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How I See Esports, Promotion, and Our Role in Growth

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Let's not let this be one of those things we don't talk about as a community, but end up complaining about later :p
Honestly, I think the OP is too long for the average TYMer. Not even trolling, even I thought it was a bit long winded, lol. I was going to make the exact same thread but figured no one would care or listen to what I had to say. Which is ironically another problem we have. No one listens unless you're a big name. I guess I'll post my thoughts in here at some point.
 

Cashual

PSN: Cansuela
I think it's clear in this day and age that if you want to make it as a professional fulltime video game player you need to do one of two things, or both.

You either have to be indisputably the best or at least top 3 and be a constant threat to win the biggest events outright, or you have to be an entrepreneur/personality/self promoter/streamer.

I have to be honest. NRS doesn't really have a fulltime streamer. I'd say REO has really made a push in I2 and is probably the closest to establishing a true diehard audience.

I watch a lot of games and the most successful and profitable streamers are absolutely committed to it. They stream up to 10 hours a day, have a consistent schedule and never miss a day, they promote their streams on twitter and Facebook, they upload highlights and archives to YouTube, they do compilation videos, they do collaborations with other known streamers. They do giveaways, they build a real community amongst their fans and viewers and they build subcultures for themselves.

Look at someone like Dr Disrespect, or Ninja or anyone on that level. They put so much work into their branding and notoriety, they transcend the game itself. People end up in their twitch channel because of the gameplay but stay for the community and because they find the streamer to be entertaining and engaging.

I don't want to diminish REO because I see that he's really pushing to be a go to content creator. And Dink is putting in work too. But there's a huge void and potential for a few members of the community who may never be more than a top 16 contender actually become the most highly paid and best known members of the community.

Like, how has Gootecks been so damn successful? He hasn't been truly relevant and a threat competitively since like alpha 3 or something. But, he's damn likable, relentless in his content production and he has committed to this.

like when is someone in the community going to put together a high production value stream and really go after it?

Pig of the hut could absolutely be the guy if he wanted to be. However, he's got a family and a great job and doesn't seem to have the time or desire to truly be that person. Like, had Pig stuck with that amazing production he did a handful of times for mkx there's no telling how many viewers and subs he'd have today.

But again it's back to consistency. Who's willing to stream 40+ hours a week?
 

EntropicByDesign

It's all so very confusing.
This is an interesting topic. I'll probably make a couple posts throughout the day, as I'll be at work so itll take time to get my ideas down.

There's no TL;DR. Sorry.

To begin.

First, we are a niche community in a niche community. The FGC isn't terribly large in comparison to the other main e-sport centric communities and we arent even the largest piece of that pie. We have Capcom and Tekken ahead of us, and we are ahead of the anime titles. Smash is kind of an outlier that has some crossover but it seems from what I've seen, that Smash is kind of it's own beast. (Let's not argue about whether smash is or isn't a FG, I'm.purely talking about it's viewership and how that crosses over to the other games).

So what does this mean? Well, it means we have to increase our piece of the pie. One thing I feel like we are missing is an asain audience, and I wouldn't even know where to really begin building something like that.. but aside from that, there are things we can do to increase our piece of the standing FGC, and bring new blood as well.

First, we need to be ambassadors for our games. The internet is full of dumb, mindless hate, spewed by small people with smaller lives. A popular and pervading opinion among people everywhere is that there can be only one "right" thing and everything else must be inferior and stupid. Ford is better than Chevy is better than Dodge is better than Coke is better than Pepsi is better than well done is better than rare (except it's not you classless heathen) blah. We need to stop that amongst ourselves first, and just preach the game when we can. This is obvious, and it's small, but it's a matter of building a welcoming community with a pervading attitude of helpfulness. We don't need to say SFV is wacksauce and so on, we can just say "yeah Inj2 has a real focus on reactionary whiff punishing, careful nuetral, etc" "yeah the game can look a little odd at first, like it's choppy and janky but in practice it's really not. It's as smooth as butter once you adjust to it's particular timing and quirks" (the latter is a complaint I hear a lot). That kind of stuff
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
It seems there's a serious lack of promotion when it comes to tournaments that NRS hands their hands in, and severely less when they don't. The ones that aren't necessarily affiliated with NRS, we need to do a better job of promoting ourselves, but so do the TO's.

Before I go further, let me say this. The pot bonuses we are getting from NRS/WB are very deeply appreciated. However, not everyone seems to be as grateful as they should be when it comes to the amount of money that's put into our tournaments. That said, honestly I think part of the reason for this is the horrible payout system. The payout structure if far too top heavy. This was a problem early in major poker tournaments, such as the World Series of Poker. The problem with top heavy payouts is that it actually discourages participation. You can work extremely hard and actually do really well, pay a lot of money out of pocket and spend a ton of time preparing and practicing, get top 16 and have nothing to show for it. Hell even the differences between top 8 compared to the top 2 prize money is pretty large. This is undeniabley a problem. The argument is "oh you should win then to win money", this is not how you build a strong community or strong competition. The same exact thing has happened with poker, like I said. Once they spread the prize pool out, you started getting MANY more players traveling and attending tournaments. Also, they sometimes have "winner take all tournaments" in poker, and the number of entrants for those tournaments are astronomically less than the other ones.

NRS/WB seem to be jumping in head first into eSports way too quickly without building a solid foundation first. They don't have much eSports experience in the first place. You can't just throw money at events and expect people to care about the events. Like I said, the pot bonuses are deeply appreciated, but it's not going to magically make people interested if there's hardly any promotion or development put into it.

With the amount of money and supposed prestige of these events, you should be seeing 10x the viewership that we are getting, but we aren't. And that's due to lack of promotion, development and execution.

Personally I feel that some of money from these huge pot bonuses instead should be going towards promotion and production. In the end the biggest issue is awareness. Not only outside of the FGC, but also within the larger FGC, AND EVEN WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY!

Obviously some of the responsibility lies on us, but for these NRS sponsored events, you'd think they would want to promote them as much as possible. We can also do a better job, but are just people and a community. We don't have any money, unless we want to make a large pot that everyone donates to in order to run and promote our own events. Which isn't a bad idea, btw.

In game promotion would be huge for awareness. First put an in game tournament tracker. The tournament tracker would tell you about upcoming tournaments, and when and where they are being held, also the stream URL. Once the Netherrealm stream goes live, there would be a huge LIVE notifier in game somewhere. The LIVE notifier would be constantly there until the stream ends. I think it should be in every menu, the only time you shouldn't be able to see it is when you are actually in a match.

It would also be great to hire an eSports management team. Hire 1 or 2 people to handle all social media stuff related to tournaments. And constantly be promoting the tournaments. Also, Ed Boon's twitter would help a lot if he simply tweeted the link to the stream when Netherrealm went live. The other teams members would handle other areas of promotion and management.

I have a bunch more ideas, but this post would be a novel and it's already really long. And again, I don't think anyone cares what I have to say, which I guess is understandable. All I know is the problems they have can be easily fixed with the right planning and execution in promotion.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
On pot bonuses and payouts, I wonder, do TO's ever feel the need or feel pressured to have higher payouts for the top 8 or Grand Finals Winner in order to try and make the event sound bigger or more prestegious?

Also, is it up to the TO to determine the structure of the payout, or is someone from NRS/WB saying "we want this payout structured a certain way"?
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
So is there anything constructive to offer?

This post is basically "doom and gloom, Americans have it easy, unless you're Top 2 then you aren't getting a profit, this game is declining, MKX was better, and maybe if we're lucky MKXI will be better".

I'm NOT sponsored, I spend my own money to travel to at best 2 events a year and ultimately it probably costs me $1,200-$2,000 a year just to compete at a game with zero monetary ROI because I don't place. I get the prize money issue - but I have far bigger concerns with a clear lack of understanding of demographics from either NRS (or actually, more likely, a lack of positive numbers to influence business decisions from WB) which leads itself to small viewership and attendee counts.

The reality is that demographics, education on fighting game events, and marketing are key factors for low viewership counts. Yes there are people that were more into MK - but it is pointless to compare us to Smash which has been grassroots building for over a decade, or Tekken which historically has a larger community overseas. Plus, what does a casual watcher gain from IPS finals? They watch the same players fight that have been on stream and placing at every event all year - with minor character variety. There's no real new face, no upstart, no true cinderella story. What story is there to truly care about when 20% of the viewership is only going to tune in for the chance of SonicFox losing? It's like trying to watch the Yankees win everything for the 5th year in a row - no reason to watch the regular season, tune it at the end and see if things have changed, otherwise go back to dreaming. There's nothing "flashy" or too crazy about half the stuff in the game either - you don't see clips on ESPN or Kotaku.

Not that you or anyone else here gives a damn what I think but negative rants like yours are what make the casuals (and even light competitors like me) stop having any interest and move on to the next game when they see that even the pros think everything is bad.

No one outside of the community is going to give a damn if we don't.

Rant over.
^^^ he gets it
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
On pot bonuses and payouts, I wonder, do TO's ever feel the need or feel pressured to have higher payouts for the top 8 or Grand Finals Winner in order to try and make the event sound bigger or more prestegious?

Also, is it up to the TO to determine the structure of the payout, or is someone from NRS/WB saying "we want this payout structured a certain way"?
There are some TOs that have spread the pot differently at specific events -- but the FGC as a whole has come out strongly in favor of top-heavy payout schemes.

In fact, when I joined the FGC (which wasn't that long ago, like 6 years ago) there were some tournaments that would just pay out Top 3 instead of Top 8, so that the winners could take more.
 
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Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
I'll start by saying that no, none of this is perfect, but many of the problems people point out are systemic of all Esports, and everyone is struggling to find ways around those problems, even the biggies. League of Legends suffers from this, where teams are almost made and broken based on the grueling LCS season, which also will often outright not allow certain players to rep their sponsors as well. Riot, the company behind LoL, issue lots of money to teams to pay salaries, but even that often isn't enough to cover equipment, housing, travel, etc. In DOTA, teams with even decent results fold because the payouts are very top heavy. To put it lightly, the system is very flawed even for the biggest moneymakers in the industry.

To bring it back to NRS and I2, there has been a lot of groveling about money, and how it is not being spread out enough to "help" players. I'm not arguing for only top 8 payout (I can see no real reason why we shouldn't!), but the reality is you cannot sustain a life on winnings from high placings unless you are really, really good. In no other sport or Esport would a player survive based on whether or not they won or lose, that is simply asking too much. The worst part is, with how tournaments are nowadays, even getting that little slice of the pie from say a top 16 payout probably won't be enough to make every tournament.

That may sound gloomy, but the reality is that to make a living just playing videogames, you need to embrace social media, and even that is shaky and unstable, given Youtube's recent demonetization crisis. Some people on this site are already trying to do this like @REO and @STB Shujinkydink , who make videos and, no matter how inane, do their best to try and get an audience to see it. Obviously, this largely viewed negatively by lots of people, but you know what? That's the game! You have to do things like that in order to maintain relevance, because winning doesn't last forever. The Sirens on CW? I bet those girls were over the moon with the offer, since you can't buy that kind of exposure, ever. You have to reach for the brass ring, because it's way up there if you want a career in this line of work. That's not to mention maintaining a healthy twitter and streaming schedule, which is also imperative.

To get attention from people that can really make a difference when it comes to playing games, you have to prove your worth. I don't mean to say that you have to mindlessly whore yourself out for the nearest dollar, but if all you're doing is trying to place, then you're doing it wrong, plain and simple. No business in corporate America, if they're smart, are marks for the tournament wins, they're marks for perceived value over time. Look at some real examples: @EMPEROR_THEO emerged from his bunker twenty floors below sea level and is now streaming and doing interviews under the paid tutelage of one of the strongest organizations in the industry. Putting in the time to expand your profile can do wonders, but luck has a lot to do with it to. Sometimes you might not get the attention of Echo Fox; you may have to settle for someone that can offer a little, but not a lot, and that's okay! You have to start building your portfolio somewhere, and if it's a decent organization, it will open up avenues.

As always, you have to beware of the shysters, charlatans, and shitheads out there that will prey on the people in Esports because the ages tend to skew younger and it's easier to work kids out of money and use it to boost your own profile then it would be to do the same to an adult. Even Justin Wong spent years and years under EMP and Triforce and all he learned was how to write a check. Nowhere near as insidious but often just as damaging are the money marks, the guys who are personally financed that are fans of the sport and want to make their own team. These are often nice people with good intentions but little business sense, and they usually end up folding within a year because they'll buy up a bunch of talent and then wonder where all the money went when not much is kicked back because of a lack of knowledge on what it takes to make money.

To bring this all back to NRS again, this is a scene in its infancy, which is hard to believe, but it is. It disheartens me, as someone who has been around for almost ten years now, to see many prominent figures in this scene advocate for what I could only describe as a sort of anti-grassroots mentality. Between IGAU and MKX there was a devastation to the local scenes all around the country. It's been argued to death what the root cause was, but the plain truth is that local tournaments are hardly acknowledged and even rarer seen, and that's a key demographic to growth. Majors, especially nowadays, are mini vacations; anyone who can get to a major and not spend more than 4-500$ is a pretty lucky person. The average FGC'er is probably a millennial is who is going to be economically burdened, and that sucks for getting numbers up. Add to that that we don't have the legacy or non-traditional fun that SF and Smash represent, respectively, so the numbers for tournies are nowhere near as high and won't be for some time. Growth has to happen organically, and I think some people let the money dictate what matters most, which is a real shame.

Lastly, I wanted to address @A F0xy Grampa . You talked about people throwing their babies up in the air for Honeybee getting 2nd, and I just want to remind you that by the time that happened, there was a lot brewing for Bee. He had been on a decently rated Machinima series that aired both on YT and CW, has had a healthy and active Twitter where he helped raise his fanbase,and he supplied his YT channel with plenty of videos both long and quick bits to get the clicks (How many views does that comeback video have now?). The point is, the dude was doing what it took to raise a high profile, and once he did, the fans that he got were able to make big noise for him when he did well, which is going to look great to any potential sponsor. I see that you're sponsored by Problem X, but what does that mean? Who is he? I know but I'm deeply invested. imagine a white corporate America guy looking at that and knowing what that means or represents and why he should care. Placing and doing well are just one part of the equation; are you filling out the rest? I thing there are legitimate grievances mixed in there, but I do have to wonder if all the necessary steps are being taken to support an Esports life.
Great post!!! One thing I’ll add to this about Madzin is he is known for not wanting to do interviews and embrace the social aspect of Esports. That’s a negative mark that’s hard to overcome for a group looking to sponsor and further their brand.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
We need to learn to advocate constructively and directly for what we want rather than just whining out loud -- it's an crucial skill in life and business in general.

Okay. I've been asking for Spawn for four years. Nothing. So I have the right to not watch streams, promote the game, call out Raiden for the waste of space he is(I don't care how sexy ya'll think his super is, Supergirl travels to the sun in under 2 seconds and throws you LIGHTYEARS back to Earth in under 3 seconds THAT is what you all sexy and impressive, MMMFTL confirmed!), and cry on forums and social media all I want. Facts B.

Anywho trolling done time for the Voice of Reason:

This game is great, most balanced and fun we've had sense MKX. However the community can sometimes come off as Elitist and Dismissive. Everyone isn't like me, able to generate hype at any moment, nor are they confident enough to put themselves out there, nor are they confident enough to call out a 'top player' lose and still call them trash. What I'm saying is most of ya'll have no spine. and that's bad.

Let me ask ya'll a question? Why did my tournament AB8 generate hype only trumped by EVO when it had half the space as nearly any other major, half the setups of any major, and half the signups of any other major?

IT HAD HEART!!! We were into it like never before. The trash talk from people that didn't even enter the tournaments, the blowups, the hospitality showed by the Texas scene, the conversations we had with each other, the time we spent playing casuals both in the venue and outside of it, Going out to eat together, SIDE BETS!! (Hayatei paid my rent for that month but don't tell him I told you. He said he'd get me back for that and I hate Robin so imma just leave The Gawd alone.), the hype, and hurts and feels. Even SonicFox5000 himself stated that AB was the hypest tournament this year, which makes me feel good as a T.O and got me a pat on the back from my superiors as well as the right to run any and all NRS tornaments in the future as well as Mahvel.

So what im saying is that we need to be more community driven in everyway. Maybe start a community GoFundMe for every major where we sponser ONE player to go and compete. Like @SaltShaker did for @Tweedy. Have community saltbets on stream where the top earner for that month gets a streamed set with whatever player they bet on. Community streams like MKX(Don't ya'll remember those wonderful lobbies full of known and unknown players??), Developer Streams were we fight NRS employees, Community Q&A's were top players and not so top players discuss community questions and just share tech in a type of roundstable deal, more support for the EU through community funded events.

Special events between tornaments like a new series for helping all players. We can even call it something like: Breaking The Meta. Where as a COMMUNITY!! We all voted for a specific character and we all main that character for two weeks then have a streamed tornament of basically mirror matches showing what crazy stuff we came up with. Not only does this increases EVERYONES MU knowledge but it also gives the characters with barely any community representation a chance to see their characters in action at a high level, it also helps flesh out these characters everyone calls bad like Cyborg or Blue Beetle. It also keeps thing fresh and interesting.

Hell we could even do MYSTERY TOURNAMENTS where we vote out 10 characters each weed/or two and players or anyone in the tornament must randomly pick one of the characters that remain.

All of this gives the game continued life even after major are done. We get to practice new characters, keep streamers happy, learn new OD setups and character specific things, and just general keep everyone interested. Cause one thing we suffer from his redundancy....Tournements and such can get stall if you KNOW Red Hood, Aquaman, Black Adam, Superman, Supergirl, Cold, and other are what you'll see.

Seriously think how HYPE tournaments get when you have a Swamp Thing, or Bane, or Cheetah(OD damage), Blue Beetle, Firestorm, Ivy and etc going at it. It's hype cause we NEVER see them at a high level. More character diversity rquals more hype and more views and more subs and more chance to land sponsers, and more footage to edit so you CAN be seen by sponsers and just in general a refreshing break from Tournament metas(Play to win/Top Tier characters only).

In Short....make it about the people...not ourselves. Make it about them and they will pay your way to the next tournament. I'm true disgusted by the lack of streaming for this game. I know traveling can hard and time consuming but when we have downtime like this and after Eleague we should be hitting people with that new shit.

So basically I need MOTHERFUCKING @Pig Of The Hut TO RETURN. Like..NOW BRENT!!! You Stream RIGHT NOW MISTER!!!! I'll even make a gust appearance as Lord SMKingStarGazer Eternal Wifi God of the Cosmos.
Calling me Brent is first and #1 way for me to ignore you but I appreciate the props

Rhs was golden when it was active
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
I think it's clear in this day and age that if you want to make it as a professional fulltime video game player you need to do one of two things, or both.

You either have to be indisputably the best or at least top 3 and be a constant threat to win the biggest events outright, or you have to be an entrepreneur/personality/self promoter/streamer.

I have to be honest. NRS doesn't really have a fulltime streamer. I'd say REO has really made a push in I2 and is probably the closest to establishing a true diehard audience.

I watch a lot of games and the most successful and profitable streamers are absolutely committed to it. They stream up to 10 hours a day, have a consistent schedule and never miss a day, they promote their streams on twitter and Facebook, they upload highlights and archives to YouTube, they do compilation videos, they do collaborations with other known streamers. They do giveaways, they build a real community amongst their fans and viewers and they build subcultures for themselves.

Look at someone like Dr Disrespect, or Ninja or anyone on that level. They put so much work into their branding and notoriety, they transcend the game itself. People end up in their twitch channel because of the gameplay but stay for the community and because they find the streamer to be entertaining and engaging.

I don't want to diminish REO because I see that he's really pushing to be a go to content creator. And Dink is putting in work too. But there's a huge void and potential for a few members of the community who may never be more than a top 16 contender actually become the most highly paid and best known members of the community.

Like, how has Gootecks been so damn successful? He hasn't been truly relevant and a threat competitively since like alpha 3 or something. But, he's damn likable, relentless in his content production and he has committed to this.

like when is someone in the community going to put together a high production value stream and really go after it?

Pig of the hut could absolutely be the guy if he wanted to be. However, he's got a family and a great job and doesn't seem to have the time or desire to truly be that person. Like, had Pig stuck with that amazing production he did a handful of times for mkx there's no telling how many viewers and subs he'd have today.

But again it's back to consistency. Who's willing to stream 40+ hours a week?
A huge issue I agree w our community’s top players don’t stream other than a few. It’s nice to see Theo streaming and he’s really enjoying it, a little too much sometimes.
 

Stanlos

Noob
The point about more international travel kinda triggers me, this isn't a result of the scene growing, it's a result of luck, there wouldn't be international players seen at all if it wasn't for Problem X, Luciano and Madzin's dream.

So we haven't really progressed in that front, Madzin has made 4 world finals, and still isn't sponsored, meanwhile every Tom, Dick and Harry in the states has someone to fly them here there and everywhere.

International players still have it shit in comparison.

Also, viewership and entries for tournaments in this game is actually on the decline. EVO this year was the first year an NRS title didn't exceed the entrants of the first year EVO for the previous NRS title.

On twitch if a high level player streams inj2 they'll average 100-200 viewers. Madzin used to get 500 every time for MKX. Our viewership is SO BAD that For Honor is always above us, and that game is terrible. We no longer have RHS or Brady (the good times) so our viewership has no stability


Now if you want to compare viewership for tournaments, I think MKX had 40-60k viewers for every season of Esl finals. Inj2 proseries finals had what 15k at best? That's actually shocking considering a random smash tournament can break that, Tekken at TFC almost had the same viewership as the injustice 2 PRO SERIES FINALS.

Another point I'd like to bring up is, prize distribution is now completely out of control, so the pro series doesn't pay out in a fashion that allows for all players to play with the intention of going 'pro', you need to be #1 or #2, and you also need to live in America otherwise expenses start adding up too.

The way I see it, our scene isn't growing in its current state, it's shrinking.

Rant over
I wonder how much branding and outreach play a role here. I had no idea about the streaming of the series and most often see YouTube clips after the event has happened
 

Nobus3r1

House of Bane; ID: 8V596
Before I go further, let me say this. The pot bonuses we are getting from NRS/WB are very deeply appreciated. However, not everyone seems to be as grateful as they should be when it comes to the amount of money that's put into our tournaments. That said, honestly I think part of the reason for this is the horrible payout system. The payout structure if far too top heavy.
I got into an argument on Twitter recently with some people who couldn't fathom doing payouts any other way and who spectacularly failed to realize how short sighted such a plan is towards growing the community. If someone has to make (as I said earlier in this thread) top 3 or better to finish in the black for an event they're significantly less likely to attend. At a very basic level it seemed like the Twitter persons either couldn't do math or were concerned that anything resembling change would be taking money out of their pockets and thus the resistance to change was purely selfish in nature.
NRS/WB seem to be jumping in head first into eSports way too quickly without building a solid foundation first. They don't have much eSports experience in the first place. You can't just throw money at events and expect people to care about the events. Like I said, the pot bonuses are deeply appreciated, but it's not going to magically make people interested if there's hardly any promotion or development put into it.
While eSports as a whole is a relatively new thing it's already littered with the bodies of those who thought that money in the absence of a good plan could overcome the lack of promotion and/or a solid foundation. I would love to see NRS figure out a way to integrate the entirety of the game into an experience. What I mean by this is to have an actually meaningful online ladder/rank system that can be used to feed into AND seed offline events and/or qualify for offline events. There, as others have mentioned, should be in-game alerts and rewards for non-participants when there are major events going on. I also think that NRS, if they're really serious about this, should consolidate all of this under their own umbrella. I think that a pertinent question to ask is: If a given aspect of an event (say early pool play at an open tournament) would look wildly out of place on television what would one need to change to fix this?
 

KingHippo

Alternative-Fact Checker
It would also be great to hire an eSports management team. Hire 1 or 2 people to handle all social media stuff related to tournaments. And constantly be promoting the tournaments. Also, Ed Boon's twitter would help a lot if he simply tweeted the link to the stream when Netherrealm went live. The other teams members would handle other areas of promotion and management.
I see this talking point brought up a lot, and I'm not sure I understand. It would be one thing if this were a Japanese company that made its business across the globe and needed an American team to help pass along its messages, or a major tech company like Intel whose primary business was consumer electronics, but neither of those are the case here.

Besides that, this stuff already happens! I don't know how many people follow Tyler Lansdown or some of the other NRS team members, but they always promote whatever streams are going on. They don't absolutely spam it, I guess, but they do their part.

Another problem with promotion, and this isn't talked about enough, is that if it was just between Twitch and Netherrealm, they would probably be just fine talking about all the things they wanna do and what's coming up in the future. But it's not just those guys; it's ESPN, which by extension is a part of Walt Disney, it's TBS, which is part of Turner Broadcasting, and the CW, another subdivision of Time Warner. This is without mentioning all the various companies involved with promoting and running Liga Latina and Path to Pro, AND Gamestop as well who is running Hometown Heroes.

Each of those corporate ventures have their own agendas and hangups, and I doubt that official Twitter accounts and the like can actually reveal much beyond "This is happening" simply because there is a lot of red tape that these corporations attach to this stuff. If you hire an Esports guy, he's just going to tell you the same stuff that Tyler would...so why hire him?
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
I see this talking point brought up a lot, and I'm not sure I understand. It would be one thing if this were a Japanese company that made its business across the globe and needed an American team to help pass along its messages, or a major tech company like Intel whose primary business was consumer electronics, but neither of those are the case here.

Besides that, this stuff already happens! I don't know how many people follow Tyler Lansdown or some of the other NRS team members, but they always promote whatever streams are going on. They don't absolutely spam it, I guess, but they do their part.

Another problem with promotion, and this isn't talked about enough, is that if it was just between Twitch and Netherrealm, they would probably be just fine talking about all the things they wanna do and what's coming up in the future. But it's not just those guys; it's ESPN, which by extension is a part of Walt Disney, it's TBS, which is part of Turner Broadcasting, and the CW, another subdivision of Time Warner. This is without mentioning all the various companies involved with promoting and running Liga Latina and Path to Pro, AND Gamestop as well who is running Hometown Heroes.

Each of those corporate ventures have their own agendas and hangups, and I doubt that official Twitter accounts and the like can actually reveal much beyond "This is happening" simply because there is a lot of red tape that these corporations attach to this stuff. If you hire an Esports guy, he's just going to tell you the same stuff that Tyler would...so why hire him?
In-game awareness/alerts need to be in NRS games. 24,000 people follow Tyler and 3,000,000 buy the game. The smart decision is joining the rest of Esports and have in-game esport features and announcements
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
I see this talking point brought up a lot, and I'm not sure I understand. It would be one thing if this were a Japanese company that made its business across the globe and needed an American team to help pass along its messages, or a major tech company like Intel whose primary business was consumer electronics, but neither of those are the case here.

Besides that, this stuff already happens! I don't know how many people follow Tyler Lansdown or some of the other NRS team members, but they always promote whatever streams are going on. They don't absolutely spam it, I guess, but they do their part.

Another problem with promotion, and this isn't talked about enough, is that if it was just between Twitch and Netherrealm, they would probably be just fine talking about all the things they wanna do and what's coming up in the future. But it's not just those guys; it's ESPN, which by extension is a part of Walt Disney, it's TBS, which is part of Turner Broadcasting, and the CW, another subdivision of Time Warner. This is without mentioning all the various companies involved with promoting and running Liga Latina and Path to Pro, AND Gamestop as well who is running Hometown Heroes.

Each of those corporate ventures have their own agendas and hangups, and I doubt that official Twitter accounts and the like can actually reveal much beyond "This is happening" simply because there is a lot of red tape that these corporations attach to this stuff. If you hire an Esports guy, he's just going to tell you the same stuff that Tyler would...so why hire him?
Anytime I get an alert from you that said you quoted my post, I always assume I'm about to get severely roasted. But I enjoyed this response.

As far as the twitter promotion, to be fair that's just a suggestion. And you probably are right on legalities of promoting certain things. But I don't see how Ed Boon for instance wouldn't be able to tweet out Netherrealm's twitch link just before (or as) it goes live. In general I just believe NRS doesn't have a very large social media presence, which is why I suggested hiring a eSports management team and social media team. The social media team would also be responsible for building thier presence and followers. There actually are people who make careers out of being "social media experts", the biggest problem I think would be if it was worth the investment from NRS to put all this time and money into all of this. Maybe they really aren't all that invested in the eSports side. Meaning it's essentially just a side project to them and not a main focus. That's not me taking shots, just saying it's a very real possibility.

The social media stuff is also just something that would help a little. I agree whole heartedly with @Pig Of The Hut about the in game promotion stuff. That would be the biggest help and I also think it would be the cheapest solution.
 

KingHippo

Alternative-Fact Checker
In-game awareness/alerts need to be in NRS games. 24,000 people follow Tyler and 3,000,000 buy the game. The smart decision is joining the rest of Esports and have in-game esport features and announcements
I never said otherwise, I think it would be a great addition. The problem I have is that a lot of the suggestions for what NRS "needs to do" are approached with that level of "let me school these dipshits on what's hip," when I see no reason whatsoever to believe that the people we're talking about aren't incredibly savvy about the current market, what sells, and what doesn't sell.

I'm not advocating for politeness above all else (I'd be an elected official if that was the case), but I am wondering that instead of shrieking into the Twitter void about what are, frankly, old pat ideas (KI did this in 2013) and stirring up a sentiment that it's killing the game (That's literally been said on this site and Twitter; I've even seen such ludicrous suggestions that the Atom trailer was released because this game, one of the best selling video games of the year, was "losing interest fast"), perhaps we find a more even middle ground of discussion that doesn't invoke the apocalypse. I say this only because the NRS reps have been nothing if not extremely public about their views and open to being communicated with on Twitter, which means the vitriol with some of these statements is a bit unnecessary at best and just douchey at worst.
 
Dink pointed out that other fighting game pay outs are worse than NRS. Street fighter being one of the best example. I don't think arguing for nrs/wb to change their payouts is relevant.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
I never said otherwise, I think it would be a great addition. The problem I have is that a lot of the suggestions for what NRS "needs to do" are approached with that level of "let me school these dipshits on what's hip," when I see no reason whatsoever to believe that the people we're talking about aren't incredibly savvy about the current market, what sells, and what doesn't sell.

I'm not advocating for politeness above all else (I'd be an elected official if that was the case), but I am wondering that instead of shrieking into the Twitter void about what are, frankly, old pat ideas (KI did this in 2013) and stirring up a sentiment that it's killing the game (That's literally been said on this site and Twitter; I've even seen such ludicrous suggestions that the Atom trailer was released because this game, one of the best selling video games of the year, was "losing interest fast"), perhaps we find a more even middle ground of discussion that doesn't invoke the apocalypse. I say this only because the NRS reps have been nothing if not extremely public about their views and open to being communicated with on Twitter, which means the vitriol with some of these statements is a bit unnecessary at best and just douchey at worst.
Yea I mostly agree and I hope they make these changes and additions in the future as well as update their marketing/advertising practices.
Yes as theo pointed out they’ve come really far but so much is messy/unorganized and I hope it gets fixed sooner than later. Im fully aware of what Games have this feature on console/PC which further confuses me why this wasn’t added. So much potential is missed out.

Another thing I advise is the community’s top players become more active in leading. Theo is doing so, others need to get off their lazy asses and help too
 

STB Shujinkydink

Burning down in flames for kicks
I'd like to chime in as a person who really isnt relevant competition wise but community wise. Guys like Reo and I who arent winning any tournaments but are actively creating content and converting casuals into competitors I believe are unsung heroes. I think its a market that needs to be explored more. guys with lots of exposure like the top 16 of IPS, any of them could do the same and bring in a much bigger audience and thus improve the competition tenfold. Pot bonuses and sponsors are one avenue but theres so many more ways to earn income and be a professional gamer outside of just hoping you place top 8 and I really dont think people are using those resources enough.

I do think only top 8 should get paid out and I think thats fair, but for the rest of the top 16 to do absolutely nothing with the amount of exposure they're getting is really a waste. Theres tons of money to be had by the opportunity alone
 

Icy Black Deep

Still training...
In fact, when I joined the FGC (which wasn't that long ago, like 6 years ago) there were some tournaments that would just pay out Top 3 instead of Top 8, so that the winners could take more.
There was also rampant pot-splitting.
Hell, I think that's less of a thing these days (probably sponsors would not be fans of it) but I don't even know.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
There was also rampant pot-splitting.
Hell, I think that's less of a thing these days (probably sponsors would not be fans of it) but I don't even know.
Lol.. I almost forgot about the 'collusion' era, haha. Does anyone remember that Capcom debacle from VxG?

P.S. That's when those pot bonuses were considered astronomically big.. Now they're commonplace. That's pretty wild.

P.s. #2 Also sp00ky regulating on-stream at NLBC (and the stream monsters' response to it) was one of the funniest things I've seen in the FGC.
 

Dizzy

False Information Police Officer
Premium Supporter
NetherRealm Studios
Great thread to get discussion going @CrimsonShadow

Only a few years ago winning EVO would get you $650 and a ton of people would travel for that! It's a totally different climate with eSports now but it really takes me back thinking about stuff like that.