Fallen Starleague - Page 6

On March 09 2014 12:15 WikidSik wrote:
The problem was alot deeper than the NASL, it was the entire NA sc2 scene at the time, where individual profit came before the greater good of the scene.

edit: Didnt Dj Wheat say the same thing happened with counter strike? people were fucking around putting on super expensive shows (and I guess trying to make a profit)?

On March 09 2014 12:58 Plansix wrote:
TB dropping the truth. There is a reason that the majority of Dota 2 events start online with an offline finals. Events need to focus more on staying in the black and not wasting money trying to please every end of the community.

On March 09 2014 13:09 TotalBiscuit wrote:


In the case of DOTA it's even more important because of the huge travel costs associated with flying 5 people per team around minimum.

DOTA2 started off right though, Valve built tools into the game to increase sponsor ROI and for teams to monetise and make some money by selling tickets and custom items/couriers. Their crowdfunding model for TI4 is savvy, they are innovating on all fronts and of course they have the benefit of just being a more popular game.

SC2 popped up just a little too early, I feel if it had come later it would have been able to learn a lot of lessons from the successes of LoL and DOTA2. We started off as the biggest eSport and then we got overtaken but wanted to try and maintain the same kind of size. We can't, we have to focus on sustainability. We are fortunate that Blizzard is bankrolling WCS in that regard but other events either have to diversify the games they cover (which is why ESL covers League and DOTA, because thats where the money is) or rebuild a sustainable model from the ground up. Clan Wars is an example of that. Clan Wars is running in the black. Barely, but it's making a small profit for MLG and we planned it to work out that way. I don't honestly see much of a future for SC2 only offline events outside of WCS or smaller venue stuff like Red Bull Training Grounds, at least in the long-term right now.

On March 09 2014 13:17 Wombat_NI wrote:
Well yes TB, but the (albeit unexpanded) point about the NA scene's issues being a bit more deep-rooted is one worth checking out. On healthy competition, I'm not an insider, and indeed from what I've heard the NASL (or indeed other orgs) running WCS don't make money from those. The issue with the WCS system was that organisations such as the NASL were really restricted over what they could do to compete, and that was at the behest of the owner of the IP.

While people refusing to pay for events and content is an issue, you're being over the top as to quite how much of the community are against that, unless you know the numbers which will give you an advantage over me in that regard. While I feel some elements of our community are appallingly stingy, this community also funded flights for the likes of MKP to attend foreign tournaments and do speak with their wallets (for the good) on occasion.

MLGs Arena problem was a decline in production standards, lack of studio atmosphere and really just being a big departure for the classic MLG weekend marathon tournament with all the atmosphere and hype it entailed, spoken as somebody who paid for the first two. They were introducing great features like first-person sidestreams that I would happily pay a lot for a whole weekend event, but sadly such innovations haven't caught on.

An oft not-touched about issue is the sheer expense of funding Korean flights to the events that they now dominate as well. I love to see them, but I don't see how it makes for a sustainable future if such overheads exist and the burden is on the broadcaster with WCS. This may be wrong, but from what I have read here and elsewhere the broadcaster has to pay out for those flights right?

The NASL began with Jinro against IdrA. Both have retired from the game. The world into which the NASL was born has always seemed like another era. Even more so now.

On March 09 2014 13:17 Wombat_NI wrote:
Well yes TB, but the (albeit unexpanded) point about the NA scene's issues being a bit more deep-rooted is one worth checking out. On healthy competition, I'm not an insider, and indeed from what I've heard the NASL (or indeed other orgs) running WCS don't make money from those. The issue with the WCS system was that organisations such as the NASL were really restricted over what they could do to compete, and that was at the behest of the owner of the IP.

While people refusing to pay for events and content is an issue, you're being over the top as to quite how much of the community are against that, unless you know the numbers which will give you an advantage over me in that regard. While I feel some elements of our community are appallingly stingy, this community also funded flights for the likes of MKP to attend foreign tournaments and do speak with their wallets (for the good) on occasion.

MLGs Arena problem was a decline in production standards, lack of studio atmosphere and really just being a big departure for the classic MLG weekend marathon tournament with all the atmosphere and hype it entailed, spoken as somebody who paid for the first two. They were introducing great features like first-person sidestreams that I would happily pay a lot for a whole weekend event, but sadly such innovations haven't caught on.

An oft not-touched about issue is the sheer expense of funding Korean flights to the events that they now dominate as well. I love to see them, but I don't see how it makes for a sustainable future if such overheads exist and the burden is on the broadcaster with WCS. This may be wrong, but from what I have read here and elsewhere the broadcaster has to pay out for those flights right?

On March 09 2014 13:42 TotalBiscuit wrote:


Well honestly I don't see how you could run WCS without having a profitable wing doing other games. It's obvious WCS does not provide enough funding to sustain your entire company. ESL is doing well because it's also doing League and DOTA, they also happen to have the lions share of the viewerbase for weekly SC2 content and the prime-time slot which makes them pretty much untouchable. GOM has been kept afloat with Blizzard money for god knows how long and has of course also been diversifying into other games such as World of Tanks, though for the longest time they had enough community good will behind them (plus you had no fucking choice really) to sell premium subscriptions at a hefty pricetag. Recently that has dropped off significantly due to service problems on their end and a lack of incentive to purchase due to WCS offering a lot more stuff for free anyway.

Numbers wise I have a few figures. Adblocking stand at anywhere between 40-50% on average and the problem is compounded by an inability to properly serve ads to a myriad of different regional demographics, leaving the US and UK as the best possible ad demographics, but the EU as a whole being the largest viewerbase for SC2. Twitch and Youtube CPM is all over the place, fill-rate is difficult to keep up to a high standard so even if you do have good CPM you get shafted in the eCPM stakes because maybe only 1 in 3 views is actually being monetised. Outside of that there's nothing I could publicly share about the operating costs of one of the larger organisations.

I'd like to point out that the community efforts to fund MKPs flight etc were years ago. I was around at that time and I do remember the excellent works of the community. I remember the SCReddit Invitational, funding flights, funding tournaments, all sorts of things, but that was a different time and that does not happen anymore. There is plenty of blame to go around, not least of which has to fall upon those people that resorted to crowdfunding and basically poisoned the well by producing a poor quality product. Sons of Starcraft is the obvious soft target there but even earlier efforts like Liquid Rising failed to produce real results. That said some blame must lie on the community, the witchhunt surrounding Pizza.gg was ridiculous, the ROOT house even more so, particularly when people accused ROOT of not producing the content they had promised when in reality they had and people just hadn't paid attention. The willingness of the community to shell out monetarily is at an all-time low and who can blame them? They're sullen, wistful for past glories and looking at a seemingly dim future. Then we have a small but very loud portion of that community that is fucking cancerous and preaches doom and gloom constantly while attacking the people who try and hold the scene up. Did you see that recent Reddit thread about Take accusing him of using pirated Windows software? I hoped that thread was just joking around and a few of the posts were but there were actual highly upvoted posts lambasting Take, slamming him for asking people not to use Adblock and then apparently using "pirated" software (of course there was no actual proof of that). Fucking cancerous witchhunters that are still loud and proud in our community. Those kind of people would have been crushed by popular opinion in the past but not these days, not in 2014. Oh no, the community crucifies its betters on a regular basis and trust me, anyone still in this scene and still contributing is doing out of raw fucking passion because god knows anything less than a burning love for this game would have any sane person saying "fuck this, these people are awful, why am I wasting my time here?". Reddit is the worst culprit due to a lack of moderation but it's present on TL too, it just gets hit with the banhammer a lot more frequently. That doesn't make the attitude go away, it just keeps it out of the public eye.

Anyway sorry about that, I wanted to get it off my chest. The scene is sick, it needs some serious chemo. My plan in 2014 is to go all-in on Starcraft with as many cool events as possible because that is the only thing at this point that will help. You cannot fight these people on forums and expect to win. Onto your other points.

I think MLG Arenas were a viable format that got shot down way before their time and that was the communities fault for the most part. People just couldn't accept that no, they couldn't have everything for free. The model was solid, appeal to hardcore fans with top quality players, focus entirely on the games. Production values at those events were SIIICKKK, there was very little at the time that could compete. Solid camera work, well lit studios, 1080p streams, great audio, you name it. The only thing lacking was a crowd (and please, do not mistake atmosphere for production values, they are not the same thing). Those innovations like player streams were all aimed at the hardcore fan. I doubt it could work anymore, we have too much high quality SC2 for free, but back then getting that many top quality Koreans together outside of GSL just didn't happen that often, so there was interest. You're right, flights cost quite a bit. Minimum it costs Axiom $1,000 per player per season for WCS and that's just for flights. Depending on the time of year that can rise to $1,500 and that doesn't cover other costs such as food and taxi fares. Europe is generally worse, depends where the event is. That said, depending on the size of your arena event, you can make it work. Let's say you go 8 man round robin like one of the arenas did. $1k per flight, 3 days hotel, maybe 4 per person, you can probably get them to at least go 2 to a room, factor in taxi fares, catering, lets say $1.5k per player if you budget well. That's probably the lions share of your costs, though then you have to pay lets say, 3-4 camera operators, 2-4 casters, maybe a host if you're feeling fancy, 5-6 production crew, 12 hours a day for 2 days. If you kept your casting in-house for the most part and brought maybe 2 high profiles in to boost the ratings... you could keep that from spiralling out of control cost-wise, particularly if a lot of your guys are already salaried anyway and would be paid regardless. Then you have to think well, how many tickets do I need to sell to break even? Can I sell an additional sponsorship like a Dr Pepper Early access pregame show? Can I get anything additional out of my existing sponsors for this event or is it just including in what they give me every month?

Honestly? Those arena formats are probably some of the most sustainable you'll find outside of online only events. The travel costs are obviously high but it's not outside the realms of possibility to break even on those. I'd actually love for Adam to come in and tell us how much an arena cost to run. Honestly I can only guess, knowing how much those staff get paid, casters get paid and how much it costs to get a player from one side of the globe to the other and back, but seriously, we need to be looking at more stuff like that, more ways to directly monetise a product because the traditional ad monetisation ain't working anymore and even when it was it was never enough to begin with.

On March 09 2014 13:51 iloveav wrote:
Unfortunatelly the games popularity has decresed to the extent that some organizations leave the scene since the bussiness plan is no longer valid.