Own3D TV Shutting Down Next Week

On January 25 2013 07:48 PhoenixVoid wrote:
It was inevitable, looking at the competition from Twitch and the complaints from pros about how they were not paid from stream revenues.

On January 25 2013 08:16 Noobity wrote:
Hoping something else steps up in it's place, otherwise twitch has no incentive to grow.

On January 25 2013 08:49 Xiron wrote:


More money? That's a pretty good incentive to grow.

On January 25 2013 08:49 Serpico wrote:
Hopefully youtube steps up and crushes twitch. Twitch is nothing when it comes to pay unless you have a sub button. Right now twitch has no competition.

On January 25 2013 09:08 KanoCoke wrote:
Yup, they certainly got own3d hard.

But it's sad that no one wanted to own them either.

On January 25 2013 09:11 Veldril wrote:


Competition would drive the growth faster than pure money.

Our anonymous sources close to the situation told us that it was "absolutely true" that Own3d TV would be closing in the next week or so and that they cannot pay the debts they owe and if they liquidate and if advertisers don't pay their streamer contracts that clears them of obligation to pay streamer revenue.

On January 25 2013 08:49 Xiron wrote:


More money? That's a pretty good incentive to grow.

On January 25 2013 10:51 docvoc wrote:
Did anyone else see NaNi's tweet asking for his 500 in money? I lol-ed when I saw it, but I'm not very happy that they are going bankrupt. It seems that this is part of the scene's bubble popping just a little bit.

On January 25 2013 10:43 NPF wrote:
Well I hope the players can get some type of compensation from the company. Hopefully there contract with there adverts comes through and they can pay out there players partially.

Edit:



Basically I hope the advertisers pay and Own3d will be forced to obligate their contract. I have no real sympathy for them, or at least pay out all there capital, even if its only 10% of what they owe each individual they should be obligated to do it.

On January 25 2013 11:56 BoxingKangaroo wrote:
A johnny-come-lately...

On January 25 2013 07:46 wptlzkwjd wrote:


Yeah same. Whenever I watched ForGG's stream, it always overlapped without another image for like the first 30 seconds which was annoying. Not sure if that was Own3d or just my computer though...

On January 25 2013 13:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
My feelings and opinions on this:

1. I feel really bad for any streamer who's not getting paid.

2. It was never as good as Twitch.

3. I wonder if a lack of competition for streaming will change anything. Twitch is far-and-away monopolizing this now, right? (I guess they were pretty much #1 beforehand, but now there's not even a relevant second place, right?)

On January 25 2013 11:42 jayt88 wrote:
Competition is almost always good, sad to see one source fade away even though I prefer twitch in almost every way. Hopefully twitch doesn't act like a monopoly after this..

On January 25 2013 14:07 Fearest wrote:
Maybe the government will step in to bail them out.

On January 25 2013 14:37 Zerg.Zilla wrote:
Not paying there streamers...yeah that says it all. own3d TV -->>Not gonna be missed TV

On January 25 2013 14:33 Mauldo wrote:
You know what would be really cool? If Twitch.tv stepped up and paid own3d's outstanding debts to progamers in return for them signing contracts with the company. That'd be cool.

Completely unrealistic, but it would be fucking awesome. It'd be the first good news I've seen from an ESPORTS company in a long time.

On January 25 2013 14:33 Mauldo wrote:
You know what would be really cool? If Twitch.tv stepped up and paid own3d's outstanding debts to progamers in return for them signing contracts with the company. That'd be cool.

Completely unrealistic, but it would be fucking awesome. It'd be the first good news I've seen from an ESPORTS company in a long time.

On January 25 2013 15:38 Seeker wrote:
Sigh...

Now those poor players who are owed months and months and months worth of money are never going to get paid.

Own3D you guys are horrible. I can't believe what you guys did to those gamers...

On January 25 2013 15:40 NoobSkills wrote:


You know why Own3D kept their site online for so long despite not paying the players right? So, a few people at the very top of the company could steal all ad revenue for ~6 months. They made a killing in stolen revenue.

On January 25 2013 15:40 NoobSkills wrote:
You know why Own3D kept their site online for so long despite not paying the players right? So, a few people at the very top of the company could steal all ad revenue for ~6 months. They made a killing in stolen revenue.

On January 25 2013 15:40 NoobSkills wrote:


You know why Own3D kept their site online for so long despite not paying the players right? So, a few people at the very top of the company could steal all ad revenue for ~6 months. They made a killing in stolen revenue.

On January 25 2013 15:38 Seeker wrote:
Sigh...

Now those poor players who are owed months and months and months worth of money are never going to get paid.

Own3D you guys are horrible. I can't believe what you guys did to those gamers...

On January 25 2013 14:11 trGKakarot wrote:
As others have stated in this thread, the only real competition Twitch has is the looming threat of YouTube / Google stepping into a monetized streaming platform.

Twitch is unbearably laggy at times, but otherwise is reasonably a pretty good platform (minus not having streaming apps on PS3/360).

On January 25 2013 17:00 Type|NarutO wrote:
First of all, this is and should be sad news to everyone. I don't want to go into much detail about gamers not being paid, because I don't think that should happen, but in the real world, it also does happen which obviously is no excuse but it shows that its not always a fault of a badly run company or concept.

Own3d TV was an eSports orientated company and you guys are happy it shuts down? Own3d TV means there was competition for Twitch which now you could say has an absolute monopoly which is never good. Competition means advertising, fighting for customers, growing of eSports. Even though own3d was not perfect, it was a good attempt and didn't seem to purposely screw anyone over.

In my opinion this is sad news to everyone who is a gamer and wants eSport to grow




Cant believe comments like that, really no though put into it. Did you ever work in any business thats build on being liquid in the real world? Payment issues arise, even for the best running companies sometimes. If own3d did struggle to begin with, don't you think they tried to pay as much as they can?



Youtube is owned by Google and let me tell you, if Google wants to step in they win right away. They have the money for it, hell they could buy twitch and I think it would be a good thing. Best buy Twitch + their staff and put money into it because I think the Twitch staff is good and driven, but if Google wants to compete, Twitch will be gone I think-_-

On January 25 2013 15:40 NoobSkills wrote:


You know why Own3D kept their site online for so long despite not paying the players right? So, a few people at the very top of the company could steal all ad revenue for ~6 months. They made a killing in stolen revenue.

On January 25 2013 19:16 figq wrote:
That probably means all VODs hosted on own3D by various esports organizations would be gone... that's a huge blow to the history preservation of many games and events.

On January 25 2013 17:00 Type|NarutO wrote:



Cant believe comments like that, really no though put into it. Did you ever work in any business thats build on being liquid in the real world? Payment issues arise, even for the best running companies sometimes. If own3d did struggle to begin with, don't you think they tried to pay as much as they can?

On January 25 2013 17:00 Type|NarutO wrote:
Cant believe comments like that, really no though put into it. Did you ever work in any business thats build on being liquid in the real world? Payment issues arise, even for the best running companies sometimes. If own3d did struggle to begin with, don't you think they tried to pay as much as they can?

On January 25 2013 21:21 schaf wrote:



So... it's alright and just nobody's fault?

Of course payment issues can arise, but you cannot drag that on and on and on and not realize that you don't have a viable concept. This problem is not new to them, I read that payment problems appeared some months ago. They should have told their freelancing employees (I mean streamers who generate views which generates ad money. without streamers there is no stream and thus no money) and try to work something out.

On January 25 2013 21:33 Cel.erity wrote:


If word gets out that Own3d is having issues, then everybody moves to Twitch and hope is lost for them. The way Own3d handled this situation IMO is completely justified, and they did nothing wrong. This is a frontier economy, businesses are very unstable, it's really wrong to say negative things about the executives at Own3d when all they were doing was banking their livelihood on eSports.

The situation sucks, but it is nobody's fault.

On January 25 2013 21:30 Assirra wrote:


So cause payment issues arise its fine to not pay the people that worked for it? I hope someone saids that to you once when you don't get your payment. "Well yea there were payment issues but surely you don't mind eh"

On January 25 2013 21:59 Type|NarutO wrote:


Yes it does also happen in regular jobs for that matter. Happened to me last month, that I didn't get paid fully when I used to, but they paid after. In case of own3d I'm pretty sure they tried to fix things. Ofcourse I don't know if you want to call it dishonesty or trying to save shit when not telling the players that there are issues.

Losing their buyout shit fucked them hard I guess, but in before that time with an very unstable economy they might have had hope to get enough money to pay the players. Well now it turned it it didn't work and obviously not paying is not fine, but calling them scammers is a bit harsh, don't you think? Don't think they got any profit from it.

On January 25 2013 22:19 ragz_gt wrote:


Not sure what kind of field you work in, but normal business pay everyone on time in full amount. Missing a payment in any amount is a giant flashing red sign that screams: Get a new job!

On January 25 2013 22:25 Passion wrote:

Only thing is, that you shouldn't compare this with jobs, but with paying for a service. Delayed payments happen all the time in business. There's barely a company that doesn't stretch its payments as much as possible.

Yes it does also happen in regular jobs for that matter. Happened to me last month, that I didn't get paid fully when I used to, but they paid after. In case of own3d I'm pretty sure they tried to fix things. Ofcourse I don't know if you want to call it dishonesty or trying to save shit when not telling the players that there are issues.

Losing their buyout shit fucked them hard I guess, but in before that time with an very unstable economy they might have had hope to get enough money to pay the players. Well now it turned it it didn't work and obviously not paying is not fine, but calling them scammers is a bit harsh, don't you think? Don't think they got any profit from it.

On January 25 2013 23:10 Khonsou wrote:
Competition is good, so Own3D Closing is quite sad.

On January 26 2013 00:11 SwizzY wrote:
Last I checked Youtube/Google is getting into a bit of streaming no?

On January 25 2013 22:28 ragz_gt wrote:
Of course, but the part I quote says "happen in regular jobs"

On January 25 2013 22:56 schaf wrote:


Imagine you are a crafter of some sorts who has fans that buy what you craft, only you need a distributor because you don't have the capability of sending out your stuff to all the people that want it. So, you give your stuff to the distributor and allow him of course to take a percentage of your earnings so you two can live well together. Only he pays you late. Or more precise, the money YOU earned by providing him with something he can turn into money.

It's a shame they did not get to pay everyone out, but they are not innocent in this.

On January 26 2013 00:31 Lightspeaker wrote:


Its not a regular job. Its a lot like being an owner of a small business in fact. Each person is their own "brand" and tries to sell themselves. Own3D was a distributor service for those goods.

Think of it as a supermarket and the streamers are trying to get their goods on the shelves. They're forced to accept bad and slow payment because the only convenient way to market what they're selling is through the supermarket and, in theory, they can market to a larger audience and make more despite getting less than people pay. But if the supermarket has problems in its own organisation and goes bankrupt then that screws over the supplier as well.




That happens ALL THE TIME in business. Big organisations push payments back and pressure the smaller suppliers to take poor pay and late payments and be glad of it. No matter what you're looking at...Supermarkets vs farmers, music industry vs (most) musicians, etc...the people who tend to get the short end of the stick are small suppliers. Because the distribution service has more clout than they do.


Ultimately it sounds like some sort of major mismanagement issue with horrendous financial mistakes. Unfortunately its likely that none of the streamers are going to see any money. If Own3D is declared bankrupt then any money left over and the proceeds of any assets sold will likely go to more important organisations who are owed money, not to the "little guy" streamers. And ultimately if there is literally no money at all then there's nothing to pay out, no matter how much people on here want to demand them to pay.

On January 26 2013 02:06 Lorch wrote:
I love how all the little capitalist go like "omg no competition so bad". MLG has had a monopoly on competitive halo forever now and they still improved their product all the time (halo being dropped was due to reach being a terrible game, had nothing to do with no competition). Just because we live in a fucked up capitalstic system doesn't mean everything is always better if it follows that principle.
Plus youtube will launch it's streaming service soon, which will be more than enough competition for twitch.

Other than that, well twitch was superior in every way, except for cpm, which own3ds was apparently too good to be true anyways. Sucks for the people who were able to work in esports thanks to own3d and everyone who won't get paid.

On January 26 2013 02:04 Blargh wrote:
Out of curiosity, where did the money go exactly? Like, all the advertising money? If anyone who has more knowledge about how these types of businesses/sites work could give some info, it'd be appreciated.

On January 25 2013 07:46 wptlzkwjd wrote:


Yeah same. Whenever I watched ForGG's stream, it always overlapped without another image for like the first 30 seconds which was annoying. Not sure if that was Own3d or just my computer though...

On January 26 2013 02:18 Promethelax wrote:


It seems to be a generally Canadian thing. I always see us being unhappy with Owen3d.

On January 25 2013 17:00 Type|NarutO wrote:
First of all, this is and should be sad news to everyone. I don't want to go into much detail about gamers not being paid, because I don't think that should happen, but in the real world, it also does happen which obviously is no excuse but it shows that its not always a fault of a badly run company or concept.

Own3d TV was an eSports orientated company and you guys are happy it shuts down? Own3d TV means there was competition for Twitch which now you could say has an absolute monopoly which is never good. Competition means advertising, fighting for customers, growing of eSports. Even though own3d was not perfect, it was a good attempt and didn't seem to purposely screw anyone over.

In my opinion this is sad news to everyone who is a gamer and wants eSport to grow




Cant believe comments like that, really no though put into it. Did you ever work in any business thats build on being liquid in the real world? Payment issues arise, even for the best running companies sometimes. If own3d did struggle to begin with, don't you think they tried to pay as much as they can?



Youtube is owned by Google and let me tell you, if Google wants to step in they win right away. They have the money for it, hell they could buy twitch and I think it would be a good thing. Best buy Twitch + their staff and put money into it because I think the Twitch staff is good and driven, but if Google wants to compete, Twitch will be gone I think-_-

On January 26 2013 01:45 Ballack wrote:
This is very bad for the scene....Hopefully someone else can take their place and give twitch some competition.

On January 26 2013 03:14 Excalibur_Z wrote:


Yeah I'm a little mixed about it. On the one hand, competition is a great thing and it's better for everyone when the leaders (in this case, Twitch) are forced to push themselves to remain on top. However, Own3d was just inferior in every way. Their interface was very poor, their stream quality worse, their stream problems frequent. Own3d has a better infrastructure in Europe so I can only speak to my experiences as a US viewer, but Own3d did not impress me as a service. They were just in over their head, making promises to streamers and investors that they couldn't keep. No doubt another company will rise up to take their place, and hopefully that happens soon.

On January 26 2013 02:28 SLAYER29 wrote:
The power of Destiny and Team Liquid. Now companies know not to fuck around with sc2 and eSports. PAY THE MAN

On January 26 2013 03:23 Swords wrote:


Ironically, Destiny's report may well have ensured that he never got paid because it made the business look so weak and bad nobody would purchase Owned and eventually pay the players. This isn't to say he shouldn't have said anything, whistleblowing in these cases is really important, but by doing so he definitely brought an immediate end to any chance of him or other players getting paid.

On January 26 2013 03:35 Canucklehead wrote:


You're pretty naive if you think any potential investor in own3d wouldn't already know about all their financial problems. Most people here just found out about own3d's problems from the destiny post but it's been known in the LoL community forever! Just the LoL streamers were too scared to make an official post, but would always just make passing remarks about it while they streamed. This own3d stuff only came as a surprise to people who only follow sc2. It wasn't a shock to anyone outside of sc2.

On January 26 2013 03:46 Kokosaft wrote:


i think he was referring to own3d's PR being completely ruined after the last two weeks...
(not to say it was great, but it was way better than it is now, if we are honest)

On January 26 2013 03:48 Canucklehead wrote:


PR is irrelevant because if the business was sound and solid, no investor would be scared of what some people online think.

On January 26 2013 03:50 Talack wrote:


Yeah cause that's what investors want to hear when purchasing a business lol

On January 25 2013 22:19 ragz_gt wrote:
Not sure what kind of field you work in, but normal business pay everyone on time in full amount. Missing a payment in any amount is a giant flashing red sign that screams: Get a new job!

On January 26 2013 04:02 Canucklehead wrote:


The vast majority of people out there don't read TL, reddit, etc and wouldn't even know about any of this own3d stuff.

On January 25 2013 17:00 Type|NarutO wrote:

Youtube is owned by Google and let me tell you, if Google wants to step in they win right away. They have the money for it, hell they could buy twitch and I think it would be a good thing. Best buy Twitch + their staff and put money into it because I think the Twitch staff is good and driven, but if Google wants to compete, Twitch will be gone I think-_-

On January 26 2013 03:46 Kokosaft wrote:


i think he was referring to own3d's PR being completely ruined after the last two weeks...
(not to say it was great, but it was way better than it is now, if we are honest)

also, twitch was way smoother for me most of the time than own3d for the longest time
twitch being bad in europe was only the case in the first few weeks/months (how i felt it personally, don't know about eastern Europe for example)

On January 25 2013 07:40 Zenbrez wrote:
I hate when people say this, but

That's not unexpected

On January 26 2013 04:36 TJ31 wrote:

Don't overestimate google. They are trying to get in to social network business for a while, but even with all their efforts and money, they can't. I mean I don't use either of the social networks, but a lot of my friends do and no one of them using google plus.


Also in my opinion owned never was a real competitor to twitch anyway. Sure they had some popular streams, but overall numbers were much higher on twitch.
They also had terrible UI/design and chat for the most streams, even with about 1k viewers (ForGG for example) were empty.
So while I can't say "I'm glad they are gone", I can't say that I'm sad either. Not a big loss for the streaming community, esports or just anyone. Except those people who never got their money ofc.

On January 26 2013 05:37 AllHailTheDead wrote:
Its funny cause Destiny basically screwed the owner from selling his company with the news he brought to light

On January 26 2013 05:37 AllHailTheDead wrote:



pretty much this tho


I think everyone expected this

Its funny cause Destiny basically screwed the owner from selling his company with the news he brought to light

On January 26 2013 02:45 Rannasha wrote:


YouTube is working on a streaming service and YT = Google.

On January 26 2013 05:37 AllHailTheDead wrote:
Its funny cause Destiny basically screwed the owner from selling his company with the news he brought to light

On January 26 2013 05:53 BoggieMan wrote:
Meh, its kinda bad for the streaming industry. Monopoly has never been good for anything.

On January 26 2013 06:22 HoLe wrote:
I guess you could say that the whole company...

*puts on shades*

...got owned.

*YEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!*

Edit: And let me just say one thing to all those people yapping on about growing Esports. It's tiny. Esports is a speck of dust in the world of professional sporting and broadcasting. I loved the day when Stephano signed with EG, it was hilarious. Everyone raising their eyebrows at his whopping $100,000 salary.

Lionel Messi is worth 130,000,000 Pounds. Think about that. The man makes 17.1 million dollars a year.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are worth over a billion dollars.

Dallas Cowboys are worth almost two billion.

55% of the population of USA watched the last super bowl. Imagine tuning into a stream with "150,000,001 viewers" at the top right of the window.

Sports get big because they appeal to people of all ages, because they have heritage, because fans don't require or need to afford internet and a computer and a desk, because the activity generally promotes healthy living, because it's important for children's physical and psychological growth.

Think about how exclusive Esports actually is. I wouldn't be surprised to see companies like owned dropping like flies.

I mean, I love SC2, I want to see Esports grow, but I will never expect as much of it as some of you people are.
It's important to keep this cute little circus is perspective, right?

On January 27 2013 03:40 packrat386 wrote:


Well, people look to success of things like the proleague in korea where esports is quite popular, to the point where it has a dedicated TV channel on a major network. The US is one of the countries that is least receptive to esports, but thats not to say that there aren't places where it is a big deal. Flash and JD are rumored to be paid 7 figures, and at the very least have some celebrity status. I agree that people are often a bit overly optimistic about the outlook for the future of esports, but its not like growth is unattainable.

On January 27 2013 06:21 Vul wrote:


7 figures? Where did you hear the rumor that Flash and JD are making that kind of money?

On January 25 2013 15:53 trGKakarot wrote:


Doubtful... if they were making "a killing" then they wouldn't have been so financially unstable to the point of going out of business.

On January 27 2013 06:40 Alpino wrote:


It's not impossible that they just got whatever they wanted for themselves and set the company to its slow-death. This is common practice.

On January 25 2013 09:30 Joefish wrote:
It's sad that all the VODs will be lost forever.
I pmed a staff member about unavailable vods older than 3 years and he said they would move their servers and they'll be back up in a few weeks... :/
Next on the list livestream.com maybe?

On January 28 2013 13:59 ProTech wrote:
CooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooL 5,000$ owed. FML

On January 30 2013 09:41 Nuclease wrote:
Dear GOD this was predictable. Any company that becomes one of the mots hated entities in all of eSPORTs within a few days will most definitely not be around long...

On January 30 2013 09:29 LingBlingBling wrote:
You guys forget there are 10x better and more wealthy stream sites then Twitch, Video game streaming is like small %, People stream more things then video games. Dailymotion allows +18 content so they get views watching 18 year old girls talk dirty n crap.

and tons of other stream sites that are 10x more wealthy then twitch. I'm sure those stream sites will start with video game section as popularity grows, but in general other things are way more popular in the streaming world then video games and E sports. So should be tons of new stream sites popping up for video games.

I mean you can go on Justin tv and see 14 year old girls get 10x more viewers then Pro popular gamers, pretty messed up but video game streams get like half the views vs people streaming their "life" or other dumb stuff lol.

On January 30 2013 09:23 FLeK0 wrote:
Dailymotion has 18+ content so I'd gladly welcome them, twitch has become kinda a pussy bitch site with all their strict rules to keep it safe for kids.

On January 27 2013 03:22 MVega wrote:


It doesn't matter, Own3D wasn't much competition for Twitch to start with. There was really no incentive for Twitch to improve when every single thing it has is better than it's competition. It needs real competition to drive it forward, and Own3D wasn't that.

On January 25 2013 07:43 MetalGear wrote:
Losing competition is never a good thing.

On January 25 2013 07:52 nihlon wrote:

Twitch have had similar problems in the past. It was hardly inevitable.

On January 31 2013 03:42 CrushDog5 wrote:
Anyone know if this influences The Defense (DoTA2)? Tobi is streaming now.
Maybe they already wrote the check for prize money?
I hope so.