It's a business decision, so it is theirs to make. Watch or don't watch, that is your decision to make.

I want to watch GSL so I will pay - it's not a lot. I want HSC to happen so I donated $50. I want the StarCrafts mod to succeed so I have donated $115 so far.

It is the reality of the situation that SC2 is in today, especially with sponsors. Fortunately for those who will not, or cannot, pay there are other sources of SC2 professional play.

UberNuB

United States365 Posts

June 10 2015 15:34 GMT

#322

Interesting how literally every other SC2 organization manages to provide free source quality, yet GOM thinks that is a non-profitable business model. Sure a couple of poorly managed organizations managed to go under during the last few years, but ESL/DH are still going strong. It's all about being reasonable with your production costs per viewership.

StimiLant

United States534 Posts

June 10 2015 15:35 GMT

#323

I completely understand why GSL had to do this, that being said i still think its shit and i dont like it but you can't always get what you want in life

Sogetsu

514 Posts

June 10 2015 15:36 GMT

#324

Wait, what is Low Quality? 480p?

Elentos

55581 Posts

June 10 2015 15:37 GMT

#325

On June 11 2015 00:36 Sogetsu wrote:
Wait, what is Low Quality? 480p?

360p I think. And that's pretty watchable.

Rollora

2450 Posts

June 10 2015 15:42 GMT

#326

On June 11 2015 00:36 Sogetsu wrote:
Wait, what is Low Quality? 480p?

Source=1080p most of the times
High=720P
Med==480P
Low=320P, sometimes below
Mobile, I guess, is 144p

On June 11 2015 00:37 Elentos wrote:

Show nested quote +

360p I think. And that's pretty watchable.

On a Nokia 3310 maybe.
I have a 27" and if i make the stream half the screen I cannot see clearly what's going on there.
Plus the audio quality is terrible

midnight999

United States257 Posts

June 10 2015 15:43 GMT

#327

pffft, this is dumb. Get ready to lose viewers, gom.

HolydaKing

21254 Posts

June 10 2015 15:45 GMT

#328

On June 11 2015 00:43 midnight999 wrote:
pffft, this is dumb. Get ready to lose viewers, gom.

Unfortunately, people still prefer watching GSL over PL/SSL. At least if you go by numbers.

Deathstar

9150 Posts

June 10 2015 15:46 GMT

#329

On June 11 2015 00:43 midnight999 wrote:
pffft, this is dumb. Get ready to lose viewers, gom.

What good are viewers who don't contribute

StatixEx

United Kingdom779 Posts

June 10 2015 15:46 GMT

#330

not sure what the problem is im going to go as far as saying 80% of all sc2 viewers just listen to it in bg, am i wrong? I barely 'watch' sc2 anymore and believe me i love the game. in fact i cant remember when i last gave the whole series/game my undivided attention. Most of my primary viewing is through replays. now if they give out if you sub . . then im subbed4Life!

imre

France9263 Posts

June 10 2015 15:50 GMT

#331

On June 11 2015 00:46 Deathstar wrote:

Show nested quote +

What good are viewers who don't contribute

On twitch you contribute a tiny bit even if you're not watching ads, a bit if you watch ads. Or you sub. Losing viewers means losing a bit of money even if it's adblockers.

Cyro

United Kingdom20335 Posts

June 10 2015 15:53 GMT

#332

TRANSCODED ~240p

what a joke

Latham

9582 Posts

June 10 2015 15:57 GMT

#333

I LOLed if they actually thought this would make people switch from VODs suddenly to live pay2watch content. This will only lower overall numbers.

Glioburd

France1911 Posts

June 10 2015 16:01 GMT

#334

I never watch GSL because they had terrible quality. But now... I'll continue.

Jintoss

Hong Kong117 Posts

June 10 2015 16:01 GMT

#335

GSL is no longer unique, and its no longer the best. Why would I pay double the market rate?

Adapt or close shop GSL.

caznitch

Canada645 Posts

June 10 2015 16:02 GMT

#336

On June 11 2015 00:32 DeadByDawn wrote:
It's a business decision, so it is theirs to make. Watch or don't watch, that is your decision to make.

I want to watch GSL so I will pay - it's not a lot. I want HSC to happen so I donated $50. I want the StarCrafts mod to succeed so I have donated $115 so far.

It is the reality of the situation that SC2 is in today, especially with sponsors. Fortunately for those who will not, or cannot, pay there are other sources of SC2 professional play.

This. Posters seem to forget that Gom is an organization with bills to pay and not a couple dudes having fun in their spare time. Unless you have deep insight into profitability in the esports world, you probably don't know what you're talking about when you say "this is a terrible move!" etc. Maybe this will succeed, maybe not. What you can be sure of is that many people far more qualified than you have spent a lot of time thinking about it.

As for viewers somehow contributing via ad revenue - I think this was thoroughly debunked when Destiny posted his revenue breakdown. Extrapolating from his viewer numbers and ad revenue from Twitch, it's safe to say Gom makes a couple thousand dollars a month at most from ads. I don't know how you expect this to pay for the production that goes into GSL. Last I checked Tastosis aren't plants and need more than the sun to survive.

gsllowallveragain

1 Post

June 10 2015 16:03 GMT

#337

even logd in to post

and my concerns are regarding the mass amount of dropping viewership, diddnt u gained more with providing medium?
now u go back to low, u think any1 beside subscriber is gonna watch?
ever1 gonna watch vods-looks at score,
i dont mind personally paying for something to support, but after taking a closer look, i wouldnt invest a dime here thats for sure.

from low - medium - low. a company should stick with their decisions at least give some solid reasons or make kickstarter lol,
not ever1 can subscribe, ppl got familys, students and so on

but hey enough other content who provide free source quality, rather watch that than.

ps: providing higher production value, by giving every non sub, worse looking stream on twitch. its indeed a radio cast now.

Thax

Belgium1060 Posts

June 10 2015 16:04 GMT

#338

On June 11 2015 00:46 Deathstar wrote:

Show nested quote +

What good are viewers who don't contribute

Every casual viewer brings in revenue from adds and viewers generate more viewers. I don't watch GSL enough to justify getting a subscription (due to both the broadcast time and my own lack of interest), but at the medium quality stream I managed to watch a few games here and there, generating revenue. Now that it's back to low quality I'll stop doing that again and just read the results on liquipedia. At least there I can make out the numbers on my screen.

JimmyJRaynor

Canada17617 Posts

June 10 2015 16:05 GMT

#339

On June 10 2015 23:58 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:

Show nested quote +

only the day 2 and 3 (sat and sun) tickets that are sold out, so I think that's more of an issue of local people who work or whatever who can't make it on friday but want to go saturday and sunday

i'm probably only going on saturday and sunday , but i bought the $20 pass to support the event... its only $4 difference any way. 1 guy in the thread said he might not even attend , but he bought tickets just to support a local event.

the dirt cheap ticket prices provide an insight into how careful SC2 esports fans are about spending even the smallest amount of cash.

and we get the anger over GSL charging such a small fee noted by Deathstar.
a single 3 hour UFC PPV is $60+ .

Thax

Belgium1060 Posts

June 10 2015 16:10 GMT

#340

This is probably a dumb question but, can someone explain to me how this works exactly? They make it sound like it actually costs them more to operate a higher quality stream. Twitch doesn't charge companies like GOM to broadcast at higher qualities do they? And data is dirt cheap. If that extra data usage really does make the difference in their balance sheets they're in a lot more trouble than they're letting on, no? What am I missing?