Current Situation on Aoe4 and Aoe2

[Springoftheking]

BoA has very goob numbers both Memb's channel and overall. I think people overestimate how much viewers AoE2 had before DE.

 

[Lokalo]

Just saw this on chat and on memb channel currently is 5.8k 1:1 GL vs QNA

P.S. not sure how accurate it is, for example on FB I see T90 has 1k and Viper 660, so is 1.66k and it says 1059

 

[HappyLeaves]

Just saw this on chat and on memb channel currently is 5.8k 1:1 GL vs QNA

View attachment 201013

P.S. not sure how accurate it is, for example on FB I see T90 has 1k and Viper 660, so is 1.66k and it says 1059

It depends on when it was requested. Post-match, it won't count streaming players (since the match is technically over) - that's probably what happened here. It can also be inaccurate in the first minutes of a match since not all casters start as soon as the match does.

 

[Giuseppe551]

is not more logical to talk about age4. its public knowledge that is a worst and less popular game than age2.

Agreed, there's really nothing left to say about aoe4 at the moment. Until they fix combat in that game it will continue be a side note in the aoe franchise.

i want to talk about the production of sc2 tournament and the viewers. right now im watching esl sc2, the final upper bracket, and only has 7.2 viewers.

You were probably watching NA, a much less interesting/popular region. Today's EU finals have ~17k main/24k total viewers. In general I'd say sc2 has lower but more predictable viewership compared to aoe2.

 

[ninja14]

well, i dont remember if i already say this, but is not more logical to talk about age4. its public knowledge that is a worst and less popular game than age2.

Based on discussions in this thread the main complaint has been disproportionate prize pools which continues to be the case. Things like below are still happening

- a qualifier to rbw aoe4 has 45k prize pool while a 3v3 aoe2 event carries 30k only

- aoe4 league 125k, aoe2 league 25k

aoe4 has bombed out in terms of no of players, that's a fact and hardly a topic of debate.

 

[Liamsmalley7]

Based on discussions in this thread the main complaint has been disproportionate prize pools which continues to be the case. Things like below are still happening

- a qualifier to rbw aoe4 has 45k prize pool while a 3v3 aoe2 event carries 30k only

- aoe4 league 125k, aoe2 league 25k

aoe4 has bombed out in terms of no of players, that's a fact and hardly a topic of debate.

This kind of thing won't last forever though, I think. Clearly the experts making the financial decisions for Microsoft have decided that AoE4 should continue to receive huge funding for tournament prize pools, in an attempt to attract players. So far I think it's pretty obvious that it hasn't been working. The question is, how long with they pump money into the game in an attempt to make it more popular? Eventually, they will have to cut their losses.

 

[Tendo]

This kind of thing won't last forever though, I think. Clearly the experts making the financial decisions for Microsoft have decided that AoE4 should continue to receive huge funding for tournament prize pools, in an attempt to attract players.

I don't think it's mainly about MS so far, in both Cases RBW and the Golden-League you have an external "Party" which invests a lot of they're own Money and MS basically copies that (the same with N4C).

So as soon as those external Partys stop putting they're own money into aoe4... I'd doubt aoe4 Tournaments will continue to have those big Prizepools after that.

Big AoE2-Tournaments on the other hand seem to be almost fully sponsored by MS (except RBW Legacy of course).

 

[Lokalo]

I don't think it's mainly about MS so far, in both Cases RBW and the Golden-League you have an external "Party" which invests a lot of they're own Money and MS basically copies that (the same with N4C).

So as soon as those external Partys stop putting they're own money into aoe4... I'd doubt aoe4 Tournaments will continue to have those big Prizepools after that.

But do we know that? I might be totally wrong, but it kind of feels more likely to me that RB wanted to host another aoe2 and spoke with MS and MS said, ohh nice, look, we will give you 300k+ more on top of that if you include aoe4. Well may be let's add aoe1 too then if we making it a franchise tournament.

 

[Tendo]

But do we know that? I might be totally wrong, but it kind of feels more likely to me that RB wanted to host another aoe2 and spoke with MS and MS said, ohh nice, look, we will give you 300k+ more on top of that if you include aoe4. Well may be let's add aoe1 too then if we making it a franchise tournament.

That's obviously something we can only speculate about.
I'd guess because those Tournaments get planned a long time beforehand it's not unlikely that they decided on AoE4 before AoE4 was even released and only later decided to include AoE2/AoE1 aswell.

We heard several times that a lot of people approached for organizing AoE4 Tournaments before/during release of AoE4 and only very few wanted to Host AoE2 Tournaments (which makes sense), so what we see now is proly still related to this Time-Period of AoE4-Release.

 

[NextLever]

I'd guess because those Tournaments get planned a long time beforehand it's not unlikely that they decided on AoE4 before AoE4 was even released and only later decided to include AoE2/AoE1 aswell.

That does seem plausible. RBW 5 was supposed to be the last Wololo event. They probably thought aoe4 was going to be the direct replacement for aoe2 and that most people would be playing aoe4 by now.

 

[Progeusz]

Keep in mind that tournaments and sponsorships are arranged months in advance, especially when money is so big it crosses half a million of dollars and huge companies are present on both sides. Current situation has no effect on current prizepools. It's very possible Red Bull Wololo Legacy was already in the works last year, right after V ended and that's when prize pools were decided, or at least the general idea of the scale. IMO it makes perfect sense they would immediately start preparations for next tournament in Heidelberg after previous one ended, or even during it, seeing how huge and positive reception was.
Yes, AoE 4 is a lot less popular at the moment. But how was the game perceived few months ago? When it was coming out? Hopes were much higher for it. It will take time for things to calm down and match the actual, current popularity.

EGC also mentioned in the past that he wants to lead the market for his game of choice so it's not surprising he's investing a lot, to both stay on top and also to carry the game, in an attempt to cultivate/grow/recover the healthy playerbase.

 

[FeAge]

AoE4 is not a bad game. It is actually quite fun once you learn it and start playing it. It is quite different from aoe2 but it has its charm.

The problem with the game is it's terrible timing. The game was released in such a bad and unfinished state that it killed all the hype with it. And that was mainly the dev's fault...

The game had a huge community being grown interested in it: Players from WC3, SC2, AOM,AOE3, our AOE2 and even LOL players. There was a lot of potential, since pro players will make the game more competitive and therefore atract more viewers/fans into the game.

The problem was that when it was released, the game had a lot of bugs, water map combat was stupid, some civs were broken and the biggest issue: there was no mod availability neither possibility to change hotkeys.

I think with mods being released since day 1 you would have a totally different game. The balance changes were also quite late.

So I guess after quite some time and a lot of changes made, the game is in a playable state, but it lost the hype and interest of alot of potential pro players and now is just a OK game that you would spend some hours in a boring rainy sunday.

 

[akku]

let's start by saying that TGs tournament get less attention then 1v1 tournament. But i've just checked how BOA 2 went (on memb channel) and the average viewrship during group stage was around 2.5/2.8k, and the average for the final was 4.8k. Rn, in the early group stage, we have an average of 2.5k/3k but with more one sided series, while on BOA2 we had right at the start some of the creazyest series (the opening series was WWP against GL)

Actually yes, I had overestimated the popularity of TGs. Because personally, I find it far more entertaining than 1v1s, so I thought people generally felt the same as well. I didn't know the viewership of previous BOA as well. Hence, I compared it with last year HC, RBW and KotD, which was a mistake from my part.

If we are comparing with previous BOA, the current viewership is indeed better.

i think numbers for BoA are good. is the firsrt weekend and we have already more viewers than GL in finals almost.

Yeah, my post was before the GL games.
I've read here that it had 15K+ peak overall (anyone knows the actual peak?); and aoe2 itself had 14K viewers peak in twitch yesterday.

Too bad I couldn't watch the games though, too late for Indian time, especially when it's Monday the next day lol.

 

[LeoMontero]

Agreed, there's really nothing left to say about aoe4 at the moment. Until they fix combat in that game it will continue be a side note in the aoe franchise.

You were probably watching NA, a much less interesting/popular region. Today's EU finals have ~17k main/24k total viewers. In general I'd say sc2 has lower but more predictable viewership compared to aoe2.

yes i was watching NA, and yes i saw yesterday the europe finals had 17k. but i think that with the quality of production, and the amount of money in prices, AoE2 can do a better job than SC2.

and btw, the upper final in NA from SC2, Scarlet against another, was like 30 minutes the hole series. for me, thats BS. it was literaly 1 fight and gg.

 

[LeoMontero]

AoE4 is not a bad game. It is actually quite fun once you learn it and start playing it. It is quite different from aoe2 but it has its charm.

The problem with the game is it's terrible timing. The game was released in such a bad and unfinished state that it killed all the hype with it. And that was mainly the dev's fault...

The game had a huge community being grown interested in it: Players from WC3, SC2, AOM,AOE3, our AOE2 and even LOL players. There was a lot of potential, since pro players will make the game more competitive and therefore atract more viewers/fans into the game.

The problem was that when it was released, the game had a lot of bugs, water map combat was stupid, some civs were broken and the biggest issue: there was no mod availability neither possibility to change hotkeys.

I think with mods being released since day 1 you would have a totally different game. The balance changes were also quite late.

So I guess after quite some time and a lot of changes made, the game is in a playable state, but it lost the hype and interest of alot of potential pro players and now is just a OK game that you would spend some hours in a boring rainy sunday.

the conclusion of your post, is that is a meeh game. so if you like the game and is a meeh game, imagine for people that dont like the game.
its a failure.

 

[NextLever]

But how was the game perceived few months ago?

Same as now by anyone who didn't buy into the hype? The reason everyone flocked to it was because it was a new RTS with a big name. Not because its potential was super amazing and somehow ended up being let down by the devs. If the game was released in the state it is right now, end result would still be the same. It's just not as good of a game and there's only so much you can expect to change. Viper himself says it can be fun to play "sometimes" but it's mostly frustrating and not great to watch.

 

[Lokalo]

That's obviously something we can only speculate about.
I'd guess because those Tournaments get planned a long time beforehand it's not unlikely that they decided on AoE4 before AoE4 was even released and only later decided to include AoE2/AoE1 aswell.

Yes, that is very likely, although it kind of still plays into my scenario. RB was thinking about another tournament and when they started talking with MS, MS started pushing aoe4 as they expected aoe4 to be the new king in franchise. Of course there could be deals made about aoe2 and just later on MS could ask to add aoe4 and aoe1. To add another game if MS giving 300k for it's prizepool when you already renting castle and stuff is still much easier to add than doing separate thing, so seems like a nice deal. Although, even both scenarios are quite likely prize pools are quite surprising still. If they initially planned only aoe4 or aoe2, they had to pretty much double the prize pool.

As is already confirmed that players who will want to play in both aoe2 and aoe4 won't have issues with schedule means that we can don't care much about aoe4, just skip it if do not want to watch. Sure 300k for it seems quite crazy, but at same time 200k for aoe2 is crazy too and that matters most. I guess worst part about RB is that it's still far away.

 

[Tempires]

Based on discussions in this thread the main complaint has been disproportionate prize pools which continues to be the case. Things like below are still happening

-a qualifier to rbw aoe4 has 45k prize pool while a 3v3 aoe2 event carries 30k only

It's 4 month series with 16 separate events(4 A-tier, 14 B-tier events, 2,7k per event, ). 11k per month isn't much when there is just Drongo's 10k event during same period. Aoe2 has $75,7k just by counting 4 S-tier events(including T90's Titans golden league would make it 80,9k) vs $55k for aoe4 with no S-tier events before RBW6 for comparison

 

[nimanoe]

It's 4 month series with 16 separate events(4 A-tier, 14 B-tier events, 2,7k per event, ). 11k per month isn't much when there is just Drongo's 10k event during same period. Aoe2 has $75,7k just by counting 4 S-tier events(including T90's Titans golden league would make it 80,9k) vs $55k for aoe4 with no S-tier events before RBW6 for comparison

To add to that, 12k of that 44k for the Road to Wololo is paid for by start.gg
EGC in general has been doing a great job at getting outside sponsorship, whereas AoE2 is much more reliant on Microsoft

 

[IYIyTh]

To add to that, 12k of that 44k for the Road to Wololo is paid for by start.gg
EGC in general has been doing a great job at getting outside sponsorship, whereas AoE2 is much more reliant on Microsoft

Begs the question -- why? Is it because a lot of aoe2 tournaments are self funded and sponsors are kept at bay for control and/or exclusivity?

 

[nimanoe]

Begs the question -- why? Is it because a lot of aoe2 tournaments are self funded and sponsors are kept at bay for control and/or exclusivity?

That doesn't make any sense, I don't think sponsors like start.gg, Surfshark or steelseries care about having control, they just want to get as many engagements or sales as possible.

 

[akku]

That doesn't make any sense, I don't think sponsors like start.gg, Surfshark or steelseries care about having control, they just want to get as many engagements or sales as possible.

Don't they care about viewership even more?

Aoe2 has proven high viewership, yet aoe2 isn't getting any sponsoring, except RB. What could be the reason?

 

[kalcium]

Don't they care about viewership even more?

Aoe2 has proven high viewership, yet aoe2 isn't getting any sponsoring, except RB. What could be the reason?

I suppose the business background of EGCTV helps. Unlike aoe2 folks who are mostly streamers-turned organisers, he actually seems to be a successful PR/business guy on his own. At least he can afford spending 10k on aoe3 and even more on aoe4 out of his pocket

 

[Black Adder]

To add to that, 12k of that 44k for the Road to Wololo is paid for by start.gg
EGC in general has been doing a great job at getting outside sponsorship, whereas AoE2 is much more reliant on Microsoft

Start.gg (Smash.gg) is Microsoft.

 

[MongolTCRush]

Don't they care about viewership even more?

Aoe2 has proven high viewership, yet aoe2 isn't getting any sponsoring, except RB. What could be the reason?

I wonder if anyone has actually reached out to potential sponsors with an offer.

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