MLG states 22.5 million streams served for Columbus

[bradsears]

Congrats MLG. These are big numbers. MLG was proud of 11 million streams served in the entire 2010 season and 600k per event.

NEW YORK�June 13, 2011�Major League Gaming (MLG) (http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/), the world's largest professional video game league and largest provider of cross platform online videogame competition, shattered previous MLG records delivering more than 22.5 million stream views of the Columbus Pro Circuit weekend of competition, nearly double the reported 11.4 million NFL.com video streams consumed during the weekend of the 2011 NFL Draft. Viewers from 164 countries watched four live streams during the three-day, double elimination tournament online at www.majorleaguegaming.com (http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/) for a total of more than 2.2 million hours of video consumed.


http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/news/mlg-delivers-record-breaking-22-5-million-online-video-streams-from-mlg-columbus

[Jewjitsu]

and 22.4 million were for starcraft...lol

[Lefthanded]

and 22.4 million were for starcraft...lol

So true :) :)

[WIERDO]

and 22.4 million were for starcraft...lol

i loled when saw this

[Forbidd3n]

Those numbers are good enough for TV deals.

[pt ogre]

these numbers make no sense to me. 22 million of those "stream views" could just be people refreshing when things went wrong, why don't they release unique viewers?

[inheritor13]

that's not funny about that starcraft joke. Halo is better and mlg is a halo company just stop

[Letthe]

that's not funny about that starcraft joke. Halo is better and mlg is a halo company just stop

You sure 'bout that?

[chris_cr33p]

haha sc2 deff contributed a lil

[Antidote]

that's not funny about that starcraft joke. Halo is better and mlg is a halo company just stop

...SC2 has been and always will be a bigger game then Halo...It's not an opinion. It's a fact.

[SullyVan]

...SC2 has been and always will be a bigger game then Halo...It's not an opinion. It's a fact.

This.... My opinion i dislike starcraft. Never got into it and very boring to watch to me. but i wouldnt deny it brought more then a few viewers to MLG CBUS. Very happy to see MLG growing like this:)

[Jskoz]

that's not funny about that starcraft joke. Halo is better and mlg is a halo company just stop

Starcraft is slowly taking it's place until Halo 4.

[Antidote]

Idk why everyone keeps saying Halo is bigger then SC. MLG isn't the only competitive scene out there. SC is just simply bigger and MLG finally got it's hands on it with the release of SC2. It brings in more viewers from around the globe. I mean I love halo and not everyone can get into SC. The thing is, world wide SC2 is a more accepted and beloved game.

[Eamonn]

dayum.. when sundance tweeted about this where you had to guess i guessed 23.1 :P

[HavkinKnight]

congrats MLG and yes SC helped get thoes numbers

[slippyal2]

I wonder how many unique views there was.

[redhat4]

this is attributed to people refreshing. it's complete bs and mlg simply lying. they won't get a tv deal out of it either. there is a reason that when halo 2 had 6 episodes on USA, it was not repeated the next season. it does not work. SC2 like halo is only fun to watch if you play it at a competitive level and yes SC2 helped the viewer numbers go up but no it was not close to half and half.

mlg is not growing as much as they would like everyone to believe. there's a reason their ceo left. prize money has also not changed in 5 years now and there were 3 halo teams sponsored at 86K for 3 years for each player starting in 06'. Now mlg has not sponsored a player since. it does not pay to be a pro, thus why pros quit so often. there are fewer tournaments than there have ever been in the past. in

so play for fun, view for fun, be a part of the community for fun, support mlg for fun, but don't lie or lie to yourself and think mlg is just blowing up because they used to have more sponsors, more sponsored players, more tournaments, better games, and were on tv 5 years ago.

[Antidote]

this is attributed to people refreshing. it's complete bs and mlg simply lying. they won't get a tv deal out of it either. there is a reason that when halo 2 had 6 episodes on USA, it was not repeated the next season. it does not work. SC2 like halo is only fun to watch if you play it at a competitive level and yes SC2 helped the viewer numbers go up but no it was not close to half and half.

mlg is not growing as much as they would like everyone to believe. there's a reason their ceo left. prize money has also not changed in 5 years now and there were 3 halo teams sponsored at 86K for 3 years for each player starting in 06'. Now mlg has not sponsored a player since. it does not pay to be a pro, thus why pros quit so often. there are fewer tournaments than there have ever been in the past. in

so play for fun, view for fun, be a part of the community for fun, support mlg for fun, but don't lie or lie to yourself and think mlg is just blowing up because they used to have more sponsors, more sponsored players, more tournaments, better games, and were on tv 5 years ago.

It is actually growing. Just not the Halo portion of it. And just because they aren't doing the same things they were doing in the past does not mean they aren't growing. The money goes to other things that it should be going to. No being a pro doesn't pay off. That's what a lot of people don't understand. It won't pay off for years. Halo isn't the direction MLG needs to go with it and they know that. As much as they love Halo they understand other games are bigger and better for the company and that's what they are working on. There partnership with GSL over in Korea shows that they have grown and are getting international recognition.

MLG is the largest competitive gaming organization that cares about Halo. However, they are not by far the largest competitive gaming organization out there. I'm very happy that MLG has realized Halo isn't the way to go. Yeah it's a great game and who knows maybe in the future it will be. Right now if they want the company to grow they know that Halo needs to be put back a little bit.

One more thing I hate seeing is when people start to realize competitive gaming isn't this big pay off job where you can go be decent at a video game and make a living. Especially when they see the game they love isn't that good for competitive gaming anymore compared to others they start to get all sad and angry about things.

MLG isn't worse then what it was years ago, it's better. Just because it's not doing everything that you specifically love about it doesn't mean it's bad. Welcome to competitive gaming.

[forefront]

MLG does not want TV deals. Internet is better. You attract a larger portion of the prime demographic (15-35 year old males), and TV spots are not long enough to host an event. Trust me, MLG getting a TV deal is not a sign of growth so don't expect it.

Unless they get their own TV channel. Which would be awesome.

Edit: Also, MLG should acquire more fighting games if they get the chance. MvC3 and MK9 are going to be big players in the US and Japan. Especially with the top Japanese players starting to play more MvC3 in tournament.

[Mastertouch]

some of you guys are really under estimating sc2.
I believe it was in April, There was a dreamhack invitational sc2 tournament. that sc2 tournament (1 day tournament) had the same amount of unique viewers as MLG Columbus (3 days and 3 different games)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZPRxtGrjLk&feature=youtu.be&t=1m33s

Then for GSL, slayers boxer ( a very popular sc player) made a sc2 debut which had over 700k unique concurrent viewers.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=161872

other notable tournaments:
TSL3 Finals - over 60k concurrent viewers

its the biggest competitive game out there. none of the halos ever matched up. no other current game actually.

[redhat4]

Dear Antidote:

Why do you hate seeing people realize playing video games isn't the pay off they thought it would be? It's necessary to move on and grow up. I'm not saying it's bad, but you're opinion that it is better is just a subjective one and that's fine. I've been a member on the mlg site since 06' and have watched the league change in many ways. I don't think it's bigger than it was then. They may have more viewers but it's really not translating into more money because if it was, there would be more events or prize money, something to indicate that they have more capital to expand with.

Your assumption that MLG is going away from halo because they have had 2 events where SC2 had a lot of backing from MLG in terms of content and the stream is ridiculous. The vast majority of viewers were still halo viewers. People just hit refresh a million times. There were never any unique viewer numbers or individual game numbers put out. SC2 will never be huge in american for MLG, I promise. It's like smash, it's like soccer here. Halo is football. MLG will implode if they ever put more effort into SC2 than halo and they DEFINITELY know that. I like how you assume they know SC2 is the way to go...yet prize money pails in comparison to HR and after taxes first place prize money won't even pay for their flight home(yes I know some players have sponsors). Anyways MLG is maxed out just like it was 4 years ago. They're business model is the same it was then, they're just trying to expand games, the way they run tournaments is just too expensive, plain and simple. Just because they have a partnership with GSL does not indicate growth, that is again just your opinion. They do not know that in your words "halo needs to be put back a little bit" either. Prize money and the content that fills their entire website is at least ninety percent dedicated to halo and you believe they're going to just throw that down the drain and upset their entire community. Remember madden on the circuit, rainbow 6, fifteen other random games, they don't work because that's not where mlg's following is, and upsetting the current community is not a good business decision. SC is bigger and better than those but still lacks big support in the MLG community and is an older person's game. All of which are reasons SC is not bigger than halo in MLG, MLG is not throwing everything into SC, SC will never be as big as Halo for MLG, and you are not looking at their history of business decisions and assessing what they mean for the future. It also appears you have a tenuous at best grasp on MLG's history. So think before you type next time and be rational :)

[Antidote]

Dear Antidote:

Why do you hate seeing people realize playing video games isn't the pay off they thought it would be? It's necessary to move on and grow up. I'm not saying it's bad, but you're opinion that it is better is just a subjective one and that's fine. I've been a member on the mlg site since 06' and have watched the league change in many ways. I don't think it's bigger than it was then. They may have more viewers but it's really not translating into more money because if it was, there would be more events or prize money, something to indicate that they have more capital to expand with.

Your assumption that MLG is going away from halo because they have had 2 events where SC2 had a lot of backing from MLG in terms of content and the stream is ridiculous. The vast majority of viewers were still halo viewers. People just hit refresh a million times. There were never any unique viewer numbers or individual game numbers put out. SC2 will never be huge in american for MLG, I promise. It's like smash, it's like soccer here. Halo is football. MLG will implode if they ever put more effort into SC2 than halo and they DEFINITELY know that. I like how you assume they know SC2 is the way to go...yet prize money pails in comparison to HR and after taxes first place prize money won't even pay for their flight home(yes I know some players have sponsors). Anyways MLG is maxed out just like it was 4 years ago. They're business model is the same it was then, they're just trying to expand games, the way they run tournaments is just too expensive, plain and simple. Just because they have a partnership with GSL does not indicate growth, that is again just your opinion. They do not know that in your words "halo needs to be put back a little bit" either. Prize money and the content that fills their entire website is at least ninety percent dedicated to halo and you believe they're going to just throw that down the drain and upset their entire community. Remember madden on the circuit, rainbow 6, fifteen other random games, they don't work because that's not where mlg's following is, and upsetting the current community is not a good business decision. SC is bigger and better than those but still lacks big support in the MLG community and is an older person's game. All of which are reasons SC is not bigger than halo in MLG, MLG is not throwing everything into SC, SC will never be as big as Halo for MLG, and you are not looking at their history of business decisions and assessing what they mean for the future. It also appears you have a tenuous at best grasp on MLG's history. So think before you type next time and be rational :)

Dear some guy I've never seen before,

*cracks knuckles* Where to begin, where to begin. Let's start by you stating "I've been a member on the mlg site since 06' and have watched the league change in many ways. I don't think it's bigger than it was then." You then go onto relate how, in summary SC2 is not as big as Halo in the community. Well after having Halo as the flagship since 06 and then seeing (in your own eyes) no growth. I do believe they would start experimenting with other more popular games, such as SC2.

You then state, "Your assumption that MLG is going away from halo because they have had 2 events where SC2 had a lot of backing from MLG and in terms of content and the stream is ridiculous." So because SC2 gave them their most popular events, had the most backing from MLG and the stream, that's ridiculous to say that it's going to be where they go to grow their company? I find that hard to believe after the rebuttal on your previous statement that says MLG has gone no where with Halo.

Next thing I get to ruin for you, "SC2 will never be huge in America *sic* (sorry i couldn't leave the obvious misspelling of America in there) for MLG, I promise. It's like smash, it's like soccer here. Halo is football. MLG will implode if they ever put more effort into SC2 than halo and they DEFINITELY know that." Okay, this one I get to have fun with. MLG has their flagship of Halo. Yet you state that SC2 will never be huge for MLG. IF that's true then they won't grow to their potential. Every worldwide esports league that is bigger and more popular then MLG, has SC2 as the main game. No it's not an opinion, it's a blatant fact based of viewers numbers, following, communities, and just simply the events and prize money.

"...yet prize money fails *sic* in comparison to HR and after taxes first place prize money won't even pay for their flight home (yes I know some players have sponsors)." Yes that's true, for now. I've never stated that SC2 pays more in MLG. It's one thing their doing wrong in my honest opinion. Other tournaments, again, focus on SC2 or just any better game.

I'd continue picking apart your quote but anyone reading my post at this point is probably laughing at your argument now anyway so I won't draw this out longer the necessary.

So let's end this about here, "It also appears you have a tenuous at best grasp on MLG's history. So think before you type next time and be rational."
Yes, and it also appears you have a tenuous at best grasp on esports as a whole around the world. Like most people you think that simply because you know one thing, you know it all. MLG is not the biggest, or the best esports community out there. Not even close. MLG is new and upcoming compared to most, if they want to fit in and help grow esports then they need to learn how to do it. And they are, they are taking radical approaches on how to shape it in America and I applaud their effort, unlike you who do not think they're growing.

Also your comparison for SC2 being soccer and Halo being football. Soccer is more popular and well loved across the world. Football is beloved by Americans and generally ridiculed by the rest of the world. There's a reason the Halo community is a terrible one.

Don't make me come back in here and post more. So think before you type next time and bump and dying thread with a needless argument that you won't win.

If however, you wish to discuss this further. Feel free to PM me. That way it avoids cluttering up the forums and I can delete it myself.

Thanks

Also I'm not being rude, I'm actually happy someone came up with a good argument and I hope to see you in more threads. I just don't add fluff to my post. While I don't agree with your statement, I certainly support the constructive thinking.

[redhat4]

Again your self-ingratiation is hilarious, please keep it up! None of your arguments invalidated any of mine. The one good one was that since MLG has kept it's current market share, it is exploring new avenues...Sure SC2 is more popular than others but don't forget MLG marketed, streamed and had more prize money for Shadowrun and Gears. I'll also post where ever I like. You love SC2 and this clouds all of your judgement here. Your argument that soccer is more popular worldwide...GREAT, yes it is, but MLG is located in the US. So that nullifies that argument. So continue to post but don't think you're winning this argument, I'm not sure why you senselessly defend MLG's growth. How long have you been visiting MLG's site by the way?

[Antidote]

Again your self-ingratiation is hilarious, please keep it up! None of your arguments invalidated any of mine. The one good one was that since MLG has kept it's current market share, it is exploring new avenues...Sure SC2 is more popular than others but don't forget MLG marketed, streamed and had more prize money for Shadowrun and Gears. I'll also post where ever I like. You love SC2 and this clouds all of your judgement here. Your argument that soccer is more popular worldwide...GREAT, yes it is, but MLG is located in the US. So that nullifies that argument. So continue to post but don't think you're winning this argument, I'm not sure why you senselessly defend MLG's growth. How long have you been visiting MLG's site by the way?

Go back to the MLG forum.

07 btw.

I also senselessly defend MLG's growth because it's happening. You state that MLG is in the US. Yes, yes it is. They're looking to expand worldwide as well. Hints my statement why football, as you relate it to Halo. Is mostly ridiculed by the rest of the world, unlike soccer or SC2. So no, it doesn't nullify any argument.

[redhat4]

You can't reference anything concrete about why they're actually growing. Everything you say is conjecture. So go do some research and waste your time, because I really don't care. You could be a nice person, I have no idea. I don't think MLG makes good business decision's, uses their players. Causes thousands of stupid teenagers to think they can go pro and make terrible grades. Also does nothing to quell the rapid drug use at events. They are not the worst business in the world but there are many reasons they aren't growing.

[Antidote]

You can't reference anything concrete about why they're actually growing. Everything you say is conjecture. So go do some research and waste your time, because I really don't care. You could be a nice person, I have no idea. I don't think MLG makes good business decision's, uses their players. Causes thousands of stupid teenagers to think they can go pro and make terrible grades. Also does nothing to quell the rapid drug use at events. They are not the worst business in the world but there are many reasons they aren't growing.


And that statement is all I've been trying to acquire. You're correct in my opinion. They're not doing good business. However, the part we differ on is I believe they're trying and slowly getting better.

[Mastertouch]

Dear Antidote:

Why do you hate seeing people realize playing video games isn't the pay off they thought it would be? It's necessary to move on and grow up. I'm not saying it's bad, but you're opinion that it is better is just a subjective one and that's fine. I've been a member on the mlg site since 06' and have watched the league change in many ways. I don't think it's bigger than it was then. They may have more viewers but it's really not translating into more money because if it was, there would be more events or prize money, something to indicate that they have more capital to expand with.

Your assumption that MLG is going away from halo because they have had 2 events where SC2 had a lot of backing from MLG in terms of content and the stream is ridiculous. The vast majority of viewers were still halo viewers. People just hit refresh a million times. There were never any unique viewer numbers or individual game numbers put out. SC2 will never be huge in american for MLG, I promise. It's like smash, it's like soccer here. Halo is football. MLG will implode if they ever put more effort into SC2 than halo and they DEFINITELY know that. I like how you assume they know SC2 is the way to go...yet prize money pails in comparison to HR and after taxes first place prize money won't even pay for their flight home(yes I know some players have sponsors). Anyways MLG is maxed out just like it was 4 years ago. They're business model is the same it was then, they're just trying to expand games, the way they run tournaments is just too expensive, plain and simple. Just because they have a partnership with GSL does not indicate growth, that is again just your opinion. They do not know that in your words "halo needs to be put back a little bit" either. Prize money and the content that fills their entire website is at least ninety percent dedicated to halo and you believe they're going to just throw that down the drain and upset their entire community. Remember madden on the circuit, rainbow 6, fifteen other random games, they don't work because that's not where mlg's following is, and upsetting the current community is not a good business decision. SC is bigger and better than those but still lacks big support in the MLG community and is an older person's game. All of which are reasons SC is not bigger than halo in MLG, MLG is not throwing everything into SC, SC will never be as big as Halo for MLG, and you are not looking at their history of business decisions and assessing what they mean for the future. It also appears you have a tenuous at best grasp on MLG's history. So think before you type next time and be rational :)

???????
this is sc's 2nd season and they already:
-raised the prize money (the national champion for sc2 gets 50 grand....for himself, not to be split up)
-sound dampening booths
-players that are sponsored
-mainstage (which will be the middle stage in anaheim)

at columbus, the sc2 finals were on all 3 main stages and all the seats were still full of sc2 fans.
djwheat, slasher (who works for mlg) confirmed on Lo3 that sc2 had more concurrent/unique viewers than halo and call of duty combined.

right now, sc2 and League of Legends (another mega ton game that MLG will soon be picking up) are in a whole different league.

You're going to say sc2 isnt as big as halo in North America, yet stream numbers and spectators for sc2 at Columbus AND Dallas (both north american events) were WAYYYYY bigger than halo AND cod combined. ask anyone who was at the event. which had the biggest crowd? which was the loudest? everyone will say sc2.

and you said think rational? since when was the last halo prize pool buff? its been the same since like 2006. Max teams went from 256 to 212. where's the growth? 5 years and a couple hundred more for stipends? thats it? nice growth.

look at sc2 mlg growth in under a year.