EPTOwn3d.tv to cease operations Jan 31st, 2013 - Page 10
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vijeze
Netherlands719 Posts
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Titio
France237 Posts
On January 31 2013 11:38 LoLAdriankat wrote: I keep hearing the "Twitch needs competition" argument. CLG and Azubu partnered together and have their own streaming platform on the way. Good news for healthy competition. Seriously, people, I don't see how you can expect this "Azubu" stuff to be real. own3d.tv just proved it to the world: a decent tech staff, decent funding, a more than decent product (even though Twitch is better, at the end of the day), business partners and pretty decent fill rate of qualified ads (Alienware, Intel, etc.), events and famous streamers on the website... ...and STILL they're shutting down because it's just too capital intensive an activity to maintain, when you're a start-up. Live streaming is a business that requires a LOT of money. When it scales, broadband costs become INSANE, and to keep up with it, you need a sales force that ramps up faster. The only actors that can now enter the market are large-to-huge tech companies that already own the infrastructure, or have enough money to keep up with CDN and human resources costs: YouTube, Dailymotion, and a few others. Why do you think Twitch had to raise so much money? Certainly not a small organization, whose main focus is to manage a League of Legends team... -_- Any half-skilled developer can build a live stream platform. Doesn't mean they can sustain it. EDIT: unless of course Azubu has raised enough money to play in the game. | ||
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Urasim
United States83 Posts
EDIT: Also, what was with all the fluff on the show? Seemed extra fluffy there at the end... | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On February 01 2013 00:18 Hoon wrote: Wait.. so own3d will close and everyone will forget they owe money? Shouldn't the CEO and/or everyone responsible get arrested or something? They definitely will not be arrested because breach of contract is a civil dispute. As for "forgetting", it depends on how aggressively creditors chase them down. People like Destiny and ProTech are probably not inclined to go after them legally, just because it's so much heartache and they'd probably only get a pittance months from now. But if worse comes to worst, Own3d would declare bankruptcy and ask the court for mercy. If they have any assets, the court will liquidate and pay off creditors in a legally defined order (typically: taxes, payroll, debt holders, vendors, clients, equity holders). | ||
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mrRoflpwn
United States2618 Posts
On February 01 2013 00:41 Hoon wrote: Well, ok. Even if they are bankrupt, they still owe money. It's not like you can go bankrupt and say "well, i don't have money, so I'll never pay you back". In my country, bankrupt or not, owing people money is a legal crime. HOW DO YOU PAY PEOPLE IF YOU ARE BANKRUPT?? Money does not appear out of thin air. the streamers on Own3d will never get fully paid because there is nothing to be paid with. Its a standard case of bankruptcy. Happens all the time, every single year, with dozens of companies. | ||
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Pucca
Taiwan1280 Posts
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RuFF_SC2
United States203 Posts
I'll explain why: 1. When I became a partner, I attended a super fancy dinner in Anehaim, CA. I've never seen twitch do something like this with their partners. I found it a bit odd and thought highly of own3d.tv; that financially they were doing well. 2. Why would it take this long to announce a shutdown? 3. Also this is a partnership, meaning the company gets 50% or more of what the streamers are actually making through broadcasting commercials. 4. If no one has gotten paid the past 6 months, than obviously there is money saved up somewhere. (Shouldn't it be distributed evenly to partners the remaining amount?) 5. They told me financially they are fine through e-mails and skype. (I have evidance) 6. Lastly, how come they couldn't just tell me they were having problems through e-mails. So my thing is, why blow the money on special events and stuff. Then out of no where stop paying for half a year and then shut everything down. I'm sorry, but my mind can't logically comprehend that this shutdown isn't shady. If own3d.tv can provide proof, then i'd be fine with it. Chances are they can't/won't. My 2 Cents, RuFF | ||
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Titio
France237 Posts
On February 01 2013 03:52 vVvRuFF wrote: Chances are the company isn't really completely bankrupt like people think. The only bills any streaming company should pay is for hosting on their sites and additional assets. After thinking carefully on it, i almost feel like its a kind of fraud. I'll explain why: 1. When I became a partner, I attended a super fancy dinner in Anehaim, CA. I've never seen twitch do something like this with their partners. I found it a bit odd and thought highly of own3d.tv; that financially they were doing well. 2. Why would it take this long to announce a shutdown? 3. Also this is a partnership, meaning the company gets 50% or more of what the streamers are actually making threw broadcasting commercials. 4. If no one has gotten paid the past 6 months, than obviously there is money saved up somewhere. (Shouldn't it be distributed evenly to partners the remaining amount?) 5. They told me financially they are fine through e-mails and skype. (I have evidance) 6. Lastly, how come they couldn't just tell me they were having problems through e-mails. So my thing is, why blow the money on special events and stuff. Then out of no where stop paying for half a year and then shut everything down. I'm sorry, but my mind can't logically comprehend that this shutdown isn't shady. If own3d.tv can provide proof, then i'd be fine with it. Chances are they can't/won't. My 2 Cents, RuFF I think it's fairly simple : 1- You probably attended a dinner when things were going smoothly for the company. They had cash, they could afford a little marketing event to make sure you and your fellow partners were on board. 2- Probably looking for ways to keep the service up, until the last moment? 3- Most probably, yes. 4- No. Running a streaming company costs a LOT of money. How do you think they pay for bandwidth, servers and employees? Their share of the ad revenues went there. And well, your share probably did as well. 5- If they tell you: "we are going bankrupt, we might not be able to pay you", you leave. If you leave, they can't sell ads on your stream, because, well, there's no stream anymore. So they shut the company down. So they lied to you, hoping the situation would get better. Maybe at the time, the situation could have gone better - they were, after all, discussing a buyout by Machinima.com. 6- See point above. Also, my guess is they're a small company, and probably a bit swamped, right at the moment. Probably a dozen hot topics to work on, trying not to die (as a company). Communication probably went last. This is just my (educated) guess  EDIT - Also, I feel there's a need to clarify what these "bills" you refer to really are: On February 01 2013 03:52 vVvRuFF wrote: Chances are the company isn't really completely bankrupt like people think. The only bills any streaming company should pay is for hosting on their sites and additional assets. After thinking carefully on it, i almost feel like its a kind of fraud. This is very generic/high level explanation, for the sake of simplification  So you're a streamer. - you send a 1080p live stream, 2mb/s quality - you stream an average of 3h per day, 5 days a week. - say you're pretty popular, and you manage to get on average 1,000 viewers Of course, you stream for free - and you get rev share. But, what does this cost own3d? 2- Because all of your viewers won't watch the HD stream, let's make the consider an arbitrary - yet conservative - breakdown: - 500 viewers watch a medium quality stream at a 800kb/s bitrate - 300 viewers watch the HD stream at a full 2mb/s bitrate - 200 viewers watch the low quality stream at a 350kb/s bitrate 1000 viewers/second watching you mean a : 500 x 0,8 + 300 x 2 + 200 x 0,35 = 1,07Gb/s = 0,133 GB/s bandwidth consumption. Because you're streaming 3h per session, your stream amounts for 0,133 GB x 10800 seconds = 1 444,5 GB / day That's 5 days x 4 weeks x 11 285GB = 28 890 GB /month of bandwidth consumption (28,8 TB). Let's assume own3d has a very deal with a bandwidth provider/CDN (Level3? Akamai? TATA? etc.), and only pays $0,07 / GB (this usually comes after harsh negotiations). Your stream costs own3d 28 890 x 0,07 = $2 022,3 every month. And because you're a partner, they have to give you a decent chunk of any revenue they make with your stream (in reality, probably ~30%). Last but not least, own3d has to transcode your live stream in different resolutions, so it can be watched by viewers with a slow internet connection (2mb/s is pretty high quality). It's a very CPU-intensive activity, so they'll either need need to buy a lot of machines, or rent cloud-based processing power (amazon? etc.) and this can quickly amount to a lot of money. See the issue here? And you're just one fairly popular stream amongst hundreds. Just imagine how much Tobiwan's Dota 2 stream, with its 10K concurrent viewers costs... Add to that, employee salaries, server acquisitions and housing, office space, marketing expenses. And well, you can see how this business needs SERIOUS MONEY to run! ;-) (Edit: fixed a few calc errors...) | ||
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Lucumo
6850 Posts
"We are grateful for your support as our pioneering ride comes to an end." Seems like they are spewing as much bs as twitch. | ||
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theKossak
Poland12 Posts
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Demicore
France503 Posts
On January 31 2013 08:42 R1CH wrote: Finally, the volume control is fixed. FOREVER. Don't you have a heart? é_è RIP own3d. | ||
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EliteSK
Korea (South)251 Posts
Hoping that all the streamers there find a good contract with other platforms, be it twitch/youtube/etc | ||
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ColdLava
Canada1673 Posts
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On February 01 2013 03:52 vVvRuFF wrote: Chances are the company isn't really completely bankrupt like people think. The only bills any streaming company should pay is for hosting on their sites and additional assets. After thinking carefully on it, i almost feel like its a kind of fraud. I'll explain why: 1. When I became a partner, I attended a super fancy dinner in Anehaim, CA. I've never seen twitch do something like this with their partners. I found it a bit odd and thought highly of own3d.tv; that financially they were doing well. 2. Why would it take this long to announce a shutdown? 3. Also this is a partnership, meaning the company gets 50% or more of what the streamers are actually making through broadcasting commercials. 4. If no one has gotten paid the past 6 months, than obviously there is money saved up somewhere. (Shouldn't it be distributed evenly to partners the remaining amount?) 5. They told me financially they are fine through e-mails and skype. (I have evidance) 6. Lastly, how come they couldn't just tell me they were having problems through e-mails. So my thing is, why blow the money on special events and stuff. Then out of no where stop paying for half a year and then shut everything down. I'm sorry, but my mind can't logically comprehend that this shutdown isn't shady. If own3d.tv can provide proof, then i'd be fine with it. Chances are they can't/won't. My 2 Cents, RuFF I'll also take a stab at some of this: 1. Like any start-up, it seems in retrospect that they ran ahead of themselves financially. Can't read too much into it one way or the other. 2. Like the other poster said, they tried to salvage the situation until the very last moment and they probably thought they would close with Machinima. Usually companies don't announce that they're in distress until all hope is really and truly lost. 3. True, but you don't know when or what Own3d was getting paid by advertisers. I would guess that their revenue growth was far lower than they expected/needed. 4. Not true. They probably used the money to pay more urgent expenses, like making payroll. If you don't pay streamers, they bitch and moan on Skype. If you don't pay employees, someone pours water onto the server. 5. This is unfortunate, but they mislead you. 6. They probably mislead you because nobody wants to leak financial problems because they tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once a company lets it slip that they have financial problems, vendors start demanding payment asap and customers go somewhere else, which makes the problems worse. That they tried to hide their problems by making special events isn't bad, distressed companies usually try "door-busters" and crap to boost sales. What makes it shady is that you apparently asked them about their financial situation and they lied to you. That and the fact that they're giving very little time to wind down and didn't form an exit strategy to close out everyone's account. That is amateurish and frankly just bad business. | ||
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tooldtoplay
Sweden5 Posts
You can use these simple rules to know what to do; * If your salary is late more than a week, start apply for a new work. DO NOT WAIT. Because it means that the company you work for lacks money to pay the peoples salary in time. That is very serious situation and you should act accordingly to protect yourself. Then a new work is found, quit your old job. * Don't listen to the management that things will be alright, it won't. The CEO/management will often lie to make you stay a while longer. Because without the staff, the company will die so they will say anything to make you stay. They are not trying to be evil; they just want the company to survive. But if it has gone this far; it is too late. You can't save the company, neither can the management! | ||
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Vorenius
Denmark1979 Posts
On February 01 2013 04:07 Titio wrote: That's 5 days x 4 weeks x 11,281GB = 225,70 GB /month of bandwidth consumption. Let's assume own3d has a very deal with a bandwidth provider/CDN (Level3? Akamai? TATA? etc.), and only pays $0,07 / GB (this usually comes after harsh negotiations). Your stream costs own3d 225,70 / 0,07 = $3224,33 every month. I think you might wanna run those numbers through your calc again Assuming your values are corrent (which I have no idea if they are or aren't) that would mean that the stream costs roughly $15/month and not over 3k... | ||
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Hoon
Brazil891 Posts
On February 01 2013 02:25 mrRoflpwn wrote: HOW DO YOU PAY PEOPLE IF YOU ARE BANKRUPT?? Money does not appear out of thin air. the streamers on Own3d will never get fully paid because there is nothing to be paid with. Its a standard case of bankruptcy. Happens all the time, every single year, with dozens of companies. So i can just loan 50k$, spend everything, say that I'm bankrupt and never pay it back? Money appears out of hard work. It should be expected that own3d's CEO pay everyone back, even if he has to sell his belongings, like his car, house, etc etc. | ||
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Arcanne
United States1519 Posts
On February 01 2013 07:50 Hoon wrote: So i can just loan 50k$, spend everything, say that I'm bankrupt and never pay it back? Money appears out of hard work. It should be expected that own3d's CEO pay everyone back, even if he has to sell his belongings, like his car, house, etc etc. Uhm yeah you could, actually.. if you can get the loan. You'll also lose everything you bought with it. | ||
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Vorenius
Denmark1979 Posts
On February 01 2013 07:50 Hoon wrote: So i can just loan 50k$, spend everything, say that I'm bankrupt and never pay it back? Money appears out of hard work. It should be expected that own3d's CEO pay everyone back, even if he has to sell his belongings, like his car, house, etc etc. There is a difference between a person "going bankrupt" and a business. If you take out a loan then it's your responsibility to pay it back. If you can't then your creditors will take everything you own and sell it to make up for the money you loaned. If a business goes bankrupt, then the creditors will take over any assets the business had to pay off the oustanding debts. In this case that includes any streamers who haven't recieved the money they were entitled to (though they are probably way down the list) It won't destroy the lifes of the people owning that business. Otherwise no one would ever start one. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1091 Posts
On February 01 2013 07:50 Hoon wrote: So i can just loan 50k$, spend everything, say that I'm bankrupt and never pay it back? Money appears out of hard work. It should be expected that own3d's CEO pay everyone back, even if he has to sell his belongings, like his car, house, etc etc. A corporation acts as a separate entity (at least in US law, where I am most familiar and is similar in Europe). Therefore, assuming the guys at Own3d did all the proper paperwork to create a company, their own private assets are protected. Only the assets of the company will be sold off to pay creditors, not the CEO's private home/car/etc. So that essentially leaves any servers or office space that Own3d actually owns to sell off. Unfortunately, they probably rent most of that stuff and so they don't even have those assets to sell to pay off their streamers (who are near the bottom of the list when it comes to getting paid during liquidation). That's just the way business works. It's not easy to start a corporation and then find someone to give you a $50k loan without a sound business plan or product. I don't believe that's what the guys at Own3d ever intended. Most likely, they spent much of their own money and effort (without pay) to get it off the ground and into a company that other people would lend money to. Unfortunately, business is difficult and businesses often fail. | ||
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