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On May 03 2013 00:14 Mormel wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2013 20:49 Acer.Scarlett` wrote:On May 02 2013 19:29 QuackPocketDuck wrote:
Everyone spends their money as they wish whats there to discuss?
Who is Richard anyway? A troll who takes himself seriously Learn 2 esports history pls. Richard Lewis is one of the most respected eSports journalist out there. And you don't even remember being interviewed by him a month ago!?
All two of them? I mean, that's sort of a limited field to be the "most respected" in. I mean, I am the best SC2 player from my home town, which is 900 people and only about 5 families have high speed internet. But I am the best and most respected.
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How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house?? This isn't pro football. Just becuase teams mark themselves as pro won't mean they have viable means of supporting themselves.
Donating money to Root isn't just supporting Root, its supporting foreign eSports in general. They need money to move forward. These aren't fortune 500 organizations we are talking about here. I will gladly donate to Root. Not just to help Catz but to help our foreign scene.
Lets put this perspective a bit. Where as eSports is growing as a whole, our foreign teams need a ton of help to get off their feet.
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Root's fund-raiser isn't exactly unprecedented. There have been a lot of donation oriented events in SC2 (e.g., Shoutcraft) and even Twitch subscriptions are basically charity -- you can still watch the streams if you don't. A number of the Korean teams have done fundraisers as well.
I think there is a deeper problem in esports in that there is fan-based money out here that wants to support the teams and players they root for. But unlike physical sports with ticket sales, it's not clear how money gets channeled to the players. When somebody like MLG tries to charge for online content (theoretically the first step if you trust the money gets through to the players), there's always a huge backlash. And there just aren't very many offline tournaments to sell tickets for.
Team-branded gear seems like it ought to be a reasonable channel for this, but it has overhead/start-up costs and you gamble a bit that you'll sell enough to be worthwhile.
For a lot of these pieces, you can get more money into the scene by charging higher rates (e.g., $100 team jerseys) but a lot of the fan base does not have a lot of money to put in and we want the base growing.
So you end up with a lot of voluntary spending (watch for free, donate if you can), which is essentially charity. Root is just playing this game the same way everybody else in esports is doing it. I don't think there is anything negative to be said about that.
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#SAYURI #NEVERFORGET #CHARITY
User was warned for this post
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On May 02 2013 17:42 Split. wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2013 17:20 WolfintheSheep wrote:On May 02 2013 17:11 Split. wrote:On May 02 2013 16:34 E.L.V.I.S wrote:Professionals earn their living, it’s not given to them. Anything else is just garbage. This sentence is fucking garbage. Care to elaborate? Because that's his point: organisations getting themselves pushed into higher financial levels they can't reach by themselves. That's bad business because it's not sustainable and therefore not the way to go Refrence in the article: + Show Spoiler +"What we can safely say is that ROOT are in a position to make money from what they do. If they don’t make enough, why should it be on the community to help them make more, to take their business to a stage it is unable to reach without charitable donations? If they don’t earn enough then the implication is that either they don’t do smart enough business or their product isn’t in high enough demand. Either way, if they want to progress, they should be speculating and that should come from within or through private investment, not through asking everyone who enjoys their players or uses their website (which is in itself an act that provides ad revenue) to have a whip round." That paragraph is a perfect example of what I said. - "ROOT can make money. Or maybe they don't." - Rhetorical question generalizing donations as bad, and to force readers into a single thought path. - Unsupported conclusion that ROOT has no business model and it doesn't work. - Unsupported statement that money should always come from internal sources or private investment. In other words, a whole lot of crap. He never says why a method is bad, just take his word for it. And he never gives evidence about ROOT's supposed failure, only that he wants to jump to that conclusion. I agree that the article lacks depth and backup, but he still has a point. If we want esports to become a business like regular sports then charity is not the way to go Also I didn't see any "unsupported conlusion that ROOT has no business model and it doesn't work". Actually in the first sentence of the paragraph he states otherwise (though unsupported). And for that particular point it's not essential for him to be right: either they make enough money for a house with their business (in this case they don't need donations), or they're not supposed to have it
You're just repeating the same statements he does, and you don't give any support either.
What does "esports becoming a business" have to do with ROOT getting $25000 in start-up costs? Why aren't they "supposed to have that money"? Why can't they look for donations for that one-time cost?
Fact of the matter is that ROOT needed startup money for a Team House, their chosen method was a fundraiser, and they got the money. Unless you can actually show how this remotely hurts anything in the scene, all of your shoulds and supposed tos are meaningless.
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On May 03 2013 03:04 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2013 17:42 Split. wrote:On May 02 2013 17:20 WolfintheSheep wrote:On May 02 2013 17:11 Split. wrote:On May 02 2013 16:34 E.L.V.I.S wrote:Professionals earn their living, it’s not given to them. Anything else is just garbage. This sentence is fucking garbage. Care to elaborate? Because that's his point: organisations getting themselves pushed into higher financial levels they can't reach by themselves. That's bad business because it's not sustainable and therefore not the way to go Refrence in the article: + Show Spoiler +"What we can safely say is that ROOT are in a position to make money from what they do. If they don’t make enough, why should it be on the community to help them make more, to take their business to a stage it is unable to reach without charitable donations? If they don’t earn enough then the implication is that either they don’t do smart enough business or their product isn’t in high enough demand. Either way, if they want to progress, they should be speculating and that should come from within or through private investment, not through asking everyone who enjoys their players or uses their website (which is in itself an act that provides ad revenue) to have a whip round." That paragraph is a perfect example of what I said. - "ROOT can make money. Or maybe they don't." - Rhetorical question generalizing donations as bad, and to force readers into a single thought path. - Unsupported conclusion that ROOT has no business model and it doesn't work. - Unsupported statement that money should always come from internal sources or private investment. In other words, a whole lot of crap. He never says why a method is bad, just take his word for it. And he never gives evidence about ROOT's supposed failure, only that he wants to jump to that conclusion. I agree that the article lacks depth and backup, but he still has a point. If we want esports to become a business like regular sports then charity is not the way to go Also I didn't see any "unsupported conlusion that ROOT has no business model and it doesn't work". Actually in the first sentence of the paragraph he states otherwise (though unsupported). And for that particular point it's not essential for him to be right: either they make enough money for a house with their business (in this case they don't need donations), or they're not supposed to have it You're just repeating the same statements he does, and you don't give any support either. What does "esports becoming a business" have to do with ROOT getting $25000 in start-up costs? Why aren't they "supposed to have that money"? Why can't they look for donations for that one-time cost? Fact of the matter is that ROOT needed startup money for a Team House, their chosen method was a fundraiser, and they got the money. Unless you can actually show how this remotely hurts anything in the scene, all of your shoulds and supposed tos are meaningless.
Yeah, I don't really get the concept that the fund raiser is somehow a bad idea. There is a local farm that has a farm stand and mini market every fall. A couple years ago a tree fell and crushed the roof of the stand, so they couldn't do business that year and their insurance refused to cover all the repairs. They had a fund raiser get the place up and running and we all live happily every after, being able to buy apple pies every fall.
Business and charity are not mutually exclusive. Businesses can run fund raisers and still be viable.
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On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house?? This isn't pro football. Just becuase teams mark themselves as pro won't mean they have viable means of supporting themselves.
Donating money to Root isn't just supporting Root, its supporting foreign eSports in general. They need money to move forward. These aren't fortune 500 organizations we are talking about here. I will gladly donate to Root. Not just to help Catz but to help our foreign scene.
Lets put this perspective a bit. Where as eSports is growing as a whole, our foreign teams need a ton of help to get off their feet.
All startups raise capital somehow, and crowdsourcing it isn't a crime.
The issue is that Root is raising capital for an ongoing initiative that either a) isn't sustainable by strictly donations OR b) doesn't need crowdsourcing in the first place.
$25,000 is an odd number. It's not an insignificant amount, but it's definitely not enough money to feed or pay rent for a team of people for more than six to eight months. So what do they need the money for? What's the plan?
Do they expect stream ad revenue to magically spike, just because they are in a team house, and then decide to pool that additional ad revenue together in order to pay for the house?
Do they have sponsors lined up, contingent on them forming a team house? It's hard to imagine why a sponsor would care whether they are in a house or not.
Are they going to need another round of 'financing' *cough handouts cough* in eight to ten months to sustain themselves?
Or maybe (and most likely) they already each make enough individually to cover their own expenses month to month. And rather than save up for the cost of travel and moving themselves, they are calling on the community to foot the bill.
They have 15 players on their SC2 team. I don't know how many are planning moving to the team house, but $25,000 split between even 5 or 6 guys is not a lot of money.
I'd be more inclined to make a one-time donation to something singular and concrete — like a flight to an MLG or a new computer. Starting and maintaining a team house is an ongoing expense is something I can't support as 'an investor' or as a donor, without some kind of confidence they have an plan outside of suddenly winning more tournaments.
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It's a good idea to read http://www.root-gaming.com/fundraiser and Team House AMA before posting. It's okay if you actually know the facts and don't approve, but some people obviously are basing their opinions / posts purely on incorrect information / assumptions.
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On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house?
Hardly any. And you know why that is? Because it's a huge investment that simply doesn't pay off. The negatives outweigh the positives. What can you do with a teamhouse that you can't do without a teamhouse? Not much. "Content" isn't magically gunna produce itself.
Why would a team like Complexity that's been around for over a decade, and is active in lots of different genres, even shut down their gaming house? In 2011/2012, there was brief gaming house frenzy where everybody and their mother thought they needed one. I bet plenty of teams lost big chunks of cash before they realized it's simply not worth it.
Why not use the $ to fly out players to tournaments? To pay them an allowance of some type? Or even to send em to Korea for a bit?
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On May 03 2013 13:04 dizzy101 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house? Hardly any. And you know why that is? Because it's a huge investment that simply doesn't pay off. The negatives outweigh the positives. What can you do with a teamhouse that you can't do without a teamhouse? Not much. "Content" isn't magically gunna produce itself. Why would a team like Complexity that's been around for over a decade, and is active in lots of different genres, even shut down their gaming house? In 2011/2012, there was brief gaming house frenzy where everybody and their mother thought they needed one. I bet plenty of teams lost big chunks of cash before they realized it's simply not worth it. Why not use the $ to fly out players to tournaments? To pay them an allowance of some type? Or even to send em to Korea for a bit?
A team house can be very useful if you use it right.
* You need to use the fact you have many of your players under one roof to produce content that can lead to more sponsors for starters. Quantic and Complexity both really didn't do this. Quantic had other issues, but in the case of complexity a team house purely for practice that wasn't very organized didn't make sense so they got out.
* You have to put together some sort of practice schedule regime or having all the players under one roof is useless.
* You 100% can not deny all the team houses in Korea are not a large part in the reason they do so well and a random korean masters player who gets on a team improves dramatically once brought into a team house.
TLDR: If you don't use it right of course it's a waste, so the key is to use it right. NA side so far the only team that's made good use of their team house is EG which is why they still have one.
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The idea that people are asking for money...and then people are giving them money....that someone making a conscious decision to part with their money because someone asked them to could actually make people angry is very surprising to me.
I've always thought of things in this light: in gaming today there are e-athletes and entertainers. Now, the best of the best are a bit of both. You have guys like Whitera who is a very highly skilled, tournament winner that creates a great product by way of his stream. For that, people watch him...some watch to see his skill, some watch to be entertained.
You then have people like Jaedong. I don't know about you but whenever I happen to what his stream it's usually large blocks of time with the camera focused on his face outside of a game where he's checking email or some such thing. Then he gets into a game and performs. I've never watched him to be entertained but man that guy can play. He's very much an e-athlete to me.
Then finally you have the entertainers. For this, I'll speak solely of Catz. Catz is a good player. He'd stomp me up and down, I know that much. Yet, is he out there winning tournaments left and right? No. He IS good though and yet, more than that, it's very enjoyable to watch his stream. He has a great sense of humor, he engages his audience, and he puts on a show; you can learn while watching him but when I watch I do so because I want to relax and have a good time, not necessarily because I want to check out those sick inject timings.
I say all of that to say that I play ROOT largely in the entertainment side of things. I place Louis CK, Bill Burr, and Brian Reagan there, too. They are all comics. Comics that I have paid to see. Bill has a podcast and I've donated to that because I feel that I am being provided a service when I listen to it even though it's free and if I want to continue to have the opportunity to listen Bill needs to be incentivized to continue producing it. I've never thrown $100 at it or anything but a small amount of cash to say thanks is nice.
So when ROOT opened up their streamathon to earn money for their house and I was entertained by it, I gave. It was five entire dollars. It didn't break me and it didn't make them. Still, I like the team, I like the players, I enjoy the content they produce and I took the opportunity to incentivize the creation of more. The idea that something like would be frowned upon by someone or, further, the idea that content can just rain from the sky without any means of funding and the creators of which should be so blessed as to give it to us is odd.
TL;DR: People pay for what they like. Some gave money here, some didn't. In each case, free will and an individual's ability to place value on content reigned supreme.
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On May 03 2013 09:32 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house?? This isn't pro football. Just becuase teams mark themselves as pro won't mean they have viable means of supporting themselves.
Donating money to Root isn't just supporting Root, its supporting foreign eSports in general. They need money to move forward. These aren't fortune 500 organizations we are talking about here. I will gladly donate to Root. Not just to help Catz but to help our foreign scene.
Lets put this perspective a bit. Where as eSports is growing as a whole, our foreign teams need a ton of help to get off their feet. All startups raise capital somehow, and crowdsourcing it isn't a crime. The issue is that Root is raising capital for an ongoing initiative that either a) isn't sustainable by strictly donations OR b) doesn't need crowdsourcing in the first place. $25,000 is an odd number. It's not an insignificant amount, but it's definitely not enough money to feed or pay rent for a team of people for more than six to eight months. So what do they need the money for? What's the plan? Do they expect stream ad revenue to magically spike, just because they are in a team house, and then decide to pool that additional ad revenue together in order to pay for the house? Do they have sponsors lined up, contingent on them forming a team house? It's hard to imagine why a sponsor would care whether they are in a house or not. Are they going to need another round of 'financing' *cough handouts cough* in eight to ten months to sustain themselves? Or maybe (and most likely) they already each make enough individually to cover their own expenses month to month. And rather than save up for the cost of travel and moving themselves, they are calling on the community to foot the bill. They have 15 players on their SC2 team. I don't know how many are planning moving to the team house, but $25,000 split between even 5 or 6 guys is not a lot of money. I'd be more inclined to make a one-time donation to something singular and concrete — like a flight to an MLG or a new computer. Starting and maintaining a team house is an ongoing expense is something I can't support as 'an investor' or as a donor, without some kind of confidence they have an plan outside of suddenly winning more tournaments.
Well, if you bothered to read ROOT's own fundraiser page, they make it quite clear that the $25000 pays for the initial startup costs, and that their current business pulls in enough revenue to cover recurring costs. It pays the costs of people moving, the cost of setting up computers and streaming equipment, and all the one-time costs involved when an entire team moves to a new location and establishes a place for their business.
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On May 03 2013 14:08 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 09:32 Defacer wrote:On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house?? This isn't pro football. Just becuase teams mark themselves as pro won't mean they have viable means of supporting themselves.
Donating money to Root isn't just supporting Root, its supporting foreign eSports in general. They need money to move forward. These aren't fortune 500 organizations we are talking about here. I will gladly donate to Root. Not just to help Catz but to help our foreign scene.
Lets put this perspective a bit. Where as eSports is growing as a whole, our foreign teams need a ton of help to get off their feet. All startups raise capital somehow, and crowdsourcing it isn't a crime. The issue is that Root is raising capital for an ongoing initiative that either a) isn't sustainable by strictly donations OR b) doesn't need crowdsourcing in the first place. $25,000 is an odd number. It's not an insignificant amount, but it's definitely not enough money to feed or pay rent for a team of people for more than six to eight months. So what do they need the money for? What's the plan? Do they expect stream ad revenue to magically spike, just because they are in a team house, and then decide to pool that additional ad revenue together in order to pay for the house? Do they have sponsors lined up, contingent on them forming a team house? It's hard to imagine why a sponsor would care whether they are in a house or not. Are they going to need another round of 'financing' *cough handouts cough* in eight to ten months to sustain themselves? Or maybe (and most likely) they already each make enough individually to cover their own expenses month to month. And rather than save up for the cost of travel and moving themselves, they are calling on the community to foot the bill. They have 15 players on their SC2 team. I don't know how many are planning moving to the team house, but $25,000 split between even 5 or 6 guys is not a lot of money. I'd be more inclined to make a one-time donation to something singular and concrete — like a flight to an MLG or a new computer. Starting and maintaining a team house is an ongoing expense is something I can't support as 'an investor' or as a donor, without some kind of confidence they have an plan outside of suddenly winning more tournaments. Well, if you bothered to read ROOT's own fundraiser page, they make it quite clear that the $25000 pays for the initial startup costs, and that their current business pulls in enough revenue to cover recurring costs. It pays the costs of people moving, the cost of setting up computers and streaming equipment, and all the one-time costs involved when an entire team moves to a new location and establishes a place for their business.
Well, all the more reason for me not to support the cause then. If they just pooled or saved their money for six months, they could easily afford themselves. And frankly, it not likely that them living in a new house somewhere on the west coast is going to add any significant value to me as a spectator.
Meh. Sorry to hurt anyone's feelings. Donating $5 so a bunch of healthy, fully capable grown men can move to their dream house seems a little silly to me personally, even if its a drop in the bucket. I'd rather give money to the Red Cross or buy Girl Scout cookies.
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On May 03 2013 13:04 dizzy101 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house? Hardly any. And you know why that is? Because it's a huge investment that simply doesn't pay off. The negatives outweigh the positives. What can you do with a teamhouse that you can't do without a teamhouse? Not much. "Content" isn't magically gunna produce itself. Why would a team like Complexity that's been around for over a decade, and is active in lots of different genres, even shut down their gaming house? In 2011/2012, there was brief gaming house frenzy where everybody and their mother thought they needed one. I bet plenty of teams lost big chunks of cash before they realized it's simply not worth it. Why not use the $ to fly out players to tournaments? To pay them an allowance of some type? Or even to send em to Korea for a bit?
Hardly any...
No just leveling up the level of play of your whole team meaning they would win more meaning more money incoming in the long-term. Oh wait... I forgot that looking in the long-term is bad especially with E-sports.
Instead of having their own house. They should just buy a flat with 3-4 teams together, it would cost a lot less. But we don't know if any negociations between teams happened or will happen.
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This is pretty lame hate, especially from someone involved as a journalist in the scene. I dislike that esports tends to be a charity and that people often end up having to beg, too, but the plain truth is that ROOT is full of top NA talent. Their players fill the Shoutcraft America tournament for a reason. If their current team were all players like EG's who have been around and growing fanbases since the game started (when it was simply easier to be relevant), they would easily have similar marketability. As it is their players are some of the most popular in the scene by recognition of both talent and personality.
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On May 03 2013 09:32 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house?? This isn't pro football. Just becuase teams mark themselves as pro won't mean they have viable means of supporting themselves.
Donating money to Root isn't just supporting Root, its supporting foreign eSports in general. They need money to move forward. These aren't fortune 500 organizations we are talking about here. I will gladly donate to Root. Not just to help Catz but to help our foreign scene.
Lets put this perspective a bit. Where as eSports is growing as a whole, our foreign teams need a ton of help to get off their feet. All startups raise capital somehow, and crowdsourcing it isn't a crime. The issue is that Root is raising capital for an ongoing initiative that either a) isn't sustainable by strictly donations OR b) doesn't need crowdsourcing in the first place. $25,000 is an odd number. It's not an insignificant amount, but it's definitely not enough money to feed or pay rent for a team of people for more than six to eight months. So what do they need the money for? What's the plan? Do they expect stream ad revenue to magically spike, just because they are in a team house, and then decide to pool that additional ad revenue together in order to pay for the house? Do they have sponsors lined up, contingent on them forming a team house? It's hard to imagine why a sponsor would care whether they are in a house or not. Are they going to need another round of 'financing' *cough handouts cough* in eight to ten months to sustain themselves? Or maybe (and most likely) they already each make enough individually to cover their own expenses month to month. And rather than save up for the cost of travel and moving themselves, they are calling on the community to foot the bill. They have 15 players on their SC2 team. I don't know how many are planning moving to the team house, but $25,000 split between even 5 or 6 guys is not a lot of money. I'd be more inclined to make a one-time donation to something singular and concrete — like a flight to an MLG or a new computer. Starting and maintaining a team house is an ongoing expense is something I can't support as 'an investor' or as a donor, without some kind of confidence they have an plan outside of suddenly winning more tournaments.
I'd imagine its for a down payment. I imagine they know exactly how much they're making monthly and what their budget can afford. The down payment can effect your mortgage payments. I'm buying a house in Jan. and I'm hoping to put 30k down.
I think I read somewhere it was for down payments.
On May 03 2013 13:04 dizzy101 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 02:10 Diddywhop wrote:
How many teams out there, especially foreign, have the means to support their players with a team house? Hardly any. And you know why that is? Because it's a huge investment that simply doesn't pay off. The negatives outweigh the positives. What can you do with a teamhouse that you can't do without a teamhouse? Not much. "Content" isn't magically gunna produce itself. Why would a team like Complexity that's been around for over a decade, and is active in lots of different genres, even shut down their gaming house? In 2011/2012, there was brief gaming house frenzy where everybody and their mother thought they needed one. I bet plenty of teams lost big chunks of cash before they realized it's simply not worth it. Why not use the $ to fly out players to tournaments? To pay them an allowance of some type? Or even to send em to Korea for a bit?
I agree with you. I can see where the advantages could be for a team. Its hard to say how foreign teams (EG) would preform without a team house in the picture. But, if their current results are any indicator of performance with the presence of a team house, I'd say it isn't worth it- you're right.
I think the biggest advantage comes from the image a team house portrays. Not so much the results a team expects to get from their players who live in one.
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On May 03 2013 13:14 Nerski wrote:
-Text-
TLDR: If you don't use it right of course it's a waste, so the key is to use it right. NA side so far the only team that's made good use of their team house is EG which is why they still have one.
You mean the streaming schedule and the signing of Stephano and JD i guess? Not considering that, the team house did nothing imo.
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After watching through the new episode of Meta. I'm afraid that the house will be a failure and waste of everyones time and money. I got the impression that Catz has absolutely no clue how to keep people practicing properly, it'll turn into a frathouse really quickly.
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On May 02 2013 04:16 Glurkenspurk wrote:
Didn't Richard Lewis have a rage enema against Catz before? It was pretty clear he'd eventually write a buttfrustrated blog post about it thinly disguised as a news article.
i know very little about this guy except his writing style seems uneducated, and this is also how i felt reading the excerpt, obvious nonsense, personal vendetta stuff
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If I owned cadred.org I would fire this guy immediately. He doesn't even attempt to seem like it's an unbiased analysis, using sensationalist analogies and spurious logic.
And to all the people who are saying that a gaming house is not sustainable or whatever, so what? People can donate to keep the gaming house up for 1 more day if they want to. I can spend a dollar on a can of coke that will only last me 20 minutes. People can choose to support who they want with their dollar, and none of your own values apply to their money.
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EPT
