - yet admittedly, well financed - head of his.
I am sure that you changed the face of e-sports. You sir are a hero.
Why is there not yet a CCsyph fan club? The savior of e-sports deserves that and more.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
As someone who has been following MLG since when they were just Halo 2 and SSBM, I can tell you that they knew this. From 2006 and on you could watch every MLG event for free....
On June 23 2012 13:35 MLG_Adam wrote: To those that are speculating that the arenas failed economically and combined with vocal outcry it forced our hand to change: you are far from the truth. The PPV model worked so well, we had a real leg to stand on to show this is a real business. This is great progress and we truly appreciate all of you helping us to grow (exponentially) from last season. Just posted some things on twitter around the viewing experience, but the bottom line is this: we want you to have the same reliable viewing experience for arenas that you have at Pro Circuits.
Updates to come, but they are good.
I heard thats the first arena was ok but the next ones got less and less paying viewers? Care to commentate on that?
On June 23 2012 14:23 taldarimAltar wrote: I really want the revenue/cost/profit figures for the arenas and the championships (anaheim etc.)
Yea if they really want to convince us the arena was doing well they should release the numbers to the public. Becuase as a former boxing fan im used to hearing Bob Arum and well what they say and what is actually reality is like night and day
I never bought a pass for the arenas as I'm never able to watch more then 1 or 2 series, but I'll be sure to tune in with whatever free option is available.
Thanks MLG, hopefully "freemium" will let you guys find the happy medium to deliver esports to the masses for free while still turning a profit.
Well, I feel good about myself at least, I didn't cheat the system and use the russian streams, I just sat out till it became free this time around. I always supported MLG by buying the products of their sponsors during the events, such as hot pockets, and dr pepper, Both are the brands I don't usually drink or prefer(Well I cheated on dr. pepper, I went for Dr Pepper Cherry flavor =B).
Anyway glad it worked out and is free, Really wanted to see it now. Are we going to be able to have a small audience or something this time?
Hurrah! So happy there is a free option. I might buy an HD pass, largely depending on the matchups, whos playing etc, but lovely for community growth if it is free. MLG's viewership numbers are going to skyrocket compared to their PPV numbers.
On June 23 2012 14:23 taldarimAltar wrote: I really want the revenue/cost/profit figures for the arenas and the championships (anaheim etc.)
lol what an unrealistic thing to want
lol why is that unrealistic? unless they did not make jack in profits it only shushes the nay sayers and helps them.
you want to see the books of a private company. Do you walk into your local grocery store and ask for the same thing? Of course not, because they would laugh in your face.
Sometimes the amount of transparency this community wants is laughable.
On June 23 2012 15:38 LesPhoques wrote: Great timing. Just recently DH admins promised to keep HD free and some people started hating on Sundance. Comes back with free Arenas. Haters gone.
Like magic!
After hearing all the good things about Anaheim I think I'm still going to find a way to pitch in to help MLG's efforts.
On June 23 2012 12:48 NovaTheFeared wrote: Shows how poorly the PPV model worked last time AND the benefits of voicing our disagreement about the PPV model.
No it doesn't.
Stop making shit up.
PPV wasn't a "choice". It was either PPV or nothing, now they have a choice (it fucking says in his tweets "now I have choices makes my job easier") and they're changing it. Only because they can, not because of whiny SC2 fans.
lol, its funny that you bash on his argument with another argument that has no actual facts to back it up. (twiter is gud evidence durr..)
I'm pretty sure Sundance said that they added the arena events because they were PPV. They literally would not have been created except under a ppv model. Now quit being a dick.
On June 23 2012 16:14 Hazesc2 wrote: It's a marketing strat. The hope is to pull in the LoL masses then after a couple free arenas, put the pay wall back up and roll in the $$.
Marketing strat or not, I am going to LOVE seeing an elite arena with the best players in the world for free.
Sundance makes Arenas PPV- Community Outrage Sundance makes one of the Arenas Freemium- He's a god damn hero?
That being said, it's nice that this Arena will be free so a larger audience can watch. I'll check out the LoL stream if I have any time and I'll definitely catch the vods whenever they become available.
On June 23 2012 16:40 Witten wrote: Sundance makes Arenas PPV- Community Outrage Sundance makes one of the Arenas Freemium- He's a god damn hero?
That being said, it's nice that this Arena will be free so a larger audience can watch. I'll check out the LoL stream if I have any time and I'll definitely catch the vods whenever they become available.
Well, its unconfirmed on whether it will be one arena or all arena's.
So until then they confirm its for only 1 arena or for all arena's, hes gonna be a hero until they say its only for 1 lol
I'm a big pessimist, especially in this SC2 esport ( I've seen less numbers on stream than like 1 year ago - yes it ( the sc2esport ) grew even more since back then, but because people who organize got smarter, not because the audience got bigger ). So first thought that poped in my mind was "Damn....They didn't got really good numbers the last few times".
they must have had low viewer ship for the arenas. not surprising given the amount of fermium tournaments that are held on a regular basis, many of which collide with the arena weekends.
On June 23 2012 17:05 DonKey_ wrote: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees Sundance you are amazing!!
For doing what literally every one of his competitors does?
I am glad that their business model with the Arenas failed, but I am not going to praise them for it.
It was actually so successful that they could offset the costs of a few of them to make them free. Try again though.
Yeah. The company CEO said that on Twitter. It must be true.
you guys are misinterpreting the tweets. Sundance said they did very well, "crushed it", selling spring season passes which lead to more partner money. Its not that they made so much off the previous events they are doing these Arenas for free with that extra money. Its that they continue to show strong numbers and sales to their partners, opening up more sponsorships, which is why these Arenas will be free, because a sponsor has come up with the money. this is like how after the first PPV went so well they got an addition $11 million in VC.
lol just tell it like it is were not morons it's just a crappy business model fail, trying to sell what everyone else is doing for free doesn't work buddy.
The it was so succesful and we made so much money that we decided not to do it again story is ridiculious, just be honest or say nothing, but trying to spin some bs like your doing something awesome for everybody and giving a gift to the community makes you look like a serious douche bag.
On June 23 2012 17:05 DonKey_ wrote: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees Sundance you are amazing!!
For doing what literally every one of his competitors does?
I am glad that their business model with the Arenas failed, but I am not going to praise them for it.
It was actually so successful that they could offset the costs of a few of them to make them free. Try again though.
Yeah. The company CEO said that on Twitter. It must be true.
you guys are misinterpreting the tweets. Sundance said they did very well, "crushed it", selling spring season passes which lead to more partner money. Its not that they made so much off the previous events they are doing these Arenas for free with that extra money. Its that they continue to show strong numbers and sales to their partners, opening up more sponsorships, which is why these Arenas will be free, because a sponsor has come up with the money. this is like how after the first PPV went so well they got an addition $11 million in VC.
I may be just a small girl and know little of such things, but wouldn't they keep the PPV and keep the new sponsor/partner money, if the numbers were so good and promising?
Secondly, even if the PPV was a failure, this is exactly the kind of story one would make up to make it look like they're doing something awesome rather than admitting failure. From what I gathered from 2GD/JP convo in Real Talk, MLG Arenas (specifically) were actually losing viewers consistently since the first one.
On June 23 2012 17:05 DonKey_ wrote: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees Sundance you are amazing!!
For doing what literally every one of his competitors does?
I am glad that their business model with the Arenas failed, but I am not going to praise them for it.
It was actually so successful that they could offset the costs of a few of them to make them free. Try again though.
Yeah. The company CEO said that on Twitter. It must be true.
you guys are misinterpreting the tweets. Sundance said they did very well, "crushed it", selling spring season passes which lead to more partner money. Its not that they made so much off the previous events they are doing these Arenas for free with that extra money. Its that they continue to show strong numbers and sales to their partners, opening up more sponsorships, which is why these Arenas will be free, because a sponsor has come up with the money. this is like how after the first PPV went so well they got an addition $11 million in VC.
I may be just a small girl and know little of such things, but wouldn't they keep the PPV and keep the new sponsor/partner money, if the numbers were so good and promising?
Secondly, even if the PPV was a failure, this is exactly the kind of story one would make up to make it look like they're doing something awesome rather than admitting failure. From what I gathered from 2GD/JP convo in Real Talk, MLG Arenas (specifically) were actually losing viewers consistently since the first one.
Because whoever the company is that will be sponsoring the Arenas wouldn't sponsor it if it were PPV. Pretty simple. The sponsorship is more valuable in the freemium model.
aaa... i must say i am reaching the point now where i am really prepared to hand over hard cash for access to good games/streams. the problem in australia where i am right now is that internet is metered so i sort of have to pay twice. if i was back in japan i would pay without thinking but here, the economics of it are too stupid. what id like is for MLG to team up with an isp like iinet like Day9 does to provide limit-free access. Id even be prepared to pay a bit more for it.
How come MLG haven't figured out yet that their audience is still their greatest draw? They ship in 20 koreans to make it a 2day GSL but it doesn't work because the games are not on the same level without preparation. If they would spend less on players and casters and somehow made the audience happen... freemium would bring insane numbers which would translate into a great ppv event. Let's say every two would be a ppv event. They would swim in ca$h.
Nonetheless I am happy they make it free and everybody should be.
Cool? Don't really care about anything MLG does until they start releasing replays again. Tournaments NEED TO RELEASE REPLAYS. Leagues like GSL can get away with not doing so because players know their opponents in advance, so they have a good excuse. MLG has no excuse for not releasing replays.
they saw that DH and Assembly way was the right way. They're not going to admit it but that's what it feels like. Not enough paid viewers and whole lot of restreams, so going free was logical.
it'd be really interesting to know the numbers of arena-passes sold over the course of winter and spring seasons. I kinda wonder if it dropped significantly and thus they change their model anyways (despite the new sponsors, high sales of season passes, etc)
Sorry but this sounds all bullshit to me. Off course they make the arena's freemin, they only get 4k viewers on those arena's now and who's gonna put money as a sponsor in a expensive event like that only gets that amount of viewers?
Right and so one event turns the hole 'i get it' drama we had around? Cause we know the passes aren't doing that good and it's not that MLG is new or anything. They couldn't get that sponsor just 4 months earlier?
This explanation doesn't make any sense, well i guess it does from a 'we messed up' perceptive and we are now just talking out of our asses to make it sound good.
On June 23 2012 18:44 Noonius wrote: they saw that DH and Assembly way was the right way. They're not going to admit it but that's what it feels like. Not enough paid viewers and whole lot of restreams, so going free was logical.
i have the strange feeling that mlg Arena did bring way more money in than DH.
On June 23 2012 18:44 Noonius wrote: they saw that DH and Assembly way was the right way. They're not going to admit it but that's what it feels like. Not enough paid viewers and whole lot of restreams, so going free was logical.
i have the strange feeling that mlg Arena did bring way more money in than DH.
Yes, they did better than they ever hoped (quoted on a SOTG) and that it really opened doors, hell if you think about it say a around 100 or so thousand watch periodically in a weekend if you just get 40% (they said they got around 30-50% of average viewbase) that's 20x40,000 : P 800,000/ Say they slim that down and only 20,000 people watched... 400,000 still a good chucnk of cash : P
On June 23 2012 18:44 Noonius wrote: they saw that DH and Assembly way was the right way. They're not going to admit it but that's what it feels like. Not enough paid viewers and whole lot of restreams, so going free was logical.
i have the strange feeling that mlg Arena did bring way more money in than DH.
As long as you make profit and the growth of the audience is not limited in any way there is a much greater potential to grow the industry as well.
Most of the arguments in this thread are laughable. If you paid any attention at all and understood how the world worked, you would see that because of the groundbreaking amount of viewers at the Spring Championships, yes the Championships, not the arenas, MLG was able to secure additional sponsor(s) to support their arenas. If you are supporting something it is in your interest to have the largest number of people viewing it possible, hence the removal of PPV. The sponsor subsidises MLG in return for their sacrifice, allowing the arrangment to benefit both sides, as well as benefit the viewer, you.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the the success/failure (Believe what you want, but they have publicly declared that the previous arenas were successes) of the Winter and Spring arenas. You have to understand that each business is run differently and on a different set of sponsors and a different sized budget with a different sized viewer base. For some tournaments freemium is practical, and for others it simply is not. MLG has gotten to the point where it now makes sense for them to offer their arenas for free because the benefits they receive from their sponsor are now more significant than the money they would receive from PPV.
On June 23 2012 18:47 TheSir wrote: Sorry but this sounds all bullshit to me. Off course they make the arena's freemin, they only get 4k viewers on those arena's now and who's gonna put money as a sponsor in a expensive event like that only gets that amount of viewers?
Right and so one event turns the hole 'i get it' drama we had around? Cause we know the passes aren't doing that good and it's not that MLG is new or anything. They couldn't get that sponsor just 4 months earlier?
This explanation doesn't make any sense, well i guess it does from a 'we messed up' perceptive and we are now just talking out of our asses to make it sound good.
Its free because they have a sponsor for it. The sponsor saw they had ~4-5k people willing to pay 20$ just to watch a small online tournament(meaning no spectators). Since the number of people out of a demographic willing to pay is usually just a small portion of an interested audience the sponsor figured at least ~50k would watch a free stream. I guess they were willing to pay more than 100,000$ to have that kind of exposure.
i bet alot of people working in the add divisions of these sponsers are probably nerds and esports fans too so they probably enjoy watching mlg and pulled some strings putting in a good word trying to get the sponserships secured
I remember Sundance putting up a teary face in interviews regarding the PPV right before they had their first PPV arena. "OMG Peepz, we need diz or we die" "IZ da future boyz"
hehe free 2 pay is just the better system to get money, but you can always try if the old stuff works too. I mean if they lose all their sponsors they can still go for ppv again now.
my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
I think we can thank league of legends for it. The Arena seemed like some kind a desperation move to show investors that MLG could be profitable, but I guess that with the very high number that lol is getting it's enough to reassure investors that their money is put to good use.
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
as i said, my brain sometimes hurts...
if Sundance said something, it must be true, right?
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
as i said, my brain sometimes hurts...
if Sundance said something, it must be true, right?
Read my post on the previous page. Your head might hurt less.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY ANGRY POSTS ABOUT GOOD NEWS
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY SC2 COMMUNITY!!!
Yes it's kind of a stupid post, especially since free arenas weren't viable back then and are only viable now because of the high attendance at MLG. So yeah some people..
On June 23 2012 19:15 Kuni wrote: I remember Sundance putting up a teary face in interviews regarding the PPV right before they had their first PPV arena. "OMG Peepz, we need diz or we die" "IZ da future boyz"
Apparently we don't really need it after all.
It is also possible that something is needed at one time (when your company is dying for example) and no longer needed at another. He says season pass sales were part of what made this possible.
(Why does MLG get shit on so much when they've always allowed watching their biggest events for free in good quality with convenient stream switching and so on while what GSL offers for free is and always has been a bad joke?)
I've got an MLG season pass. While I do think the price could have been lower, I'm very happy with what I got for it. Offering two free and two premium streams for the championships is a good, reasonable solution to let everyone watch and still make some money aside from sponsoring. But if sponsoring carries it alone, that is even better. (However, I hope it doesn't mean too many ads, or rather, too many repetitions of the same ad over and over. I enjoyed the ad-free championship quite a bit.)
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
I believe it's on Real Talk that 2GD said he saw the figures for the first arena and that they were underwhelming, and the second one was worse they actually had less viewers.
On June 23 2012 19:56 FrogOfWar wrote: (Why does MLG get shit on so much when they've always allowed watching their biggest events for free in good quality with convenient stream switching and so on while what GSL offers for free is and always has been a bad joke?
Because GSL has delivered what they promised, while MLG promised gold members access to their tournaments for a year - then they didn't deliver that. Instead they made new tournaments, called them something else, and demanded more money.
So f MLG. And much love for GSL.
It's pretty simple really ... I don't care if you want to get paid for what you deliver, but when you don't deliver what you promised for whatever price - even free, you deserve to get shit for it.
(this is my perspective, I know the argument back and forth about how they 'really didn't promise that' - well, I think they did).
In addition, Sundance is running a company. He is not 'mr nice and honest with no other motives'. What he says is what he thinks is best for his company. It doesn't mean it's entirely truthful. Consider his statements in the same light as pretty much any other CEO ... of course he'll try to make everything seem good, it's part of customer relationship and their business model.
<3 u MLG finally turning off the super-Capitlism mode I'm really happy they have more opportunity now for bigger partners and can grow even more its just awesome stuff that we see from MLG
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
It didn't work otherwise why change it? Did so well so to much money? Yeah right, It doesn't matter what Sundance now says, we all heard him explaining over and over why he introduced PPV. A successful tournament (i still doubt it was that successful) doesn't change that and the sponsor he talks about is probably one of the Arena sponsors who is pissed off because only the Arena's got like 4/5k viewers, you get more exposure from sponsoring Idra's stream.
There's no way in hell the sponsors were happy about the Arena's and that combined with the LoL Arena's, which no one will pay for, they cant go full PPV for SC2 as well.
It's all a big mess and it doesn't surprise me at all.
On June 23 2012 20:10 CarlosOmse wrote: <3 u MLG finally turning off the super-Capitlism mode I'm really happy they have more opportunity now for bigger partners and can grow even more its just awesome stuff that we see from MLG
I cannot neglect the idea Sundance has been watching Robert Ohlen on the GD Studio about paywalls and such. Still, very nice of MLG. No disrepect ofcourse.
<3 this decision!!! For me it will be the second time I can watch an arena for free, since the first time, I was at a barcraft, and it was obviously free to watch.
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
It didn't work otherwise why change it? Did so well so to much money? Yeah right, It doesn't matter what Sundance now says, we all heard him explaining over and over why he introduced PPV. A successful tournament (i still doubt it was that successful) doesn't change that and the sponsor he talks about is probably one of the Arena sponsors who is pissed off because only the Arena's got like 4/5k viewers, you get more exposure from sponsoring Idra's stream.
There's no way in hell the sponsors were happy about the Arena's and that combined with the LoL Arena's, which no one will pay for, they cant go full PPV for SC2 as well.
It's all a big mess and it doesn't surprise me at all.
Lets just make up some numbers for point of argument. If I make arenas PPV and made 100k dollars than thats a profit and I can live with that. If a major sponsor comes along and with that sponsorship I have the chance of 200k dollars profit if I make it free than success of model or not I will take the road that makes me more money.
So people who paid for the Arenas and everything up til now just feel a bit ripped no? Was like passes you pay for yearly or something aswell and now that was all for nothing? I really do wish they would make there mind up.
even though I wasn't paying before, it really was down to the fact that I couldn't spare the extra cash and i'm sure alot of other people are in the same boat. Of course i'm sure most people would pay if the money didn't bother them ..
On June 23 2012 21:38 Pandemona wrote: So people who paid for the Arenas and everything up til now just feel a bit ripped no? Was like passes you pay for yearly or something aswell and now that was all for nothing? I really do wish they would make there mind up.
No, paid for previous events, got previous events.
On June 23 2012 21:49 DwD wrote: If I payed for every event in 1 sweep with that big bundle deal(not sure what it's called) I'd be a bit upset but hey free shit is cool
On June 23 2012 21:49 DwD wrote: If I payed for every event in 1 sweep with that big bundle deal(not sure what it's called) I'd be a bit upset but hey free shit is cool
For the time being its only the upcoming one. They will likely get some nice extras.
Not to knock them, but with so many events and barely to the time to keep up on watching them, I have skipped every "arena" just because I already pay for GSL, which is almost the only event that I still watch religiously, and I will watch other free events when I have time. If I had all the time in the world, I would have paid and watched them, but we have to make decisions sometime.
On June 23 2012 19:15 Kuni wrote: I remember Sundance putting up a teary face in interviews regarding the PPV right before they had their first PPV arena. "OMG Peepz, we need diz or we die" "IZ da future boyz"
Apparently we don't really need it after all.
It is also possible that something is needed at one time (when your company is dying for example) and no longer needed at another. He says season pass sales were part of what made this possible.
(Why does MLG get shit on so much when they've always allowed watching their biggest events for free in good quality with convenient stream switching and so on while what GSL offers for free is and always has been a bad joke?)
I've got an MLG season pass. While I do think the price could have been lower, I'm very happy with what I got for it. Offering two free and two premium streams for the championships is a good, reasonable solution to let everyone watch and still make some money aside from sponsoring. But if sponsoring carries it alone, that is even better. (However, I hope it doesn't mean too many ads, or rather, too many repetitions of the same ad over and over. I enjoyed the ad-free championship quite a bit.)
You are of course right. It is entirely possible. But I don't think you should confuse one thing with the other. Their biggest event has always been free, because it has at the same time also always been the lifeblood of MLG drawing in viewers. If there was only the PPV arena and nothing else, no one would bother to buy the PPV pass, as there would be no hype, no interest, no nothing, just another event.
But the possibility alone doesn't automatically mean that it's fact. MLG gets so much shit for a reason. Sometimes they do shady decisions, the next day Sundance tweets about something and is the hero of the world. One day later they fuck something up again only to be the heroes the following day, after Sundance has tweeted something cool again. It feels as if they're just testing how far the can fuck with us and what it takes to make us happy again. I don't like that and many others think the same.
It's cool that the arenas are now free, no matter the reason, but all those Sundance praises by community members are just as dishonest as half the MLG PR announcements they give us.
On June 23 2012 22:35 busbarn wrote: Too bad their arenas are all korean and few watches anyway, except the die hard fans who paid last time.
not this again... i know that is not your intention but read your comment again and think about how racist it sounds. i don't understand why some people think koreans are less interesting to watch, especially when they're actually the better players. but to each their own of course.
On June 23 2012 19:15 Kuni wrote: I remember Sundance putting up a teary face in interviews regarding the PPV right before they had their first PPV arena. "OMG Peepz, we need diz or we die" "IZ da future boyz"
Apparently we don't really need it after all.
It is also possible that something is needed at one time (when your company is dying for example) and no longer needed at another. He says season pass sales were part of what made this possible.
(Why does MLG get shit on so much when they've always allowed watching their biggest events for free in good quality with convenient stream switching and so on while what GSL offers for free is and always has been a bad joke?)
I've got an MLG season pass. While I do think the price could have been lower, I'm very happy with what I got for it. Offering two free and two premium streams for the championships is a good, reasonable solution to let everyone watch and still make some money aside from sponsoring. But if sponsoring carries it alone, that is even better. (However, I hope it doesn't mean too many ads, or rather, too many repetitions of the same ad over and over. I enjoyed the ad-free championship quite a bit.)
You are of course right. It is entirely possible. But I don't think you should confuse one thing with the other. Their biggest event has always been free, because it has at the same time also always been the lifeblood of MLG drawing in viewers. If there was only the PPV arena and nothing else, no one would bother to buy the PPV pass, as there would be no hype, no interest, no nothing, just another event.
But the possibility alone doesn't automatically mean that it's fact. MLG gets so much shit for a reason. Sometimes they do shady decisions, the next day Sundance tweets about something and is the hero of the world. One day later they fuck something up again only to be the heroes the following day, after Sundance has tweeted something cool again. It feels as if they're just testing how far the can fuck with us and what it takes to make us happy again. I don't like that and many others think the same.
It's cool that the arenas are now free, no matter the reason, but all those Sundance praises by community members are just as dishonest as half the MLG PR announcements they give us.
I dont think you know what words shady and dishonest mean. The only example I can possibly think of where they were at all dishonest was the gold member arena issue. I can sort of understand that one though but beyond that they have been fairly straitforward.
On June 23 2012 22:35 busbarn wrote: Too bad their arenas are all korean and few watches anyway, except the die hard fans who paid last time.
not this again... i know that is not your intention but read your comment again and think about how racist it sounds. i don't understand why some people think koreans are less interesting to watch, especially when they're actually the better players. but to each their own of course.
It's not racist though. It's as racist as saying "I don't want to watch anyone but Korean players because they're the best." He doesn't want to watch an event full of Koreans because they're not entertaining. Not racist at all. You want racist?
On June 23 2012 22:47 JazzNL wrote: I can finally start supporting MLG again. It's about time they stop hijacking esports with their stereotypical jewish behavior.
There you go. Because listening to investors when they yell at you and say "Make more money! Try PPV!" is apparently stereotypical Jewish behavior. Probably because Dreamhack, or MLG is American. But Europeans aren't blind xenophobic racists, right?
On June 23 2012 22:35 busbarn wrote: Too bad their arenas are all korean and few watches anyway, except the die hard fans who paid last time.
not this again... i know that is not your intention but read your comment again and think about how racist it sounds. i don't understand why some people think koreans are less interesting to watch, especially when they're actually the better players. but to each their own of course.
It's not racist though. It's as racist as saying "I don't want to watch anyone but Korean players because they're the best." He doesn't want to watch an event full of Koreans because they're not entertaining. Not racist at all. You want racist?
On June 23 2012 22:47 JazzNL wrote: I can finally start supporting MLG again. It's about time they stop hijacking esports with their stereotypical jewish behavior.
There you go. Because listening to investors when they yell at you and say "Make more money! Try PPV!" is apparently stereotypical Jewish behavior. Probably because Dreamhack, or MLG is American. But Europeans aren't blind xenophobic racists, right?
i said i know it wasn't his intention to be racist. i understand exactly what he means (although i disagree with it), but it can come across as racist to someone that isn't paying attention. i also didn't say i don't want to watch anyone except koreans. i enjoy watching any good players and/or players i like pretty much equally.
and yeah, that's a racist comment by JazzNL. i wholeheartedly agree. that's a pretty messed up thing to say.
On June 23 2012 19:15 Kuni wrote: I remember Sundance putting up a teary face in interviews regarding the PPV right before they had their first PPV arena. "OMG Peepz, we need diz or we die" "IZ da future boyz"
Apparently we don't really need it after all.
It is also possible that something is needed at one time (when your company is dying for example) and no longer needed at another. He says season pass sales were part of what made this possible.
(Why does MLG get shit on so much when they've always allowed watching their biggest events for free in good quality with convenient stream switching and so on while what GSL offers for free is and always has been a bad joke?)
I've got an MLG season pass. While I do think the price could have been lower, I'm very happy with what I got for it. Offering two free and two premium streams for the championships is a good, reasonable solution to let everyone watch and still make some money aside from sponsoring. But if sponsoring carries it alone, that is even better. (However, I hope it doesn't mean too many ads, or rather, too many repetitions of the same ad over and over. I enjoyed the ad-free championship quite a bit.)
You are of course right. It is entirely possible. But I don't think you should confuse one thing with the other. Their biggest event has always been free, because it has at the same time also always been the lifeblood of MLG drawing in viewers. If there was only the PPV arena and nothing else, no one would bother to buy the PPV pass, as there would be no hype, no interest, no nothing, just another event.
But the possibility alone doesn't automatically mean that it's fact. MLG gets so much shit for a reason. Sometimes they do shady decisions, the next day Sundance tweets about something and is the hero of the world. One day later they fuck something up again only to be the heroes the following day, after Sundance has tweeted something cool again. It feels as if they're just testing how far the can fuck with us and what it takes to make us happy again. I don't like that and many others think the same.
It's cool that the arenas are now free, no matter the reason, but all those Sundance praises by community members are just as dishonest as half the MLG PR announcements they give us.
I dont think you know what words shady and dishonest mean. The only example I can possibly think of where they were at all dishonest was the gold member arena issue. I can sort of understand that one though but beyond that they have been fairly straitforward.
To name 2 other examples...
Then there was the issue with the exclusivity of the BW players. 100 questions asked, but no "real" answer. The final answer took quite some time to be released and everything else they said before was just beating around the bush.
From the outside MLG looks awesome for the viewer, but the player conditions are atrocious, as many players who attended MLG have stated before. The first complaints came up a year ago and only recently, the same shit happened again. They even threw out non-koreans from the player area, but put up a different treatment for koreans.
On June 23 2012 22:35 busbarn wrote: Too bad their arenas are all korean and few watches anyway, except the die hard fans who paid last time.
not this again... i know that is not your intention but read your comment again and think about how racist it sounds. i don't understand why some people think koreans are less interesting to watch, especially when they're actually the better players. but to each their own of course.
It's not racist though. It's as racist as saying "I don't want to watch anyone but Korean players because they're the best." He doesn't want to watch an event full of Koreans because they're not entertaining. Not racist at all. You want racist?
On June 23 2012 22:47 JazzNL wrote: I can finally start supporting MLG again. It's about time they stop hijacking esports with their stereotypical jewish behavior.
There you go. Because listening to investors when they yell at you and say "Make more money! Try PPV!" is apparently stereotypical Jewish behavior. Probably because Dreamhack, or MLG is American. But Europeans aren't blind xenophobic racists, right?
Didn't know Jews constituted a race But yeah, it does comply with what at least I know to be the stereotype about Jews. Doesn't make it ok to make such a comment though.
On June 23 2012 14:07 SeraKuDA wrote: Sundance should learn that bragging about drinking like that isn't cool once you graduate high school.
And then when you're out of highschool for longer than a year, you figure out that he's not bragging about drinking.
He's flaunting it. There's no need from a professional stand point.
He's the CEO of a major company. If his shareholders suddenly turn into Jehovah's witnesses who hate drinking, maybe he'll care. Until then, goddammit people need to stop thinking they can run other people's lives.
There's no "need" for Sundance to post anything but business updates on his Twitter, but since he's a friendly guy who wants to actually have some sort of relationship with the community, he does anyway.
I for one don't think that business model was going to be too profitable in the long run, as there's way too much free content available pretty much every day, and nearly every weekend there's a major tournament as well. I didn't feel like I missed anything at all when I couldn't watch those tournaments. I imagine the players and sponsors as well felt badly about the format because of lack of exposure. Now I guess Arenas are worth watching as well.
(Also I'd take the statements about what made it possible with a grain of salt but might be just me)
On June 23 2012 19:40 snailz wrote: my brain sometimes hurts just from reading people...
anyhows, i'm not suprised at all that model failed, best of luck in the future, i'm sure they can make money just like everyone else does with free streams, big viewership and strong sponsors.
The model did work. It worked so well, they can afford not to use it anymore.... Please can people read what he said?
It didn't work otherwise why change it? Did so well so to much money? Yeah right, It doesn't matter what Sundance now says, we all heard him explaining over and over why he introduced PPV. A successful tournament (i still doubt it was that successful) doesn't change that and the sponsor he talks about is probably one of the Arena sponsors who is pissed off because only the Arena's got like 4/5k viewers, you get more exposure from sponsoring Idra's stream.
There's no way in hell the sponsors were happy about the Arena's and that combined with the LoL Arena's, which no one will pay for, they cant go full PPV for SC2 as well.
It's all a big mess and it doesn't surprise me at all.
Lets just make up some numbers for point of argument. If I make arenas PPV and made 100k dollars than thats a profit and I can live with that. If a major sponsor comes along and with that sponsorship I have the chance of 200k dollars profit if I make it free than success of model or not I will take the road that makes me more money.
Why would giving out a free stream suddenly make your more money when according to MLG it didn't work for years, why did they started with PPV then in the first place? Just because a sponsor suddenly jumps in? Why would they even jump in as the Arena's had terrible exposure? That sponsor is basically saying we dont want to sponsor those Arena's with PPV cause we hardly benefit from it (which is true with numbers like that). A sponsor doesn't care if the company makes a profit or not, totally irrelevant to them. If they wouldn't had a problem with it then there's no reason for MLG to drop the PPV only model cause it was so successful according to them so why not keep it and get that extra sponsor money? Or do you think Sundance is such a nice guy he just lets money walk?
It's either the sponsor(s) didn't want the Arena's to be PPV only or PPV was a big mess, which it probably was. Anything other then that doesn't make much sense. The hole PPV model didn't make sense from the beginning and i said that right after they announced it. You cant pull of PPV successfully when you can watch the same thing for free a week later, especially in a market like SC2 now which is getting saturated.
On June 23 2012 19:56 FrogOfWar wrote: (Why does MLG get shit on so much when they've always allowed watching their biggest events for free in good quality with convenient stream switching and so on while what GSL offers for free is and always has been a bad joke?
Because GSL has delivered what they promised, while MLG promised gold members access to their tournaments for a year - then they didn't deliver that. Instead they made new tournaments, called them something else, and demanded more money.
So f MLG. And much love for GSL.
Just wait until Tuesday's Code A Ro48 LR thread, when the complaints about "dual stream" matches still being behind the paywall when they aren't simultaenous anymore come rolling in.
This always seemed to be the greatest reward for subscribing. What is he going to add for subscribers as compensation? I assume they will get some sort of extra stream? ie. white/black streams?
I never actually subscribed, so this is awesome. I'm glad they turned enough of a profit to be able to have the option to do this.
epic news tbh not everyone has the money and others like myself simply cant pay due to not living in america and having cards to pay over internet etc, so yes. Very good news
On June 24 2012 00:58 mememolly wrote: ok, I don't think you should get congratulations though, DH offer a free HD stream etc
also, I thought MLG were saying that PPV was the only way to make this business profitable and the future?
Until a sponsor comes in and fucks that up.
Obviously some sponsor changed the rules on how much money MLG gets. The sponsors they had with the money they got lead to the Arenas being PPV or not existent at all. This new sponsor money just gives them more money than we can give MLG through PPV.
That marketing so stronk, what a bigs amount of bullshit. First they announce that things will all need to be paid for and then everyone buys Gold and now they just drop it... I doubt Gold members will have a lot of extras. Realz...
On June 23 2012 12:30 SimDawg wrote: This means LoL will not have to stand on its own two feet as a PPV event, which upsets me a bit.
I don't think they have the engaged viewership that SC2 has, and I was very very curious and eager to find out how the LoL PPV arena was going to go.
LoL wasn't gonna be PPV. Its quite possible that this sponsor that is footing the bill is doing so because of the LoL arena is happening too.
Oh...yeah I don't believe the second half of that, either.
Why not? Generally speaking where both SC2 and LoL are going on at the same tournament LoL has far superior numbers then that of SC2. I love both games dearly though to deny that fact is just ignorance. I remember at I believe IEM Hanover or the one in Eastern Europe can't remember the city name LoL had over 100k viewers while SC2 had about 35-45k which is less then half. It is actually quite possible that the reason a sponsor with the amount of money to make Summer Arena free or freemium I guess jumped on board after seeing the outstanding numbers that LoL draws towards a tournament. This is in no way a bash on SC2 seeing as how the game has thrived for 2 years already and I see no reason to believe that it won't continue to but the sheer number of viewers LoL can bring to a tournament is likely enough to get almost any sponsor on board to pay a boatload.
The fact that it gets free streams only makes me want to pay even more. Why?
a) They'll eventually have to work harder to make premium content for people paying, so it'll be more awesome b) More importantly, the fact that they pass on any growth they see directly to the community.
So because of b), if you have the bucks - keep giving them to MLG. Keep growing esports and SC2!
On June 24 2012 02:56 Jojo131 wrote: Bash MLG for not making Arenas fremium from the start, then ignore that LoL viewership probably contributed more to MLG's success than SC2.
Oh you guyzzz
Second. People who think this is because of SC2 are funny.
No doubt a sponsor stepped forward after the last MLG LoL event. CLG vs TSM finals, epic games all through out and huge numbers I'm sure.
Amazing news anyway. Last MLG was really good for LoL at least, didn't watch too much sc2.
I don't think people understand just what kind of risk they tried to take with their PPV model in order to make something like this happen. It's from a business standpoint, in order to dish out something nice for people who are able to watch. I'm glad MLG is doing well on its fronts in the eSports world, and I hope I can contribute myself when I start making my own money! Cheers to Sundance!
LoL values were probably insane so they probably figured they couldn't do a freemium LoL event and not do the same for SC2 without the SC2 community feeling betrayed by MLG.
So I'd like to point out that this probably only became possible because of the money from LoL viewership. They don't depend on SC2 as much now, so they can afford to do stuff like this.
So no, this really was not a realistic option for them before, and now it is because of League of Legends. Take that for what you will.
Just going to copy/past this from my earlier post b/c it seems that nobody read it and a bunch of you are still making ignorant comments.
----
If you paid any attention at all and understood how the world worked, you would see that because of the groundbreaking amount of viewers at the Spring Championships, yes the Championships, not the arenas, MLG was able to secure additional sponsor(s) to support their arenas. If you are supporting something it is in your interest to have the largest number of people viewing it possible, hence the removal of PPV. The sponsor subsidises MLG in return for their sacrifice, allowing the arrangment to benefit both sides, as well as benefit the viewer, you.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the the success/failure (Believe what you want, but they have publicly declared that the previous arenas were successes) of the Winter and Spring arenas. You have to understand that each business is run differently and on a different set of sponsors and a different sized budget with a different sized viewer base. For some tournaments freemium is practical, and for others it simply is not. MLG has gotten to the point where it now makes sense for them to offer their arenas for free because the benefits they receive from their sponsor are now more significant than the money they would receive from PPV.
I'm glad that they are changing this! The old format worked better anyways, in my opinion. I'd be interested to see if they made more profit with the paid arenas or if they make more with the free ones. My guess would be ad revenue from the free events will trump the pay per view events.
On June 24 2012 04:53 fabiano wrote: The power of LoL grows stronger and nothing can stop it.
Maybe Dota 2, but isn't it too late?
i feel it is too late. LoL is a completely different game from dota 2
so easy for computer game noobs to start playing and get addicted
so easy for on-facebook-all-day-computer-nerd-females to play it so guys feel like playing it could get them chicks
massive numbers people playing the game plus teams like CLG and TSM being the main stars since koreans dont dominate it as badly and since riot advertises every tournament a ton and LoL has a much higher playerbase than sc2 makes it more likely for massive amounts of western audience to tune in and get addicted to the drama of the pro scene and create emotional connections to the top teams so it has huge viewer numbers
Yeah with last Arena's viewer fiasco this was basically his only option, I hope for him he can lose the position of center hatred for whenever the PPV subject comes up, or just the 'Jewdance' monicker /vg/ and reddit seem to have given him.
Hoping this is a lasting change and not some ploy to draw more people into giving him money in the long run.
On June 24 2012 05:08 andropopp wrote: damn i hate you LoL for doing everything right
Sad but true. LoL is the next Brood War in Korea, not SC2.
Who fucking care? Seriously?
The SC2 is big enough that there is a big tournament each week-end to watch. Even tho the player base is shrinking, the SC2 eSport scene is still growing...
I mean, seriously, why do we even care about LoL being bigger or not than SC2? It's not the same type of game. Hockey is bigger than Football in Canada... does it means that Hockey is a better sport and that I should stop watching football?
SC2 scene is great. I don't care at all that the LoL one is getting big... I love my SC2 and there is more than enough game to watch.
On June 24 2012 03:38 Sabu113 wrote: LoL values were probably insane so they probably figured they couldn't do a freemium LoL event and not do the same for SC2 without the SC2 community feeling betrayed by MLG.
Still awesome.
Well if you think about it a LoL arena is probably going to be more expensive than a SC2 arena if they offer the same services.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
Lol apparently sarcasm goes right over your head rofl.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
On June 24 2012 05:08 andropopp wrote: damn i hate you LoL for doing everything right
Sad but true. LoL is the next Brood War in Korea, not SC2.
Who fucking care? Seriously?
The SC2 is big enough that there is a big tournament each week-end to watch. Even tho the player base is shrinking, the SC2 eSport scene is still growing...
I mean, seriously, why do we even care about LoL being bigger or not than SC2? It's not the same type of game. Hockey is bigger than Football in Canada... does it means that Hockey is a better sport and that I should stop watching football?
SC2 scene is great. I don't care at all that the LoL one is getting big... I love my SC2 and there is more than enough game to watch.
You misunderstand me. I don't hate that LoL got big, I love it. Does it mean that somewhere down the road I might have to accept that SC2 isn't the mainstage event anymore? Sure, but whatever, as long as there's still a thriving pro scene I don't really care.
I'd venture to say I watch about as much LoL as I do SC2 these days, I think it's great LoL is succeeding.
I was merely saying that it's sad Blizzard did exactly the wrong thing with SC2 if they wanted it to be as huge as BW was in Korea.
The Korean scene thrives mostly off of the games available in PC Bangs, which Brood War, as long as you had a unique copy for each computer, was free to make an account and play, add that to the embargo on Japanese games and you had a perfect storm for Brood War to thrive in Korea.
Now, SC2 you have to pay to make each account, and it doesn't really matter whether or not you buy a copy or not for each PC. Meanwhile, LoL is a F2P game with TEAMS, which gives it that EXTRA draw that you can play WITH your friends competitively.
I care about LoL being the bigger eSport in the future because it's good news, not because it's bad news. LoL is the game that might finally make eSports, as much as people around here might hate it, mainstream. Once that happens, it opens up an ENTIRELY new realm of sponsorship opportunities for both teams and leagues.
If something is doing "well" then you continue to charge for it, if however its doing badly you change your business practice.
It clearly was not making enough money, they even slashed the price and if looking at this decision, even that didnt work.
eSports is just not ready for a PPV model, fine that they tried but there are about 200 reasons why its not even close to being ready for that. UFC PPVs are down from 2005-2007 era, WWE PPVs are down, only draws in boxing are Mayweather and Pacman, the whole model of PPV is in danger. How can a competitive gaming company hope it would go well for them when much larger companies with a marketing machine of millions of dollars cant make it work most of the time?
Those of you who really believe that they are doing this because "gosh darnit we made so much money that we just have to give it out for free!" are pretty naive and gullible.
I cannot wait for Apple to start giving out free Iphones and Ipads because they have been making billions the last couple of years, surely this is normal practice for successful companies?
This will KILL ESPORTS if it continues. Before you send the mob to lynch me, let me make my points. If at the end of reading this you are not convinced, then there’s no hope for you.
1) I know that a lot of people now are going to be thrilled to not have to pay for a video game tournament. However, I personally am a little upset at this. The need to buy a season pass has made my barcrafts’ attendance skyrocket (Barcraft Long Island). The need to purchase a pass actually brings the community together. The reason for this is people do not want to buy one, so we pool our money together (4 or 5 dollars a person depending on attendance), and come together at a pub for a barcraft, or sometimes in my groups’ case, at my house for a BBQcraft. This makes for a very fun and social event which, for one thing, completely counteracts the “nerd, video gamer, antisocial” stereotype and also, in the end, just brings us all together. For something like ESPORTS to survive right now, in one of the most critical stages (newer, bigger sponsorships, partnerships such as CBS!!!), we need to be rallied together in the same state of mind, the same arena and sometimes in the same physical place. BARCRAFT is the easiest place to rally. There’s a reason to rally together, everyone sees us and recognizes us. This is why SC2, LoL, Halo and any ESPORTS game and company will succeed. Our support with social events as well as money is what keeps this machine running. Now that we won’t have to pay (at least for the summer arenas) I really am worried a bit about both my barcrafts and the social community in general. What some people are seeing as good news, I’m seeing as a slight fallback. Many of the community members have been very shy about, for lack of a better phrase, “coming out of the closet”, and are still nervous about packing out public places (bars and other places which are not accustom to having our crowd) with gamers. What we need to recognize is, this is what keeps ESPORTS running.
2) My second point is that MLG is providing a service. Make people pay for it! You’re a business, you need money to operate. You will never see Cablevision just not charge for a month because last months’ revenue was huge. Services are NOT free, please do not toy with the communities mind and make them think that once in a while you’ll flip-flop from business to buddy. I will guarantee that if I do not have to pay to watch the stream in the quality I want, I will at a minimum be donating, as should the rest of you.
I would like to strongly urge MLG Sundance, as well as the rest of the community, to not let ESPORTS be hindered in any way from growing. I’m a strong believer in ESPORTS and if any of you are also, please tweet MLG Sundance and everyone else in ESPORTS(Professional players, casters, staff members, bloggers ETC) this post.
On June 24 2012 05:47 Tyree wrote: If something is doing "well" then you continue to charge for it, if however its doing badly you change your business practice.
It clearly was not making enough money, they even slashed the price and if looking at this decision, even that didnt work.
eSports is just not ready for a PPV model, fine that they tried but there are about 200 reasons why its not even close to being ready for that. UFC PPVs are down from 2005-2007 era, WWE PPVs are down, only draws in boxing are Mayweather and Pacman, the whole model of PPV is in danger. How can a competitive gaming company hope it would go well for them when much larger companies with a marketing machine of millions of dollars cant make it work most of the time?
Those of you who really believe that they are doing this because "gosh darnit we made so much money that we just have to give it out for free!" are pretty naive and gullible.
I cannot wait for Apple to start giving out free Iphones and Ipads because they have been making billions the last couple of years, surely this is normal practice for successful companies?
Your reading comprehension is clearly under par.
He's not saying "WE MADE SO MUCH MONEY WITH THE ARENAS THAT WE WANT TO GIVE THEM TO YOU FOR FREE NOW"
He's saying "We were able to turn a profit with the Pay-Per-View model, but thanks to the astounding numbers we pulled at our Spring Championship event we were able to secure more investments which will allow us to bring you that content on the same freemium model that our Championship events use"
I wish people would think before they say something stupid.
On June 24 2012 05:53 REFLEX_500 wrote: This will KILL ESPORTS if it continues. Before you send the mob to lynch me, let me make my points. If at the end of reading this you are not convinced, then there’s no hope for you.
1) I know that a lot of people now are going to be thrilled to not have to pay for a video game tournament. However, I personally am a little upset at this. The need to buy a season pass has made my barcrafts’ attendance skyrocket (Barcraft Long Island). The need to purchase a pass actually brings the community together. The reason for this is people do not want to buy one, so we pool our money together (4 or 5 dollars a person depending on attendance), and come together at a pub for a barcraft, or sometimes in my groups’ case, at my house for a BBQcraft. This makes for a very fun and social event which, for one thing, completely counteracts the “nerd, video gamer, antisocial” stereotype and also, in the end, just brings us all together. For something like ESPORTS to survive right now, in one of the most critical stages (newer, bigger sponsorships, partnerships such as CBS!!!), we need to be rallied together in the same state of mind, the same arena and sometimes in the same physical place. BARCRAFT is the easiest place to rally. There’s a reason to rally together, everyone sees us and recognizes us. This is why SC2, LoL, Halo and any ESPORTS game and company will succeed. Our support with social events as well as money is what keeps this machine running. Now that we won’t have to pay (at least for the summer arenas) I really am worried a bit about both my barcrafts and the social community in general. What some people are seeing as good news, I’m seeing as a slight fallback. Many of the community members have been very shy about, for lack of a better phrase, “coming out of the closet”, and are still nervous about packing out public places (bars and other places which are not accustom to having our crowd) with gamers. What we need to recognize is, this is what keeps ESPORTS running.
2) My second point is that MLG is providing a service. Make people pay for it! You’re a business, you need money to operate. You will never see Cablevision just not charge for a month because last months’ revenue was huge. Services are NOT free, please do not toy with the communities mind and make them think that once in a while you’ll flip-flop from business to buddy. I will guarantee that if I do not have to pay to watch the stream in the quality I want, I will at a minimum be donating, as should the rest of you. I would like to strongly urge MLG Sundance, as well as the rest of the community, to not let ESPORTS be hindered in any way from growing. I’m a strong believer in ESPORTS and if any of you are also, please tweet MLG Sundance and everyone else in ESPORTS(Professional players, casters, staff members, bloggers ETC) this post.
Twitter: @REFLEX86
-Tommy- REFLEX_500
why did you post your twitter at the end of your post? lol
On June 24 2012 05:47 Tyree wrote: If something is doing "well" then you continue to charge for it, if however its doing badly you change your business practice.
It clearly was not making enough money, they even slashed the price and if looking at this decision, even that didnt work.
eSports is just not ready for a PPV model, fine that they tried but there are about 200 reasons why its not even close to being ready for that. UFC PPVs are down from 2005-2007 era, WWE PPVs are down, only draws in boxing are Mayweather and Pacman, the whole model of PPV is in danger. How can a competitive gaming company hope it would go well for them when much larger companies with a marketing machine of millions of dollars cant make it work most of the time?
Those of you who really believe that they are doing this because "gosh darnit we made so much money that we just have to give it out for free!" are pretty naive and gullible.
I cannot wait for Apple to start giving out free Iphones and Ipads because they have been making billions the last couple of years, surely this is normal practice for successful companies?
Your reading comprehension is clearly under par.
He's not saying "WE MADE SO MUCH MONEY WITH THE ARENAS THAT WE WANT TO GIVE THEM TO YOU FOR FREE NOW"
He's saying "We were able to turn a profit with the Pay-Per-View model, but thanks to the astounding numbers we pulled at our Spring Championship event we were able to secure more investments which will allow us to bring you that content on the same freemium model that our Championship events use"
I wish people would think before they say something stupid.
I re read what he said and... i was right.
The PPV model did not work out for them, it was a model they tried but saw declining numbers.
You can be as condescending as you want, but it only clouds your own judgement.
On June 24 2012 05:47 Tyree wrote: If something is doing "well" then you continue to charge for it, if however its doing badly you change your business practice.
It clearly was not making enough money, they even slashed the price and if looking at this decision, even that didnt work.
eSports is just not ready for a PPV model, fine that they tried but there are about 200 reasons why its not even close to being ready for that. UFC PPVs are down from 2005-2007 era, WWE PPVs are down, only draws in boxing are Mayweather and Pacman, the whole model of PPV is in danger. How can a competitive gaming company hope it would go well for them when much larger companies with a marketing machine of millions of dollars cant make it work most of the time?
Those of you who really believe that they are doing this because "gosh darnit we made so much money that we just have to give it out for free!" are pretty naive and gullible.
I cannot wait for Apple to start giving out free Iphones and Ipads because they have been making billions the last couple of years, surely this is normal practice for successful companies?
Haha darn, am I the only one who doesn't have access to all of MLGs financial information and records? I wish I could make an objective opinion on whether the PPV arenas were compelte failures or not and if this entire thing is simply good PR to recoup losses from said PPV arenas.
Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
On the other hand, IPL is backed by IGN, which is a very profitable gaming website, whereas MLG is just a company organizing competitive gaming events, not backed by a mother company. Basically, MLG has to be profitable, especially with the amount of events they organize each year.
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
Wait a minute!! How is a business charging for a service it provides a poor business decision?!
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
Wait a minute!! How is a business charging for a service it provides a poor business decision?!
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
Wait a minute!! How is a business charging for a service it provides a poor business decision?!
REFLEX_500
Dude, you know you can just go put your signature to say your own name and it will accomplish the same thing and be less annoying for the rest of us right?
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
Wait a minute!! How is a business charging for a service it provides a poor business decision?!
REFLEX_500
Well lets say for example Yahoo starts to charge money for using their search engine and Google does not, you think thats a smart business decision from yahoo? Same thing applies to MLG, is it smart to charge for a event when you can watch basically the same thing a week or even sometimes a few days later for free?
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
Wait a minute!! How is a business charging for a service it provides a poor business decision?!
REFLEX_500
It may or may not have been a poor business decision after all, which may or may not have led to them making it free after trying it twice?!
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
Wait a minute!! How is a business charging for a service it provides a poor business decision?!
REFLEX_500
Well lets say for example Yahoo starts to charge money for using their search engine and Google does not, you think thats a smart business decision from yahoo? Same thing applies to MLG, is it smart to charge for a event when you can watch basically the same thing a week or even sometimes a few days later for free?
I dont think so.
Well if you don't support the company providing the content, then you won't pay for it. Maybe what MLG should do, is make a fee for all of the content? I don't think that the guy who puts the VODs online does it for free. Why should MLG not charge for it?
On June 24 2012 05:47 Tyree wrote: If something is doing "well" then you continue to charge for it, if however its doing badly you change your business practice.
It clearly was not making enough money, they even slashed the price and if looking at this decision, even that didnt work.
eSports is just not ready for a PPV model, fine that they tried but there are about 200 reasons why its not even close to being ready for that. UFC PPVs are down from 2005-2007 era, WWE PPVs are down, only draws in boxing are Mayweather and Pacman, the whole model of PPV is in danger. How can a competitive gaming company hope it would go well for them when much larger companies with a marketing machine of millions of dollars cant make it work most of the time?
Those of you who really believe that they are doing this because "gosh darnit we made so much money that we just have to give it out for free!" are pretty naive and gullible.
I cannot wait for Apple to start giving out free Iphones and Ipads because they have been making billions the last couple of years, surely this is normal practice for successful companies?
Your reading comprehension is clearly under par.
He's not saying "WE MADE SO MUCH MONEY WITH THE ARENAS THAT WE WANT TO GIVE THEM TO YOU FOR FREE NOW"
He's saying "We were able to turn a profit with the Pay-Per-View model, but thanks to the astounding numbers we pulled at our Spring Championship event we were able to secure more investments which will allow us to bring you that content on the same freemium model that our Championship events use"
I wish people would think before they say something stupid.
I re read what he said and... i was right.
The PPV model did not work out for them, it was a model they tried but saw declining numbers.
You can be as condescending as you want, but it only clouds your own judgement.
I don't see anything about declining numbers in anything about what he said.
I think the only evidence you have of declining numbers is terrible math and rough estimates looking at total TwitchTV viewers during Arena broadcasts.
I loved the MLG arenas, they were so good and I was sad that they were so expensive This is very good news, I don't care if I have to watch lots of ads, as long as I support eSports and MLG can continue to produce awesome tournaments. Thanks guys.
On June 24 2012 06:26 Robinsa wrote: Good thing, for everyone. Im glad MLG realised this was a poor buisness decision and backed down. It means a lot for the future of both them and the community.
The arenas were a separate and self-sustaining part of MLG. It was not a poor business decision and it did not appear to in any way effect the viewership of their large events.
Also they didn't "back down". LoL gave them a ton of viewership, which translates to sponsor dollars. They aren't doing this because they have to, they are doing it because now that they picked up LoL, which is likely going to become their #1 game, they can do this.
I really hated MLG for the PPV arenas, and it was the only time I ever said "killing esports". But if it's free then good I'm happy and I'll forgive them for the previous one.
Yay for Robert as he saves Esports on the gd studio as he says Dreamhack will never have pay walls for hd streams. MLG accepts defeat and surrenders pay model.
On June 24 2012 08:17 WackaAlpaca wrote: It's sad that people are being happy about this, we have deserved free streams the entire time. Shame on you sheeple.
We don't "deserve" anything. MLG is a business trying to make a profit for themselves. And they can do it in whatever way they want. Don't like it? Don't buy the product / watch the streams. If MLG makes bad business decissions (high prices, poor quality, whatever...) and scares away to many viewers, it'll bite them in the ass, but that is their risk to take.
But don't act that MLG is some sort of charity organization and that we deserve a free stream. That's not how the world works.
we all saw this coming. lol. prices were way to steep so they got no viewers. now they have to make it free just to get more than 10 people to watch ha
On June 24 2012 08:17 WackaAlpaca wrote: It's sad that people are being happy about this, we have deserved free streams the entire time. Shame on you sheeple.
On June 24 2012 08:17 WackaAlpaca wrote: It's sad that people are being happy about this, we have deserved free streams the entire time. Shame on you sheeple.
Yes, I agree. About time they realized this.
Yes, because obviously this is about what you "deserve", and not about MLG making some money for once and making new partnerships...
Love how Sundance basically says "Money's looking good now, so we won't be greedy" and everyone is like "Haha, Sundance figures out PPV is failure!"
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
On June 24 2012 08:17 WackaAlpaca wrote: It's sad that people are being happy about this, we have deserved free streams the entire time. Shame on you sheeple.
Yes, I agree. About time they realized this.
Yes, because obviously this is about what you "deserve", and not about MLG making some money for once and making new partnerships...
Love how Sundance basically says "Money's looking good now, so we won't be greedy" and everyone is like "Haha, Sundance figures out PPV is failure!"
It should be illegal to be that ignorant, at least on teamliquid. There's a difference between having an alternati/v/e opinion and just being wrong by saying, "PPV is a failure".
The MLG should take up a system of making all VODs and live events free while only charging for HD resolutions and archived vods (meaning 2 MLG's in the past VODS are archived). I would definitiely help growth. E-sports businesses seem to be really greedy.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
So many people are whipped sheep.
You're basically saying that people should'nt voice their opinions if they are negative about certain companies you seem to have a hard on for. If Blizzard massively fucks up balance, we shouldn't complain. If MLG charges 20 dollars for a 3 day tournament viewing, we shouldn't complain, just suck it up and swallow.
Funny how our whining made MLG cut it's PPV price in half and how Blizzard has directly responded numerous times to the massive amounts of complaint they got from fans. Seems to me our whining is changing the community for the better, if you can't take it, don't fucking read it.
About the real world, IF this was the real world MLG would be bankrupt for trying the Arena's, nobody will pay for product you can get elsewhere for free, MLG is just really lucky they created enough sympathy beforehand so sheep like you will keep buying it without a second thought.
And about MLG trying to become financially viable, MLG's inability to attract sponsors should not mean that the only way to become viable is via leeching more money from the viewers then you already are.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
So many people are whipped sheep.
You're basically saying that people should'nt voice their opinions if they are negative about certain companies you seem to have a hard on for. If Blizzard massively fucks up balance, we shouldn't complain. If MLG charges 20 dollars for a 3 day tournament viewing, we shouldn't complain, just suck it up and swallow.
Funny how our whining made MLG cut it's PPV price in half and how Blizzard has directly responded numerous times to the massive amounts of complaint they got from fans. Seems to me our whining is changing the community for the better, if you can't take it, don't fucking read it.
About the real world, IF this was the real world MLG would be bankrupt for trying the Arena's, nobody will pay for product you can get elsewhere for free, MLG is just really lucky they created enough sympathy beforehand so sheep like you will keep buying it without a second thought.
And about MLG trying to become financially viable, MLG's inability to attract sponsors should not mean that the only way to become viable is via leeching more money from the viewers then you already are.
Hate to break it to you but that phrase doesnt really work when a real business has real customers who are willing to pay for a high quality product.
The world owes you nothing, you don't deserve it. Stop acting like Blizzard or MLG should care about you. Someone else with consume their product.
Also, using the word "sheep" or "sheeple" just makes your point even less valid. The Arenas did great. They made plenty of money. Sure, whine about how the community are a bunch of "sheeple" and Sundance is literally Hitler.
On a serious note, stop. You don't deserve anything. If Starcraft 2 is so broken, don't play it, or fix it yourself. If MLG is just tricking people, prove it, or leave.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
So many people are whipped sheep.
You're basically saying that people should'nt voice their opinions if they are negative about certain companies you seem to have a hard on for. If Blizzard massively fucks up balance, we shouldn't complain. If MLG charges 20 dollars for a 3 day tournament viewing, we shouldn't complain, just suck it up and swallow.
Funny how our whining made MLG cut it's PPV price in half and how Blizzard has directly responded numerous times to the massive amounts of complaint they got from fans. Seems to me our whining is changing the community for the better, if you can't take it, don't fucking read it.
About the real world, IF this was the real world MLG would be bankrupt for trying the Arena's, nobody will pay for product you can get elsewhere for free, MLG is just really lucky they created enough sympathy beforehand so sheep like you will keep buying it without a second thought.
And about MLG trying to become financially viable, MLG's inability to attract sponsors should not mean that the only way to become viable is via leeching more money from the viewers then you already are.
Hate to break it to you but that phrase doesnt really work when a real business has real customers who are willing to pay for a high quality product.
Ah, so you intend to say that MLG Arena's offer a higher quality product then Dreamhack, IPL, regular MLG etc. This is just your opinion.
On June 24 2012 09:50 BretZ wrote: The world owes you nothing, you don't deserve it. Stop acting like Blizzard or MLG should care about you. Someone else with consume their product.
Also, using the word "sheep" or "sheeple" just makes your point even less valid. The Arenas did great. They made plenty of money. Sure, whine about how the community are a bunch of "sheeple" and Sundance is literally Hitler.
On a serious note, stop. You don't deserve anything. If Starcraft 2 is so broken, don't play it, or fix it yourself. If MLG is just tricking people, prove it, or leave.
I never stated the world owed us anything, just very simply that when you run a payed tournament when free tournaments are the norm you're bound to screw up, like the last Arena's viewership proved pretty well.
And this whole silly logic where "If you don't agree with X, leave Y" is completely broken, I don't agree with environmental pollution, does that mean I should leave earth?
And I don't need to prove MLG is tricking you, they charged you 20$ the first time, 10$ the second and now it's free, they proved it pretty well themselves. And ofcourse there's the fact that I and many other people watched all these events for free.
About time.. It's not about whether or not it can be done as free.. I would guess the majority of the audience is students, with limited income.. I'm glad they tried it anyway, and got it out of their system, hopefully won't suddenly change their minds again and go back..
Anyway, more mlg wooh :D
Edit: excuse, my outrageous, use of, commas, I am tired.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
Love this. Will easily double the views that the Arenas get and help grow the community more by allowing people who do not know much about SC2 to check out some of the highest level games.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
So many people are whipped sheep.
You're basically saying that people should'nt voice their opinions if they are negative about certain companies you seem to have a hard on for. If Blizzard massively fucks up balance, we shouldn't complain. If MLG charges 20 dollars for a 3 day tournament viewing, we shouldn't complain, just suck it up and swallow.
Funny how our whining made MLG cut it's PPV price in half and how Blizzard has directly responded numerous times to the massive amounts of complaint they got from fans. Seems to me our whining is changing the community for the better, if you can't take it, don't fucking read it.
About the real world, IF this was the real world MLG would be bankrupt for trying the Arena's, nobody will pay for product you can get elsewhere for free, MLG is just really lucky they created enough sympathy beforehand so sheep like you will keep buying it without a second thought.
And about MLG trying to become financially viable, MLG's inability to attract sponsors should not mean that the only way to become viable is via leeching more money from the viewers then you already are.
Hate to break it to you but that phrase doesnt really work when a real business has real customers who are willing to pay for a high quality product.
Ah, so you intend to say that MLG Arena's offer a higher quality product then Dreamhack, IPL, regular MLG etc. This is just your opinion.
I intend to say that when MLG Arena is on it is the best product with the best players available that weekend. Are you telling me there was a better product available to me on that weekend because the player pools at the Assembly and Dreamhack, which were on at the same time, and in my opinion did not even come close to measuring up?
On June 24 2012 08:17 WackaAlpaca wrote: It's sad that people are being happy about this, we have deserved free streams the entire time. Shame on you sheeple.
No sir no we didn't. To expect a product to be free is just being naive or arrogant ill let you decide. They pay pretty much for the players to be flown in and their accommodation which last I checked cost more money then you'll probably make in a couple years. Sure others offer the same for free dosn't mean everyone has to nor should they be expected to. Without it having been PPV those 2 times (Why you're complaining about that I will honestly never know) they would never have even happened. Even NASL has streams you have to pay for like the Sunday Show Down and such but I've yet to head someone complain about that. So please grow up kind sir and learn how economics work cause you're about as bad as "sheeple" because you think the world should be handed to you on a silver platter which is just wrong. Stop whining and except that higher quality stuff takes more money and without that money IT WON"T HAPPEN!
On June 24 2012 10:13 envisioN . wrote: Love this. Will easily double the views that the Arenas get and help grow the community more by allowing people who do not know much about SC2 to check out some of the highest level games.
It would actually be terrible if a free arena could only double, even triple, the views the paid arenas get.
People seem to really overestimate exactly how much MLG, or any e-sport organization, gets from advertisement revenue.
On June 24 2012 08:17 WackaAlpaca wrote: It's sad that people are being happy about this, we have deserved free streams the entire time. Shame on you sheeple.
What are you smoking that gave you this false sense of entitlement?
On June 24 2012 09:08 LeviathanDK wrote: so they finally learned they lost viewers, and people are more prone to buy if it is free and then got the HD option.
but still thx a lot now i can watch again!
They said before they even launched they expected to lose viewers, and afterwards they (didn't say but implied) made more money off of it. They haven't even released numbers and you speculate for the sake of freemium.
I think everyone forgets before they even announced arenas they had their circuit events, and the arenas were then added for additional revenue. No one lost anything, rather just demanded more entitlement.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
Entiltlement works both ways. Sundance is not entitled to a dime of mine for a product I feel unworthy or can be had free elsewhere. Real world is 90% of businesses fail and those who have success are entitled to it. MLG offers nothing special, nothing worthy of paying for unlike GSL.
@Sundance How long did you think about how to publish it until you come up with: Acting half drunk on twitter and say: We make it for free because we got much money from not making it free.
Do you serious belief people buy this crap? Yeah, yeah you are right! they buy all kind of crap ...
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
Entiltlement works both ways. Sundance is not entitled to a dime of mine for a product I feel unworthy or can be had free elsewhere. Real world is 90% of businesses fail and those who have success are entitled to it. MLG offers nothing special, nothing worthy of paying for unlike GSL.
That's irrelevant to the point. The point is the SC2 community believes everything should be handed to them on a silver platter. By their logic all boxing events should be free to watch, same with Wrestlemania, NFL packages, etc.
I'm sorry but no one is entitled to a product. They can choose to give it out for free but you are never entitled to it UNLESS you pay for it if that is the requirement.
On June 24 2012 09:50 BretZ wrote: The world owes you nothing, you don't deserve it. Stop acting like Blizzard or MLG should care about you. Someone else with consume their product.
Also, using the word "sheep" or "sheeple" just makes your point even less valid. The Arenas did great. They made plenty of money. Sure, whine about how the community are a bunch of "sheeple" and Sundance is literally Hitler.
On a serious note, stop. You don't deserve anything. If Starcraft 2 is so broken, don't play it, or fix it yourself. If MLG is just tricking people, prove it, or leave.
They didnt make jack shit. If they did they'd still be doing PPV.
On June 24 2012 09:50 BretZ wrote: The world owes you nothing, you don't deserve it. Stop acting like Blizzard or MLG should care about you. Someone else with consume their product.
Also, using the word "sheep" or "sheeple" just makes your point even less valid. The Arenas did great. They made plenty of money. Sure, whine about how the community are a bunch of "sheeple" and Sundance is literally Hitler.
On a serious note, stop. You don't deserve anything. If Starcraft 2 is so broken, don't play it, or fix it yourself. If MLG is just tricking people, prove it, or leave.
They didnt make jack shit. If they did they'd still be doing PPV.
On June 23 2012 13:35 MLG_Adam wrote: To those that are speculating that the arenas failed economically and combined with vocal outcry it forced our hand to change: you are far from the truth. The PPV model worked so well, we had a real leg to stand on to show this is a real business. This is great progress and we truly appreciate all of you helping us to grow (exponentially) from last season. Just posted some things on twitter around the viewing experience, but the bottom line is this: we want you to have the same reliable viewing experience for arenas that you have at Pro Circuits.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
Entiltlement works both ways. Sundance is not entitled to a dime of mine for a product I feel unworthy or can be had free elsewhere. Real world is 90% of businesses fail and those who have success are entitled to it. MLG offers nothing special, nothing worthy of paying for unlike GSL.
That's irrelevant to the point. The point is the SC2 community believes everything should be handed to them on a silver platter. By their logic all boxing events should be free to watch, same with Wrestlemania, NFL packages, etc.
I'm sorry but no one is entitled to a product. They can choose to give it out for free but you are never entitled to it UNLESS you pay for it if that is the requirement.
SC2 community needs to realize that.
They are not giving for free. I have to endure ads, my time wasted to product propaganda. Nevertheless, of course they can do anything they want and consumer will decide what model has value. Nothing to do with entilement.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
Entiltlement works both ways. Sundance is not entitled to a dime of mine for a product I feel unworthy or can be had free elsewhere. Real world is 90% of businesses fail and those who have success are entitled to it. MLG offers nothing special, nothing worthy of paying for unlike GSL.
That's irrelevant to the point. The point is the SC2 community believes everything should be handed to them on a silver platter. By their logic all boxing events should be free to watch, same with Wrestlemania, NFL packages, etc.
I'm sorry but no one is entitled to a product. They can choose to give it out for free but you are never entitled to it UNLESS you pay for it if that is the requirement.
SC2 community needs to realize that.
They are not giving for free. I have to endure ads, my time wasted to product propaganda. Nevertheless, of course they can do anything they want and consumer will decide what model has value. Nothing to do with entilement.
BAHAHAHAHA
I guess public television isnt free in your mind either simply because there are commercials. You aren't paying a cent to watch it, it's free.
Good for MLG and good for e-sports. Let's continue to hope that e-sports continues to become more profitable in the future. That would be a good thing for both the fans and players.
Yeah, cant gro off payper view imho... still i think he doesnt realize scrathing your ass and tearing it to peices in relation to ppv and costs as in 20 bucks is a lot of money.
Regardless, thanks sundance for being awesome! Now i can watch mkp and drg in finals :D
i think the point that is being made here has been lost. the fact that these arenas are now free is almost definetely a result of the viewers that can be promised for a LoL tournament. and sc2 being free is just a sidenote.
league of legends is growing at an impressive rate. sc2 is declining. personally, i play much more LoL then sc2 these days. and the reason is simple: sc2 is stale, i played zerg and the same strats that worked almost 2 years ago are still the most effective ways to play. i played at least 3000 games in beta and live sc2 and the vast majority of them I DID THE SAME BUILDS. that is absurd. Ive tried different things, like a hydra centric zvt, but the most effective builds are the most effective in the long run.
logging on and playing some games just doesnt interest me anymore. whereas LoL every game is different, and if i wanted i could play a different champ in every game i play for the next 2-3 months. i started playing LoL casually right around when sc2 came out and the game has gotten more interesting to keep up with, not less over the past year and a half or 2 years.
it is very unlikely that i will que up a LoL game and get the same 10 champs in a game more then once in a very long time. whereas the majority of zvx matchups follow a very predictable pattern. it is boring.
that is my opinion and i really dont know if blizzard cares (something tells me they dont because they already got my money), but they are losing their market. 6 months ago i was chomping at the bit for HotS, now i honestly am undecided on if i will even buy it or not, and I ONLY PLAY ZERG.
blizzard is being much too conservative lately. diablo 2 is one of my top 5 games ever, hardcore mode was my shit in highschool for me and my buddies. but i havent even bought diablo 3. i got a trial and was almost instantly bored. i felt like i had already played it 10 years ago. other companies are innovating both in content and delivery and blizzard needs to catch up or their success will not continue as it has.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
I just love how he admits they were not helping the sport grow....at least now it's free, but still not happy with MLG, doesn't change anything for me personally...i watched free anyways but thats why i will always support IPL and others who i believe deserve it
On June 24 2012 14:59 Prplppleatr wrote: I just love how he admits they were not helping the sport grow....at least now it's free, but still not happy with MLG, doesn't change anything for me personally...i watched free anyways but thats why i will always support IPL and others who i believe deserve it
He never said that, and if you managed to watch MLG for free you still supported them.
On June 24 2012 14:59 Prplppleatr wrote: I just love how he admits they were not helping the sport grow....at least now it's free, but still not happy with MLG, doesn't change anything for me personally...i watched free anyways but thats why i will always support IPL and others who i believe deserve it
He never said that, and if you managed to watch MLG for free you still supported them.
That is an exaggeration, but he did say that this will now help grow the sport. Also, I was talking about the PPV part, which I did not pay for.
On June 24 2012 14:59 Prplppleatr wrote: I just love how he admits they were not helping the sport grow....at least now it's free, but still not happy with MLG, doesn't change anything for me personally...i watched free anyways but thats why i will always support IPL and others who i believe deserve it
He never said that, and if you managed to watch MLG for free you still supported them.
Maybe that is an exaggeration, but he did say that this will now help grow the sport. Also, I was talking about the PPV part, which I did not pay for.
He meant that paid Arenas helped convince sponsors/partners to pay for future Arenas to become free. You watching MLG PPV for free is just another way of supporting them. Just shows how much you value the league/event that you had to find a restream for it. Oh and the PPV Arena's that ppl claimed is killing eSports turned out to be helping eSports grow, Shocker.
Also Sundance and crew have been trying to help eSports grow in NA for the past decade, They try to convince Sponsors/investors to help them do more events and they get shitted on by the community is rather saddening.
On June 24 2012 14:59 Prplppleatr wrote: I just love how he admits they were not helping the sport grow....at least now it's free, but still not happy with MLG, doesn't change anything for me personally...i watched free anyways but thats why i will always support IPL and others who i believe deserve it
He never said that, and if you managed to watch MLG for free you still supported them.
Maybe that is an exaggeration, but he did say that this will now help grow the sport. Also, I was talking about the PPV part, which I did not pay for.
He meant that paid Arenas helped convince sponsors/partners to pay for future Arenas to become free. You watching MLG PPV for free is just another way of supporting them. Just shows how much you value the league/event that you had to find a restream for it. Oh and the PPV Arena's that ppl claimed is killing eSports turned out to be helping eSports grow, Shocker.
Also Sundance and crew have been trying to help eSports grow in NA for the past decade, They try to convince Sponsors/investors to help them do more events and they get shitted on by the community is rather saddening.
Not like it's hard to find a restream anyway. As the OP states, it is still unconfirmed whether or not freemium is the model for all future arena's, or for that matter what the freemium quality will be, I hope and expect the (I think) 480p from Anaheim but we'll see.
If this PPV escapade really was what you imply it is, a short lived stunt to attract investors, then I will say his plan was quite successful, from the information he released at the time when the debate on PPV was still fresh I gathered this would be a lasting thing. Either way, was this rather subversive method of proving a point to sponsors the best option considering the potentially unecesary backlash from the community? Wasn't there some other method of proving this point? Or at least being clearer to the community about the real intent of this model? I'm not a CEO, and I can't give any easy alternatives, but as the CEO of a company I would assume your image is a lot more important then the consideration Sundance gave it when he essentially turned himself into the "PPV-guy".
On June 24 2012 14:59 Prplppleatr wrote: I just love how he admits they were not helping the sport grow....at least now it's free, but still not happy with MLG, doesn't change anything for me personally...i watched free anyways but thats why i will always support IPL and others who i believe deserve it
He never said that, and if you managed to watch MLG for free you still supported them.
Maybe that is an exaggeration, but he did say that this will now help grow the sport. Also, I was talking about the PPV part, which I did not pay for.
He meant that paid Arenas helped convince sponsors/partners to pay for future Arenas to become free. You watching MLG PPV for free is just another way of supporting them. Just shows how much you value the league/event that you had to find a restream for it. Oh and the PPV Arena's that ppl claimed is killing eSports turned out to be helping eSports grow, Shocker.
Also Sundance and crew have been trying to help eSports grow in NA for the past decade, They try to convince Sponsors/investors to help them do more events and they get shitted on by the community is rather saddening.
Not like it's hard to find a restream anyway. As the OP states, it is still unconfirmed whether or not freemium is the model for all future arena's, or for that matter what the freemium quality will be, I hope and expect the (I think) 480p from Anaheim but we'll see.
If this PPV escapade really was what you imply it is, a short lived stunt to attract investors, then I will say his plan was quite successful, from the information he released at the time when the debate on PPV was still fresh I gathered this would be a lasting thing. Either way, was this rather subversive method of proving a point to sponsors the best option considering the potentially unecesary backlash from the community? Wasn't there some other method of proving this point? Or at least being clearer to the community about the real intent of this model? I'm not a CEO, and I can't give any easy alternatives, but as the CEO of a company I would assume your image is a lot more important then the consideration Sundance gave it when he essentially turned himself into the "PPV-guy".
About MLG/Sundance's image, MLG has consistently been one of most hated upon leagues in the past 10 years, mainly because PC elitist's hate console players, But still they are able to get mainstream sponsor's. It's saddening that the amount of large scale events they are hosting is shrinking from a consistent 5-7 event's per year to now only 4.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
do not worry, in my opinion the situation is not so bad like some people think.
yes, there are some idiots who want attention, but they are a small (but loud -.-) minority.
On June 24 2012 09:21 Peleus wrote: I'm sorry, I have to say this, but so many people on TL and in the entire SC2 community in general are entitled arseholes.
No, you do not 'deserve' free streams. In fact all the vast majority of the community has done the vast majority of the time is bitch and moan about whatever changes are put in place, be it a company actually trying to become financially viable, blizzard making balance decisions, whatever the topic.
Really, people need to get a reality check and realise what happens in the real world. Just because you add 1 to a viewer ship number does not mean MLG should bow down to you and your every request. Sorry I had to say this, but this community is just getting worse and worse.
Otherwise, thank you MLG for making a great event have the option of being free to watch, I'll definitely be tuning in and enjoying it.
Entiltlement works both ways. Sundance is not entitled to a dime of mine for a product I feel unworthy or can be had free elsewhere. Real world is 90% of businesses fail and those who have success are entitled to it. MLG offers nothing special, nothing worthy of paying for unlike GSL.
That's irrelevant to the point. The point is the SC2 community believes everything should be handed to them on a silver platter. By their logic all boxing events should be free to watch, same with Wrestlemania, NFL packages, etc.
I'm sorry but no one is entitled to a product. They can choose to give it out for free but you are never entitled to it UNLESS you pay for it if that is the requirement.
SC2 community needs to realize that.
They are not giving for free. I have to endure ads, my time wasted to product propaganda. Nevertheless, of course they can do anything they want and consumer will decide what model has value. Nothing to do with entilement.
BAHAHAHAHA
I guess public television isnt free in your mind either simply because there are commercials. You aren't paying a cent to watch it, it's free.
Free has never been only in dollar currency. If someone said I can watch a movie without paying, but I can only watch it after giving them a foot massage for 4 hours. That movie isn't exactly free. You are paying with your time and effort.
If MLG was putting out a product where your decision to watch does NOT influence their income, then it is completely free.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
Why are we still using IPL as an organizer who is in the red... Ofc they're in the fucking red they started their tournament 1 year ago every fucking company runs in the red their first year.. If they don't run break even in 3 years or so then you can start taking them as an example not now...
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
The reason it's in New York is because there Studio in Columbus isn't finished building, and New York has there offices, and gear. Also "Shoving it down people's throats", It's a choice if you think it's worth it buy the product, If not don't buy it. Unless MLG hired assassins to have a gun pointed at your head to buy the PPV.
On June 24 2012 20:02 Kbafewx wrote:
Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
MLG profitable? lol no, There goal is to be profitable though.
I'd love to pay for e-sports, that's not the issue. BUT for 3 day content 20$ isn't to cheap AND cause i live in Europe the time schedule is problematic aswell. If you pay 20$ for it you dedicate your weekend-nights to it and don't go out, you change your sleep timings and you have to get early on monday so if you watch whole chmapionship sunday you wont get more than like 3-4 hours of sleep. If i'd live in US-timezone i'd def buy, in this situation however it's nort worth is cause of the mentioned reasons. Anyway, long story short, I'm glad at least next arenas will be free and i can watch sum games if I want to, thanks MLG
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
Why are we still using IPL as an organizer who is in the red... Ofc they're in the fucking red they started their tournament 1 year ago every fucking company runs in the red their first year.. If they don't run break even in 3 years or so then you can start taking them as an example not now...
MLG and IPL had to make all of the same investments to run a starcraft tournament. The one advantage MLG has over them is name recognition.
This is some pretty good news. I think MLG Arena has become big enough such that it can allow for free viewing, which is definitely good for both MLG and viewers alike. I'm glad Sundance made this decision! =D
MLG almost never disappoints I love how what the people say in this community actually affects the big dawgs and the decisions that they make with their leagues.
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
Why are we still using IPL as an organizer who is in the red... Ofc they're in the fucking red they started their tournament 1 year ago every fucking company runs in the red their first year.. If they don't run break even in 3 years or so then you can start taking them as an example not now...
if you read discussion that i quoted, you will see that i don't agree with ipl used as an example of in-the-red-organization
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
As some folks have mentioned, I'd like replays very much. I understand that the need to generate revenue but after a couple months, the commercial value of replays is quite low. Most people will prefer VODs with commentary for entertainment anyway, so I don't think it will cut into their profit.
The thing is, as players become faster and maps get bigger, VODs can't show everything. Especially for later round matches, you sometimes get curious how things happen behind the VOD.
Please consider releasing replays of past events. Thank you, MLG.
Good to see they came to their senses and left the dead end road of pay-per-vieuw, sc deserves a bigger audience then the hardcore fans who willing to pay
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
Why are we still using IPL as an organizer who is in the red... Ofc they're in the fucking red they started their tournament 1 year ago every fucking company runs in the red their first year.. If they don't run break even in 3 years or so then you can start taking them as an example not now...
if you read discussion that i quoted, you will see that i don't agree with ipl used as an example of in-the-red-organization
cheers
I know I quoted you since you were the last responding to the argument :p.
MLG and IPL had to make all of the same investments to run a starcraft tournament. The one advantage MLG has over them is name recognition.
How? MLG was already organising tournaments so they already had most of the infrastructure already. Ipl still had to invest a lot in that.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
Please tell us more about your knowledge in this area, it sure sounds interesting.
Ting from IPL says there is no need to ever go PPV, he might not be making profits, but he never intended to, meaning that as Sundance went into this scene looking for the big bucks that might just be the wrong approach to a scene like this, especially when it's still so young.
And Biscuit, bitching about somebody providing no deep analysis is only valid if you follow it up with some knowledgeable information yourself.
IPL is also probably the biggest money sink of a league there is. Sundance isn't trying to "make big bucks" he's just trying to keep running a league financially viable, which I think he's doing a great job of. Don't get me wrong, David Ting is a smart guy and has a huge passion for eSports, but the reason he gets away with so much stuff is the relatively huge financial backing he's got. He's still in the stage of trying to make IPL break even.
Perhaps if he wasn't so worried about his public image, he might be past that and be in the stage Sundance is in.
I think you miss the point though, IPL being a money sink is not a problem as it's paid for by the sponsors, mainly IGN, viewers are worth this lost money according to the sponsors.
I don't get where you get the impression IPL is the biggest moneysink, MLG seems to spend money like crazy (even on the LO3 where they interviewed Sundance about PPV Wheat and Scoots point this out) where they could easily cut corners if they cared enough.
Seems to me one of the major problems of MLG is lack of sponsors, whereas IPL managed to create an incredible deal with IGN or the less stable GSL Pepsi one, MLG has no such backing, something which I can only really attribute to Sundance, as it is his job to do so or hire someone capable of it.
And about Ting's public image, you're just projecting your desire for everything to be PPV because Sundance told you that was the only way to make this viable, just after Sundance completely destroyed his own image the stupidest thing to do would be to go PPV as well, especially if there is no pressing need to.
Rather Sundance should not have been so stupid as to force a system onto a community that is still far too young for it, him backtracking just proves his new system isn't working and he's desperately trying to gain favor again.
The only reason to need PPV when it's been proven you can manage just fine without is a desire for more money or an inability to attract sponsors, with Sundance living in a seaside villa, MLG being the biggest American e-sports tourney and his great love for a dumb game like Halo I'm inclined to believe Sundance doesn't really care about SC2 if it wasn't for the money.
First of all, MLG has better sponsors than IPL, that's pretty much a fact. You should probably do some research.
IGN does not sponsor IPL, IGN IS IPL. IGN didn't say, "Hey, look at this cool league they're starting, we should sponsor it!" they said "Hey, lets get into this eSports thing and start our own league" David Ting, before IPL, was an employee at IGN. MLG also has the advantage of bringing in pure VC investments. I don't understand what you don't get about IPL being in the red horribly and MLG not even being close to that bad.
You're "inclined to believe" he doesn't care about SC2? Have you ever actually had a conversation with the guy?
The naivety of some people on this forum astounds me, just because you perceive MLG as the bad guy and IPL as the good guy doesn't mean that IPL is actually the better business model.
Actually according to the Executives with David Ting it was all his own idea and initiative, whether they are a sponsor or owner is irrelevant in this case, they pay for a bunch of people to get their brand name out. And they are successfull at it, y'know, this is how advertising works.
I don't understand where you get the idea that IPL is heavily in the red, it's advertisement money, it's supposed to be spent, or for that matter that IPL spends more of it then MLG, you got any numbers to back this up or this this just guesstimating based on vague statements from Sundance?
Never talked to Sundance in person ofcourse, nor would I want to, he seems pretty pompous and unable to listen to a opinion that conflicts with his own if we're to take any interview about PPV as a basis. "I get it, I get it."
Funny how you try to speak about naivity when you're trying to defend a COMPANY from being greedy, you know, that basic thing that 99% of all companies are foccused on? Clearly you need to go to the real world more often.
I can't be bothered to go find the source, but you're welcome to. David Ting's long term goal is to make IPL break even. I get the idea that IPL is in the red because I know IPL is in the red. I don't think you understand how leagues work. For a league to be a long term self sustaining entity they have to make a profit somewhere. Currently MLG is experimenting with finding exactly what that business model is. Frankly, I applaud them for that. Sure, it means taking a lot of flak from less informed members of the community, and sure it might not make them the most popular organization in some peoples eyes, but I can guarantee you as soon as MLG does find a successful business model, IPL will be right behind them in implementing it. I'm not defending a company from being greedy, I'm defending a great guy who tries hard to make eSports this financially viable thing who's actually a brilliant person and is really passionate about what he does.
Sundance is probably one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time in eSports, and that's why I get so angry when people portray him as this evil corporate money grabbing scumbag.
I never said IPL spends more money than MLG, I said IPL has a worse bottom line than MLG. I can't believe you're naive enough to think they both start with the same amount of money.
How did you think this works? League A charges less money for HD, less money for spectator passes, less money for player passes, and gets less attendance than League B. You still think League A is the better business model?
Meanwhile League B flies players in from all across the globe, comps them hotels and meals, creates an entirely new tournament dynamic, and adds good prize money on top of that.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a self sustaining organization that's able to bring in large amounts of venture capital because of a solid, somewhat profitable business model and a money sink with a huge corporate back pocket.
OK, so as you provide no source your statements about IPL being the biggest money sink are just meaningless.
I don't think you understand how a league works, talking about breaking even and business models is all fun but you seem to forget that at the end of the day it's all about funding, if IPL and Dreamhack can do their job based on ad revenue and sponsorship that means when Sundance says "If PPV fails E-sports is dead." or "E-sports can't grow without PPV." he is either, dumb, lying or worse at his job then the guys who run the aforementioned leagues.
It's great how your big buds with Sundance, it makes it easy for you to forget that when he came up on LO3 and SotG and had his "I get it" tantrums he was directly lying to the fans, not even giving their opinion the least consideration, thinking of us as retards who could be easily manipulated into buying a overpriced product. Now, you might have known him beforehand, but for most of us this was our first introduction to the man, I'd seen his face before, but he's just a CEO, not someone who the public is actually supposed to be in close contact with.
I never suggested they start with the same amount of money, but you're suggesting MLG is financially doing great compared with IPL, when motherfucking Sundance was the one who first begged the people to buy his Gold passes, and after that he invented the Arena and did another begging round across the community, or rather threatening, he wasn't just offering a product, he was threatening that if it didn't work himself, and E-sports along with him would go down.
You league A & B examples are broken, Dreamhack doesn't charge a damn cent, has massive prize pools (higher then the rather low 5k for a normal MLG) and has at many times broken regular MLG viewerships, and just straight up destroyed those of MLG Arena's, I have no doubt you consider MLG to be your favorite league, but personally I've had much more memorable moments at Dreamhacks, and yes, I did watch the Arena's, all of them.
It's amusing how you keep using the term naive when you can't see someones real motives because he was friendly to you when you met him. And your final line just compares IPL to MLG, if you add Dreamhack to the equation, once again it doesn't work. Ergo: Sundance is a liar or worse at his job then the CEO's of IPL and Dreamhack.
you two, please carry on, good dicussion
also, Virgil, you do seem a little biased. just because you say you know something, and you're a well known member of a community, doesn't make you right. put some proof in your arguments, because common sense actually implies that every other organization but mlg (including ipl-that-is-so-in-the-red) has a better bussines model, otherwise ppv would stay, mlg would have bigger prize pool, etc.
on a side note, the fact mlg choose to go to expensive new york, to fly in players, etc doesnt actually prove they're doing it better, it just shows they made a poor bussines decision and took a risk they shouldn't have. shoving ppv down peoples throats to make it work was another failiure on its own. meanwhile, dreamhack is owning it up with their production value, and im really curious to see if they are satisfied financially... i think they dicussed it on the GD show but i fail to make time for the show
Yeah I was kinda hoping there'd be a reply by now, but alas, there's enough quoted material floating around here the last couple of pages for Virgil to easily find it. And yeah, the New York idea was kind of rediculous, as far as timezones are concerned, it does make it somewhat viewable for mostly nocturnal europeans like me but us Euro's have never really been the big Arena fans. But for the Korean players (or viewers) it's completely impossible (hence why they always spend half the Arena talking about who is and isn't jetlagged).
And as far as Dreamhack is concerned financially, if they where in trouble I'm kinda guessing they couldn't keep renting these massive venues (dat hockey stadium) that just dwarf MLG's, I'm also guessing that a lot of people go there for the LAN event and that Dreamhack makes tons of revenue from selling entry, food, memorabilia etc. Most importantly though, I recall they did state Dreamhack would always be free, even on the HD qualities, which pretty much proves they ain't got a thing to worry about.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
On June 25 2012 03:49 aintz wrote: probably realized they make the same if not more from more free viewer ad viewing
If Ad views were worth half as much as you think they are, players like IdrA and Stephano would be filthy stinking rich.
I was so disheartened after hearing that MLG Arenas would be pay-per-event, though over the last 6 years I've noticed every time MLG does something I feel skeptical about they rectify the situation ten-fold soon after.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
On June 25 2012 01:43 wihlborg wrote: There were alot of free restreams around so no reason to keep it paid only.
EDIT: How can people be happy for it going from pay to view to freemium, when it should be freemium from the first place?
Yeah, I feel likte this hurt theml. Some of the strestreams had a ton of viewes. (trying to find a flash free stream, failing) If they manage to get a godo stream inplace advertising may or may not soffset, unl;ess if thye wsell ultra/high/etc. qualities.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
On June 24 2012 09:50 BretZ wrote: The world owes you nothing, you don't deserve it. Stop acting like Blizzard or MLG should care about you. Someone else with consume their product.
Also, using the word "sheep" or "sheeple" just makes your point even less valid. The Arenas did great. They made plenty of money. Sure, whine about how the community are a bunch of "sheeple" and Sundance is literally Hitler.
On a serious note, stop. You don't deserve anything. If Starcraft 2 is so broken, don't play it, or fix it yourself. If MLG is just tricking people, prove it, or leave.
They didnt make jack shit. If they did they'd still be doing PPV.
At this point in Sc2 life MLGs ultimate goal is to both make money and expand the viewership of their events. They realize to succeed long term in the way they want to they need to have a larger pool of viewers. So maybe MLG thinks they can still break even and potentially expand the audience by going freemium. I don't think the money is the sole deciding factor, although it is important.
Anyhow jumping to the conclusion that the PPV model was unprofitable is just that, jumping to conclusions.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh, You deliver sir.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Yeah, how DARE Sundance actually try to turn MLG into a self-sustaining organization!
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
And how is Dreamhack being a festival even remotely relevant? Them being smart enough to include a massive LAN party makes them into a different catagory? At the end of the day you're dealing with 2 massive tournaments, one who's doing financially just fine and one who, according to Sundance, would die out if PPV didn't work.
And just doing a lot of MLG's doesn't really mean much either, a lot of them where forgetable because unlike Dreamhack the venue wasn't that impressive, if Dreamhack can hire a massive ice hockey rink and not be in any financial troubles, what's MLG doing wrong? You're supposed to make back your money from sponsors and the money people spend at the event. Either MLG doesn't know how to make people spend at their events or they're bad at finding sponsors.
On June 23 2012 19:05 Warzone wrote: Most of the arguments in this thread are laughable. If you paid any attention at all and understood how the world worked, you would see that because of the groundbreaking amount of viewers at the Spring Championships, yes the Championships, not the arenas, MLG was able to secure additional sponsor(s) to support their arenas. If you are supporting something it is in your interest to have the largest number of people viewing it possible, hence the removal of PPV. The sponsor subsidises MLG in return for their sacrifice, allowing the arrangment to benefit both sides, as well as benefit the viewer, you.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the the success/failure (Believe what you want, but they have publicly declared that the previous arenas were successes) of the Winter and Spring arenas. You have to understand that each business is run differently and on a different set of sponsors and a different sized budget with a different sized viewer base. For some tournaments freemium is practical, and for others it simply is not. MLG has gotten to the point where it now makes sense for them to offer their arenas for free because the benefits they receive from their sponsor are now more significant than the money they would receive from PPV.
For all the people that are being morons as well as not believing Sundance or Adam on the success of Arenas, read the post I quoted and shut up. Now move along.
On June 23 2012 12:18 jmbthirteen wrote: [quote] they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
And how is Dreamhack being a festival even remotely relevant? Them being smart enough to include a massive LAN party makes them into a different catagory? At the end of the day you're dealing with 2 massive tournaments, one who's doing financially just fine and one who, according to Sundance, would die out if PPV didn't work.
And just doing a lot of MLG's doesn't really mean much either, a lot of them where forgetable because unlike Dreamhack the venue wasn't that impressive, if Dreamhack can hire a massive ice hockey rink and not be in any financial troubles, what's MLG doing wrong? You're supposed to make back your money from sponsors and the money people spend at the event. Either MLG doesn't know how to make people spend at their events or they're bad at finding sponsors.
Dreamhack being a festival is all that's relevant. Do you know how easy it is to get sponsors for a festival like Dreamhack? Of course they have sponsors they run a huge fucking festival with thousands of attendants and only a few of those actually care about the eSport part of Dreamhack. It's just mathetically impossible to do their "eSports" event the way they do without their music/LAN/etc. And no, Sundance never said MLG would die out without PPV. He said it would be an expensive hobby with the information he had at the time. This new sponsor money is more than the entire SC2 community can shell out.
It's forgettable if you have mental issues or are an MLG-hater. I remember every MLG, I remember that Dreamhack is a "lose 1 bo3 and out of the tournament" kind of tournament where you need an 100% winrate to win. The Dreamhack winner is just luck, not to be remembered because the win is irrelevant.
The venue also doesn't matter, not important for viewing experience unless you need to be spoonfed your hype, one of the reason the FGC laughs at us because we're pathetic.
On June 23 2012 19:05 Warzone wrote: Most of the arguments in this thread are laughable. If you paid any attention at all and understood how the world worked, you would see that because of the groundbreaking amount of viewers at the Spring Championships, yes the Championships, not the arenas, MLG was able to secure additional sponsor(s) to support their arenas. If you are supporting something it is in your interest to have the largest number of people viewing it possible, hence the removal of PPV. The sponsor subsidises MLG in return for their sacrifice, allowing the arrangment to benefit both sides, as well as benefit the viewer, you.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the the success/failure (Believe what you want, but they have publicly declared that the previous arenas were successes) of the Winter and Spring arenas. You have to understand that each business is run differently and on a different set of sponsors and a different sized budget with a different sized viewer base. For some tournaments freemium is practical, and for others it simply is not. MLG has gotten to the point where it now makes sense for them to offer their arenas for free because the benefits they receive from their sponsor are now more significant than the money they would receive from PPV.
For all the people that are being morons as well as not believing Sundance or Adam on the success of Arenas, read the post I quoted and shut up. Now move along.
Don't wanna rain on your parade, but you know that believing what a company says you should without question is about one of the biggest moronic moves you could make? Especially when this company has already lied to you before.
On June 23 2012 12:14 Boblhead wrote: Sundance finally realizes that you can run a free stream and still remain profitable
>Literally took him fucking 2+ years to realize this?
they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
So did many other e-sport organizations until they went bankrupt.
On June 23 2012 12:18 jmbthirteen wrote: [quote] they've only had PPV for 4 months... And if this sponsorship didn't happen, its possible they would still be PPV.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
And how is Dreamhack being a festival even remotely relevant? Them being smart enough to include a massive LAN party makes them into a different catagory? At the end of the day you're dealing with 2 massive tournaments, one who's doing financially just fine and one who, according to Sundance, would die out if PPV didn't work.
And just doing a lot of MLG's doesn't really mean much either, a lot of them where forgetable because unlike Dreamhack the venue wasn't that impressive, if Dreamhack can hire a massive ice hockey rink and not be in any financial troubles, what's MLG doing wrong? You're supposed to make back your money from sponsors and the money people spend at the event. Either MLG doesn't know how to make people spend at their events or they're bad at finding sponsors.
No he said they would be doing less events if it didn't work, But since Arena events are staying and now have new sponsorship backing, What does that tell you?
MLG consistently hosts 4-6 large scale events per year, Dreamhack has a nice pattern of 2 small events and 2 large. Also MLG bad at finding sponsors? hah look at there history and at how many mainstream sponsors supported them.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
And how is Dreamhack being a festival even remotely relevant? Them being smart enough to include a massive LAN party makes them into a different catagory? At the end of the day you're dealing with 2 massive tournaments, one who's doing financially just fine and one who, according to Sundance, would die out if PPV didn't work.
And just doing a lot of MLG's doesn't really mean much either, a lot of them where forgetable because unlike Dreamhack the venue wasn't that impressive, if Dreamhack can hire a massive ice hockey rink and not be in any financial troubles, what's MLG doing wrong? You're supposed to make back your money from sponsors and the money people spend at the event. Either MLG doesn't know how to make people spend at their events or they're bad at finding sponsors.
Dreamhack being a festival is all that's relevant. Do you know how easy it is to get sponsors for a festival like Dreamhack? Of course they have sponsors they run a huge fucking festival with thousands of attendants and only a few of those actually care about the eSport part of Dreamhack. It's just mathetically impossible to do their "eSports" event the way they do without their music/LAN/etc. And no, Sundance never said MLG would die out without PPV. He said it would be an expensive hobby with the information he had at the time. This new sponsor money is more than the entire SC2 community can shell out.
It's forgettable if you have mental issues or are an MLG-hater. I remember every MLG, I remember that Dreamhack is a "lose 1 bo3 and out of the tournament" kind of tournament where you need an 100% winrate to win. The Dreamhack winner is just luck, not to be remembered because the win is irrelevant.
The venue also doesn't matter, not important for viewing experience unless you need to be spoonfed your hype, one of the reason the FGC laughs at us because we're pathetic.
Seems like you didn't watch the LO3 episode I keep refering to about Sundances lying behavior. And your argument is that because Dreamhack is a festival they get more sponsors, the Indian gaming festival would like to disagree with you, and would Iron Squid be one of your festivals as well because it had music? If Sundance had so much trouble garnering sponsors, why didn't he turn it into a festival? Seems like no downsides to me.
If you really remember every MLG you're the one who has mental issues, and your negative remarks about Dreamhack are amusing, that single elimination format is exactly what the GSL uses, I guess they suck as well huh? Also the losers bracket is pointless, the Grand Finals for MLG are practically always terrible due to the shitty double elimination system where winning the Winners bracket basically means winning the tournament. And saying you need a 100% winrate just shows you have no idea what you're talking about and are probably a Dreamhack hater because you fell in love with your overlord Sundance.
And the FGC laughing at us means very little considering what a massive joke they are themselves. Just jelly we can get good venues. I you feel nothing from the insane crowds at Dreamhacks, the excitement, then you should really get yourself checked out as you might be emotionally dead.
you act like you believe there doing this out of the goodness of there heart. when in reality its more profitable to stream the free with ads. they say there doing this for you. when in reality, there doing it for themselves. i personally haven't watched MLG since they started charging. Im sure soo many ppl are in the same boat as me. They realize this
i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
And how is Dreamhack being a festival even remotely relevant? Them being smart enough to include a massive LAN party makes them into a different catagory? At the end of the day you're dealing with 2 massive tournaments, one who's doing financially just fine and one who, according to Sundance, would die out if PPV didn't work.
And just doing a lot of MLG's doesn't really mean much either, a lot of them where forgetable because unlike Dreamhack the venue wasn't that impressive, if Dreamhack can hire a massive ice hockey rink and not be in any financial troubles, what's MLG doing wrong? You're supposed to make back your money from sponsors and the money people spend at the event. Either MLG doesn't know how to make people spend at their events or they're bad at finding sponsors.
No he said they would be doing less events if it didn't work, But since Arena events are staying and now have new sponsorship backing, What does that tell you?
MLG consistently hosts 4-6 large scale events per year, Dreamhack has a nice pattern of 2 small events and 2 large. Also MLG bad at finding sponsors? hah look at there history and at how many mainstream sponsors supported them.
Yeah now I know you're just pulling stats out of your ass if you say half the Dreamhacks are small, they're still bigger for SC2 then many of the MLG's have been, and appearantly if Sundance is crying about e-sports dying then he's having trouble finding sponsors.
What the Arena's getting sponsors proves is that it was a stunt to interest investors, not because he couldn't keep the tournaments running. He needed to prove to the sponsors sheep like you would buy his overpriced product, and by god did it work. If you have no problem when a company blatantly lies to you, have fun getting screwed by the world.
And please stop proving you havn't watched the LO3 episode I keep refering to, Sunance LITERALLY states "if this [PPV] doesn't work, e-sports is dead". Watch it and stop lying to yourself.
On June 23 2012 19:05 Warzone wrote: Most of the arguments in this thread are laughable. If you paid any attention at all and understood how the world worked, you would see that because of the groundbreaking amount of viewers at the Spring Championships, yes the Championships, not the arenas, MLG was able to secure additional sponsor(s) to support their arenas. If you are supporting something it is in your interest to have the largest number of people viewing it possible, hence the removal of PPV. The sponsor subsidises MLG in return for their sacrifice, allowing the arrangment to benefit both sides, as well as benefit the viewer, you.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the the success/failure (Believe what you want, but they have publicly declared that the previous arenas were successes) of the Winter and Spring arenas. You have to understand that each business is run differently and on a different set of sponsors and a different sized budget with a different sized viewer base. For some tournaments freemium is practical, and for others it simply is not. MLG has gotten to the point where it now makes sense for them to offer their arenas for free because the benefits they receive from their sponsor are now more significant than the money they would receive from PPV.
For all the people that are being morons as well as not believing Sundance or Adam on the success of Arenas, read the post I quoted and shut up. Now move along.
Don't wanna rain on your parade, but you know that believing what a company says you should without question is about one of the biggest moronic moves you could make? Especially when this company has already lied to you before.
and believing a random guy on the internet is so much better am i right?
On June 25 2012 08:23 jmbthirteen wrote: [quote] i really dont know how you got this out of my post.
All I said is that, had these Arenas not picked up a sponsor, they would most likely still be PPV because it is NOT more profitable for a free stream with ads than a PPV. Ad revenue is something you should want to rely on at this point in sc2. Not at the scale MLG is operating at.
And MLG is coming off an event where 4+ million people tuned in and had 437,000 concurrent, which is record breaking. So no, many people did not stop watching MLG since they started charging.
He was talking about the Arena's, all of those had terrible viewer numbers, and even the restreams didn't hit more then 5k people (at least the one from /vg/). And I believe Anaheim's viewer numbers where boosted by them not using a free crappy 360p stream, just hope they stop doing it altogether.
And if you're stupid enough to believe every single word a company tells you, by all means believe Sundance did this out of the goodness of his heart and some new sponsors, not trying to save a event that massively flopped and that made a massive part of the fanbase hate his guts.
On June 25 2012 08:23 Wolfinsheeps wrote: Your assumptions versus the word of MLG employees.
Sorry Mr. Nobody, you have zero credibility.
The words of MLG employees are biased, for all intents and purposes he has about as much credibility as they do. Pretty childish way of trying to shut someone up.
Just hope you don't believe Sundance is doing this just to get rich like some other naive ppl.
Not 'just', but it is obviously a large part of the equation, why else all the lies and secrecy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the LO3 episode where they interviewed him right after the PPV decision)? Fact is, Sundance lied to the community, blatantly lied about things very important to us, hence he got a good amount of the SC2 fans pissed off at him, although I suppose you could see this decision as a form of apology, he never gave one. For the fans to like him again he first has to realize what he did wrong, apologize for it and THEN make amends by making the tourney freemium, right now he's trying to ignore the whole PPV debacle and hopes we'll do the same and not hold him accountable for his actions.
Oh shit I needed that good laugh.
So I guess that means you can't actually counter any of my arguments now doesn't it?
And to the poster above, Dreamhack pretty much proves you don't need to go PPV to be self sustaining.
Probably because Dreamhack is a festival, not an eSports event.
Neither does IPL, because it's a goddamn Murdoch company.
MLG has nothing like that, they started as an eSports company from the start and stay that way. They also manage to do more events than IPL and Dreamhack combined.
And how is Dreamhack being a festival even remotely relevant? Them being smart enough to include a massive LAN party makes them into a different catagory? At the end of the day you're dealing with 2 massive tournaments, one who's doing financially just fine and one who, according to Sundance, would die out if PPV didn't work.
And just doing a lot of MLG's doesn't really mean much either, a lot of them where forgetable because unlike Dreamhack the venue wasn't that impressive, if Dreamhack can hire a massive ice hockey rink and not be in any financial troubles, what's MLG doing wrong? You're supposed to make back your money from sponsors and the money people spend at the event. Either MLG doesn't know how to make people spend at their events or they're bad at finding sponsors.
No he said they would be doing less events if it didn't work, But since Arena events are staying and now have new sponsorship backing, What does that tell you?
MLG consistently hosts 4-6 large scale events per year, Dreamhack has a nice pattern of 2 small events and 2 large. Also MLG bad at finding sponsors? hah look at there history and at how many mainstream sponsors supported them.
Yeah now I know you're just pulling stats out of your ass if you say half the Dreamhacks are small, they're still bigger for SC2 then many of the MLG's have been, and appearantly if Sundance is crying about e-sports dying then he's having trouble finding sponsors.
What the Arena's getting sponsors proves is that it was a stunt to interest investors, not because he couldn't keep the tournaments running. He needed to prove to the sponsors sheep like you would buy his overpriced product, and by god did it work. If you have no problem when a company blatantly lies to you, have fun getting screwed by the world.
And please stop proving you havn't watched the LO3 episode I keep refering to, Sunance LITERALLY states "if this [PPV] doesn't work, e-sports is dead". Watch it and stop lying to yourself.
Its extreamly subjective discussing which events are bigger for sc2.
Also, you keep praising how well dreamhack is doing, how do you know this? How do you know that in 2013 they will not decide to include esports tournaments in their events anymore because its not profitable?
It's really awesome that the arenas will be free, but I just don't get it... Basically the arenas were too profitable and brought so much money to the company that they will be free from now on?
Or does it mean MLG would make less money by selling PPV then they would get for making it free and selling advertisement with 50k people watching over 1k?
When you find something that works so well why not stick with it over consistenly changing it?
On June 25 2012 13:16 Kammalleri wrote: It's really awesome that the arenas will be free, but I just don't get it... Basically the arenas were too profitable and brought so much money to the company that they will be free from now on?
Or does it mean MLG would make less money by selling PPV then they would get for making it free and selling advertisement with 50k people watching over 1k?
When you find something that works so well why not stick with it over consistenly changing it?
Some new sponsor money came in and gave them more money than we could with Arenas, that sponsor obviously wants advertisements.
With the sponsors they had, like a week ago, the PPV was more profitable.
I was rather disappointed when I heard that the Arena events were going to become PPV, but I'm not sure whether I should be happy about this change. If it's changing because the Arena wasn't making enough money to be viable, then I'm worried about what that might mean for tournaments in the future. If we have the new sponsor to thank, then all is well.
I'm very much looking forward to getting to watch the next Arena event, since I can afford to now. MLG is always a good excuse to spend the weekend watching starcraft, if I ever need one
On June 25 2012 13:16 Kammalleri wrote: It's really awesome that the arenas will be free, but I just don't get it... Basically the arenas were too profitable and brought so much money to the company that they will be free from now on?
Or does it mean MLG would make less money by selling PPV then they would get for making it free and selling advertisement with 50k people watching over 1k?
When you find something that works so well why not stick with it over consistenly changing it?
Some new sponsor money came in and gave them more money than we could with Arenas, that sponsor obviously wants advertisements.
With the sponsors they had, like a week ago, the PPV was more profitable.
Thats for sure, but in the best scenario there will be both freemium and PPV.
The issue with MLG is theit main event will always be free and as exciting as the arenas are they are still qualifiers.
They can't really hype a huge event and make it PPV and get a sick turn out for the event to please the sponsors and make the PPV selling profitable as well.
Ahhhh ok? Can't say I'm upset or anything because I don't have the money for the summer ones, but I thought they were going to stick with that business model. They must have done REALLY well with Anaheim.
I had faith in sundance to be a good manager, i knew he didnt enjoy actually charging people and much prefered the sponsorship method wich is very effective, sure there still is payable option, but now they will have a ton more viewers which also makes them money cause of commercials ^^
Is it possible they are making streams free to keep up with DreamHack?
New sponsors would enable the possibility, but from Sundance's glory from PPV in the past it did not seem like he would even consider the idea of free viewership.
On June 25 2012 18:41 fumikey wrote: Is it possible they are making streams free to keep up with DreamHack?
New sponsors would enable the possibility, but from Sundance's glory from PPV in the past it did not seem like he would even consider the idea of free viewership.
He even said that he went the PPV route because for "e-Sports to grow, we should not be relying on sponsors'. I personally believe Sundance is full of BS.
On June 25 2012 16:45 ThomasR wrote: not enough people paying the premium to watch these mlgs = mlg make more money from ads + allowing people to watch for free?
I'd guess it's more to do with what sponsors want (more viewers) than how much MLG makes or doesn't make.
i think the freeium model works out the best for all partys users that dont want to pay get 480p and users that do want better quailty like me can have 720p or 1080p as long as its not overpriced $10-$15 dollars is in my range or like gomtv $70 dollars for all events i think is this format works well
On June 25 2012 13:16 Kammalleri wrote: It's really awesome that the arenas will be free, but I just don't get it... Basically the arenas were too profitable and brought so much money to the company that they will be free from now on?
Or does it mean MLG would make less money by selling PPV then they would get for making it free and selling advertisement with 50k people watching over 1k?
When you find something that works so well why not stick with it over consistenly changing it?
Some new sponsor money came in and gave them more money than we could with Arenas, that sponsor obviously wants advertisements.
With the sponsors they had, like a week ago, the PPV was more profitable.
If PPV was making them more money than free stream + advertisements it would still be PPV. You don't make so much money that you don't need to make more, like Sundance said, he is trying to run a business. It's in his best interest for you to think this was all done for the hugznkizzes.
On June 25 2012 13:16 Kammalleri wrote: It's really awesome that the arenas will be free, but I just don't get it... Basically the arenas were too profitable and brought so much money to the company that they will be free from now on?
Or does it mean MLG would make less money by selling PPV then they would get for making it free and selling advertisement with 50k people watching over 1k?
When you find something that works so well why not stick with it over consistenly changing it?
Obviously Arenas where doing bad and they now made it ''free'' with some excuse to not lose face.
Too late for me, to be honest. When they changed the streaming to all P2V, I stopped watching SC2, and the flame is gone. Good for everyone else, of course. Good on you, MLG.
On June 25 2012 21:05 Icky wrote: Too late for me, to be honest. When they changed the streaming to all P2V, I stopped watching SC2, and the flame is gone. Good for everyone else, of course. Good on you, MLG.
you completely stopped watching starcraft 2 because one tournament out of the dozens that are happening all the time made some of their events PPV?
Honestly I'm more concerned about MLG losing money and esports being hurt than I am wondering if my gold membership isn't worth much. I mean, I pay $30 a year and even if it just turns out to be a donation to MLG, their production and events are worth it. I just really hope they truly can afford this and that they're not shooting themselves in the foot if in the future they need to go back to a PPV model.
On June 25 2012 21:51 pyrodias wrote: Honestly I'm more concerned about MLG losing money and esports being hurt than I am wondering if my gold membership isn't worth much. I mean, I pay $30 a year and even if it just turns out to be a donation to MLG, their production and events are worth it. I just really hope they truly can afford this and that they're not shooting themselves in the foot if in the future they need to go back to a PPV model.
You shouldn't be concerned at all. Freemium model is the new way to go in the Gaming Industry. LOL has showed how to do it properly. I don't think MLG will hurt much. PPL who want to see content in HD will still pay for that.
On June 25 2012 21:51 pyrodias wrote: Honestly I'm more concerned about MLG losing money and esports being hurt than I am wondering if my gold membership isn't worth much. I mean, I pay $30 a year and even if it just turns out to be a donation to MLG, their production and events are worth it. I just really hope they truly can afford this and that they're not shooting themselves in the foot if in the future they need to go back to a PPV model.
I'm just concerned with the amount of entitled people when it comes to esports, looking at some of the comments about this is pretty depressing.
On June 25 2012 12:53 zaii wrote: It seems you watched that episode with a butt hurt mentally that you misunderstood what Sundance said thus thinking he lied to you.
Your conspiracy theories are hilarious to read though.
Are you capable of understanding english? I already gave you several direct quotes from that interview that where clear and direct lies. Seems to me you have trouble executing critical thinking when it comes to a company, tell me, when the Federal bank of America loans the government several more trillion, do you believe it was because of love? When BP goofed and had to pay billions in damages, do you think they did this because they're just great fans of nature? I assume you believed the Americans when they said Iraq had WoMD's?
Same for Sundance, make a mistake, try to rectify it, albeit in a childish subversive method, but the PPV debacle proved subversive childish behavior seems to be his business modus operandei.
And about Dreamhack, they directly stated they would never go for a payed model, as unlike Sundance they havn't been caught lying or trying to fuck over the fanbase, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
On June 25 2012 12:53 zaii wrote: It seems you watched that episode with a butt hurt mentally that you misunderstood what Sundance said thus thinking he lied to you.
Your conspiracy theories are hilarious to read though.
Are you capable of understanding english? I already gave you several direct quotes from that interview that where clear and direct lies. Seems to me you have trouble executing critical thinking when it comes to a company, tell me, when the Federal bank of America loans the government several more trillion, do you believe it was because of love? When BP goofed and had to pay billions in damages, do you think they did this because they're just great fans of nature? I assume you believed the Americans when they said Iraq had WoMD's?
Same for Sundance, make a mistake, try to rectify it, albeit in a childish subversive method, but the PPV debacle proved subversive childish behavior seems to be his business modus operandei.
And about Dreamhack, they directly stated they would never go for a payed model, as unlike Sundance they havn't been caught lying or trying to fuck over the fanbase, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Hey man, didn't you know that's how the McDonalds Dollar Menu got started? McDeez was making too much money from Big Mac sales so they decided to give away food for only a dollar!
I never bought a arena pass, the price was just too much since I'm always saving up money to go to a MLG Championship event. I'm just really happy that this event will be free I'll actually be able to watch live for once! I hope the numbers will be good enough to continue to have these events free to view
I'll still buy like an HD season pass, if its at a good price. 20 dollars for all the stuff we got this spring was good. glad they are doing 1 arena this season I honestly got bored of watching lol.
It should always have been free in my opinion, esport in general and SC2 specifically and MLG especially is not yet in a place where its worth paying for it. Yes I am mad that GSL isint free as well!!! *crying*
I'm sure this has already been said in the 25 pages of posts, but this'll be a great boon for getting newer blood into eSports spectating. Also, those that now want to pay for it can now feel like they're contributing to the success of MLG rather than feeling that dreadful feeling of obligation of being locked behind a pay-wall.
Obviously, you need to be a sheeple to think it's because they wanted to make us fans feel better (what 99% people here thinks, even though they showed countless times how greedy MLG is) but it doesn't matter. Wish it would stay like that for a long time.
On June 26 2012 21:23 SamuraiSEA wrote: Good to see they finally decided to make it free again.... Now I'm just wondering how long it's going to stay this way ><
Again? The arenas weren't free in the first place.
I'm at odds with this. I don't mind at all having more people being able to watch Arena's, but I do hope there's still going to be a paid section where you don't have to suffer the endlessly annoying advertisements.
Preferably even a proper subscription model instead of what it was now. Like a monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription for All MLG SC2 events.
I personally stopped watching pay-only tournaments. I really never liked that business model and, as such, I don't plan on watching when they make the conversion to freemium either. Seems like a ploy to break more records to be honest... lol although I MAY have to catch the VODS of a few ridiculous match ups
On June 27 2012 01:40 partouf wrote: I'm at odds with this. I don't mind at all having more people being able to watch Arena's, but I do hope there's still going to be a paid section where you don't have to suffer the endlessly annoying advertisements.
Preferably even a proper subscription model instead of what it was now. Like a monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription for All MLG SC2 events.
But hey ho, I guess I'm the only one in this.
Not the only one. I personally like giving money directly to MGL, rather be one of 1000 people who count as ad money for them. I don't think they have enough content to justify it yet, but if they had a studio like GSL, then we could talk subscriptions.
It's a step in the right direction. Free viewing lets the more casual players to watch and get more interested in the game, while paid streams are only watched by the people who are already "into it" and willing to pay money.
About time, this helps keep interest throughout the circuit instead of just the championships. I really wish they'd go back to the old system though, I know things remain largely unchanged, I just think it was easier to follow.
On June 25 2012 21:05 Icky wrote: Too late for me, to be honest. When they changed the streaming to all P2V, I stopped watching SC2, and the flame is gone. Good for everyone else, of course. Good on you, MLG.
you completely stopped watching starcraft 2 because one tournament out of the dozens that are happening all the time made some of their events PPV?
never underestimate neckbead hate, if we could harness it and turn it into energy the world would never go dark.
To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
On June 29 2012 00:53 Scootaloo wrote: To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
They were talking out of their ass.
Their words, from their mouths. That's what you're agreeing with, ass talk.
On June 29 2012 00:53 Scootaloo wrote: To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
They were talking out of their ass.
Their words, from their mouths. That's what you're agreeing with, ass talk.
Do you mean you don't agree with them or that they where trolling? If you watched it, I think it's pretty clear that they where not trolling, if you believe that you and these random Teamliquidians know better then these 3 progamers and a caster that actually casted games with Snoop Dogg, be my guest, but you must realize how ridiculous that sounds and how many times that has actually happened?
On June 29 2012 00:53 Scootaloo wrote: To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
They were talking out of their ass.
Their words, from their mouths. That's what you're agreeing with, ass talk.
Do you mean you don't agree with them or that they where trolling? If you watched it, I think it's pretty clear that they where not trolling, if you believe that you and these random Teamliquidians know better then these 3 progamers and a caster that actually casted games with Snoop Dogg, be my guest, but you must realize how ridiculous that sounds and how many times that has actually happened?
They actually said (iNcontrol specifically), "We are talking out of our ass."
I'm not making a judgement/opinion/whatever, I am repeating what they said. Idra then talked about the sponsor and iNcontrol backed down. If you were watching live, Clutch and the chat were collectively facepalming at the ass-talk.
On June 29 2012 00:53 Scootaloo wrote: To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
They were talking out of their ass.
Their words, from their mouths. That's what you're agreeing with, ass talk.
Everyone is talking out of their asses, no one knows for sure and probably we will never know but with just some logical thinking you cant deny that everything that MLG said about this doesn't make much sense.
We know the numbers of the Arena's and yes they probably did well economically cause 5k passes * 10/20 dollars in a weekend is a lot of money, which is hard (impossible) to get from ad revenue and sponsors. But i can guarantee you (well MLG admitted it basically) the sponsors were not happy with the numbers and the numbers since the first Arena were probably declining.
In the long run the PPV model for the Arena's was doomed, if it really worked that well there's no reason to throw it away. We heard the talks from Sundance how it's a business but now they are acting like a charity cause guess what, our PPV model worked so good we dont need it anymore after 4 months, doesn't make sense.
Me personally doesn't believe anything MLG says. When they say something will be a success they always announce it was a success afterwords without any transparency etc (why hide viewing numbers?). And this from a company who screws up so many simple things is kinda hard to believe.
On June 29 2012 00:53 Scootaloo wrote: To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
They were talking out of their ass.
Their words, from their mouths. That's what you're agreeing with, ass talk.
Do you mean you don't agree with them or that they where trolling? If you watched it, I think it's pretty clear that they where not trolling, if you believe that you and these random Teamliquidians know better then these 3 progamers and a caster that actually casted games with Snoop Dogg, be my guest, but you must realize how ridiculous that sounds and how many times that has actually happened?
They actually said (iNcontrol specifically), "We are talking out of our ass."
I'm not making a judgement/opinion/whatever, I am repeating what they said. Idra then talked about the sponsor and iNcontrol backed down. If you were watching live, Clutch and the chat were collectively facepalming at the ass-talk.
You mean when Idra said "I'm gonna play Devil's advocate, because I feel retarded for being part of those people [people that believed MLG's news statement, which he believed in before Incontrol had his abacus rant]", the most positive thing even he could say about it was that "It's not entirely unthinkable". And your Incontrol quote comes from DjWheat saying they don't have a glass wall into the MLG office so it's all speculation ofcourse, to which Incontrol replies, "Ofcourse it's speculation, I'm talking out of my ass, we're trying to be as logical as possible, it's possible ..., it still does'nt make sense to me.".
Incontrols point was that he nor the other guys have perfect information, ofcourse it's speculation, MLG isn't going to tell them inside stuff like this.
Unless you turned off your ears during the statements after the ones you quoted or where too busy reading chat you're just quoting things completely out of context to try to salvage some form of argument.
And honestly, I don't care what chat might've thought, most of the time it's full of idiots, and Clutch, only saw the guy once or twice, can't say I give him as much credibility as the usual ItG members.
On June 29 2012 00:53 Scootaloo wrote: To all of you who still believe MLG just made so much money they felt like not needing more: Inside the Game ep45 with DjWheat, Incontrol, Idra and Painuser http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/b/322804988 Just before the 2 hour mark they discuss this situation.
Funny how many times I've been called a conspiracy theorist in this thread (hell, I even got banned with the reason "get out the tinfoil hats") but as it turns out either these 4 pillars of the community are also crazy conspiracy theorists or like Incontrol says, 98% of you have no idea how business works. Painuser even goes as far as to use my Dreamhack examples. Ofcourse you got Total Biscuit on your side of the argument, but well, even in this episode of ItG his community knowledge get's seriously questioned.
And a massive screw you to the mod that banned me for being fucking right.
They were talking out of their ass.
Their words, from their mouths. That's what you're agreeing with, ass talk.
What the hell do you think Sundance and the MLG crew are doing... You attribute some weight to Clutch and twitch TV chat and then talk about agreeing with "ass talk"? Any sensible thought should trigger you to know that the "facts" MLG has presented do not add up to "we made so much money that we don't need to make more". It's a little disturbing how many people just accept this stuff at face value without any thought whatsoever.
On June 23 2012 12:08 Wafflelisk wrote: This is so awesome for me. Sad I missed out in the past, and was thinking of buying this time.
Nooo don't tell them! Then they'll make it money again >.< On a serious note, I think that they're gonna get a TON more sponsors after summer with all the viewers they're going to get.
I paid for an ppv event and know it feels like it was all a waste... because it felt great paying for something that many folks would like to see but didn't pay.
On June 26 2012 21:05 An2quamaraN wrote: Very good.
Obviously, you need to be a sheeple to think it's because they wanted to make us fans feel better (what 99% people here thinks, even though they showed countless times how greedy MLG is) but it doesn't matter. Wish it would stay like that for a long time.
Clearly you're a sheep if you believe them how could anyone ever disagree with this age old insult :O. It's only appropriate to think of every conspiracy out there an then put faith in those conspiracies. So then 9/11 was an inside job oh boy man oh man only sheeple believe the physical evidence proving otherwise. Now on a more serious note pipe down please your conspiracy shenanigans and bashing of others is seriously just not wanted so please make every attempt to do otherwise I know my already exhausted an frustrated brain would thank you as I can only speak for myself and not others. MLG Arena pays for all those in it to be flown out and accommodated which costs as I'v said previously ALOT OF MONEY! With the help of a sponsor(s) now they can afford to open it up to a more public audience then those of the ppv variety. So please just look at the most obvious answer from time to time cause more so then not it's the right one sir.
I love to see eSports grow and all but I really wish MLG would go back to how it was when they had halo 3 as the main game on the circuit. The stream was better IMO. They always had games on-never retarded crowd shots. I guess it all revolves around revenue somehow.
EPT
It's true.
