In short, tournament organiser ESL is currently hosting a tournament where many top teams are participating. Most things about it are great, the talent is great, games are great, production is great and so on. There is just one problem. The whole event is streamed exclusively on Facebook.
Twitch has been the platform of choice for streaming for the longest time. Facebook wants to get into the esports scene, and so have likely paid the tournament a huge sum of money for this exclusive deal.
As it turns out, viewers hate it. For a variety of reasons.
1) Data privacy. It seems that there is a vocal group of people who really hate Facebook for 'infringing privacy'. I doubt this is a huge issue for many other people in various parts of the world but given that reddit is a highly westernised community, the hate seems to be really strong. It might just be a vocal minority though not sure but I never realised that such a strong anti-Facebook sentiment exists.
2) Poor quality. Another issue that I don't seem to be facing, which makes me wonder if the quality of the video streams differ from country to country. I never faced any of the issues though.
3) Need to own a Facebook account and be logged on. Doesn't affect me since I don't mind people knowing I'm watching it and I have an account, but I can see why it is a barrier, especially for people who don't even own an account.
4) Lack of mobile optimisation. This I fully agree, it's completely unwatchable on mobile.
5) Poor UI. I fully agree with this too, it's hard to find the streams, whereas for twitch you could just pop over to the main page and see what's live. For Facebook, I have to search for the ESL One page and then navigate the video section to find the live stream, it's unnecessarily troublesome and complicated.
6) Lack of twitch chat. Well for people who love twitch chat, I understand it's part of the experience for many, but I don't really care for it.
As a result, something pretty crazy is unfolding. ESL One's viewership numbers are ridiculously low.
Part of it is that many people don't even know the tournament exists as well. More casual esports viewers don't specifically watch out for tournaments, they just head over to twitch or liquidpedia or something and see what's up, then maybe click on the link, sort of like channel surfing on TV. This doesn't happen with Facebook, you can't find it anywhere unless you specifically search for it.
So some viewers are angry, boycotting it. Some who genuinely don't mind and gave it a try found it impossible to use. Some are not watching simply because it's not on twitch so they don't even know about it.
---
So all that's part one. Then in comes part two of this whole affair.
Legally, Valve owns dota, not ESL. ESL can organise dota tournaments for free, and whatever content they create such as commentary, camera observing work, the panel etc are theirs to use. However, the match itself is the intellectual property of Valve as owner of the game. Valve's policy is that anyone can stream the games, as long as they do not infringe on the IP rights of others and do not commercialise it.
So as a result, various people began streaming those games on twitch, doing their own observing and casting. Official studios stay away because they don't want to get embroiled in the drama, but pro teams who weren't in the tournament, non-competitive players who stream for a living, as well as amateur casters got into it. Especially for the amateur casters, this is seen as a breakout opportunity, because people who avoid the Facebook stream will look for an alternative in their stream, and it is an opportunity to impress and build a following.
Yesterday, twitch streamers had 10x the views of the Facebook official stream.
So imagine you're ESL now. You lost 90% of your viewers. You are under pressure from sponsors who are demanding to know why viewership numbers are so low. So what do you do?
ESL issued various DMCA copyright strikes against twitch streamers. Twitch streams got taken down as part of a legal move. Other streamers decide that it's not worth it and stop voluntarily.
A fresh new anger arises, because, this seems to be a case of a false DMCA copyright strike. After all, streamers are legally allowed to stream as long as they don't infringe on the IP rights of ESL One.
ESL One's response is that it these streams are competing against the main stream, which they should have the rights to since they are the ones who put in all the effort to make the tournament happen, are giving out the prize money etc, so the streaming rights should be theirs. Furthermore, although these streams do not have sponsors, they obviously have a sort of commercial aim in that it builds an audience, can still receive donations and subscriptions etc, so it's not like it was all in good faith.
And a whole bunch more stuff. Angry viewers, ESL's VP tweeting some unnecessary things (which there is no doubt it is a bad idea, don't turn on your community and get upset with them man). Talents chipping in on their perspective.
---
I'm quite fascinated by the whole thing. I think it would make a great business case study.
A whole bunch of topics have been brought up as a result of this:
1) The monopoly of Twitch and the need for competition is a narrative pushed out by ESL One supporters. The rebuttal is that competition is fine, but viewers have the right to make the choice. Hence if ESL One chooses to stream on Facebook, viewers have the right to complain, viewers have the right to choose not to consumer the content, viewers have the right to head to alternative content on Twitch. ESL One made a business decision, and it didn't turn out well, that doesn't mean it's the viewers fault it means it was a poor business decision.
2) Who is the product and who is the consumer. The viewers watch for free, hence the profit generators for ESL One are not the viewers but the sponsors. It is thus in the business interest of ESL One, and fairly so, to pay attention to sponsors and to make exclusive deals such as those with Facebook. However, every action has it's consequence. The adoption of Mercedes Benz as a lead sponsor in ESL One Hamburg was wildly successful. The exclusive contract with Facebook has the exact opposite effect. Although your viewers are not the ones who pay you, they matter because they are effectively your 'product' and low viewer counts in the eyes of the sponsors means you have a poor product.
3) The legal issue surrounding copyright. So who owns what content? What counts as commercialization? You could argue that ESL One doesn't own the content but ESL One is the one who made the tournament possible at all, is it then fair that they can't get anything out of it? But then again Valve sponsored half of the prize pool and made the game free for ESL One to use in the first place for their commercial purposes, so should Valve's word be king?
4) The financial stability of the esports scene as a whole. VP of ESL One argues that such deals are what keeps esports alive. If tournament organisers cannot make money, they would not do it, and eventually there would be no tournaments leading to a loss for all. Central to the problem is the fact that esport viewers watch tournaments for free, and are entitled to do so. Hence there is no way to earn from the viewers except for those who buy tickets and watch it live at the venue. This means that tournament organisers are forced to find other revenue streams. If viewers make things difficult, there would be no satisfactory solution.
For me, one thing I personally find interesting is the idea of how the consumer is always right. If the viewers choose to boycott, there's nothing you can do about it. Even if the consumer's reasoning is flawed (which I'm not saying it is, it's a rather nuanced issue I think), they are still the ones who make the decision and they decide whether or not they want to consume your content. This makes understanding the target audience and giving them what they value so important. Surely if ESL One knew that kind of fallout that would happen with the Facebook exclusive streaming deal, they would not have gone ahead with it.
It's tricky, especially because I feel that often times, the consumer isn't always very wise. There is always alot of complains about how organisers and casters are greedy and 'sellout' the game on reddit but honestly I find that whole narrative really stupid because these consumers want to have everything without any cost. Of course organisers and casters need to find a way to make money they're not doing charity. Passion for dota doesn't pay the bills. In this particular case, I definitely think ESL One messed up, but the kind of witch hunt that is ongoing I do feel is way overboard.
I feel rather bad for ESL One right now, but it is what it is. It's like how brands can be hurt by random PR disasters. There was that Dove ad that got completely misunderstood and blown out of proportion because it was 'racist' when it really wasn't. Internet mob mentality and all. What an interesting time to be a marketer.
---
Update:
Probably the most interesting thread to come out of this so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/7sp4wq/legal_analysis_of_the_esl_genting_situation_dmca/
---
Update 2:
The battle intensified. ESL tried to reconcile but it wasn't very sincere (likely under pressure from Valve and sponsors) and probably too late.
And then Valve steps in showing who's boss and ESL just got completely rekt. Ouch.
It's a fresh post, but I fully expect this to be top 10 most upvoted posts of all time on dota subreddit by the end of today.
http://blog.dota2.com/2018/01/dotatv-streaming/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/7t0l1o/dota_tv_streaming/
Also, another interesting topic: PR. The way the VP of ESL and the social media head is handling this is markedly different.
---