MLG Columbus 2012 feedback

tbh this was the worst MLG since Dallas last year. :(

There was lots of trouble with the stream (refreshing every 20 minutes, no volume adjustment, repeated laggs, way too loud adds). Most people missed some crucial games, due to the fact that those were moved to the pay-to-watch-streams. I mean i get it - MLG needs money bad. Though when Sundance says he holds the Arenas to "cash in" (he puts it in other words) from the already existing fanbase, but wants to enlarge the scene with the 4 events were the streams are FREE, well, then this leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, when a) not all streams are free and b) big matches get moved to the premium streams. Same goes for the casters. Either wheat(9) was free to watch or tastosis, but never both. If you truly mean to advertise through these (only!!) 4 events per year, do it right.

I have absolutely no harsh feelings towards Sundance, I actually like him as a person (from what I see) and last year MLG was the event every other league had to compete with. In 2012 it changed IMO. MLG has made too many drastic changes too fast. I don`t think PPV is for the long-term good. I don`t like how only MLG collides with other organizations Events (IEM New York last year, Asus ROG one month ago and the upcoming Dreamhack in April). Yeah, this might all have been unavoidable, but still, it only happens to MLG. The bitter taste returns.

Communication. Overall MLG communicates a lot, but sometimes they focus is on the wrong aspect. I remember last year when it became public that MLG will collide with the IEM New York stop and it was stated, that they will try to improve communication with other organizations and hopefully avoid this in the future. Well, in a most recent interview sundance said something slightly different. Organizations won’t reveal their information upfront, because of business stuff and therefore those collisions just happen. meh.

Another communication aspect. Sundance tells us that he tries to support the eSport ecosystem by providing plane tickets and hotel rooms for the players and wants the fans to think this is necessary. It is not. Here is how it goes:

• Player plays great
• Player gets fans
• Clan needs great player to get more sponsorship dollars
• at the same time: Player needs money to travel and to take the next step in his career
• Clans signs player
• Clans gets money from Sponsor(s)
• Player represents Clan and the Sponsor(s) and gets money from Clan – yeah!
• Fans see all the Sponsor logos and the next time the need to buy something, they get awesome eSport related stuff – yeah!
• Sponsor makes money – yeah!
• Sponsor wants to make more money and (via the team) send players all over the world to get more recognition and in addition to that, Sponsors give money to leagues
• Leagues make money – yeah!
• On top of that all leagues, players and teams offer something special to make some extra cash (merchandise, HD Streams, some kind of “VIP” access ...)

Why would you take the sponsors out of that equation, when it makes everybody happy? And this is what you are doing with PPV. Why would sponsors stop investing money into this scene that spends a LOT of money. It would only happen if the scene shrinks and reaches a point where the ROI for the sponsors make no sense any more. Guess what, PPV aids to that shrinking process, because it cuts out the majority of the scene. And when the scene reaches the point where the sponsors wont invest anymore money, there will also not be enough fans to pay the PPV fee anymore. Ergo, more money comes from growth and you need easy (in this case “free”) accessibility to achieve that growth. When the industry reaches the point where huge profit is made, league should go ahead and pay for everything, but until then, there is no need to.

Now lets talk about the system. Extended series! really? still? It is so wrong, that it never should have been used in the first place, but ok, everybody makes mistakes. But why would you use it after everybody told you it is bad and it makes no sense? explain please. Imagine Barcelona and Liverpool are in the same Champions league group, play each other and Barca wins 3:0, 2:0. Now they meet again in the grand final and Barca would start with a 5:0 lead. How can one not see that this is stupid. The winner of the group stage game should be rewarded - agree. And he already is. He gets a better group placement and needs to play lesser games.

And what happened at the start of this MLG? The event was listed on the sidebar of TL and disappear shortly before it started and streams got embedded even later. Many people were wondering about this in the forum and on irc, but all we got was a statement from a TL admin, that an MLG person can explain this. What the ...? Again, the bitter taste.

What’s the end of it? I will watch the next MLG Event in June, but if it turns out to be like the one from last weekend the chances are high, I wont watch the one after.

@zulison