Voice
I've been thinking recently about the potential for AGDQ (or future speedrunning marathons in general) to expand beyond one stream per event. The volume of game suggestions (20+ pages at time of writing this) for AGDQ 2014 is a testament to the idea that a 2nd stream would be sufficiently fed with content. I think the consideration of a 2nd stream/2nd marathon room setup is appropriate considering the natural growth of these live marathon events, if not for this immediate AGDQ then definitely for the marathons to follow. It benefits the players by allowing more runs to be accepted in, the charity by bringing in more ad revenue and donation incentives, and the viewers by providing them with more potential interest throughout the marathon.
Some real life examples came to mind when I was drafting this proposal:
1) During the college football season, ESPN and ESPN2 are typically found broadcasting two games at the same time. If I don't like the game that is on ESPN (maybe it features 2 teams I have no interest in), I might instead watch the game on ESPN2. Or, perhaps I enjoy switching back and forth, with one game as a primary focus, but checking back occasionally on the other game to see how it is going. Either way I am watching an ESPN-covered football game. The nice thing about Twitch is that I don't need to switch between channels: I can simply have both streams running simultaneously and get the same sort of experience, only now I am "doubling" my viewership presence, being counted as a viewer on each stream, contributing ad money to each stream, etc.
2) Streaming example: Major League Gaming has offered as many as six simultaneous Starcraft streams during their seasonal competitions. This is a lot of content, and it ensures that someone I am interested in following through the tournament is always on a stream somewhere. I dislike watching Terran vs Terran, but with 6 streams I'm bound to have a Protoss or Zerg player on one of those streams.
3) Personal example: If I am watching a speedrunning marathon at home and an RPG comes on, it probably is not my type of run to watch, and so I likely shut the stream off and come back in a few hours. In essence, my viewership was lost for a long period of time because I did not prefer that run. If, on the other hand, a second stream was running a different game in tandem, I might view that run instead, and now you have extended the number of hours I am spending watching the event live.
The most common argument I hear against multiple streams is that it will "split viewership". That really depends on your definition of the word 'split'. If your definition of split is based solely on the viewer count you see on a particular Twitch page, then yes, it might induce a "split". Yet it would be trivial to include both streams on the front page of the marathon site. Furthermore, the existence of Twitch team pages, Multitwitch, and the SRL stream list allows for the event as a collective whole to be represented, even if it is not taking place on exactly one stream. It would be very easy to have Twitch partner both streams, and to produce ad revenue off of each. It would be very easy to have them link subscriber benefits between each stream (they do this already for things like MLG). The promotion of these marathons will not decrease as the result of adding additional content. It is very probable that both streams would sit amongst the top streams for viewer count throughout the marathon. Plus, if a viewer is watching both streams at once, he is doubling his presence rather than halving it.
Another potential concern is how you would "fairly" go about splitting the schedule into 2 different rooms. I think you could argue that no one room is more important than the other. My thought is that if one stream room is running an RPG, have the other room running a series of shorter platformers. You want the games that are running simultaneously to contrast to an extent (i.e. you wouldn't schedule Majora's Mask and OoT for the same slot, as those probably have the same viewer base). One room doesn't have to be dedicated as the "long games" room while the other is for "shorter games"... or perhaps you might even consider that as your splitting criteria? The possibilities are wide open for discussion, and I'm curious as to what you might think is a good way to go about handling that aspect.
Someone else mentioned, "What do you do for donation reading?" I would think this would be an additional database field that essentially flags your donation for reading on stream 1 or stream 2, so when you go to donate you have some radio button or checkbox to designate which stream you want your comment read on. Splitting donations across 2 different streams would also help reduce the volume of comments that are often lost as the result of a giant backlog, so this is an added benefit.
Event attendees might be apprehensive about having 2 different rooms running, because they "don't want to miss" anything. I legitimately believe this is the biggest stumper as far as multiple streams is concerned; it tampers with the nature of the event. I personally would argue that I'm rarely in the marathon room at marathons, and that is either because I'm not interested in what is being played, or I'm too busy having fun in the back rooms, so the likelihood of me having to choose between 2 rooms for my own viewership is rare. I know this isn't the case for everyone, though. To give a non-personal example, there are many runs where the room population is very low, indicating that people at the event itself might wish to have something else to watch.
I think adding a 2nd stream also expands upon the amount of longer games and game goals the marathon can have. We see so many people wanting to run Final Fantasy games, or longer RPGs, or 100% catgories of games that have significantly shorter (more "marathon-friendly") Any% runs. By simply doubling the amount of time we can allot to runs, the potential to add in some of these longer titles is increased.
Finally there is the obvious need for more volunteers on the technical side of things, as well as more equipment to properly enable a second stream. I think this is probably the biggest limiting factor at the moment, but perhaps not? It would come down to having enough volunteers and the ability to acquire a second stream setup.
To wrap up my argument, I would advise that the notion of limiting the big marathons to one marathon room is going to prevent its growth in the near to immediate future. We've already seen the largest number of game rejections so far with AGDQ 2014, and the games list isn't going to be getting any smaller. With the number of rejected games this year, there was potential to have 4 days worth of content on a 2nd stream (not to mention the 2nd stream could also be used for showing side events, such as the Melee tournament, Mario Party games in the side rooms, etc). I think if it's too late to consider a 2nd stream for AGDQ, it's not too early to begin discussing the need for a 2nd stream for AGDQ 2015.
Some real life examples came to mind when I was drafting this proposal:
1) During the college football season, ESPN and ESPN2 are typically found broadcasting two games at the same time. If I don't like the game that is on ESPN (maybe it features 2 teams I have no interest in), I might instead watch the game on ESPN2. Or, perhaps I enjoy switching back and forth, with one game as a primary focus, but checking back occasionally on the other game to see how it is going. Either way I am watching an ESPN-covered football game. The nice thing about Twitch is that I don't need to switch between channels: I can simply have both streams running simultaneously and get the same sort of experience, only now I am "doubling" my viewership presence, being counted as a viewer on each stream, contributing ad money to each stream, etc.
2) Streaming example: Major League Gaming has offered as many as six simultaneous Starcraft streams during their seasonal competitions. This is a lot of content, and it ensures that someone I am interested in following through the tournament is always on a stream somewhere. I dislike watching Terran vs Terran, but with 6 streams I'm bound to have a Protoss or Zerg player on one of those streams.
3) Personal example: If I am watching a speedrunning marathon at home and an RPG comes on, it probably is not my type of run to watch, and so I likely shut the stream off and come back in a few hours. In essence, my viewership was lost for a long period of time because I did not prefer that run. If, on the other hand, a second stream was running a different game in tandem, I might view that run instead, and now you have extended the number of hours I am spending watching the event live.
The most common argument I hear against multiple streams is that it will "split viewership". That really depends on your definition of the word 'split'. If your definition of split is based solely on the viewer count you see on a particular Twitch page, then yes, it might induce a "split". Yet it would be trivial to include both streams on the front page of the marathon site. Furthermore, the existence of Twitch team pages, Multitwitch, and the SRL stream list allows for the event as a collective whole to be represented, even if it is not taking place on exactly one stream. It would be very easy to have Twitch partner both streams, and to produce ad revenue off of each. It would be very easy to have them link subscriber benefits between each stream (they do this already for things like MLG). The promotion of these marathons will not decrease as the result of adding additional content. It is very probable that both streams would sit amongst the top streams for viewer count throughout the marathon. Plus, if a viewer is watching both streams at once, he is doubling his presence rather than halving it.
Another potential concern is how you would "fairly" go about splitting the schedule into 2 different rooms. I think you could argue that no one room is more important than the other. My thought is that if one stream room is running an RPG, have the other room running a series of shorter platformers. You want the games that are running simultaneously to contrast to an extent (i.e. you wouldn't schedule Majora's Mask and OoT for the same slot, as those probably have the same viewer base). One room doesn't have to be dedicated as the "long games" room while the other is for "shorter games"... or perhaps you might even consider that as your splitting criteria? The possibilities are wide open for discussion, and I'm curious as to what you might think is a good way to go about handling that aspect.
Someone else mentioned, "What do you do for donation reading?" I would think this would be an additional database field that essentially flags your donation for reading on stream 1 or stream 2, so when you go to donate you have some radio button or checkbox to designate which stream you want your comment read on. Splitting donations across 2 different streams would also help reduce the volume of comments that are often lost as the result of a giant backlog, so this is an added benefit.
Event attendees might be apprehensive about having 2 different rooms running, because they "don't want to miss" anything. I legitimately believe this is the biggest stumper as far as multiple streams is concerned; it tampers with the nature of the event. I personally would argue that I'm rarely in the marathon room at marathons, and that is either because I'm not interested in what is being played, or I'm too busy having fun in the back rooms, so the likelihood of me having to choose between 2 rooms for my own viewership is rare. I know this isn't the case for everyone, though. To give a non-personal example, there are many runs where the room population is very low, indicating that people at the event itself might wish to have something else to watch.
I think adding a 2nd stream also expands upon the amount of longer games and game goals the marathon can have. We see so many people wanting to run Final Fantasy games, or longer RPGs, or 100% catgories of games that have significantly shorter (more "marathon-friendly") Any% runs. By simply doubling the amount of time we can allot to runs, the potential to add in some of these longer titles is increased.
Finally there is the obvious need for more volunteers on the technical side of things, as well as more equipment to properly enable a second stream. I think this is probably the biggest limiting factor at the moment, but perhaps not? It would come down to having enough volunteers and the ability to acquire a second stream setup.
To wrap up my argument, I would advise that the notion of limiting the big marathons to one marathon room is going to prevent its growth in the near to immediate future. We've already seen the largest number of game rejections so far with AGDQ 2014, and the games list isn't going to be getting any smaller. With the number of rejected games this year, there was potential to have 4 days worth of content on a 2nd stream (not to mention the 2nd stream could also be used for showing side events, such as the Melee tournament, Mario Party games in the side rooms, etc). I think if it's too late to consider a 2nd stream for AGDQ, it's not too early to begin discussing the need for a 2nd stream for AGDQ 2015.
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