Or maybe there's little reason to no longer play a format just because a deck you don't play got a ban. This might be a reason to not want to further invest in it (e.g. not make any more decks), but unless your deck is directly affected by a ban, there doesn't seem much of a reason to actually quit the format due to it.
My biggest beef with the clan names is that the decks that had these names slapped on them don't play like the Khans' clan decks play. 'Sultai' Delver doesn't dredge the deck and reanimate zombies. 'Abzan' Junk or Maverick or whatever doesn't play outlast dudes and build up a million +1/+1 counters. 'Jeskai' Delver didn't have a bunch of Prowess dorks. They just applied names based on colors without regard to the actual style of play.
It's just as moronic as calling an Ad Nauseum deck that splashes white for Silence "Esper Tendrils."
Looking at the attendance numbers is important, and I think the original post was really well done. But stream viewership is also critical and is being overlooked.
Professional sports in America (and presumably elsewhere although I don't know) used to derive most of their revenue from ticket sales and concessions. As technology increased and audience habits changed, television contracts became more and more important, to the point where they are now much larger than gate receipts. I realize magic isn't the same and the scale does not compare, but the idea does translate.
In order to offer bigger prizes or additional features, SCG would need to bring in more money. This can come from increased attendance and/or entry fees, but that only pulls from the players who can actually go to the event. A larger streaming audience can also contribute through subscriptions and ad revenue should SCG begin to sell commercial spots. In the long run, this is where the real growth lies. I don't know if this is a consideration for them, but I think SCG is a pretty forward-thinking operation so I would be surprised if it isn't something they think about.
So while the work done here is great, I suggest that any conclusions drawn from it can't be considered a window into the future since we aren't privy to the entire equation.
I don't think subscriptions are going to make much a difference. Non-slow chat and some crappy emotes aren't that appealing.
And who should they sell ad space to? MtG-related competitors? Deodorant manufacturers?
A lot would need to happen to broaden the audience to the point where it becomes more profitable. Isn't Magic kinda plateauing right now?
The numbers Magic as a whole gets on Twitch are utterly dwarfed by other games anyway. I flipped the Twitch on Sunday and Barbie: Magic Oasis had 30K viewers and Magic the Gathering had 14K.
Extrapolating from the number of subscriptions I have, and difference in audience size, I think they will sell plenty of them. As to who they would sell ad space to- there were 17,000 people watching when I tuned in yesterday evening. I buy stuff. I imagine those other people do as well. If they can figure out what we collectively are interested in, they're all set.
Is Magic hitting a plateau? Possibly, but keep in mind that this is with Wizards screwing up basically everything except card design. Imagine if Hasbro kept all the development people, and replaced management and the MTGO team.
Definitely deodorant manufacturers.
Thanks for your feedback, oarsman. I didn't consider the possibility that they could monetize a Twitch stream, and while I would otherwise be skeptical of how much revenue this could recommend, if anyone on the Source is qualified to speak on this topic, it is certainly you. I'm a big fan of your stream!
I don't have accurate viewership numbers from SCG Live, as I've never made any attempt to track them, but consider the following hypothetical case. If the new 2-day Standard Opens pulled in 15000 viewers each day (presumably mostly the same viewers), while the old Standard Open pulled in 15000 viewers but the Legacy Open pulled in 8000 (perhaps half of them representing new ones that wouldn't have tuned in on Saturday), would the former still represent a more desirable outcome for SCG in terms of being able to sell ad space or otherwise monetize SCG Live?
A bit topic, but I agree that I have no problems when the name is applied to Standard decks or even decks for Legacy when the wedge mechanic is central to the function of the deck (e.g. Jeskai Ascendancy). But the new wedge names have been clumsy and less informative than the previously used acronyms. A humorous example of this is the 32nd place deck from the recent Premier IQ being listed as "Sultari Delver". I bet they wouldn't have misspelled "BUG"!
Heavy snow storm in SCG Indianapolis on Super Bowl weekend. Too bad this is a Legacy Open, because I'm guessing low turnouts for all three events.
The snow's not coming in until Saturday afternoon/evening, so the Open might still have good attendance. Not so sure about the PIQs, though.
Legacy got 582 people. That seems pretty good, given the circumstances.
Another update through SCG Houston.
A brief summary for those of you who don't want to wade through everything:
- Attendance at the $20K Houston Open was terrible across the board. Only 427 showed up for the Standard $20K, 143 for the Legacy PIQ, 127 for the Modern PIQ.
- Of the six $20K Opens so far, four have been Standard and two have been Legacy. Other than Columbus (659), which has always had very large turnouts, the largest two Opens have actually been Legacy format.
- This was the very first trip to Houston, so I can't compare directly to previous events in the same city, but within the same region, Dallas has also been one of the best attendance Open sites (at least for Standard). The poor turnout at Houston is especially noteworthy as this is the second biggest city/metropolitan area that SCG has attended (not having been to New York or Chicago).
- This was the first time since 2013 (when I've begun charting entry fees and prize supports) that an Open weekend actually lost money based on entry and prizes paid out alone.
- Despite all this, SCG's newly announced schedule for the remainder of 2015 includes only three Legacy Opens (and three Modern ones), with a ton of Standard. It's quite clear that if they're paying attention to their recent attendance numbers that something else (SCG Live viewership, Wizards incentives, a desire to affect the secondary market, etc.) is driving their decision process.
Wasn't the viewership for yesterday's event below 10k? I didn't pay attention to the Top 8 viewer numbers, though. IIRC, there was complainment in the chat that the last Legacy Open "only" pulled 13k viewers or so.
Where is the announcement about the rest of the year's schedule?
A few laughable subscription fees aside, I don't think that's the driving force behind their decision. It's probably their incestous relationship with Wizards that's the main cause - otherwise, we wouldn't have to deal with KtK names for established Legacy decks.
You know, I have never actually tried to track their viewership numbers, but I remember with their old system (Saturday Standard, Sunday Legacy only) that they would get around 5k on Saturday, 10k for the Standard Top 8 on Sunday morning, and about 6-10k for Legacy, so I was always surprised when someone pointed out that viewership was a reason that SCG was moving over to Standard (both because I wouldn't have thought that Standard drew more viewers and because I was incredulous that viewership would generate any revenue). If anything, I would have thought that there would be greater disparity between Legacy and Standard in attendance than in viewership (because Legacy is objectively the more interesting format, but high card prices prevent many potentially interested players from joining the format). But I took those statements at face value.
I'm willing to admit that I don't know what the hell actual viewership numbers look like. When I login, I get a snapshot of what it looks like at any particular time, but it's hard to chart that over the course of a weekend. I make every effort I can to watch their Legacy streams, but I'm pretty busy and unable to actually watch most of it, and I'm sure as hell not going to sit through reruns, advertisements, and Standard just to capture this data. It's not a statement to me even if it were incorrect. (Imagine a hypothetical argument. L: "Legacy draws more players." S: "Standard has more viewers." My inclination would be to say "So what?", rather than "Let me verify that.")
I found it rather odd that Rogue, one of the SCG chat moderators, had to emphasize yesterday that the last 6 Opens pulled over 10k viewers. Why is that so important now?
In the end, the SCG Open circuit is not more than a glorified ad while having a chance for SCG to up their inventory. If they can make a bit of money while doing that, even better for them.
Maybe Wizards realized the potential as advertising media and offered SCG some sweet deals (like the chance to host more GPs, better case prices, etc.). That would certainly explain the sudden switch from "Hide the chat from retards at all cost!" to "Buy our subscriptions - we have penguin smilies and shit!".
This is just a guess (and we can make a joke about MTG players and girlfriends), but I would posit that having the Open on Valentine's Day also suppressed attendance.
Also, while having an Open in town was very convenient to me, Houston is actually a very inconvenient city to travel to (from a MTG player's perspective) if you have to drive. We're hours away from everything and there's not much of a population to capture south/southwest of us, unlike Dallas, which is closer to many more players willing to travel due to being further north.
It was pretty sweet getting to walk 15 minutes from my home to the convention site though :)
They have to sell cards for Standard. They have to sell new product. This is true for both WotC and SCG. Anything that they do that isn't focused on selling new product is a waste of scarce resources from a business perspective. The shareholders demand quarterly returns.
Texas in general but Houston especially has always had a rough time with when big events are scheduled. It makes me just a little bit sad because it seems like TOs want to stay away due to low turnout but I don't think that low turnout is due to location but to time.
Some examples (can you tell I've had this in my head a while?)
SCG Houston - 14-15 Feb 2015 - Valentine's Day, Mardis Gras near Louisiana (we also have our own in Galveston that's supposed to be okay)
GP San Antonio - 28-30 November 2014 - Thanksgiving Weekend
GP San Antonio - 24-25 November 2012 - Thanksgiving Weekend
GP Houston - 3-4 April 2010 - Easter Sunday in the freaking Bible Belt
Also, the upcoming SCG Dallas (which isn't in Dallas) will be held during South by Southwest.
I'm sure a lot of other cities can make the same claims but... I don't live there so screw 'em :P
I think it's probably a wash in terms of distances to places. For example, Dallas is more likely get players from Oklahoma City while Houston is more likely to get players from Baton Rogue. I will however give SCG props for actually holding SCG Houston in the city of Houston.
Also, being that the event was actually in Houston, the event was twice as close to the closest major airport (12 miles) as the events in Forth Worth (24 miles) which probably matters a fair bit to those outside of driving distance.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)