Blizzard’s crowdfunding campaign is exploiting its best players (and an insult to the community)

Kim Rom
Kim Rom
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

I know, that’s an overly dramatic-sounding headline. But let me explain why I believe it’s a depressingly accurate headline.

I’ve been thinking about the War Chest: BlizzCon 2017 campaign for a few days, and the more I think about it, the more I think Blizzard should be called out for their greed. And if no one does that, more publishers will start following their lead.

I think there are two basic reasons why crowdfunding works so well:

1) As a contributor I get something that I would like to have, like an in-game item or some plastic gizmo (funding)

2) As a contributor I get to be a part of a fellowship, a community, that together achieve a shared success by making something happen (crowd)

That last bit is a significant part of the reason why crowdfunding works like magic in esports. The community and the publisher achieve success together.

In esports two things happen when a crowdfunding campaign achieves success:

1) The audience gets the best games: as the prizepool goes up, so does excitement, tension, preparation, practice, effort, athlete performance and quality of games

2) The best players in that game make more money: after spending a significant portion of their lives mastering a game, they have now become that publisher’s top marketing content for their IP and is deservedly rewarded with 25% of the revenue they helped generate

This is the case with Valve and Dota 2, this is the case with Riot Games and League of Legends.

Not only is this a sustainable business model in esports, it’s a way for the community to reward its own top players. This is the community value Blizzard is corrupting. Their $200k cap on community reward happens at the expense of its best players, a species already dangerously close to extinction.

How close are they to extinction?

The annual earnings for a full-time minimum-wage worker in America is $15,080, the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Full-time work means working 2,080 hours each year, which is 40 hours each week.

Total number of StarCraft II players who won $15,080 in prize money in 2016: 52, worldwide. Only 10 players won more than $60k last year. On the top100 most winning players in esports history, there are only three SC2 players — at rank #86, #91 and #97.

When Blizzard puts a $200k limit on the communitys ability to reward its best players, understand what is being limited.

Also, support StarCraft II esports!

Activision Blizzard, a Billion-Dollar company, is asking its most loyal fans to fund its future event production. It’s almost comical and I don’t know how not to regard this entire campaign as an insult to the SC2 community. Blizzard is telling you how little they value their own community and how much they don’t care about players who devote themselves to mastering their products.

This is the Real-Money Auction House (RMAH), new and improved for StarCraft II, with a new revolutionary rev share model capped at $200k. If the SC2 community doesn’t attack this issue loud and clear, this new low for publisher greed will become the new normal.

After four days the campaign has reached 98% of its ceiling. The crowdfunding has ended, the crowd-milking has begun. There’s 102 days left.

Got Milk?

This post was first published at xplayn.gg

xplayn

Engineered to click ass.

Kim Rom

Written by

Kim Rom

Entrepreneur, inventor, esports has-been.

xplayn

xplayn

Engineered to click ass.

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