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Can we earn money from vid views?

Ryuker

Smash Lord
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Sep 16, 2003
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The Hague , Netherlands
Sup fellow euro smashers,

There's a thread in the melee discussion that caught my eye. I'd like to hear some euro views on this.
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=304298

It's about earning revenue from the advertisements around smash vids. The OP suggests moving our vids to a site that shares their ad revenues from vids.

I took a look at what sites would be interesting. Turns out something like Blip.tv is an interesting site (although they are primarily a site for shows and webseries).
http://blip.tv/join-blip

I see a lot of buts and ifs for this idea never the least it's worth considering. The most important ones I can come up with are:

1. Who's gonna manage the money and how will we devide it etc?
2. Is Nintendo gonna be a problem (broadcasting rights etc)
3.. Is the loss of the youtube community features to great?

So I made this thread to inventarise these buts and ifs from the euro community.

Myself I think it's atleast important to realize that as of now we either break even or make a loss on a tournament. Hosts that make a profit are frowned upon. I'm willing to argue that there are a lot of extra expenses that we don't track (gas costs, equipment etc). Good hosts make sure they break even. Not so good hosts lose money.
And I wonder how long this is sustainable.

So I think it's worth to consider this option because no matter how much you make at least it's a profit. And we can use that profit to build a reserve for future events. Consider AJP's setup that broke quite often for example or offering free food at an event.

Based on that example on the blip.tv website I calculated the worth of 1 view. It's half a dollar cent. Now take one of the most watches sets like Armada vs Mango at genesis. That's about 200.000 views in total. That's about 980 dollars. But this set is an exceptional one.

Amsah vs PP's set from pound 5 has about 15000 views that's about 73 dollars. Not that much but it's something.

Faab vs Zgetto from a small tourney at Dave's? About 200 views per vid and worth about 6 dollar for the set.

But take all the views in total and these small amounts can add up.

I don't now if it's worth the trouble. And we're probably opening a can of worms if we start implementing something like this. But I'm just trying to raise awereness.

So thoughts?

Edit:
A list of views of the channels that were mentioned in the thread: 12-06-2011
* 28-06-2011 : Added Kaak, Izaw and DaB4sHeR's channel
 
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What about youtube partnerships? The idea of making money off of tournament vids is, in and of itself, a very, very good one. I would imagine the best thing to do with the cash would be to make a TO aid fund for TOs trying to set up big tournaments... Or something like that.
 

Helios

BRoomer
BRoomer
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Gothenburg, Sweden
Definitely an interesting idea.
I was also thinking one could organize all euro smash videos through one YouTube account and apply for partnership, but it's just an idea.
 

Ryuker

Smash Lord
Joined
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Messages
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The Hague , Netherlands
Good to see some reply's. Yeah I was thinking about a TO aid fund. Who is going to be willing to be in charge of that though?

I proposed this idea on the dutch boards. The majority think that it's not worth it. They have doubts that it will raise enough money and if it does then there are worries about who's gonna manage that money. They also don't like losing youtube in favor of blip and blip.tv in itself has some agressive advertising going on. Bottom line I don't think it's gonna fly in our country for now.
Another issue is that we don't know how long we'll stay active so many think this is just too much work and will have a low pay off.

Regarding youtube partenships (also an interesting option)
I looked at their requirements to qualify.
Qualifications
To become a YouTube Partner, you must meet these minimum requirements:

1.You create original videos suitable for online streaming.
2. You own or have express permission to use and monetize all audio and video content that you upload—no exceptions.
3. You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users, or you publish popular or commercially successful videos in other ways (such as DVDs sold online).
Number 2 concerns me the most cause we don't own broadcast rights to smash nor do we have permission from Nintendo.

I guess if we're gonna consider this idea we'll need some data.
1. We need to know how much views our vids are getting, if we get that frequent enough and if that fits the criteria.
2. We need to know if these broadcast rights are going to be an issue.
3. We need to know how much a view is worth. I haven't been able to find the exact currency yet :(.
 
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Good to see some reply's. Yeah I was thinking about a TO aid fund. Who is going to be willing to be in charge of that though?
Maybe a european TO BR? I could already think of a great german nominee (.Selebu) or maybe two (Akuma, Semifer), and the odd Austrian (Gheb)... Some from France (a few guys from from Bushido Impact? Telouborg?), maybe a major dutch TO...
Basically, a committee of the biggest TOs around. The people who make the big tournaments happen. Probably brawl only (Melee should have their own).

I proposed this idea on the dutch boards. The majority think that it's not worth it. They have doubts that it will raise enough money and if it does then there are worries about who's gonna manage that money. They also don't like losing youtube in favor of blip and blip.tv in itself has some agressive advertising going on. Bottom line I don't think it's gonna fly in our country for now.
What's wrong with youtube? I'm not sure how youtube's ad revenue works, but I can't imagine that it would be too much of a hassle for a grouped channel like this, which is likely to get a ton of views and hundreds of vids, to get a partnership deal up and running... Right? I don't know **** about blip, either...

Could this be a problem:
# You own or have express permission to use and monetize all audio and video content that you upload—no exceptions.
...We own the videos that we create, right? Or does nintendo own it (**** YOU IP LAW)?



Another issue is that we don't know how long we'll stay active so many think this is just too much work and will have a low pay off.
It's kinda self-perpetuating, and if the brawl scene in europe dies out then we wasted more time becoming incredibly good at a video game than we did setting up a site like this.

Number 2 concerns me the most cause we don't own broadcast rights to smash nor do we have permission from Nintendo.
...Oh. Well, I guess that deals with it.

I guess if we're gonna consider this idea we'll need some data.
1. We need to know how much views our vids are getting, if we get that frequent enough and if that fits the criteria.
2. We need to know if these broadcast rights are going to be an issue.
3. We need to know how much a view is worth. I haven't been able to find the exact currency yet :(.
Agree. 1 can be figured out by just looking at the big channels (SSBBGermany, SmashTornoi, etc.) and their numbers, 2 will be a problem, and 3...

Actually, if we don't really have the broadcast rights, I don't see this getting off the ground anywhere, not just not on youtube. :(
 

Ryuker

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Good to see a new reply.

A committee of the major TO's would probably be best yeah.

Nothing is wrong with Youtube. But the OP of the thread that sparked this suggests moving to a different site. So I proposed that idea and I get the general impression that not many think it's worth leaving youtube for. So that's why I mention blip.tv.

Regarding views. SmashNL has about 55000 in total. Mind you that a lot are apparently for a combo vid of Armada I think.
I'm collecting the views from the other channels known to me. Will post in a sec.

Edit: Here's what I got so far


These are total views though. And a lot of these accounts exist for a pretty long time already.


Regarding broadcast rights: Here's the reply's I got in the other thread on smashboards.

The 1st if from Zodiac. This guy has offered to put the USA vids on Machinima.
Zodiac said:
they're not livestreaming this stuff. But Im not sure what they do differently but as far as I know they have a general agreement with the big game companies on the distribution of their content, and in many cases have direct contact with them.
The 2nd is from Mytummyhertz:
Mytummyhertz said:
afaik, we should be fine w/r/t broadcast rights as long as we're not livestreaming
I asked google and found a question by Waffles about this. Waffles asking about video game partnerships

Reading that lead me to this: video game software and content - youtube

It contains links to US copyright laws etc. The quote below sums it up though.
Without the appropriate license from the publisher, use of video game or software user interface must be minimal, or the associated commentary must provide instructional or educational value. Videos simply showing a user playing a video game or the use of software for extended periods of time will not be accepted for monetization.
SO I guess the question is are we providing instructional or educational value.

I don't really know where to look for further information about this. Any suggestions?
 

ajp_anton

Smash Lord
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Jan 9, 2006
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Stockholm
What, I'm first?!
OK SmashTournoi is apparently growing faster and just passed me, but still, wtf.
 

Ryuker

Smash Lord
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Added the channels and placed a new table in the OP. I guess I'll make a new one after a quarter of the year has passed or something and then we can compare which channels get the most visits.
 

Lawrencelot

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As I said on SmashNL, because of copyright issues it might be better to get ads for a website instead of the youtube vids themselves, with Google Ads. We can use websites commercially, but not videos from a Nintendo game. So just put youtube vids of all the european smashvids in an organized website, and put some google ads on that website to generate money. Problem with this is that, besides Smashboards and Youtube, there'd be a third website everyone has to visit. I'm sure there are people that can make pretty websites just for smash videos though, like showing a tournament bracket and if you click on a match it goes to the youtube vid or shows the youtube vid on the site itself
 

Ryuker

Smash Lord
Joined
Sep 16, 2003
Messages
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Location
The Hague , Netherlands
Good suggestion. Might be worth looking into. The biggest issue I see with it is that it requires a 3rd website to visit. We'd also have to create that website which means hosting and mainting it.

I've put this on hold for half a year. Around december I'll gather the amount views again so we can compare it with the old views.

If anyone has any other ideas like lawrancelot feel free to share them.
 

Ryuker

Smash Lord
Joined
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Messages
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Location
The Hague , Netherlands
It's been over a year since I proposed this idea and honestly I don't want to delve into the copyright issues so I don't see it fly.

What does the rest think of Lawrencelot's idea to build a central website where we post the vids. They would be hosted on youtube ofc but from the thread you'd get linked to the site.

The visitor count might not be worth it if we just link to video's alone which is why I was thinking of the following:

Our scenes have drifted a bit apart these years and I've been wondering for a while why no one has ever started a true eurosmashblog to converge the indivual scenes a bit. This might be a good moment to consider a central smash blog. The kind of site I have in mind would be a blog that would be the go to place for competive eurosmash news(covering all games including famous mods). It would contain:
  • interviews before, during and after big events,
  • updates on the competitive scene in general
  • upcoming tournaments(with important information and links to results etc)
  • Youtube embedded tournament vids
  • etc
The site would have a professional impression and is maintained by important people in the smash community (I'm thinking slhoka etc, people who already put a lot of effort in the presentation of their community). The site would be non profit but would generate some revenue through services like google adsense. This revenue is used to build a reserve for the euro community and is divided equally (the specifics of this would have to be discussed, I guess scene activity might be a important criteria). I dunno if the revenue will be high but some is better then nothing.

SSB4 is coming in about 2 years so a central place around it's release to find news and information on the EU smash scene would give our scene more exposure. Smashboards itself is to intimidating for new comers in my opinion. 2 years is more then enough time to prepare.
The main goal however would be to inform players of the existing smash scene.
I notice some already do some good attempts at this in the tourney vid threads (LeFrenchMelee particularly caught my interest).

I'm thinking wordpress would be the best option for this since it's easy to edit it for non webdevelopers. Open for suggestions though.
 
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