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On March 13 2015 21:09 SC2Toastie wrote:
I find it kinda sad actually, all the complaints regarding this subject and nobody who can properly defend why they should get free, high-quality service.
The reason for providing a high-quality service is to attract viewers.
I (and probably many others) will not watch "Low" or "Medium".
It's not as if there are not many alternative pass-times...
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Showing Medium if they really think th ey have the better league.
Unfortunately there's enough KR SC2 shown in high quality now with games that are on par with GSL's experience means that they should be offering a higher quality service because they actually have competition for viewership
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Very few things that are free are free because the company providing them feels especially charitable.
Free streams are usually paid for by the advertisers. GSL advertisers being mostly Korean, they have very little to gain from advertising outside Korea.. which means that some of the revenue needed to achieve GSL's target profits needs to come from stream subscriptions.
It's common sense for anyone who knows anything about how businesses work.
Anyone claiming "they're greedy" or "they make enough money already" is either naive or talking out of their ass.
Perhaps the increase to Medium is because they feel pressure to compete with other tournaments who generally display their games in better quality. We don't have any of GSL's data and we can't make any assumptions about their motives.
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Congrats on belatedly achieving the bare minimum I guess?
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On March 13 2015 23:50 DinoMight wrote:
Very few things that are free are free because the company providing them feels especially charitable.
Free streams are usually paid for by the advertisers. GSL advertisers being mostly Korean, they have very little to gain from advertising outside Korea.. which means that some of the revenue needed to achieve GSL's target profits needs to come from stream subscriptions.
It's common sense for anyone who knows anything about how businesses work.
Anyone claiming "they're greedy" or "they make enough money already" is either naive or talking out of their ass.
Perhaps the increase to Medium is because they feel pressure to compete with other tournaments who generally display their games in better quality. We don't have any of GSL's data and we can't make any assumptions about their motives.
Common sense says that GSL is not managing their foreign audience best possible way. There are few options how make it better.
- Increase production quality (stream, breaktime program, other stuff)
- Downsize people working there to match quality so far to increase profit margin
- Cut english stream and focus Korean only
- Offer outside caster/company provide english casting/production
If I would be boss there I would just cut weakest link out (revenue/profit)
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United Kingdom20308 Posts
yay 480p with too low bitrate for 480p!
>_________________>
It's almost 1/5'th of the mainstream screen resolution since 5-10 years ago, and 1/20'th of 4k! Almost!
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For people who compare this to foreign offline tournaments: Has there been a major foreign tournament that has bothered getting Korean casters or seriously focused on Korean audiences who might be outside of the operating scope of the tournament's main sponsors? As far as I know, they don't bother trying  Saying "GSL should have free HD because foreign tournaments do too" is the wrong comparison. The GSL equivalent would just be getting rid of its foreign language accommodation entirely and then just removing its region lock on HD Korean content. Would that be better than having a free foreign-language stream in medium quality?
For the people who compare this to how GOMTV used to run things: ESF is dead, GSTL is gone, and the scene has shrunk considerably since those days (in terms of the number of players and teams it can support). These are signs that the old way of running things was just not economically viable. Without seeing GOMTV's financial statements, my guess (just a guess!) is that this is not a greedy grab for profits by a hugely profitable company; NSSL offers far superior service in terms of stream quality and VOD availability, all for free, so as a pure profit move, not matching this standard is not the optimal business choice, which suggests that it's closer to a necessity than just a profit play. It's also not true that offering HD quality is "free"; it's a cost to GSL in the sense that they're giving up one more potential revenue stream, which perhaps they can't do.
I don't subscribe to GSL and probably won't, because I only have time for one league and NSSL offers the better product in terms of cost-to-content quality ratio (because it's 0!). But I don't blame GSL at all for trying to make more money, and if I had time to watch their content consistently, I'd think that what they are asking is a very reasonable price to pay as a working adult 
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On March 13 2015 19:38 neptunusfisk wrote:Yay medium, very nice ._. In Korea, vods and streams are free.. but they region block the KR videos? And whine about production cost? It is not like it will cost them anything to NOT region block the KR vods... maybe the increased viewership can make them afford artosis? 
Technically, we get the English vod of the first game of each set (Bo3, Bo5) etc. free on youtube right now. But for next season, if people act before March 21st, ALL the English vods will be free:
As of this writing, the channel is under 54,000 subs, so we really need to move soon as a community if we want to this happen.
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If you can read the numbers clearly enough then the quality is sufficient imo.
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On March 13 2015 19:45 Alphyr wrote:
Yay! Medium! Still ugly GSL! Thanks god im French and OGaming stream in high quality!
lol im not even french and i find myself watching the OGaming stream more and more even with gsl starting to show rebroadcast i rather watch better quality and not understand a word.(which doesn't bother me i can cast it for myself if i need LOL)
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Won't watch it anyway, proleague and the other starleague is free, and so is pretty much every other tournament.
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It doesn't matter. The GSL has already become less relevant with the rise of the ESL and WCS America, along with ProLeague. Viewership on the GSL is down. Just look at Twitch numbers while the GSL is running, and compare to ESL on a regular day. The difference is like night and day. I can kind of understand they need to generate some revenue, but this is just driving viewers away, sabotaging their revenue stream.
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On March 14 2015 00:42 Kofuku wrote:For people who compare this to foreign offline tournaments: Has there been a major foreign tournament that has bothered getting Korean casters or seriously focused on Korean audiences who might be outside of the operating scope of the tournament's main sponsors? As far as I know, they don't bother trying Saying "GSL should have free HD because foreign tournaments do too" is the wrong comparison. The GSL equivalent would just be getting rid of its foreign language accommodation entirely and then just removing its region lock on HD Korean content. Would that be better than having a free foreign-language stream in medium quality? For the people who compare this to how GOMTV used to run things: ESF is dead, GSTL is gone, and the scene has shrunk considerably since those days (in terms of the number of players and teams it can support). These are signs that the old way of running things was just not economically viable. Without seeing GOMTV's financial statements, my guess (just a guess!) is that this is not a greedy grab for profits by a hugely profitable company; NSSL offers far superior service in terms of stream quality and VOD availability, all for free, so as a pure profit move, not matching this standard is not the optimal business choice, which suggests that it's closer to a necessity than just a profit play. It's also not true that offering HD quality is "free"; it's a cost to GSL in the sense that they're giving up one more potential revenue stream, which perhaps they can't do. I don't subscribe to GSL and probably won't, because I only have time for one league and NSSL offers the better product in terms of cost-to-content quality ratio (because it's 0!). But I don't blame GSL at all for trying to make more money, and if I had time to watch their content consistently, I'd think that what they are asking is a very reasonable price to pay as a working adult
that's really well said, have foreign tournaments had korean casters or production consistently? does the combined WCS america/europe have it? I think GSL charging a price for the premium level streaming service and resolution is fine, you either buy a product or you don't, but it seems that there are many who just expect it to come free because "everyone else" makes their highest quality stream free or because it's (in their opinion with no tangible evidence) hurting the scene.
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They took it away and gave it back to make us appreciate how generous they are
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medium is fine to watch on, you're a spoiled HD brat if you think it isn't
low on the other hand is unwatchable except on a phone
the bigger issue is the paywall on vods, im not going to bother watching g1s of matches i cant finish
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United States2103 Posts
Better I suppose. I like being able to read supplies accurately.
Also, while other tournaments, like NSSL, have high quality and stuff, I don't think the "competition" between the them for the foreign market is strong enough for that to be a major factor. Their viewers probably aren't going down much because of NSSL. But they might lose viewership for having shit quality.
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Nice , medium is enough for me to watch.
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United States337 Posts
On March 13 2015 22:15 Shuffleblade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 21:48 SC2Toastie wrote:On March 13 2015 21:41 Shuffleblade wrote:On March 13 2015 21:18 SC2Toastie wrote:On March 13 2015 21:12 Shuffleblade wrote:On March 13 2015 20:54 SC2Toastie wrote:On March 13 2015 20:45 Shuffleblade wrote:
People are not entitled to free 720p and that is not what people are saying, they are saying that this is working against the growth of SC2 and is just a cheap ass way of trying to coax people into giving them money. I wouldn't mind subbing GSL and I have before! But not this season when they fucked us over and only gave low quality for free.
Now when they stopped with that I will probably sub them just to show them what kind of decisions garners support and which doesn't. I don't mind paying for GSL but not when they treat their foriegn fans like shit while sucking up to the korean crowd. Whining on every single forum you can find that you are angry people dare asking 15 bucks for (assuming 1 hour/series here) approx. 40+20+4+2+1 = 67 hours of Code S (excluding hype content/interview/swarm host games, it's close to double this in total broadcast time). Well... I simply don't understand that, sorry. Medium quality is obviously good, but on the other hand, they give every first game of a series for free as well. The 'you're screwing newcomers' argument is rubbish. People that are new to the scene don't go to the highest level Korean competitive tournament without somebody pointing them that way. And even if they do, there's plenty of tournament Blizzards forces to be free. Sad thing is, internet cheapskates would rather have a company go bankrupt than just pay a tiny amount of money for the best content they can get. Dude, like plenty of people have said before, the highest level of starcraft 2 is what gets people into the scene. You telling me that someone starts watching Sc2 first time and gets hooked on watching Winter or whoever stream? Free watchable tournament streams are the best and most common way of getting people into the sc2 scene (with that I mean into the actual scene and not just playing the campaign). Second and probably the biggest point, if they are about to go bankrupt maybe they should make the koreans pay for watching the medium stream as well. People wouldn't be this pissed about this if it was fair, as it is now it is unreasonable and unfair. How come asians gets their apples for free while we europeans and americans have to pay for ours, you say you can't understand "us" well I can't understand those that thinks thats logical and fair. I haven't whined btw, I'm just saying if they are going to be racist I'm not going to pay them for it ^_^ Do you have any evidence regarding that first point? I've never seen any proof on that. Additionally, except for GSL, most tournaments are free HD due to a variety of reasons. Koreans don't pay probably because the ads are tailored towards them. Korean advertisers will pay for korean viewers to look at their products. However - Westerners cannot get those products and won't buy them. That is why you, as a westerner, have to pay for the service in some other way. Via a subscription (and the couple of us watching the ads without adblock), for example. The difference with Intel, for example, is that they tailor towards western audiences. ESL can give you free HD because they get most of their money through sponsorship. I still haven't seen you, or anybody for that matter, explain why you should get a high-quality service for free. That is the basic point here. Not ethics (draw the racism card!), not that you think it makes sense. We are talking about a service, delivered by a company. An now, according to some form of logic, services on the internet shouldn't be paid for? You make valid points, its true about the sponsors but I don't agree that the sponsors pay for the korean audiance. I'm pretty sure the sponsors aren't saying that they are "paying so koreans don't have to subscribe". They pay for showing ads. If you disagree than show sources that says otherwise. You misunderstand the "racism card", how is person X gets apples for free but person Y doesn't get apples for free a pure ethical arguement. I think that is a pretty straightforward logical arguement, how come John gets to watch netflix for free while Jack doesn't. Maybe John lives in the countryside of England while Jack lives in London. Is that fair that just because they live in different places one person has to pay while the others doesn't. The core here for me is the internet, you can't chop up the internet, its made to be a free web of networks. Some games you are only allowed to play in korea or japan, I think thats stupid. If internet is the medium than its global thats the way the internet works. All that has tried has failed, GSL did it, they take it back. It wasn't a logical decision from the start. We have had acccess to the korean stream all the time, this proves that. What I mean by sponsors paying for the Koreans to watch is probably somewhat different than I explained. They undoubtedly have access to the number of Korean viewers. They offer products only in Korea. They'll pay for sponsorship taking into account a large share of the viewers is not Korean and as such, will not purchase the advertised product. As such, they pay less per viewer, because of the westerners. In essence, these sponsors want to cater to Koreans, not westerners. That is where my statement of them paying for Korean viewers comes from. Now, Gom has some revenue thanks to Korean viewers. They make money on them. The Western viewers, however, don't get them any money, yet. They even cost money through Tastosis and some translating staff. Ads and Twitch cover for western audiences, but with the popularity of Adblock and the terrible ad-system on twitch (display the same loud ad 10x in a row plz), that probably is reducing more and more. As such, they want to capture some revenue from Western fans, and who can blame them? I understand HQ for free is an industry standard, but you also have to take into account that Gom is a business. They need to make money to survive. They earn money on Koreans, not westerners. That is why they use subs. Giving it for free just costs them money. They cannot rely on people subbing when they don't offer anything in return (ie. what happens if they give HQ for free) Charity is not a business model. It's and interesting topic and I'm glad you're the first to put actual thought in responses ^_^ Very true, I agree with most of your points. What I don't agree with is that GOM has costs because of the english stream. Of course they have costs, they have a couple of production staff and the casters thats it. They need to pay off 2-3 salaries and maybe like the chairs the casters sit on. Compare that to how much it costs producing the whole tournament, the rent for the studio the cost of all the production, the prize money, everything. GOMs expenses are probably to at least 95% not tied to the english stream. GOM would have GSL even if they didn't stream it in english, their main demographic is not foreigners. That means that all the money they need from the foreign scene is enough to cover the casters basically. They still show ads to foreigners, thus they have income from ads from the 20 000 or whatever watching and they have people subscribing. I'm pretty sure the expenses they have for hiring 2 casters is covered.They make a tournament for the korean demographic, adds english casters and charge the foreigners for it. Its just not logical it doesn't make sense. If they show the numbers and say that the casters salaries aren't covered from foreigners ads and subscriptions than sure I'll agree with you that it makes sense we pay for what we get I just think it very very unlikely. Don't charge us for something you produce for free mainly for someone else(other demographic).
If I knew how many subscribers they actually have, I could honestly tell you if they were even close. That tiny expense is probably a few more thousands above what numbers you were thinking.
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Yay, while other streams for premier tourneys (full of koreans too mind you) are offering free 720-1080p for free WITH free vods of similar qualities, Gom has finally caught up to 2010 and give us free 480p!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WJJ81yo.png)
