Game streaming and money
#1
What do you think about the business model in which the developers work for free, the mappers work for free, the servers are provided for free but by streaming game and betting you can earn some money ? Should be such money returned to the infrastructure ? Or it is acceptable prize for marketing of the game ? Do you have some experiences with making money by streaming videos ?
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#2
what do you mean by betting? or rather; what examples of video games that successfully do this would you use?
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#3
what viewerbase do you need to actually produce a somewhat decent amount of money?
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#4
I found this calculator http://socialblade.com/youtube/youtube-money-calculator . Here is the player from minecraft http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/thediamondminecart . The question is if he is returning some money to the game.
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#5
I think he is.

People watch his videos, think ohey this game is cool i want to play it. and then people buy that game. Its basically free advertising
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#6
Who's gonna watch AC on twitch besides people who already know about it though..honestly.

Nice thinking though lukas/A.
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#7
What Marti said. The biggest thing you can do to support a game is arguably to promote it and encourage the exponential/sustainable growth of the playerbase.

Also as a quick glance, I just looked at one of KSI's Q&A videos (the one with his (ex)gf I think). It has over 18 million views, which is even more than [edit: some] FIFA World Cup games. If you're that popular and are guaranteeing millions of views on your channel, you're basically in line with top TV shows in terms of views, and I don't think it's wrong that popular youtubers are paid to the same standard, especially when you factor in that in a game like Minecraft it would be hard to constantly come up with new content as often as they do. In the Minecraft-specific example, you're technically directly contributing back to the game by buying the client itself, and many contribute to the community by purchasing subscriptions to servers like mineplex and so on (also related to streaming: if mojang didn't want people to stream Minecraft, they wouldn't have included an inbuilt twitch broadcaster).

And while I don't think anyone would make money from streaming AC (unless their channel already has a bunch of dedicated followers who just watch every video you produce, there was a russian dota 2 player who was streaming q3cpma on his channel and it had 12000 viewers, which is 1000 times the magnitude of the game's actual playerbase), if they ever did make a bunch of money from a game which offers everything totally for free, I'd consider it a little unethical if they didn't at least donate something back.
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#8
(16 Jun 15, 09:52AM)Vanquish Wrote: It has over 18 million views, which is more than a lot of FIFA World Cup games.

This doesn't sound correct
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#9
(16 Jun 15, 10:44AM)C4rma Wrote: This doesn't sound correct

I wouldn't have thought so either, I actually only found it out by researching what kind of TV programmes have that type of viewer level. And I'm not talking about finals or games between great teams, just generally. for example one of the games which was around the 18-19 million level was England vs Sweden in 2006. For a youtuber to make a video of himself answering questions, and then for that video to get the same amount of worldwide views as an international football competition is pretty crazy imo.

And just as an addendum to my last post, I'm not trying to compare esports to real sports, it was just a random statistic I took. Obviously I get that while esports is growing, unless you're in south korea the two can't be compared in terms of popularity.
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#10
How is that a "business model" if everyone works for free ?

And it takes years for a game to get popular enough to make money from streaming (not to mention the risks), not scalable, and where will you find the money to finance the infrastructure before it gets profitable ?

Because of this, every game that can make a noticeable amount of money from broadcasting already had massive sources of revenue before (pay to play, investors, etc)
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#11
But if we get this game in (for example) top 10 free2play shooter list we will get more players as well.
I only have no idea how :/
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#12
(16 Jun 15, 08:39PM)-Subjective Wrote: But if we get this game in (for example) top 10 free2play shooter list we will get more players as well.
I only have no idea how :/
Remove map restrictions? But that is an argument for a different day
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#13
(16 Jun 15, 09:47PM)HoeHunter Wrote: Remove map restrictions? But that is an argument for a different day

nice troll attempt
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#14
This would be a problem in the USA. Many states can't bet on anything online.... legally.
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#15
Ive always viewed it as entertainment. Legally you could look at it that the streamers are paying a licensing fee by buying the game and any content derived there-from is fair use.

In a game like assaultcube it'd be beneficial to give a cut back to the game to support infrastructure but I don't think there is any legal impetus to.
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#16
When Youtube changed their way of earning money and improved their content filter and policy, it was to content owners/companies to choose between earning all the money from people's montage/streams (ex: Nintendo) or to let people do what they want/like and earn all the money of their works (ex: Minecraft).

Someone talked about "free advertising", but it only works if the game is good enough to convince stream viewers to buy/play their game, it works with Minecraft but some games are so shitty, streams are just here to convince people not to buy/play it.

On a side note, AC would be completelly different if we speak about the "law", the game itself is under multiple juridictions, let say if you are allowed to earn money by streaming AssaultCube, you are certainly not allowed to earn money from many maps.
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#17
(16 Jun 15, 11:04AM)Luc@s Wrote: How is that a "business model" if everyone works for free ?

And it takes years for a game to get popular enough to make money from streaming (not to mention the risks), not scalable, and where will you find the money to finance the infrastructure before it gets profitable ?

Because of this, every game that can make a noticeable amount of money from broadcasting already had massive sources of revenue before (pay to play, investors, etc)

I agree 80%.
And i personally do not believe that the game improves investing money. I think the risk involved does not compensate the attempt ...
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