They’re charging for it because the Japanese audience will pay for it, and I guess they don’t want to handle it differently abroad. Fighting games, at least up to this point, have been sustainable in a way that the rest of e-sports have not. The rest of e-sports was predicated on future growth, and fighting games have only grown as fast as the money coming in, in general. (2XKO is putting out $50k in pot bonuses for a game that doesn’t look to be earning that much, and the Saudis now own SNK and treat Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting like they’re Call of Duty.)
tekato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They know nobody is going to purchase the pay-per-view, but I guess they don’t care since the alternative is not getting any money anyways. Esports was never sustainable because fans refuse to spend money, so they rely on shady sponsorships from gambling sites and Saudi money.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 days ago
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Kind of hard justifying a price tag to watch any person play a game IMO
I’m surprised sports are still as big as they are now that it isn’t one of the only source of communal entertainment anymore.
Danitos@reddthat.com 1 day ago
I feel like Dota 2’s The International goes against your claim. It was the esports tournament with highest prize pool several years in a row, and it was funded almost exclusively by Dota 2 players buying The Battle pass. Valve removed battle pass like 2 years ago, but it’s still ocupies top 1 up to top 7 esports tournaments with highest prize pool: www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments.
tekato@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A sustainable scene wouldn’t have dropped from a $40M prize pool to $4M. The issue is that the esports scene was not self funded, it was funded by a percentage of the base game economy.
The reduction in prize pool being related to the removal of battle pass shows that fans never cared about supporting the esports scene, they only wanted the battle pass for the skins or whatever it is that you get from it.
Even if the Dota 2 esports was sustainable, that would be one game out of dozens.
SolSerkonos@piefed.social 1 day ago
Rainbow Six Siege has had a pretty strong competitive scene for pretty much the entirety of it’s lifespan- it’s definitely fluctuated a bit in popularity, but every Invitational has had the same prize pool.