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On May 04 2013 00:02 oOOoOphidian wrote:
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.
the "begging" seems distasteful on the surface...
but...
many major pro North American sports teams get a free arena or stadium built for them to play in rent free.
their form of "begging" is vile ....because rather than directly asking real people for their own money they go after tax dollars.
so i say...
Root Gaming should feel free to have as many "fund raising drives" as they see fit.
Root Gaming's form of fund raising is still 10,000X better than the Phoenix Coyotes or Florida Marlins methods of raising money.
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A sustainable business should be able to support itself, if they can't earn their team house then it's hard to see how they'll maintain it, by paying for it e-sports fans are basically subsidising ROOT's mediocrity.
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On May 04 2013 03:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Root Gaming's form of fund raising is still 10,000X better than the Phoenix Coyotes or Florida Marlins methods of raising money.
This is the best point I've seen made, and a much better comparison than my publicly funded movies example. Two thumbs up.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
Richard raises some interesting points but i think he completely misses the idea of Good Will being a finite asset. On TL we often speak internally about how the biggest asset we have is the trust of our users. This is one of the most important factors in both keeping the site alive, and how we make decisions. Good Will "cost" is also one of the main drivers behind the reason that in 10+ years we've never asked for a donation (we can play semantics on pay-what-you-want on Liquid Rising if you want). Whats even more interesting is that you suspect you have large good will capital, you can "use" some of it in exposing sponsors (say in TSL with Razer, when Liquid signed barracuda and dozens of people wrote to them explaining why it was so good) and turn that into actual money. There's lots of examples of trying to generate good will in the scene like when Sundance gave all IPL5 ticket purchasers a discount....Beyond the obvious financial implications of having those attendees come to your event, there is some "he's a nice guy for doing that" generated amongst everyone else who had no intention of going to either. Actually tracking good will is a bit of a gut feeling i guess...so it's pretty murky first year jerk off economics.
The point (or theory) is that there is a general good will supply in the community that is expended as people fuck up...look at the kickstarter esports documentary scene.... Could we really expect fans to donate the way they did in the last year with literally zero returns? The same i expect to be true if Root screws this one up, so it doesn't matter if they are "worthy"....The scene will speak. Because the Sc2 scene isn't growing exponentially quickly anymore, Root could/would be punished by the scene simply by not being able to crowd source it anymore and would probably have a pretty bad name when going after additional sponsorship.
I think community members are smart enough to analyze risk/reward when they make these donations to something as (relatively) worthless as a gaming house in the first place.
editing for clarity.
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On May 03 2013 23:30 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 14:08 WolfintheSheep wrote: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.
Well...good for you? I don't really see why you felt the need to rant and rave about a fundraiser you didn't want to give money to...must be a killjoy when kids are trying to go on grad trips.
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This whole topic is really interesting and I've not had so much of a problem with the ROOT fundraiser, but this new donation to player thing in general. I think its OK to have it done on a tournament here and there...or for people who put up a vast amount of content and do contests etc have a subscribe button on Twitch.. Where i have a problem and actually find it kind of unsettling is some of these young twitch streamers who are basically giving up school, work, social things, all because they found out if they are entertaining enough they can move into an apartment and stream 8 hours a day and lots of people will donate money to them everyday. I realize this is a small number of people, but I think its bad on both ends...I'm going to use some of the WoW streamers like Reckful and Sodapoppin in particular. They aren't professional gamers, they aren't producing general gaming content. They are literally just giving up everything and making bank on MIND BLOWING amounts of cash donations every day. Is their stream entertaining? sure. But you have to wonder who is funding these continual donations and for younger people like Sodapoppin for example...is there more sinister intentions to these donators to connect with the streamers? I mean some of the size of the donations are hundreds of dollars, sometimes more than that..I don't know kids that have that type of money to blow, but there are a lot of rich creepers out there on the internet...ugh I don't know. I also find it kind of wrong that they are asking for so much money from people on a regular basis when there are so many charities and people that need REAL help, and also streams that have done for charity and made a real impact (the speed gaming for cancer comes to mind). All this is really strange and it doesn't feel right. They aren't going to be sustainable forever, they are putting off school or work and other valuable things for the promise of nothing in the future. You can definitely apply this to the SC2 streamers and ROOT to SOME extent. I think the TL guys have been right that if its a one time thing its probably OK and you should trust the viewers judgement. ROOTs intentions are to grow and eventually pick up sponsors and actually make cash like an EG or Complexity. Do I think they will or do I agree with it? doesnt really matter, and I think again the TL guys are right saying they will hurt themselves if they continue to fund their lifestyle/jobs off the community only because not only will the donate pool diminish, but it will make them look bad to businesses as well. Anyway, I don't think people should throw so much hate to the writer, its his opinion blog and its not like he made a terrible point....look how much valid discussion it has prompted.
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The article raises some interesting points, but I don't agree with all of them. Root is not a tax deductible charity. The disclosure rules that apply to such charities does not apply to Root. The tax benefits given to the donors does not apply to those who donate to Root. The people making the donations are well aware that they get no tax deductions from their donations. Thus, the analogy with charitable organizations fail.
Those who donate to Root likely want to improve the e-sports scene. It is effectively a donation without any tax benefits. The donors want to improve NA e-sports or Root gaming in particular. While I would never make a donation under these terms, we live in a society where people are free to make decisions. Given my background, like the article's author, I would not donate money to an organization that provides limited disclosures that are not audited and certified by an independent auditor. However, doing something like this costs money, and in the case of an organization with limited resources, these costs might be too burdensome. Thus, we the prospective donors, have the ability to choose whether we want to donate or not. Personally, all my donations go to helping the poor via properly vetted charitable organizations. Donating to e-sports or organizations with limited disclosures is something I would never do. Nonetheless, others don't share my concerns or priorities. Thus, while I share some of the author's concerns, I disagree with his conclusions.
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Canada13389 Posts
On May 04 2013 03:20 Kennigit wrote:
Richard raises some interesting points but i think he completely misses the idea of Good Will being a finite asset. On TL we often speak internally about how the biggest asset we have is the trust of our users. This is one of the most important factors in both keeping the site alive, and how we make decisions. Good Will "cost" is also one of the main drivers behind the reason that in 10+ years we've never asked for a donation (we can play semantics on pay-what-you-want on Liquid Rising if you want). Whats even more interesting is that you suspect you have large good will capital, you can "use" some of it in exposing sponsors (say in TSL with Razer, when Liquid signed barracuda and dozens of people wrote to them explaining why it was so good) and turn that into actual money. There's lots of examples of trying to generate good will in the scene like when Sundance gave all IPL5 ticket purchasers a discount....Beyond the obvious financial implications of having those attendees come to your event, there is some "he's a nice guy for doing that" generated amongst everyone else who had no intention of going to either. Actually tracking good will is a bit of a gut feeling i guess...so it's pretty murky first year jerk off economics.
The point (or theory) is that there is a general good will supply in the community that is expended as people fuck up...look at the kickstarter esports documentary scene.... Could we really expect fans to donate the way they did in the last year with literally zero returns? The same i expect to be true if Root screws this one up, so it doesn't matter if they are "worthy"....The scene will speak. Because the Sc2 scene isn't growing exponentially quickly anymore, Root could/would be punished by the scene simply by not being able to crowd source it anymore and would probably have a pretty bad name when going after additional sponsorship.
I think community members are smart enough to analyze risk/reward when they make these donations to something as (relatively) worthless as a gaming house in the first place.
editing for clarity.
Good and valid points. But I feel like the language used by Richard is the bigger issue. He demonizes ROOT and also acts as though they are completely irrelevant in the SC2 scene. This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
When you think about it, they have a lot of players in the WCS and they also have a lot of players in Shoutcraft AM. I feel as though, if the north american scene were more isolated from the other scenes from a tournament standpoint we would see ROOT doing really really well and better than they are now as an organization.
I think that there is a lot of good will in this ROOT house, and if it doesn't do well then that sucks. But if does even remotely well or moderately better than the EG house or MoW house we could see ROOT really take advantage.
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Honestly I view donations exactly the way I view tipping a waiter.
They give you shitty service? Don't tip.
Are they giving you something you enjoy and want to be kind? Give them a tip. (Usually I do 15% to waiters but that is irrelevant.)
I honestly don't know what all the fuss is about.
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On May 04 2013 04:03 KaiserKieran wrote:
Honestly I view donations exactly the way I view tipping a waiter.
They give you shitty service? Don't tip.
Are they giving you something you enjoy and want to be kind? Give them a tip. (Usually I do 15% to waiters but that is irrelevant.)
I honestly don't know what all the fuss is about.
There shouldn't be any. How this comes as a big surprise to some people is strange to me. The foreign SC2 scene is not blossoming into some booming industry. It has the potential to, but its still very young in the process. If your'e not a fan of Root don't donate to them. But, donating to any foreign sc2 team for any sort of reason isn't just helping their team, but the foreign scene in general. This is obviously under the pretense its going to a cause to help expand their teams basis.
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On May 04 2013 03:27 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2013 23:30 Defacer wrote:On May 03 2013 14:08 WolfintheSheep wrote: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. Well...good for you? I don't really see why you felt the need to rant and rave about a fundraiser you didn't want to give money to...must be a killjoy when kids are trying to go on grad trips.
Hey, I didn't start the topic or the thread. Who's ranting and raving?
I've also gone on record saying it's unfair to single Root Gaming out. Crowd sourcing is blurring the line between entrepreneurship and entitlement culture. And there's very little accountability in some instances.
For example, if Root fails to move into a team house, are they going to reimburse donors? As Kennigit points out above, Root is actually assuming a pretty big risk. They've hit their fundraising target, if they don't follow through, they're screwed.
Speaking of grad trips, if Catz actually came to my house, knocked on my door and asked me for money, than sure, maybe I'd chip in ten bucks. 
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion?
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On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion?
Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community?
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On May 04 2013 05:35 Cyrak wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion? Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community?
It's seriously baffling that people could suggest something like this. I love root, but teams and leagues are just not all equal. NASL Season 1 is just as good as Code S guys.
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On May 04 2013 05:51 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 05:35 Cyrak wrote:On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion? Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community? It's seriously baffling that people could suggest something like this. I love root, but teams and leagues are just not all equal. NASL Season 1 is just as good as Code S guys.
I think a better argument for this guy would of been that the root players are nearly just as popular as EG / TL to an extent. There is still a clear difference in numbers, but root team members regularly draw anywhere from 500 viewers to 4 to 5k on good days. Comparing the teams doesn't really make sense because sources of funding how they are run etc. is vastly different.
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On May 02 2013 08:47 RebelSlayer wrote:
I thought it was about the basketball player Richard Lewis who used to be on the sonics.
You're thinking Rashard Lewis.
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Canada13389 Posts
On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion?
I mean with regards to how visible they are in the scene.
With regards to foreign, non korean players i think ROOT does a very good job of advertising themselves. Look at how much they stream, and the kind of support they received for their gaming house. I think its safe to say that the team promotes itself very well and is quite popular in the foreign scene.
I guess, I should have said within the North American, or foreigner scene. If you exclude the korean players and korean scene from EG and TL ROOT gets their name out there just as well and is represented in tournaments as well.
I don't want to imply that ROOT is more popular or just as popular as EG and TL necessarily, but if you look at results within the foreign scene amongst foreigners ROOT is pretty consistent in placing well in tournaments/teamleagues and promoting themselves regularly.
Again, within the north american scene being key there. I don't have access to specific numbers. But ROOT players are streaming just as much as TL and EG players (in general). They do well in teamleagues amongst the foreign teams, and they continue to have a strong showing in regional tournaments. For example WCS this year and last as well as with the upcoming shoutcraft tournament. ROOT players like catz also participate in community events (like TLAttack and SotG/Meta) just as much as your usual EG and TL counterparts in these talk shows. Although EG might have an edge with ITG since it is a 3 person EG lineup on that show.
Are all ROOT players skilled and relevant in that sense when compared to the EG/TL lineups as a whole? No, not at all. The korean EG and TL players will always mop up the ROOT players. But if you look at the foreign players I would say they are pretty even. If you had a foreigner lineup TL vs ROOT, I feel like ROOT might have a deeper currently active player pool to choose from and win out. They are far far more relevant than FXO NA and other foreigner teams that don't have big pockets. Hell, I feel like ROOT retains much more relevancy to the community than even Complexity does at the moment.
I am not speaking about relevancy in terms of pure skill but in exposure and how they approach the community. I feel like no other team aside from EG or TL could garner the same support for a teamhouse in the way ROOT did last month. This is the kind of relevancy I am talking about.
On May 04 2013 05:51 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 05:35 Cyrak wrote:On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion? Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community? It's seriously baffling that people could suggest something like this. I love root, but teams and leagues are just not all equal. NASL Season 1 is just as good as Code S guys.
And I know they aren't the same but thats kind of the point. ROOT speaks to the foreigner fans in a way TL and EG can't quite. They push for North American scene growth and you see a lot of investment into that. While they have picked up some koreans, their main focus is not on Korea necessarily in the same way EG and TL. Granted, EG/TL focusing on the korean scene and that visibility is extremely intelligent and I think its the best thing moving forward. They are more relevent to StarCraft 2 as a whole in this way. But my point here, and I hope my ramblings don't have it get lost is that if you look at North American teams and North American players, it would be wrong to say that EG and TL are so so so far ahead of relevancy that there is no question that ROOT is not relevant.
I think this whole good will thing was a little short sighted, I mean, picking an expensive place to live and setting up infrastructure from the ground up is an immense task that cannot be done on donations alone. This is why I didn't donate, I don't have pockets deep enough to contribute to that kind of expansion and exploration. I think its a good goal and I hope they get there but I can't afford to put my money into that kind of good will project. To bash on ROOT for being ROOT though in the way Richard Lewis did is a bit of poor journalism. I mean, the whole motivation behind the house is to try and motivate and grow the NA scene, so for a team that focuses on NA and does well within NA to do so makes the idea of the team house a good idea (even if it isn't implemented in the best way).
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On May 04 2013 06:03 Nerski wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 05:51 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 05:35 Cyrak wrote:On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion? Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community? It's seriously baffling that people could suggest something like this. I love root, but teams and leagues are just not all equal. NASL Season 1 is just as good as Code S guys. I think a better argument for this guy would of been that the root players are nearly just as popular as EG / TL to an extent. There is still a clear difference in numbers, but root team members regularly draw anywhere from 500 viewers to 4 to 5k on good days. Comparing the teams doesn't really make sense because sources of funding how they are run etc. is vastly different.
This brings us back to the question he asked before though. Are stream views really a solid metric by which to judge whether a team is "relevant" to North American SC2?
There is a finite supply of stream viewers most of whom are hardcore SC2 content fiends. EG dominates the stream viewing population on a daily basis; as I type this there are 3 EG players and 2 ROOT players featured on TL live streams. EG has a combined total of 9500 viewers whereas root has a combined total of 159.
Liquid players seem to stream less but are always competing in top tier tournaments from MLG to Dreamhack to GSL. I just don't understand how anyone can take an objective glance at these teams and how "relevant" they are to SC2 and come to any conclusion other than the fact that EG and TL are in a totally other dimension from ROOT both to the casual viewer and to the international viewer.
There is a strange sort of feedback loop effect that happens in communities that are as isolated as the hardcore SC2 community is which distorts perception of how outsiders or even the engaged non-hardcore view things. It is helpful to remember that and to try to gain some perspective when making judgments about objective reality.
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Canada13389 Posts
On May 04 2013 06:26 Cyrak wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 06:03 Nerski wrote:On May 04 2013 05:51 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 05:35 Cyrak wrote:On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion? Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community? It's seriously baffling that people could suggest something like this. I love root, but teams and leagues are just not all equal. NASL Season 1 is just as good as Code S guys. I think a better argument for this guy would of been that the root players are nearly just as popular as EG / TL to an extent. There is still a clear difference in numbers, but root team members regularly draw anywhere from 500 viewers to 4 to 5k on good days. Comparing the teams doesn't really make sense because sources of funding how they are run etc. is vastly different. This brings us back to the question he asked before though. Are stream views really a solid metric by which to judge whether a team is "relevant" to North American SC2? There is a finite supply of stream viewers most of whom are hardcore SC2 content fiends. EG dominates the stream viewing population on a daily basis; as I type this there are 3 EG players and 2 ROOT players featured on TL live streams. EG has a combined total of 9500 viewers whereas root has a combined total of 159. Liquid players seem to stream less but are always competing in top tier tournaments from MLG to Dreamhack to GSL. I just don't understand how anyone can take an objective glance at these teams and how "relevant" they are to SC2 and come to any conclusion other than the fact that EG and TL are in a totally other dimension from ROOT both to the casual viewer and to the international viewer. There is a strange sort of feedback loop effect that happens in communities that are as isolated as the hardcore SC2 community is which distorts perception of how outsiders or even the engaged non-hardcore view things. It is helpful to remember that and to try to gain some perspective when making judgments about objective reality.
Right, good point. I agree that EG does get more viewers as a marketing machine. But when players like Catz and Minigun stream for example they pull in good viewership similar in number to incontrol and suppy. Idra has crazy high stream viewers that go beyond any other stream short of Jaedong's on a regular basis. I am sure that if Machine was to stream he wouldn't pull in too too many more viewers than other ROOT players either.
I think I initially expressed my position poorly :/
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On May 04 2013 06:33 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2013 06:26 Cyrak wrote:On May 04 2013 06:03 Nerski wrote:On May 04 2013 05:51 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 05:35 Cyrak wrote:On May 04 2013 05:16 Kennigit wrote:On May 04 2013 03:55 ZeromuS wrote:
This isn't true. ROOT is perhaps just are relevant as EG and TL within the North American scene.
Could you explain the metrics you would use to come to such a conclusion? Reddit baby! Didn't you know that reddit is the only real reflection of the SC2 community? It's seriously baffling that people could suggest something like this. I love root, but teams and leagues are just not all equal. NASL Season 1 is just as good as Code S guys. I think a better argument for this guy would of been that the root players are nearly just as popular as EG / TL to an extent. There is still a clear difference in numbers, but root team members regularly draw anywhere from 500 viewers to 4 to 5k on good days. Comparing the teams doesn't really make sense because sources of funding how they are run etc. is vastly different. This brings us back to the question he asked before though. Are stream views really a solid metric by which to judge whether a team is "relevant" to North American SC2? There is a finite supply of stream viewers most of whom are hardcore SC2 content fiends. EG dominates the stream viewing population on a daily basis; as I type this there are 3 EG players and 2 ROOT players featured on TL live streams. EG has a combined total of 9500 viewers whereas root has a combined total of 159. Liquid players seem to stream less but are always competing in top tier tournaments from MLG to Dreamhack to GSL. I just don't understand how anyone can take an objective glance at these teams and how "relevant" they are to SC2 and come to any conclusion other than the fact that EG and TL are in a totally other dimension from ROOT both to the casual viewer and to the international viewer. There is a strange sort of feedback loop effect that happens in communities that are as isolated as the hardcore SC2 community is which distorts perception of how outsiders or even the engaged non-hardcore view things. It is helpful to remember that and to try to gain some perspective when making judgments about objective reality. Right, good point. I agree that EG does get more viewers as a marketing machine. But when players like Catz and Minigun stream for example they pull in good viewership similar in number to incontrol and suppy. Idra has crazy high stream viewers that go beyond any other stream short of Jaedong's on a regular basis. I am sure that if Machine was to stream he wouldn't pull in too too many more viewers than other ROOT players either. I think I initially expressed my position poorly :/
Demuslim is also EG and draws in more than Idra, by a substantial amount most often.
And both Idra and Demuslim draw 2-3x more viewers than even the most popular of the Root players. (on average)
I would agree that most of them are on-par with iNcontroL in numbers.
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|
|
EPT
