This topic is to discuss the event and the surrounding weirdness of the whole thing, or at least try to make some logical sense of it all.
I think its great that AoE2 gets another event and of course its legit, we know that much. But what about the other events? The Hearthstone, Sc2 and fifa15 events which are also happening and each have $32k in prizes... or $20k (it depends where you look) yet nobody is signing up and barely any well known players from those scenes are involved. It makes no sense to fly 8 unknown players who have qualified through a bracket containing just 10 other players to the Maldives... Where is the the sponsorship coming from for these other games, how on earth is the event intended to turn a profit? How much has been spent on promotion for the whole thing? Because a couple of quick google searches bring up very very little about the whole event... (Aside from a couple of Reddit threads made by new accounts where the OP is assuring people it's not a scam: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comm ... ualifiers/) yet $3m has supposedly been invested with $2m in prizes for the players??? (Most of which are unknown in their scenes)
As for turning a profit, no esport event is designed to lose money, ad-revenue from stream coverage etc is always a big part of it. This is the case in cs go and lol etc. Now maybe aoe2 will attract 2000 viewers for the event but that is no way enough to recover even a fraction of the cost of throwing the event... Since the players qualifying for the other scenes are not well known and the event is barely advertised how will these streams attract enough viewers? It seems like throwing money down the drain, and since WSVG reappeared last year (since they previously stopped their work because their events were not profitable) things dont seem to be any different.
Quote from Wikipedia: Here.
The WSVG corporate website states that they are funded by United States and Arab Emirates private investors and venture capital: (http://theworldseries.org/#!/about/), that's all well and good... but how long will venture capitalists stick around if events cant turn a profit? Maybe the TyRanT sponsor is partially behind this, who knows.
Its also odd that WSVG writes in threads that they have provided $170k for aoe2 event in the last year... but we all know that the money came from the Tyrant and Sy sponsors, so why are they taking credit for that...
Quote from the WSVG Reddit account: Here
The whole thing is just weird and doesnt make sense :/ Anyone with more info... please enlighten me
I think its great that AoE2 gets another event and of course its legit, we know that much. But what about the other events? The Hearthstone, Sc2 and fifa15 events which are also happening and each have $32k in prizes... or $20k (it depends where you look) yet nobody is signing up and barely any well known players from those scenes are involved. It makes no sense to fly 8 unknown players who have qualified through a bracket containing just 10 other players to the Maldives... Where is the the sponsorship coming from for these other games, how on earth is the event intended to turn a profit? How much has been spent on promotion for the whole thing? Because a couple of quick google searches bring up very very little about the whole event... (Aside from a couple of Reddit threads made by new accounts where the OP is assuring people it's not a scam: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comm ... ualifiers/) yet $3m has supposedly been invested with $2m in prizes for the players??? (Most of which are unknown in their scenes)
As for turning a profit, no esport event is designed to lose money, ad-revenue from stream coverage etc is always a big part of it. This is the case in cs go and lol etc. Now maybe aoe2 will attract 2000 viewers for the event but that is no way enough to recover even a fraction of the cost of throwing the event... Since the players qualifying for the other scenes are not well known and the event is barely advertised how will these streams attract enough viewers? It seems like throwing money down the drain, and since WSVG reappeared last year (since they previously stopped their work because their events were not profitable) things dont seem to be any different.
Quote from Wikipedia: Here.
In a surprise move on September 12, 2007, the WSVG main page announced that "Games Media Properties will no longer produce the World Series of Video Games",[13] and that the remaining three events (Los Angeles, London, and Sweden) were all cancelled. The reasons given were that revenue from the previous events were not enough to sustain the league, especially because of its extensive televising campaign and enormous event sizes.
The WSVG corporate website states that they are funded by United States and Arab Emirates private investors and venture capital: (http://theworldseries.org/#!/about/), that's all well and good... but how long will venture capitalists stick around if events cant turn a profit? Maybe the TyRanT sponsor is partially behind this, who knows.
Its also odd that WSVG writes in threads that they have provided $170k for aoe2 event in the last year... but we all know that the money came from the Tyrant and Sy sponsors, so why are they taking credit for that...
Quote from the WSVG Reddit account: Here
For those who think the prize pool is too big, this year alone WSVG have offered exactly $170,000 USD in cash prizes (all paid) in online-only tournaments, mainly for Age of Empires 2
The whole thing is just weird and doesnt make sense :/ Anyone with more info... please enlighten me