Should Watching Tournament Streams cost $$$ on Twitch?

As someone who's already subscribed to a user on Twitch to help support them stream, I agree with this. Yet I don't think they'd ever make it pay to watch per say, but I'd still pay nontheless

mighty_honour_korea said:

If you want to see some money start flowing into the MK9 community then what it needs is more fans, more streams, more tournaments, and more sponsors. Something which I believe NRS, and only NRS, is in a position to do something about. Which, of course, they will not.

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More fans? That's something that we literally can't control, you're either going to like the game or not regardless of what we do.

More streams? At events most things, even the most popular, gets one stream station so that's not gonna happen. In the community itself tons of people (GamerBlake, Pig, Mr.Aquaman, Astronout, etc...) stream online/offline casuals and such for MK.

More tournaments? We're at nearly every event/major, how many more tournaments can we hope to achieve? Unless we, as a community, are doing our own tournaments with nothing but MK/NRS it's pointless and, even if we do, it probably won't help with more fans.

More Sponsors? Like who? There's only so many sponsors in the FGC as it is as the FGC does not lend itself to a lot of product placement/shilling. Regardless, sponsors don't help with a fan base.

I'd pay 5-10. The streams provided by all the guys you tagged is a privilege, and not a right. The TO's and everyone else are taking their time to give you (someone that isn't even there) a front row seat to the best matches. Sometimes the stream makes tourneys run behind to show marquee matches, ect. IMHO the people that paid to travel to the tourney should be taken care of better than the stream viewers, but this unfortunately sometimes isn't the case. For this privilege, I would hope people would be willing to shell out a fraction of the cost it would take to travel to be there in person.

.02

$1 isn't lot of money, but there's this psychological factor to wandering into any site that offers a service, and realizing that you have to pay. People instinctively click that back button, or close the tab. And let's not forget that we're dealing with the same community that registers for things last minute. You think a lot of these people will go out to the store to buy a debit card (assuming they don't have one) or make a paypal on time for the stream? lol.

I think it will inevitably drop views. I would pay though, even though my computer sucks and live streams lag like crazy for me, if only to support the stream runners and TOs.

Of course not. I would never pay a dime to watch other people play a game that I own and can go in my living room and play. What if I'm trying to get my friend into mortal kombat, how do I justify him having to pay to watch something he doesn't even know he'll like? It doesn't matter what the cost is; the fact that there even is a cost at all is enough to turn a lot of people away. All the other fgcs don't need to do this, why should we? Run more ads and partner with twitch. So few streams have the option to change quality it's disgusting. What happens if somebody pays to watch a stream happeing in 720p only to find out their Internet can't support it? This is an awful idea and people WILL come out of the woodwork to both boycott and pirate the content. Restreaming of the paid streams will become commonplace which actually hurts your numbers eve more.

FrothyOmen said:

Of course not. I would never pay a dime to watch other people play a game that I own and can go in my living room and play. What if I'm trying to get my friend into mortal kombat, how do I justify him having to pay to watch something he doesn't even know he'll like? It doesn't matter what the cost is; the fact that there even is a cost at all is enough to turn a lot of people away. All the other fgcs don't need to do this, why should we? Run more ads and partner with twitch. So few streams have the option to change quality it's disgusting. What happens if somebody pays to watch a stream happeing in 720p only to find out their Internet can't support it? This is an awful idea and people WILL come out of the woodwork to both boycott and pirate the content. Restreaming of the paid streams will become commonplace which actually hurts your numbers eve more.

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Show him youtube

How do you show your friend movies?

mighty_honour_korea said:

I just don't believe the MK9 community can afford to turn away prospective fans by implementing PPV streams. Long-term, something that excludes people will do more harm than good.

If you want to see some money start flowing into the MK9 community then what it needs is more fans, more streams, more tournaments, and more sponsors. Something which I believe NRS, and only NRS, is in a position to do something about. Which, of course, they will not.

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well not just MK9 for any FGC

JHCRANE 14 said:

No offense, but isn't that what sponsors are for?

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Depends, you talking about players who are sponsored?

FrothyOmen said:

Of course not. I would never pay a dime to watch other people play a game that I own and can go in my living room and play.

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Why do you watch streams at all then instead of going into your living room to play it? Not bashing you, just asking.

Compbros said:

Why do you watch streams at all then instead of going into your living room to play it? Not bashing you, just asking.

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FrothyOmen I go to streams to learn and be entertained

Free to always watch.
Pay to chat and troll.

This streaming stuff is getting crazy.

People take it for granted just because "it's a video game", high quality entertainment, is still high quality entertainment. You can literally do anything at a basic level, watch free sub-par list movies or shows on antenna powered TVs, go outside and throw around a ball and play your own sport, game, etc, and not watch the high level stuff which sometimes requires a premium service.

Pig Of The Hut said:

FrothyOmen I go to streams to learn and be entertained

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If this is the case then yeah, you should pay. Do people realize that a few years ago matches were hardly ever recorded? And even if they were it was terrible quality/camera footage and even worst, a lot people would throw these matches on a DVD and charge for it. So, if you wanted to see the matches of every major/event, you either had to shell out thousands of dollars to go personally or hope that they were recorded on DVD and pay hundreds of dollars overall. And you wanna talk about 1-5 bucks for 360-720p quality with live commentary like it's the end of the World, no offense to anyone.

Pig Of The Hut said:

Most streamers make Zero
Asking a dollar isnt a lot

factor in the comparison to movies, netflix, etc.

Look how great the teamspooky stream is. No trolling and no BS

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The reason why there was no trolling or BS on sp00ky's stream was because he only allowed twitch subscribers to chat. So with your idea, I'd have to pay $5 to subscribe and then another dollar just to watch and chat with my friends. That's $6 for a $1 idea already.....

I do feel that streamers should be compensated in some way for their equipment use, travel and munchy expenses, etc. but paying to watch? Not so much. Paying to chat or other extras most definitely. I mean, we live in an age where people get butthurt over having to pay AT ALL for music, games, movies, et al (who are also generally the first to bitch about quality natch ) so even asking for $1 is asking a lot. Also too, you can talk down to people that don't have credit cards or paypal all you want, but the reality is, not everyone does. Another thing to consider on this is that not everyone will want to go through the effort of obtaining these payment methods for a $1 payment; especially when not that long ago, everything was free.

"Free" chats are easier to access for a "pay to chat" service, it was done just the morning and it's happening now.

/commercial. Ok but really I do support this idea. If you are a fan of something you SUPPORT it.

Justice said:

The reason why there was no trolling or BS on sp00ky's stream was because he only allowed twitch subscribers to chat. So with your idea, I'd have to pay $5 to subscribe and then another dollar just to watch and chat with my friends. That's $6 for a $1 idea already.....

I do feel that streamers should be compensated in some way for their equipment use, travel and munchy expenses, etc. but paying to watch? Not so much. Paying to chat or other extras most definitely. I mean, we live in an age where people get butthurt over having to pay AT ALL for music, games, movies, et al (who are also generally the first to bitch about quality natch ) so even asking for $1 is asking a lot. Also too, you can talk down to people that don't have credit cards or paypal all you want, but the reality is, not everyone does. Another thing to consider on this is that not everyone will want to go through the effort of obtaining these payment methods for a $1 payment; especially when not that long ago, everything was free.

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Im talking down only to those who act like its impossible to go buy a gift card

thats all really and im not even trying to talk down, I just dont see that as a good excuse when gift cards are everywhere if need be.

Spooky's ways aside i would do $1.00 for the entire major w chat included not $6.00

Spooky's chat was a pleasure to witness and read today and I just feel like $1.00 prices the trolls out for one thing, supports the streamers efforts for another and sets a higher precedent for all viewers to enjoy

Pig Of The Hut said:

Im talking down only to those who act like its impossible to go buy a gift card

thats all really and im not even trying to talk down, I just dont see that as a good excuse when gift cards are everywhere if need be.

Spooky's ways aside i would do $1.00 for the entire major w chat included not $6.00

Spooky's chat was a pleasure to witness and read today and I just feel like $1.00 prices the trolls out for one thing, supports the streamers efforts for another and sets a higher precedent for all viewers to enjoy

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Yeah everyone was actually watching the match, asking questions, etc. It was nice.

I would gladly pay as well, BUT, it would anger me if the "business" side took over more, and then they would slowly start upping the price per event, like movie theaters did.

No nickle and diming, but other than that, I would gladly support the community and donate 1$ for streaming of majors.

Pig Of The Hut said:

Show him youtube

How do you show your friend movies?

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So if VODs are going to be available on youtube free of charge, why would I ever pay to watch live? I'd rather go out drinking Fri/Sat night and be hungover sunday with my friends than sitting in my office watching a tournament live. If I can watch free on my own time as can my friends, then that's the route I (and many others) will end up taking.

If I want to show my friend movies I go and rent them. I know they are going to be entertaining becuase i've either seen them before or have seen previews and/or reviews of it. It's a polished product I'm comfortable spending my money on. Winter Brawl was extremely dull; the commentary was nonexistant a lot of the time I was watching and frankly I was falling asleep. Fighting game streams are NOTHING without good commentators and from what I watched Saturday that was lacking. I didn't watch top 8 this morning because frankly I didn't care about Saturday. Don't misconstrue this as some bash on the TOs or the tournament or anything like that. It's just that in my opinion the right people were not on mic Saturday and it led to boring casts. Goldfish said like 5 words and really made me question how much she really knows about the game. JamesMK on commentary, again, not the most clued-in individual to what's really going on. "Yeah, I think this is a bad matchup" gee thanks for that analysis! Phase 3 was probably the most enjoyable out of everyone.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Point is that when I rent a movie I know what I'm getting. If I pay for a tournament I have no idea what to expect; I'm essentially wagering my (and potentially other peoples) money on a product I may not end up liking. I did not find the Winter Brawl stream to be very entertaining, and I would have felt as if I did not spend my money well if I were to spend it on that. I would spend $20 to watch MLG/EVO every time because I know what it's going to be. But for any grassroots tournament, I would never spend a dime because there's just no way of knowing. I'm a college student with lots of debt and very limited income; a poorly spend $10 means a lot more to me than it does someone like you with a career and is established in the world. LBSH streams would never charge only a dollar, $4.99 is a much more believable price point that all the same people who would pay $1.00 would also pay $4.99 for.

You know what I think is a better idea? Subscribers get extra emoticons in chat and a logo by their name, and access to all HD versions of the stream. Free viewers get 360p and permanent slow mode in chat. That way they can still participate, and if they like what they see they can always upgrade to get the "full experience". This "full experience" could even include access to a subscriber only channel that is showing pools and stuff like that. Main stream = main stage only, second stream = pools. Sadly grassroots don't have the money to do something like that so that whole business model sinks -- but you can see where I'm trying to go with this at least.

As soon as somebody who has no idea what MK Tournaments are like is interested in watching, and sees that they have to pay to view them (even if it's five cents), they are going to hit that back button in their browser. But if they are able to view a semi-shitty version of our product, and then say "hmm you know what this is kind of cool, this is worth a couple bucks to get the full experience", congrats you have made money you otherwise would not have made and may have made a fan out of this person as well to make more money in the future. Look at GOMTV and their coverage of the GSL. Look at MLG and their coverage of literally all their games. They operate on this model; free crappy version, and paid gdlk version. They are all immensely successful, why should grassroots streams behave differently?

I would pay...for the good streams.

It's when like, Bifuteki's stream, with its general low quality is sub-only archives (And when he gets mad, sub-only chat), then yeah, that ain't cool.

Basically I'm fine in a stream-by-stream basis, based on quality.

Compbros said:

Why do you watch streams at all then instead of going into your living room to play it? Not bashing you, just asking.

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I usually don't go to streams. I pretty much just go to the GGA stream to troll those guys, and if I show up in other streams it's also to troll. I never watch tournaments with the expectation of learning something new. If there's some smoke matchups that I want to see I'll just go watch the vod on my own time. Basically my entire existence on twitch is to troll Wafflez and CrimsonShadow as much as I possibly can.

FrothyOmen said:

I usually don't go to streams. I pretty much just go to the GGA stream to troll those guys, and if I show up in other streams it's also to troll. I never watch tournaments with the expectation of learning something new. If there's some smoke matchups that I want to see I'll just go watch the vod on my own time. Basically my entire existence on twitch is to troll Wafflez and CrimsonShadow as much as I possibly can.

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Then, again, no offense and I mean it, your opinion is pretty irrelevant here as the conversation doesn't apply to someone like you. This is like saying "I wouldn't pay a dime for a Romance movie when I can watch one on TV" then saying "I don't watch/like romance movies". Of course YOU wouldn't pay for the romance movie but fans of romance movies would.

Compbros said:

More fans? That's something that we literally can't control, you're either going to like the game or not regardless of what we do.

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Out of all the really, really, REALLY stoopid shit I've read on these forums in my time here, this definitely wins an award of some kind. In a community where there's like 500 tourney-going players all across North America (and that number is really pushing it) and MK-dedicated streams struggle to get 500+ viewers, you don't think that there's anything we can do to change this? Isn't that the whole reason why we are here?

Let's put it a different way. Do you really think potential new players and fans will be impressed watching 10 hrs of low-tier player matches? Hell, yesterday, there was people bitching about how bad Maxter and CD Jr looked on stream and they are MOST DEFINITELY NOT low tier players. Hell, something like that would turn away a large percentage of dedicated MK players.

I don't really care much for chat rooms in the streams anyway. I always automatically close them unless it's a smaller stream I'm watching where everyone is a more stable person of society.

However, I will say this. If every stream requires a subscriber fee to talk, it will only hurt people who are just starting and looking to expand their audience from those 10 or so friends who view their stream, to 300+ viewers regularly. Why? Because as much as people in the FGC(or for that matter, any gaming community) do not want to admit it, pro players are looked at as celebrities. And the crowd will always want to go where those celebrity gamers are more likely to be seen at.