It was a nerdy idea and you looked like the biggest one among 4
Oof calling me fat and a nerd, I'm having a bad day today
It was a nerdy idea and you looked like the biggest one among 4
Yesterday you were also a fat nerd. xoxoxoxoOof calling me fat and a nerd, I'm having a bad day today
robo not supporting the countless tournaments
It looks like all gladiators have been liberated but still eager to show up on "death match"es.WHAT ABOUT GLADIATOR TOURNAMENT?
The writing was on the wall.
An audience is fickle and you have to keep the momentum going and keep them interested, entertain them, not lose them.
Escape had the momentum, but lost it by not keeping an ear to the ground and keeping its base entertained (complacency, some frivolous ideas and ventures)
Big majority, almost all, saw up to the LAN event, the ECL matches on other channels while Escape was casting them as recorded games way later.
Meanwhile all energy and time was invested (wasted) on AOE3 which most couldn't care less about.
Hence viewers lost (certain casters grew enormously last year) which at the end of the day the numbers are the bread and butter of this business.
Complacency and not staying close to your "clientele" will kill any business. I still hope Escape can learn from what happened and will be able to survive and come out stronger from this and give us more memorable AOE2 events (and hopefully DE events).
Yet, all is not lost. Escape is still a very recognisable and bankable Brand which stands for Professionalism. However, 1 big event like the LAN will not do it, it's the constant grind and keeping your viewers close to you.
PS: Zak I understand you are more interested in management, but despite the casting scene having changed somewhat you were and are still one of great (if not the best) AOE Casters.
I don' think that is a fair assessment of the situation. When they started the studio, there was not much momentum, much viewers, nor a buisness to kill. There was not really anything for AoE3 to take away from. But there was big chance to add to it.
The channel growth they needed to become sustainable was not possible to achieve with just AoE2, as the demand for AoE2 content for the community was pretty much saturated and still is. People only have so much time to watch streams and without high profile casters or high profile exclusive content, there is not really a way to take away viewers from other streamers.
Granted, the ECL streaming policy was a bit chaotic from the start and changed halfway through, but even in the real best case scenario, i.e., they have the studio from the start of ECL, have every match played on lan, have the best caster duos live and stream exclusive in prime time, there is a cap on how much hype and viewers they could generate without growing the general community. And there is a cap on how much aoe2 they can stream besides those with sufficient viewers.
Momentum does not mean already having reached its potential or "critical mass" but an impetus which there was and which they lost. People in droves were hyped for ECL, but ECL became not synonymous anymore with Escape.
Though ECL was seen as AOE2, Escape itself started to become known more for AOE3 than anything else. People started watching ECL not casted by Escape but casted by other streamers.
Saturation? With less resources, less hype, less exposure etc. events like NAC, Hidden Cup reached Viewer Numbers previously not seen before (growth!) and which ECL LAN didn't get close to.
Success ingredients in this area are (to get the numbers and maintain them):
- Constantly staying close to the viewers, community
- Interaction
- Transparency, information about what is going on
- Charisma, appeal, likeability of own casters (not guest casters) who stream on a regular basis (stay in touch, otherwise people leave).
- Create atmosphere in which viewers feel part of a "family", not just watch a game.
Great post and food for thought on possible business models and revenue streams.The conversation above made me think about something.
What, exactly, was Escape? I see a lot of people speculate all sorts of objectives and goals, which means it wasn't actually clear. Was it a streaming channel? An event organizer? Did it want to make money off of subscriptions? Or advertisements?
For most any sport, there are three major groups of profit-makers: the organizers, the channels, and the teams. (There are also venues - like stadiums - but that's not as relevant for eSports.) Take football as an example. FIFA are the organizers, the TV stations are the channels, and the football teams are the teams.
These three groups have different profit models. All will make some money from advertisers to different extents. Aside from that, teams make most of their money directly from fans (merchandise, tickets). The channels make most of their money from channel subscriptions. Both of these make a significant amount of their money from direct contributions from audience. The organizers usually make money from licensing the events they organize.
Most AOE2-related streamers can be classed as either teams (players like TheViper, MbL, Yo, etc) or channels (casters like T90, Memb, Nili, etc). These have an easier path to success, because donations and subs are pretty well analogous to fan support and TV channel subscriptions.
But what was Escape? It definitely wasn't a team/player. It seemed to want to be a hybrid of channel and organizer. But mixed business models are often tricky to wield, partially because a channel wants the maximum viewers on the channel to grow their subscriptions and attract advertisers to their channel, while the organizer wants the maximum total viewers to grow their licensing fees and attract advertisers for the event.
In other words, consider ECL. If Escape wanted to grow their own channel's subscription-base, exclusivity was the best way to go - which I believe was the reason the event was initially closed. But if Escape wanted to position themselves as having the best events to license or satisfy some overall viewership requirements from MS/the investor, they needed to get as many viewers as possible regardless of channel - which was the reason it was eventually opened.
Walking that mixed middle path might have simply made it harder to achieve success as either one.
Most AOE2-related streamers can be classed as either teams (players like TheViper, MbL, Yo, etc) or channels (casters like T90, Memb, Nili, etc). These have an easier path to success, because donations and subs are pretty well analogous to fan support and TV channel subscriptions.
- Casters who organise Tournaments are primarily driven, motivated by other reasons than pure revenue. Actually often it cost them money to do this and when there is profit it is a welcome byproduct. Of course casters will also engage in other activities, but they are defined by mainly casting.It is not that streamlined for the likes of T90, Memb, and Nili either. Casters and channels in usual sports are two entitites as well. They can also be full or in part host, sponsor, and admin of their own tournaments, so they share a lot of the problems you mentioned with Escape. There is value in having one of those casters casting on Escape and there is value in having them broadcast on their channel, if they have a bigger following themself or in addition, hence more people see the going/being live notification.
That is base of the struggle with streaming policies in streamer hosted tournaments. The by far biggest channel doesn't have to care about others streaming their tournament because they get the viewers anyway, hence can be quite generous with their streaming policy. A smaller channel risks losing out if they let the bigger stream for free, appears greedy if they licens streaming, and risks losing overall hype and viewership if they stream exclusively. Pretty sure a smaller tournament host (in viewership) has more sleepless nights thinking about this dilemma and dealing with the consequences and uproar of their decisions than the bigger hosts have.