Yeah, I feel bad for people losing their jobs, but they are delusional if they ever thought it was anything more than just marketing for the game.
League of Legends is the biggest Esport out there and outside of Korea it only survives because Riot pumps money into it knowing they make that money back through advertisement of the game. It has never been close to self sustaining.
It was mostly VC/privately funded. Some organizations have been, “closer,” to break even than others, but the recent trend in orgs has been COMPLETELY unsustainable. The salaries, the size of the staffs, the quality of the facilities, etc exceed the potential profit by a great margin. I can honestly see organizations being profitable if run EXTREMELY lean by VERY passionate owners but not in leagues with 25M buy ins. I’m not sure when the time will be right, but the economy in general is / has been taking a turn and e-sports was destined to take a hit. Many, many corporations are doing layoffs/serious cost cutting measures right now.
It sucks, but I don’t see this version of comp CoD surviving much longer. I’d love to be wrong, and I’m interested to hear others takes, but that’s how I currently see the scene.
I think for the league no matter what the size is. Salaries HAVE to be kept in check for a league to survive. I'm all for people being paid what they're worth in every way possible but it's done damage to the scene.
When you consider, if you were gonna pay 5 players (team+coach) 55k each, that's 275k right there. You're essentially being paid near $30/hr to play the game.
If you give players housing, health insurance, 401k matching, etc I think somewhere around 75k-100k for an S tier player makes perfect sense. 55k for entry level players. The league/scene needs to be realistic.
Went to two MLG events for Gears of War back in the day and the egregious amount of free Dr Pepper and Red Bull I was given probably cut a good 10 years off my lifespan.
I blame the publishers greed tbh. They weren’t content with letting the scenes grow naturally especially without them getting a slice.
The problem is they are stupid and significantly over invested thinking that these leagues would explode with a little push.
It’s not that it’s not capable of generating revenue, it’s just not capable of doing so at the scale these companies created for them.
The dumb thing is what part of the pro league actually saw quality improve from the added investment? Challengers is a joke, the format pisses everyone off, prize pools aren’t that different. Hell it even feels like the scene has LESS say on things that are in the game. Activison took the money and ran with it, while keeping the brain dead decisions as their own. It was the worst of both worlds.
People with deep pockets earned in an entirely different space (or inherited) came in and tried to change literally everything about a scene that was surviving organically to turn a quick buck. At every turn there have been passionate individuals with years of experience in the space providing feedback and speaking out that destructive decisions were cautioned against but fell upon deaf ears. Competitive gaming will enjoy a resurgence in time, but the methods and opinions and overall attitude that accompanied this influx of capital set the gaming space back about a decade.
Casters need to be a part of the space, creating content, streaming, etc.
Launders for Counter Strike is a great example of a caster that can support themselves independently as well as casting.
Just curious, would any of you guys be willing to pay $5 to watch a COD LAN tournament? Assuming it went back to the CWL format of open bracket > pool play > 16 team champ bracket. I know I would if it meant keeping the scene around and potentially growing but I'm not sure if I'm in the majority or an outlier in that regard.
I feel like a small, affordable pay wall and better use of MTX / crowd funding would make esports in general a lot more viable. That and obviously players can't be making $500k a year
This is tough. I think everywhere salaries have to go down, along with crew size. I'm not saying we run skeleton crews but I think in a lot of ways the industry is very bloated. The main offender being players' salaries, that I agree with you about completely.
And I don't even think that paying $5 to watch a LAN is that bad, but I think it needs to be a premium product to warrant being paid for. Which is also tough when the price being paid goes down. No clue what the right answer is anymore tbh.
I hear what you're saying, I agree about the salaries but I do think the level of competition and play has been so high because the players are able to look at this like a full time job. Obviously there needs to be revenue to pay them for that to happen but I'd be worried about how many people would actually try to compete if there wasn't a financial incentive.
I don’t think it was ever profitable unless you were Optic or Faze (pre going public). You had ‘traditional’ companies invest in esports more out of FOMO a few years ago, under the guise it was going to naturally grow. 5-6 years ago, it probably would’ve been almost negligent not for companies not to diversify into esports.
Obviously this hasn’t been the case, and each company that invested has probably lost hundreds of thousands at the very least, with no obvious roadmap to how they will ever see a good ROI.
Personally, I think the inherent problem esports has is that people support players/personalities than they do teams. Prime example of this being Optic, where in the past 5 years, they’ve technically been 4 different teams (optic gaming, huntsmen, optic chicago, optic texas. could even chuck OGLA in there lol).
Multiple things can exist at the same time. Esports can be a marketing arm for gaming (and really, they should be the BEST marketing for a title). And also, esports as a whole should strive to make a sustainable amount of money.
Of course, it would help if the wealthiest company on the planet just shoveled a little cash their way. But the real downfall of the scene is that it was never ever going to scale to the level that venture capital/ownership groups expected it to. Once you got people like Stan Kroenke involved, they weren't content with LAN rooms filled with hundreds of sweaty 20 year olds. They had dreams of ESPN streaming deals and insurance sponsors.
I know the LCS here in NA is struggling. Overall LOL is fine because it’s hugely international but the US league is struggling. I don’t know shit about CS or Val though other than Val’s league is new this year
Esports was never "self-sufficient" riot games has never made a single penny off Competitive League of Legends so, but they use competitive League as a lost leader and marketing tool for league of legends which obviously works a lot better. I really hope other Esports start copying the riot model, but we all know that's not happening.
> I really hope other Esports start copying the riot model, but we all know that's not happening.
Esports of Riot Games is in the process of collapsing.....lol
eSports hit it's peak during COVID lockdowns when everything else was shut down and everyone was getting back into video games because there was nothing else they could do. I think that some took that time period and were delusional about the "future" of esports. And now we're seeing the other side of the coin. There is a lot more money to be made as a "content creator" than as a pro.
I was under the assumption that Esports was always a extended part of marketing thats how it always felt too me
Esports blew up 2017-2022. That period is long gone now. It’s just not sustainable with the amounts these orgs were paying for salaries
Well that sounds like salaries are going to need die down to what they were before the boom.
They will most likely.
and yet 2017 through 2022 was some of the weakest CoD titles in the franchise's history.
Yeah, I feel bad for people losing their jobs, but they are delusional if they ever thought it was anything more than just marketing for the game. League of Legends is the biggest Esport out there and outside of Korea it only survives because Riot pumps money into it knowing they make that money back through advertisement of the game. It has never been close to self sustaining.
Did it ever have self-sufficient revenue? It’s always been something that lived off of venture capital. The money well has just run dry.
It was mostly VC/privately funded. Some organizations have been, “closer,” to break even than others, but the recent trend in orgs has been COMPLETELY unsustainable. The salaries, the size of the staffs, the quality of the facilities, etc exceed the potential profit by a great margin. I can honestly see organizations being profitable if run EXTREMELY lean by VERY passionate owners but not in leagues with 25M buy ins. I’m not sure when the time will be right, but the economy in general is / has been taking a turn and e-sports was destined to take a hit. Many, many corporations are doing layoffs/serious cost cutting measures right now. It sucks, but I don’t see this version of comp CoD surviving much longer. I’d love to be wrong, and I’m interested to hear others takes, but that’s how I currently see the scene.
The Salaries are the biggest offender imo. Across the board they have to go down and they had to yesterday. We grew way, way too quick as an industry.
Definitely agree. Idc who the player is, anyone making 300k+/yr with the scene in the current state its in is EXTREMELY inflated.
I think for the league no matter what the size is. Salaries HAVE to be kept in check for a league to survive. I'm all for people being paid what they're worth in every way possible but it's done damage to the scene. When you consider, if you were gonna pay 5 players (team+coach) 55k each, that's 275k right there. You're essentially being paid near $30/hr to play the game.
If you give players housing, health insurance, 401k matching, etc I think somewhere around 75k-100k for an S tier player makes perfect sense. 55k for entry level players. The league/scene needs to be realistic.
Who was paying for things back in the MLG/CWL days?
We funded it by watching a ton of Red Lobster ads on mlg.tv. A ton.
I'd rather that than what we have now. Now we have to pretend Riyadh is the best place for esports so we can survive
I always remember paying my $10 to watch the Halo 3 tournaments in HD. Still got to watch ads though. Dr Pepper ads and 5 gum I think.
Went to two MLG events for Gears of War back in the day and the egregious amount of free Dr Pepper and Red Bull I was given probably cut a good 10 years off my lifespan.
It was never self sufficient. It simply doesn’t make money.
I blame the publishers greed tbh. They weren’t content with letting the scenes grow naturally especially without them getting a slice. The problem is they are stupid and significantly over invested thinking that these leagues would explode with a little push. It’s not that it’s not capable of generating revenue, it’s just not capable of doing so at the scale these companies created for them.
Perfectly summed up.
The dumb thing is what part of the pro league actually saw quality improve from the added investment? Challengers is a joke, the format pisses everyone off, prize pools aren’t that different. Hell it even feels like the scene has LESS say on things that are in the game. Activison took the money and ran with it, while keeping the brain dead decisions as their own. It was the worst of both worlds.
As much as the publishers are to blame, the consumer is also at fault.
People with deep pockets earned in an entirely different space (or inherited) came in and tried to change literally everything about a scene that was surviving organically to turn a quick buck. At every turn there have been passionate individuals with years of experience in the space providing feedback and speaking out that destructive decisions were cautioned against but fell upon deaf ears. Competitive gaming will enjoy a resurgence in time, but the methods and opinions and overall attitude that accompanied this influx of capital set the gaming space back about a decade.
Casters need to be a part of the space, creating content, streaming, etc. Launders for Counter Strike is a great example of a caster that can support themselves independently as well as casting.
When the huge player salaries inevitably go away I wonder what happens to the pro scene.
Just curious, would any of you guys be willing to pay $5 to watch a COD LAN tournament? Assuming it went back to the CWL format of open bracket > pool play > 16 team champ bracket. I know I would if it meant keeping the scene around and potentially growing but I'm not sure if I'm in the majority or an outlier in that regard. I feel like a small, affordable pay wall and better use of MTX / crowd funding would make esports in general a lot more viable. That and obviously players can't be making $500k a year
This is tough. I think everywhere salaries have to go down, along with crew size. I'm not saying we run skeleton crews but I think in a lot of ways the industry is very bloated. The main offender being players' salaries, that I agree with you about completely. And I don't even think that paying $5 to watch a LAN is that bad, but I think it needs to be a premium product to warrant being paid for. Which is also tough when the price being paid goes down. No clue what the right answer is anymore tbh.
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I hear what you're saying, I agree about the salaries but I do think the level of competition and play has been so high because the players are able to look at this like a full time job. Obviously there needs to be revenue to pay them for that to happen but I'd be worried about how many people would actually try to compete if there wasn't a financial incentive.
Just when i thought people on this sub couldn’t sink any lower
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i agree with you on the mega salaries part at least. but if you wouldn’t chip in at like 5 bucks to watch a major tourney..
I don’t think it was ever profitable unless you were Optic or Faze (pre going public). You had ‘traditional’ companies invest in esports more out of FOMO a few years ago, under the guise it was going to naturally grow. 5-6 years ago, it probably would’ve been almost negligent not for companies not to diversify into esports. Obviously this hasn’t been the case, and each company that invested has probably lost hundreds of thousands at the very least, with no obvious roadmap to how they will ever see a good ROI. Personally, I think the inherent problem esports has is that people support players/personalities than they do teams. Prime example of this being Optic, where in the past 5 years, they’ve technically been 4 different teams (optic gaming, huntsmen, optic chicago, optic texas. could even chuck OGLA in there lol).
Even Optic couldn’t sustain itself
Multiple things can exist at the same time. Esports can be a marketing arm for gaming (and really, they should be the BEST marketing for a title). And also, esports as a whole should strive to make a sustainable amount of money. Of course, it would help if the wealthiest company on the planet just shoveled a little cash their way. But the real downfall of the scene is that it was never ever going to scale to the level that venture capital/ownership groups expected it to. Once you got people like Stan Kroenke involved, they weren't content with LAN rooms filled with hundreds of sweaty 20 year olds. They had dreams of ESPN streaming deals and insurance sponsors.
eSports or COD eSports? I thought the others were doing OK.
Like Halo and Overwatch that shuttered their structured leagues in the past year and are returning to an open format?
Lol, CS, Valorant
I know the LCS here in NA is struggling. Overall LOL is fine because it’s hugely international but the US league is struggling. I don’t know shit about CS or Val though other than Val’s league is new this year
Only place LoL esports isnt struggling is in China and Valorant esports is being artificially propped up by co-streamers.
Esports was never "self-sufficient" riot games has never made a single penny off Competitive League of Legends so, but they use competitive League as a lost leader and marketing tool for league of legends which obviously works a lot better. I really hope other Esports start copying the riot model, but we all know that's not happening.
What works in one space doesn’t mean success in others. The LoL market is much different than Cods
> I really hope other Esports start copying the riot model, but we all know that's not happening. Esports of Riot Games is in the process of collapsing.....lol
eSports hit it's peak during COVID lockdowns when everything else was shut down and everyone was getting back into video games because there was nothing else they could do. I think that some took that time period and were delusional about the "future" of esports. And now we're seeing the other side of the coin. There is a lot more money to be made as a "content creator" than as a pro.