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On May 24 2014 14:35 FabledIntegral wrote:
Even if they didn't incorporate, they wouldn't be faced with criminal charges...?
No, they would not. If they didn't incorporate, they'd be either a limited liability partnership, a general partnership, or a sole proprietorship. In the first case, only "general partners" would be liable for the debt. In the last two cases, any of the owners would be liable for the debt, but they could always file bankruptcy as individuals, and even if they did not, they'd just have trashed credit and possibly someone seizing their wages.
The only way someone would be charged with a crime over a failed company would be if they knowingly misstated facts to investors to induce investment, with the intention of profiting personally from it.
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I knew something had to be serious wrong. Most of the guys at this studio were very passionate about starcraft and it seemed to be pretty sudden. I was a fan of NASL through it all. I think they got the cart before the horse somewhat, trying to give us a good stream. It's hard to keep spending many times what you're earning. I hope someone steps up and takes over the NA scene and the NA wcs that has the capital to back it.
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On May 24 2014 23:39 Axxis wrote:
I knew something had to be serious wrong. Most of the guys at this studio were very passionate about starcraft and it seemed to be pretty sudden. I was a fan of NASL through it all. I think they got the cart before the horse somewhat, trying to give us a good stream. It's hard to keep spending many times what you're earning. I hope someone steps up and takes over the NA scene and the NA wcs that has the capital to back it.
ESL is going to do a fine job at ensuring the NA scene is looked after 
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I'm not really surprised if this is the reason or part of the reason they disappeared. I keep thinking the other part of it is that they had competition so they couldn't get good enough broadcast contracts with Blizzard to keep things going. i think another reason is they didn't really ever have any real backing in the first place outside of maybe an angel investor or two. But the money wasn't there to keep things going when times were bad.
I still think CGS proved that esports just isn't ready for huge prize pools yet versus the viewership you get when you want to sell ad space. You have to really rethink things when they were broadcasting to everywhere but antartica. I say going to channel 101 is much easier than having to download mobile app (hi gomtv) or watching low bitrate twitch streams. It's tough out there.
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On May 24 2014 23:39 Axxis wrote:
I knew something had to be serious wrong. Most of the guys at this studio were very passionate about starcraft and it seemed to be pretty sudden. I was a fan of NASL through it all. I think they got the cart before the horse somewhat, trying to give us a good stream. It's hard to keep spending many times what you're earning. I hope someone steps up and takes over the NA scene and the NA wcs that has the capital to back it.
Gretorp was streaming the other day and I asked him a couple questions about SC2 and NASL.
Basically, Gretorp was more than a caster as they often worked overtime with no pay, doing editing, PowerPoint, and all this other background stuff that they didn't sign up for. They worked 7 days a week and worked so much that it sounds like they were burnt out. He often went to work, dreading work and working at NASL. The place was run poorly if I remember what he said correctly.
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On May 23 2014 14:03 Rho_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2014 13:45 Xiphos wrote:On May 23 2014 13:38 [SXG]Phantom wrote:On May 23 2014 11:40 lolmlg wrote:On May 23 2014 06:47 nkr wrote:
it's all in that big truck!
Also it's easy for everyone to be all hindsighthero, but the fact is when nasl was announced in the end of 2010 or early 2011, an investment like this didn't make people go "what are they doing?". People thought sc2 was the next big thing, but it ended up being LoL and Dota2 instead. Shit happens. I'm going to be real with you. Are you ready? Nobody with any intelligence thought that. SC2 was a disaster waiting to happen. Blizzard mishandled every aspect of their attempts to strong-arm the professional scene. They alienated the Brood War fanbase and meddled so thoroughly in the dynamics of Korean e-sports that they basically guaranteed that there couldn't be the kind of independent grassroots support that gave Brood War longevity. On top of this they simply designed an inferior game that inspired far more apologetics than devotion. In the end, the only source of strength for SC2 was Blizzard and everyone recognized it. It was what Blizzard wanted all along and they paid for it. While Brood War enjoyed the support of large sponsors, SC2 would collapse as soon as Blizzard lost interest. The volatility of the scene undermined it on a continual basis. Edit: And while it's obvious that DotA2 is enjoying success at the moment, a statement like "the next big thing was LoL and DotA2" is just a mix of wishful thinking and hubris. And do you think LoL would be this big without Riot pushing the game? You think LoL would be this big thanks to the community? Not exactly. Kespa BW was under heavily scrutiny from matchfixing and being labeled as "illegal tournaments" from Blizzard. But company still wants to take advantage from the rise of professional gaming in Korea. BW is no good for PR, barely anybody plays SC2 in Korea, and this new game called LoL is slowly gaining momentum with tons of potential. Logically, the companies shifted to LoL sponsorship. Riot game saw that opportunities and decide to bring LCS into the table to push the game even further. LoL had a sense of "grassroot movement" at its inception. So its a combination of both. You are full of it. There was no grassroots anything with LoL tourneys. There were basically no tournaments for a long time, and what was there was really, really poorly run. Then Riot got bought out for like $500 mil and threw money at the problem till it was fixed. What they did correctly was market the shit out of LCS in game, which blizz didn't do for SC2 for a long, long time.
Actually, it's not even that; Riot just keeps throwing money at it, and "the problem" isn't fixed- with the problem being unprofitability of esports. Even with how insanely huge LoL is atm, its esports scene is still a lossmaking operation for Riot. Riot's fine with this because they see the net loss they make on esports as an acceptable marketing expense for their game. Naturally, that kind of business model wouldn't work for NASL.
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Damn this is very sad news.  It sounds like some people are financially screwed now from taking a chance and investing into esports.
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On May 25 2014 11:43 geokilla wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2014 23:39 Axxis wrote:
I knew something had to be serious wrong. Most of the guys at this studio were very passionate about starcraft and it seemed to be pretty sudden. I was a fan of NASL through it all. I think they got the cart before the horse somewhat, trying to give us a good stream. It's hard to keep spending many times what you're earning. I hope someone steps up and takes over the NA scene and the NA wcs that has the capital to back it. Gretorp was streaming the other day and I asked him a couple questions about SC2 and NASL. Basically, Gretorp was more than a caster as they often worked overtime with no pay, doing editing, PowerPoint, and all this other background stuff that they didn't sign up for. They worked 7 days a week and worked so much that it sounds like they were burnt out. He often went to work, dreading work and working at NASL. The place was run poorly if I remember what he said correctly.
By the way, I still admire Gretorp for casting NASL season 1. He commented so many games. Unbelievable how he was able to do that.
We can talk all day about esports being profitable or not. It's guys like Gretorp who do the walk. My hat's off to Gretorp and all other NALS personnel.
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On May 25 2014 06:11 Baarn wrote:
I'm not really surprised if this is the reason or part of the reason they disappeared. I keep thinking the other part of it is that they had competition so they couldn't get good enough broadcast contracts with Blizzard to keep things going. i think another reason is they didn't really ever have any real backing in the first place outside of maybe an angel investor or two. But the money wasn't there to keep things going when times were bad.
I still think CGS proved that esports just isn't ready for huge prize pools yet versus the viewership you get when you want to sell ad space. You have to really rethink things when they were broadcasting to everywhere but antartica. I say going to channel 101 is much easier than having to download mobile app (hi gomtv) or watching low bitrate twitch streams. It's tough out there.
Dota 2 can run massive 700+million prizepools and still be quite profitable, its ultimately down to the very low player base that made tournaments unsustainable.
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On May 25 2014 23:36 uishax wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2014 06:11 Baarn wrote:
I'm not really surprised if this is the reason or part of the reason they disappeared. I keep thinking the other part of it is that they had competition so they couldn't get good enough broadcast contracts with Blizzard to keep things going. i think another reason is they didn't really ever have any real backing in the first place outside of maybe an angel investor or two. But the money wasn't there to keep things going when times were bad.
I still think CGS proved that esports just isn't ready for huge prize pools yet versus the viewership you get when you want to sell ad space. You have to really rethink things when they were broadcasting to everywhere but antartica. I say going to channel 101 is much easier than having to download mobile app (hi gomtv) or watching low bitrate twitch streams. It's tough out there. Dota 2 can run massive 700+million prizepools and still be quite profitable, its ultimately down to the very low player base that made tournaments unsustainable.
Sure with crowdfunding the prize pools go through the roof. TI4 is roughly around 6 million us dollars after 10 days of compendium sales. It takes a huge chunk of weight off of the main sponsors. The entire system is quite ingenious but how long will it last?
We can take a look at american football and it's massive playerbase. It's estimated that around 60% of americans have or had played the game and the viewership is just as high. That's why the league gets well over a billion dollars in tv rights each season from the networks. When it comes to video games you just don't have a strong enough conversion to turn more of those 27 million active daily or the 67 million monthly league of legends players into a viewer. Seems like most players rather just play the game then watch some streamed event. Then you have the viewer that really doesn't play the game at all. I tune into broodwar tournaments here and there. I don't actively play the game at all. So no I don't believe it is solely based on low playerbase that makes tournaments unsustainable.
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Articles like this are always a pain in the ass to syphon through. Basically all start-up companies have massive debt to begin with - even if you're backed by a billionaire, you still rely a lot on investors, loans, etc. to handle start-up costs. If you just front all the money to begin with, then it's just gone.
That's why most businesses care about being profitable in their day-to-day dealings. It isn't until you've had several years straight of profitability that you're out of the red.
So while $1.6mil in debt sounds big and scary...it's not so scary if they started $1.2mil in the hole, or something.
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On May 26 2014 09:17 Baarn wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2014 23:36 uishax wrote:On May 25 2014 06:11 Baarn wrote:
I'm not really surprised if this is the reason or part of the reason they disappeared. I keep thinking the other part of it is that they had competition so they couldn't get good enough broadcast contracts with Blizzard to keep things going. i think another reason is they didn't really ever have any real backing in the first place outside of maybe an angel investor or two. But the money wasn't there to keep things going when times were bad.
I still think CGS proved that esports just isn't ready for huge prize pools yet versus the viewership you get when you want to sell ad space. You have to really rethink things when they were broadcasting to everywhere but antartica. I say going to channel 101 is much easier than having to download mobile app (hi gomtv) or watching low bitrate twitch streams. It's tough out there. Dota 2 can run massive 700+million prizepools and still be quite profitable, its ultimately down to the very low player base that made tournaments unsustainable. Sure with crowdfunding the prize pools go through the roof. TI4 is roughly around 6 million us dollars after 10 days of compendium sales. It takes a huge chunk of weight off of the main sponsors. The entire system is quite ingenious but how long will it last?
We can take a look at american football and it's massive playerbase.It's estimated that around 60% of americans have or had played the game and the viewership is just as high. That's why the league gets well over a billion dollars in tv rights each season from the networks. When it comes to video games you just don't have a strong enough conversion to turn more of those 27 million active daily or the 67 million monthly league of legends players into a viewer. Seems like most players rather just play the game then watch some streamed event. Then you have the viewer that really doesn't play the game at all. I tune into broodwar tournaments here and there. I don't actively play the game at all. So no I don't believe it is solely based on low playerbase that makes tournaments unsustainable.
What an ludicrous comparison, football as a sport has already established a massive chain of industries surrounding it. It is broadcasted on TV, athletes are celebrities, magazines, merchandise, news reports all serve as advertisements for the sport.
What does LoL and Dota have? No ads, nothing mentioned anywhere except esports websites and a passing mention in the game client itself.
This is the reason for the difference in engagement.
More importantly, you are clueless about why Valve and Riot are so enthusiastic about esports.
Esports in itself is an advertisement for the game. Research shows esports watchers spend more and are more loyal to the game, so the game publisher directly benefits from increased player numbers and engagement, that indirect revenue is far higher than any advertising revenue that one person could possibly bring.
Hence, the requirement for 'conversion' is significantly lower for 'micro-transaction games' esports than traditional sports. Its too bad Blizzard never found a way to monetize starcraft 2 to support this esports model.
Lastly, you have no clue how big MOBAs are do you? The money contributed isn't 6 million, its 24 million, only 25% of that money went to that prize pool. There isn't even a need for a 'main sponsor' or any form of advertisement to support it. And as long as the playerbase increases, the scale of tournaments only go up, no issue of sustainability here.
Wait till you see Tencent copy this strategy, LoL can easily go over this amount several times and exceed most sports in terms of prize money.
SC2's failure is due to insufficient player-base and an erroneous way of monetization that led to lack of publisher support. Look at heartstone, Blizzard is pumping money into the esports scene, because it knows how indirectly profitable that investment is.
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On May 23 2014 11:40 lolmlg wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2014 06:47 nkr wrote:
it's all in that big truck!
Also it's easy for everyone to be all hindsighthero, but the fact is when nasl was announced in the end of 2010 or early 2011, an investment like this didn't make people go "what are they doing?". People thought sc2 was the next big thing, but it ended up being LoL and Dota2 instead. Shit happens. I'm going to be real with you. Are you ready? Nobody with any intelligence thought that.SC2 was a disaster waiting to happen. Blizzard mishandled every aspect of their attempts to strong-arm the professional scene. They alienated the Brood War fanbase and meddled so thoroughly in the dynamics of Korean e-sports that they basically guaranteed that there couldn't be the kind of independent grassroots support that gave Brood War longevity. On top of this they simply designed an inferior game that inspired far more apologetics than devotion. In the end, the only source of strength for SC2 was Blizzard and everyone recognized it. It was what Blizzard wanted all along and they paid for it. While Brood War enjoyed the support of large sponsors, SC2 would collapse as soon as Blizzard lost interest. The volatility of the scene undermined it on a continual basis. Edit: And while it's obvious that DotA2 is enjoying success at the moment, a statement like "the next big thing was LoL and DotA2" is just a mix of wishful thinking and hubris.
nobody except most of the people in this community. Back then, sc2 was synonymous with the term esports. People would say something along the lines of "hurting esports" when something negative happened in the sc2 scene.
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On May 26 2014 12:54 sharky246 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2014 11:40 lolmlg wrote:On May 23 2014 06:47 nkr wrote:
it's all in that big truck!
Also it's easy for everyone to be all hindsighthero, but the fact is when nasl was announced in the end of 2010 or early 2011, an investment like this didn't make people go "what are they doing?". People thought sc2 was the next big thing, but it ended up being LoL and Dota2 instead. Shit happens. I'm going to be real with you. Are you ready? Nobody with any intelligence thought that.SC2 was a disaster waiting to happen. Blizzard mishandled every aspect of their attempts to strong-arm the professional scene. They alienated the Brood War fanbase and meddled so thoroughly in the dynamics of Korean e-sports that they basically guaranteed that there couldn't be the kind of independent grassroots support that gave Brood War longevity. On top of this they simply designed an inferior game that inspired far more apologetics than devotion. In the end, the only source of strength for SC2 was Blizzard and everyone recognized it. It was what Blizzard wanted all along and they paid for it. While Brood War enjoyed the support of large sponsors, SC2 would collapse as soon as Blizzard lost interest. The volatility of the scene undermined it on a continual basis. Edit: And while it's obvious that DotA2 is enjoying success at the moment, a statement like "the next big thing was LoL and DotA2" is just a mix of wishful thinking and hubris. nobody except most of the people in this community. Back then, sc2 was synonymous with the term esports. People would say something along the lines of "hurting esports" when something negative happened in the sc2 scene.
I must agree with lolmlg. Maybe you are listening too much to casters or mainstream media (like "most of the people") but since before the launching SC2 was considered to be a disaster, just like now it's still considered an esport failure compared to SC1.
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On May 26 2014 13:08 DuduSC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2014 12:54 sharky246 wrote:On May 23 2014 11:40 lolmlg wrote:On May 23 2014 06:47 nkr wrote:
it's all in that big truck!
Also it's easy for everyone to be all hindsighthero, but the fact is when nasl was announced in the end of 2010 or early 2011, an investment like this didn't make people go "what are they doing?". People thought sc2 was the next big thing, but it ended up being LoL and Dota2 instead. Shit happens. I'm going to be real with you. Are you ready? Nobody with any intelligence thought that.SC2 was a disaster waiting to happen. Blizzard mishandled every aspect of their attempts to strong-arm the professional scene. They alienated the Brood War fanbase and meddled so thoroughly in the dynamics of Korean e-sports that they basically guaranteed that there couldn't be the kind of independent grassroots support that gave Brood War longevity. On top of this they simply designed an inferior game that inspired far more apologetics than devotion. In the end, the only source of strength for SC2 was Blizzard and everyone recognized it. It was what Blizzard wanted all along and they paid for it. While Brood War enjoyed the support of large sponsors, SC2 would collapse as soon as Blizzard lost interest. The volatility of the scene undermined it on a continual basis. Edit: And while it's obvious that DotA2 is enjoying success at the moment, a statement like "the next big thing was LoL and DotA2" is just a mix of wishful thinking and hubris. nobody except most of the people in this community. Back then, sc2 was synonymous with the term esports. People would say something along the lines of "hurting esports" when something negative happened in the sc2 scene. I must agree with lolmlg. Maybe you are listening too much to casters or mainstream media (like "most of the people") but since before the launching SC2 was considered to be a disaster, just like now it's still considered an esport failure compared to SC1.
What?! People were most hyped about sc2 before the launching. Its only after sc2 were losing in viewership to other games did people start to think otherwise. Sc2 was a game with potential that went downhill.
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On May 26 2014 12:54 sharky246 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2014 11:40 lolmlg wrote:On May 23 2014 06:47 nkr wrote:
it's all in that big truck!
Also it's easy for everyone to be all hindsighthero, but the fact is when nasl was announced in the end of 2010 or early 2011, an investment like this didn't make people go "what are they doing?". People thought sc2 was the next big thing, but it ended up being LoL and Dota2 instead. Shit happens. I'm going to be real with you. Are you ready? Nobody with any intelligence thought that.SC2 was a disaster waiting to happen. Blizzard mishandled every aspect of their attempts to strong-arm the professional scene. They alienated the Brood War fanbase and meddled so thoroughly in the dynamics of Korean e-sports that they basically guaranteed that there couldn't be the kind of independent grassroots support that gave Brood War longevity. On top of this they simply designed an inferior game that inspired far more apologetics than devotion. In the end, the only source of strength for SC2 was Blizzard and everyone recognized it. It was what Blizzard wanted all along and they paid for it. While Brood War enjoyed the support of large sponsors, SC2 would collapse as soon as Blizzard lost interest. The volatility of the scene undermined it on a continual basis. Edit: And while it's obvious that DotA2 is enjoying success at the moment, a statement like "the next big thing was LoL and DotA2" is just a mix of wishful thinking and hubris. nobody except most of the people in this community. Back then, sc2 was synonymous with the term esports. People would say something along the lines of "hurting esports" when something negative happened in the sc2 scene.
Funnily, the majority of MOBA people don't associate their games with "esport". Most of them associate LoL and DotA with "Oh you can get paid to play those games really handsomely".
"Esport" was a term created by Tastosis, Day[9], HuskyStarCraft in order to have the community rally together against one single purpose which worked out great back then. It served as propaganda. But this also created a sense of hostility toward people who attempt to criticize SC2, which then was synonymous with "killing/hurting esport" and how much of a demon you are for doing it.
And then when LoL caught on, many casters were saying how it was healthy to accept LoL into the "esport" club because it will also help SC2 for "esport" exposure. This thinking was totally based upon confusing "esport" with "traditional sport". Traditional sport have a much wider range of audiences that is socially accepted with anyone to improve their skills. "esport" is very much profit-based that puts on revenue first and foremost instead of building the culture around it because games will get replaced by another game. The sponsors sees this pattern and is more impatient with the viewership result than "traditional sports" ingrained in our genes so if a game isn't great enough to continually attract more viewers, sponsors will drop it in favor of other options such as MOBAs because those who are into professional gaming more or less attract the same demographics.
Another point to add is that in the realm of "electronic sport", the market is essentially a zero-sum game. SC2 community/developers didn't aggressively try to reinvent themselves to compete with the ever game design improvement and non-gameplay-oriented features for better experience.
All-in-all, the RTS "e-sport" community got WAAY too complacent to actively improve their scene and game. Now the the force of the market is doing its work.
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NASL's revenue is a derivative of the popularity of the game which is Blizzard's responsibility, so they dont really have control over their business model. But being in $1.6m in debt for giving out 300-400k prize pool in total means they fucked up the budgeting really bad.... I think it's all spent on salary as well so creditors can't recoup it.
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On May 26 2014 13:53 BlindKill wrote:
NASL's revenue is a derivative of the popularity of the game which is Blizzard's responsibility, so they dont really have control over their business model. But being in $1.6m in debt for giving out 300-400k prize pool in total means they fucked up the budgeting really bad.... I think it's all spent on salary as well so creditors can't recoup it.
I'm just going to assume you have no general business or economics knowledge given that comment.
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On May 25 2014 13:39 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2014 14:03 Rho_ wrote:On May 23 2014 13:45 Xiphos wrote:On May 23 2014 13:38 [SXG]Phantom wrote:On May 23 2014 11:40 lolmlg wrote:On May 23 2014 06:47 nkr wrote:
it's all in that big truck!
Also it's easy for everyone to be all hindsighthero, but the fact is when nasl was announced in the end of 2010 or early 2011, an investment like this didn't make people go "what are they doing?". People thought sc2 was the next big thing, but it ended up being LoL and Dota2 instead. Shit happens. I'm going to be real with you. Are you ready? Nobody with any intelligence thought that. SC2 was a disaster waiting to happen. Blizzard mishandled every aspect of their attempts to strong-arm the professional scene. They alienated the Brood War fanbase and meddled so thoroughly in the dynamics of Korean e-sports that they basically guaranteed that there couldn't be the kind of independent grassroots support that gave Brood War longevity. On top of this they simply designed an inferior game that inspired far more apologetics than devotion. In the end, the only source of strength for SC2 was Blizzard and everyone recognized it. It was what Blizzard wanted all along and they paid for it. While Brood War enjoyed the support of large sponsors, SC2 would collapse as soon as Blizzard lost interest. The volatility of the scene undermined it on a continual basis. Edit: And while it's obvious that DotA2 is enjoying success at the moment, a statement like "the next big thing was LoL and DotA2" is just a mix of wishful thinking and hubris. And do you think LoL would be this big without Riot pushing the game? You think LoL would be this big thanks to the community? Not exactly. Kespa BW was under heavily scrutiny from matchfixing and being labeled as "illegal tournaments" from Blizzard. But company still wants to take advantage from the rise of professional gaming in Korea. BW is no good for PR, barely anybody plays SC2 in Korea, and this new game called LoL is slowly gaining momentum with tons of potential. Logically, the companies shifted to LoL sponsorship. Riot game saw that opportunities and decide to bring LCS into the table to push the game even further. LoL had a sense of "grassroot movement" at its inception. So its a combination of both. You are full of it. There was no grassroots anything with LoL tourneys. There were basically no tournaments for a long time, and what was there was really, really poorly run. Then Riot got bought out for like $500 mil and threw money at the problem till it was fixed. What they did correctly was market the shit out of LCS in game, which blizz didn't do for SC2 for a long, long time. Actually, it's not even that; Riot just keeps throwing money at it, and "the problem" isn't fixed- with the problem being unprofitability of esports. Even with how insanely huge LoL is atm, its esports scene is still a lossmaking operation for Riot. Riot's fine with this because they see the net loss they make on esports as an acceptable marketing expense for their game. Naturally, that kind of business model wouldn't work for NASL.
ok well if it's a "marketing expense" then calling it a loss would be completely wrong. secondly do you have any data to back up what you are saying.
edit:
i couldn't find figures but i did find statements from riot saying that they lose money on it. but I think that's largely because it's new.
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On May 26 2014 13:53 BlindKill wrote:
NASL's revenue is a derivative of the popularity of the game which is Blizzard's responsibility, so they dont really have control over their business model. But being in $1.6m in debt for giving out 300-400k prize pool in total means they fucked up the budgeting really bad.... I think it's all spent on salary as well so creditors can't recoup it.
Considering IPL needed over a million to run a single weekend event, I'd say NASL's budgeting was a lot better than what you think.
And again, we have no idea what kind of debt NASL started with.
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EPT
