I'm happy that you are trying to solve this problem. But to be honest, I don't feel optimistic that this solution can be aceepted by all other players. Accually speaking, if someone says "Ok, we also want to stream as the Chinese do", no one could reject them.We had a meeting with Kiky this week to discuss this topic and try to bridge the gap with the Chinese community. I am sure he has already spoken to the teams about this issue.
It is not our intention to block Chinese viewers from seeing the event, we want the event to be seen by as many people as possible. However, we are enforcing the rules until we find a solution that works for everyone.
We plan to change things going forward with regards to steaming rules etc, ECL has been a great learning experience so far.
Our plan of action right now is to talk to all of the non-Chinese teams and discuss with them about why we think China makes a special case and we should allow them to stream their POV. If the rest of the teams can cooperate and accept that then we can go ahead and make an exception.
What I don’t want to do is change the rules without consideration for the other teams and then run into the issue of having players claim it’s unfair that Chinese players can stream their POV while they can not. It’s a delicate issue but it is one we are dealing with.
Hopefully we can find a solution that fixes everything.
As far as ECL viewer numbers go, we are averaging around 5.5-6k peak viewers per weekend with all streams combined. With an all time peak of 7.2k. VODs are getting over a million combined views per event too.
Got to look at the bigger picture and not just the escape stream please. There are streams on YouTube too.
These numbers are excluding the Chinese streams.
I personally understand you want a new way for audiences to participate in ECL. And to achive this goal, you don't want them to know the result. But the question is, as we all know, SY and Frantic possiblly go in semi-final or even final. The players know many results. I'm not saying there's someone letting the viewers know the result. But do you think they can let the viewers not know? For example, Yo didn't streams yesterday, I would know he was playing ECL. Several days latter, things happen again, Yo don't stream. Then I would know, great, SY won the last round.
Accually we have 100 ways to know the result. However, people are becoming more and more careless about ECL. I mean, if you let someone to choose between live and video, I think most people, not only Chinese, would prefer the live. I understand your rules, but I don't think it's really good for everyone.
Maybe a new rule which allows stream is good for everyone, not only Chinese. Now Chinese can not accept the rules not because we want to or used to break rules, but because we don't have any good alternative solutions. Others have their solutions. But it does not mean the original rule is good.