Investing high e-sports prize money better

It might surprise you, but starcraft and starcraft 2, probably the most esport-oriented RTS ever, also had narrated campaigns (long ones) and content editor (at the release).

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Iā€™ll give you time to have a think about the difference between ā€œmostā€ and ā€œpurelyā€.

Yeah since not 100% of AOE4 is made for esports then it is not ā€œpurelyā€ aimed towards esports, so criticism on the lack of single player contents (at release) (even compared to more esports RTS) becomes invalid. Problem solved!

ā€œattemptā€ to targetā€¦ I would say

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I have my doubts. they probably have a set budget only for AOE4, trying to target esport and make it big but in the end it turned out like this.

im sure they kicking themselves now since they decided to remove MSN gaming zone from early 2000s to reduce cost, the same yahoo did to their online game area. now spending extra dollars trying to get back into market.

yeeshh he wonā€™t give you time to think why game is failing. no amount of time would help you reach that answer anyway, itā€™d be a waste.

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Iā€™m happy personally, considering the active player count has stabilised since the Spring update (Season One).

Everyone will have a different definition for ā€œfailureā€, so I donā€™t really care that folks have different opinions there. I accept that they do. If folks are waiting for Season Two, or more changes, thatā€™s absolutely fine. I was pointing out the game has a lot more going for it than just ā€œeSportsā€.

You can of course disagree, it doesnā€™t really matter to me. I really donā€™t care about folks who move the goalposts instead of discussing what was actually typed :joy:

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The game does not make profit beyond the initial purchase. Thats why eSports is important (ads and exposure).

  • The other alternative would be microtransactions (wich nobody likes as an alternative) or some form of payed battlepass (this mode is in almost every multiplayer game these days).

Half the population that was at launch and left never touched multiplayer or other modes besides the campaign. They will only return when new campaign misions and movies arrive.

The Very Positive rating on steam (never droped below since launch) shows this.

  • What surprises me compared to this forum is that most of the positive comments come from people who played previous Aoe games.

  • And this is poses some confusion for me. Should i believe the people here who say the game is unfinished and bad compared to previous Aoe games or shoud i believe the people there who say it is a good succesor.?

I bought the game exclusively (in the begining) for the campaign and the documentaries and i was satisfied with the purchase. I might be in the minority on this forum but ā€¦

It might surprise you more that most negative comments also come from people who played previous aoe games.
It might surprise you even more that most comments come from people who played previous aoe games.

Let me tell you what is the biggest difference between steam comments and this forum.
People on steam may be aware that the game lacks many basic functions in other RTS at the release, and still up to now. Some think they are essential so they leave negative comments. Some are okay so they leave positive comments.
People here will teach you that is actually a genius design/marketing decision, you donā€™t really need them and you do not know.

I too am happy that you understand :joy:

you can have some more time to think about it, though u may disagree!

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Nili make a video recently were one topic was the move from AOE4 players to AOE2.

Most pro players moved to AOE2 after golden league.

That showed to me that pros only play AOE4 as long as they can get lots of money from it.

Hopefully the management will realize that tournaments with high price money will not make the game better or bring more players to AOE4.

The goal must be to make the game enough good and fun that lots of people want to play it. No matter if they have the chance of getting a golden nose from it.

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the issue is the campaigns being an after thought based on support so far, and donā€™t get me started on AI, or unit graphics and water play, the game didnā€™t fail as far as launch is concerned, failure only occured when relics infamous slow motion support process began, with seasonal updates being the final nail in the coffin

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This happens when you make a game based on the E-sport.

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yup now I see why the head dev was fired. He was too based for the game and needed to do ā€œcasual visionā€ to balance the orientation of the game. The worst part is that a lot of ppl celebrate that instead of worry about it

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Yes :frowning: The penalty for the e-sport orientation is combined with the slow development speed the reason for the dramatic lost in players.

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the pros taking away the monies and say bye bye to aoe4 and stream other games.

lets fix the game first, more content, more campaign, easier to use utility for modders. so toxic players like you know who marco can be less toxic. less money dumped into tournament, more fixes.

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If they used that money to make the game decent then we might have something now. Now its just crap.

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I donā€™t think anyone can categorically state any specific reasons as being THE reasons. I suspect that a huge proportion of AoE 2 players havenā€™t even tried AoE 4. They have a game theyā€™re happy with, AoE 4 costs significant money, and requires completely different muscle memory because even with the so-called fully re-mappable hotkeys you canā€™t come close to setting things up to replicate AoE 2 DEā€™s hotkeys. And at this stage, if anyone who is at a decent ELO in AoE 2 DE contemplates trying AoE 4, they know theyā€™re going to be way behind on the learning curve relative to people who have played since launch. Iā€™m not claiming any of those are THE reasons, I think there are probably lots of reasons all contributing. Pro players and content creators with a decent number of viewers are a tiny % of the community, and their reasons for playing/streaming AoE 4 when it was new and later moving back to AoE 2 arenā€™t particularly relevant to most players.

The bigest E-sports tournament left this year is Wololo wich is sponsored in part by Red Bull.

  • The weekly qualifiers are sponsored by MS in part.

  • So concentrating on e-sports will not fade away. Atleast untill this tournament is over.

As iā€™ve said multiple times Sponsorship Money is Sponsorship Money.

  • Those are resources that are destined to nonprofit events. And are tax deductable or even tax exempt.

If itā€™s not going on Aoe 4 tournaments it goes somewhere elese but not in developement.

One other thing. Its Summer so alot of people are on Vacation (without restrictions for a change in most countries)

But surprisingly people have time to watch Competitions. And the trend is slowly rising.

  • Not necesarily in terms of viewship ( although twitch + youtube has a decent ammount ) but in terms of money donated to official tournament channels.
  • Maybe iā€™ts easier to watch than play when youā€™re on vacation.

yea and we would rather not have this game die because they dont get enough viewers in return of their sponsorship. the money backing is only there because they can benefit as well, if viewership is to the point not worth sponsoring then we can all say good bye to possible future tourney.

with the current prize pool the turn out is already so miserable, anyless would just make it worse.

fix the game, thats all we ask.

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@thieftdp8498 @Islandsteve8 great comments. Fully agree.

@Vaishar4213 The low viewership not justify the high prize money. I agree that AOE4 is more expensive than AOE2 and therefore some people not buy it. The big majority of potential players are casual. Hopefully the management will finally realize that the high orientation of e-sport and slow development speed kills this game.

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