MLG -

[Dauthi]

So anyone else watching this weekend the MLG event?

If so are you watching for sc2? for the League of Legends? Mortal Kombat? or Halo?

If your not watching, why not? Have you ever given it a watch to see if its something you might be interested in?

http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/

For them who don't know what MLG is.

-------------------


Personally I'm a huge sc2 fan. I've hooked my computer up to my big tv(72"), and I'll be streaming all 4 streams of the sc2 tournament. in a 4 panel mode they offer for the premium viewers.

I'm exciting about the sheer number of matches that will be played and the talent they have there. ALong with the "show matches" that other tournaments who want to get people interested in watching their stuff are putting on. KeSPa the leading sc1 company brought over 8 of their best sc1 players and had them train in sc2 and doing a exhibition play later saturday night, and these players are the players that dominate the sc1 scene. So i'm eager to see what they can do in sc2 since sc2 isn't as machinaclly hard as sc1.

Then you have the Blizzard world cup US/North America qualifier qualifier finishing up. Yes a qualifier for a qualifer. This one i'm less interested in as some of my fav non-korean players have already qualifed, but There are some players who i'm not eager to see do well still in it so I'll be watching their matches hoping to see them get beat. >:)

Then you have the main tournament, what can I say the sheer talent MLG has managed to bring to this tournament is amazing, I've watched the arena's building up to this and the matches to get into this tournament were amazing. Some of them went on for close to an hour so, and they were back and forth nail biters. Sadly my fav players didn't make the pool play, but they still have a chance in the open bracket, so I'm hoping they will do well.

On top of that I'm super excisting about the idea that they are allowing people to try out SC2: Heart of the Swarm expansion thats due to release here before long, so I can't what to see the videos of that and news on what people like/hate.

I'd of done to do this event if it wasn't in CA, since i live in KS is makes it hard to get to.. well expensive.


Thats just the sc2 side of the tournament.

I'm not a big fan of watching LOL or Fighters, halo's not that bad but it wasn't designed to be watched but played in my opinion.

Anyway if your a fan tell me what your exciting about, if your an anti-fan tell me why, if you've never checked it out, check it out and become a fan or anti-fan.

[Dauthi]

Just as I had hoped. they are showing some Heart of the Swarm game play on the stream.

a P v Z (Protoss vrs Zerg)

What an awesome game.

[Jokingjoe]

I enjoyed the original Starcraft, and I play LoL and Halo regularly, but I wouldn't claim to be better than average.

MLG can be interesting to watch, but I typically play for entertainment and too many MLG players can be total douche bags.

[Aeyliea]

Bushes and gang planking. Epic.

[Vilena]

Gangs plank? That's ... I don't know what that is.

And I don't know what this is, but I'll check it out.

Then I'll become an anti-fan because it sounds like it involves me possibly playing another game. For shame.

[asoc]

Nahh, Dauthi is advocating people become spectators:-) You don't have to actually play the game to enjoy watching the competitions.

[Dauthi]

What Asoc said, you don't -have- to play the game to enjoy watching others, but if you want to play all better. I don't play sc2 enough cause I never have any one to play with, and I'm not big on playing by myself.


MLG is the biggest North American tournament in the US, but there is another tournament going on right now called NASL(North American Star League). Their online play-offs are being held this weekend, here in a few hours they go live. Some of the best players in the world, if you want to see amazing play I suggest going to www.twitch.tv and look for SC2 games and the NASL broadcast. They go live around 6pm pst.


The next major MLG event is the weekend of July 20th, if all goes well I'll be going to a local bar with a bunch of other nerds to watch this event. (Barcraft - google it and you'll be surprised how many there are all over the world and there might be one close to you. Great way to meet other nerds.)

And this is just the SC2 side of eSports. Like I said there is the DOTA/LoL/HoN side, the FPS(COD/Halo/Tom Clancy) side, and the Fighters(Mortal Kombat, tekkan, Dark Cry(?)) side. And from what I've heard in the pipe line alot of games slated to be released this holiday season (Games like Gears of War, Madden NFL 2012/13, or the new FPS's) the developers spent a TON of time working on a spectator/esports aspect to them with the recent growth in esports to get their game into the spot light.

And before the haters come out of the woodwork, You can bash me for being a fan of people who are really good at playing games all you want. Remember Baseball, Soccer(football), Football(american), Tennis, NASCAR(or other racing), Hockey, and any other "sport" at one time was just a game. And the idea of watching people who are better then you at it play was consider stupid/crazy... until it wasn't. And with the growth of eSports here in american and the fact that its a national sport in some countries like South Korea, and other asian countries should give you an idea of what is to come.

And my favorite line to give people - don't knock it till you try it.

[Vilena]

huh ... that's kinda cool Dauthi.

ok I'll be a fan, but only because Asoc said I can spectate, and because I like some of the guy's headphones

Extreme spectating - my favorite sport!

[Dauthi]

So, bored at work I decided to so what news there was on eSports in general the first thing I ran across was an announcement that a new management/agency was created who specialize in esports player promotion and advertising. Like most major sports who agents get the players great deals with sponsors and teams, this company will work for the players to get them the same type of deals.

I was like, interesting, but eh I knew it was only a matter of time before this happen. And Kinda sad because I tried to get my company to get on board with eSports last year told them to get in early and get their names on the products and we could get in cheap but NO.... not sure how we could "relate" or "make our brand fit" blah.


Then I ran across this.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1233 ... f-e-sports


It talks about the same very event that I created this thread for.

something that jumped out at me was this.

In addition to the 20,000 people present at the actual event, the event reached more than 4.7 million unique online viewers. At its peak, 437,000 were viewing the event concurrently.

20k people live. Thats alot.
4.7 Million unique online viewers in a 3 day span. Umm... wow thats a shit ton.
And 437,000 concurrent viewers, yikes.

[Jokingjoe]

And Gangplank is one of the heroes of League of Legends--a pirate for sure.

[squee]

used to watch it a bit. Stopped when D3 came out, will probably go back.

Although I like IPL much more. Just so much more content.

[Dauthi]

My problem with IPL is the casters. to me they don't bring the excitment like others do.

Also, I'm never home when they are broadcasting so I can't make plans to sit down and watch.

I like the NASL, but again the casters don't always bring the excitment out of the game.

[Dyvim Tvar]

I only watch fighting games, purely because I believe in Mike Ross.

Also because I'm stealthily working my way up the KoF ladder 'til one day I shall stand atop the broken and shattered bones of those who came before me, waving a flag and proclaiming myself the king of King.


That won't happen, my King is super scrub tier.

[asoc]

I stumbled across twitch.tv last night from justin.tv while trying to somehow find an archived Soccer game of the Honduras National team vs Boca Juniors of Argentina... Wanted to see the Sounders new signing's two assists for Honduras.

Anyways, a guy was streaming his League of Legends matches...
And I used to play a lot of Defense of the Ancients in warcraft 3. League of Legends was born out of DotA for anyone who wants to know.

So I understood mostly what was going on. I ended up watching it for a couple hours, lol.

Wish my computer wasn't so ancient, or I would be playing League of Legends.

It was kind of amusing, the guy would type in Korean but spoke perfect English as he commented on the games he was playing.

[Dauthi]

Yeah Dota 2, LoL, and Hon(Heros of Newearth) are all Dota style games, and all very popular. Actually LoL is one of the largest watched games now out there, its actually getting close to the same amount of viewers as SC2, and in some nations it is actually watched more.

Asoc, this weekend and next weekend there are two major tournaments.

IEM(Intel Extreme Masters) is this weekend, they are on day 3 already and they will go all weekend.

Next week is MLG Raleigh, anyone in that area's should check it out.


Both these tournaments will host SC2 and LoL.

Also for them wondering if eSports is really going to grow, think about this COD is redoing their Multi-player version of the Black Ops 2 so that it is more spectator friendly and caster friendly for eSports tournaments.

[asoc]

I may have been late to it, but I have been watching a ton of shit on twitch.tv lately.

I don't play any games anymore, but I played WoW, so I can still appreciate PVP shit there. And as already mentioned I played a ton of dota so I can enjoy LoL. Also, since I have played WC3 a bunch and RA2 back in the day I can appreciate SC2 games as well.

Its really intriguing to me. I find it interesting how some people are sponsored/can earn a little income from advertising on their feeds. It can't be that much money but if you get a little money from doing shit you already do for fun? I know gamers can get money from winning tournaments and picking up sponsors that way. But just your average gamer who is good but not good enough to break into that top tier can do a little self marketing and create a following and earn a little extra income to support their gaming habits, lol.

Dauthi, if you have some insight to how all that works I would be interested to learn more about it.

[Dauthi]

Asoc,

From what I've put together, its more then "A little bit of extra money." Even for the non-pros.

There is an SC2 player called CombatX, and honestly if he goes to a pro tourney he's out after 2-3 rounds in the open bracket. BUT he's streams a tone on owned.tv (like twitch.tv). He made enough of a fan base that he's making enough money to support his himself and his family.

His job is to stream online, thats it. But to get there you have to be decently good, you have to be a personality(he BM's and trolls and stuff like that.), and you have to somehow manage to get your name out there above the rest.

I've seen people earn 2-3k in a 24 hr live stream event.

Basicly from what I understand for ever 1k viewers you have, you make about 3-4$ an hour. So to make the big bucks you have to get like 10-20k viewers, cause then its like 30-60 or 40-80 $ an hour, you put in 5 hrs a night, 150 to 400 a night. And thats before you get outside sponsors. If you take your vids, and post them up on youtube from there(like most do), for every 1k views you get you make 5$. So the videos that have 2-3 million views making 15,000$ from.

One of the most popular SC2 Casters(not even a player) does a daily show called Day9, its an hour or two a night for him in which he talks about the game and stuff of that nature. He will have 40k-50k viewers easy. thats not counting the people who pay 5$ a month to get special privs, A "nifty badge", the ability to join him in community activities, so on so forth. He then post his videos' on youtube.

BUT

to get 40k viewers you have to set yourself apart. i see a ton of channels with 100 or less veiwers, and they could be good, but they are not bringing the viewers.

[asoc]

Interesting.

I see them doing giveaways for X viewer to their stream.

Have to promote your shit.

Are people frowned upon for pimping their own streams and videos on the various message boards and online communities?

[Dauthi]

Depends on the community, for example, will this one invite some one random to do it? Chances are not, but a member of our community thats been around for a while, I don't see a reason not.


teamliquid.net I think is the website for the SC2 community.
wellplayed.org is a community attempting to emerge or esports.

There are a few others but these are the only two I know of and the have ways for you to "pimp" your stream.

Also Kingoftheweb.com does stuff that can help drive traffic, but you have to have traffic to drive traffic using that site.

[asoc]

So, I have been thinking about setting up my own stream sometime in the future and thus doing some research.

reading that twitch.tv does a 50/50 split on ads while own3d.tv will give a flat rate regardless of what the advertising is paying the company.

I was thinking about using FIFA as my game of choice. My focus would be on organizing online tournaments and streaming those games. I have some ideas on some fun tournaments to organize and host that could potentially bring in some viewers. I have some sponsor ideas and one specifically that I think could be very interested in getting on board if I can start building up viewers.

I also haven't seen a whole lot of people streaming FIFA yet. I need to do more research on that.