The Hard Talk: Community Contributors

We have been in contact before (it was more than 3 years ago if my memory serves me right, at the very launch of the site), and it was my fault for failing to find a timely solution to the issues we faced regarding the introduction of new coders.

cr4wler was not selected because we didn't know him well enough to give him the kind of access we would have had to.

I wouldn't say the situation now is where I would dream it to be, but definitely improved over time, and will keep improving.

We are indeed (passively) looking for coders and will consider any application (which can also be just a discussion), but I would understand if he did not have any interest in joining us anymore.

That said, I don't think COH2.ORG can be blamed for preventing him (or anyone else) from contributing to the community. A "unit stats" webpage as he described could have been entirely coded without access to our own code, and there are also plenty of ways it could have been hosted on the net (including here, if the final product was ever presented to us).

Well, kinda. I also asked later on i think. And not knowing him was not a problem for getting janne on board for example ;-)
Apart from the fact that others knew me... but thats not even the point. Neither is that i could have finished my programm on my own. The point was that "searching for coders" is a bit weird when you have sitting around and not accepting them.

...and of course driving people away by making them feel unappreciated.

Why you no just slap da codebase on GitHub, mock up some data, and let da fanbois go wild without any prod/dev middleware/server/db access? Why you no just sit back, eat Belgian cheese, drink wine and review dem quality pull requests? #MVGame

Two reasons, imho:

First one: intellectual property. Fully understandable.

Second one (potentially): security through obscurity. I don't like that one :-)

+1 to what Rogers said.

My main gripe with Ami and $ is that he treats it like a business. That might work for a huge game like LoL or Dota2, but won't work for a niche game like CoH2.

If you truly do it for the love of the game and the community you wouldn't feel the need to be compensated.

I seem to remember that we have been through a lot of this stuff before at the time of OCF.

I want to go back to the main thrust of this blog, which seems to have wandered off track. Gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry. The days of it being a love which dare not speak its name, are fast disappearing."You're doing what? Gaming?"

SEGA was prepared to pay approx $26 million for bankrupt stock 3 years ago. Bankrupt stock tends not attract premium prices. It gives you a clue as to the inherent value which SEGA saw in the Relic stock for which it bid, albeit that COH2 was very much underdeveloped at the time of purchase.

Gauging from the mad hollering which takes place upon the release of dlcs for this game, one may surmise that Relic are still doing very nicely, thank you.

It is therefore not asking too much for them to reinvest back into the community as a marketing exercise. If there is one thing I know about marketing, it always comes at a cost, and companies will invest heavily in it. You mention more high profile games like League of Legends or DOTA, which can afford to pay teams of people to live in a house and practise 12 hours per day, 7 days per week,for big prizes. Some gamers are now apparently millionaires. The comparison with the monetisation of professional sports becomes more credible every year.

Against that backdrop, is how the discussion here about Relic strategies should have developed.

We are not privy to Relic's balance sheet or profit and loss accounts, but the comparative slowness of release of dlcs and skins now, suggests that they meet their targets. Whether those targets are high enough is another matter. Given the general grousing about lack of marketing of the original game and the general lack of support until OCF forced its way onto the Relic portal last Summer, I fear the marketing probably still leaves much to be desired. Advertising the players etc on the game screens was a big jump forward and it should have occurred long ago.

But I do not think this should blind people about the lack of investment in tourneys. Ipkai's blog mentioned previous lack of support. Even if Relic is not harvesting millions of dollars at the same rate as larger gaming companies like Blizzard, it is still doing alright for a company of 100 employees, not least becaUse it gets a head start from the subsidy it receives from British Columbia. Dlcs are infrequent. The production of skins (with concomitant income) has virtually dried up and it looks as if Relic will be satisfied to share the income of future skins with the creator and Steam. This is not the action of a company which is hard up for cash. If Relic were struggling, you would see more useless Commanders and also see Relic farm more income from skins and faceplates.

Even when Tales of Heroes first started, the general concensus would have been that the web was a freewheeling source of information, where the introduction of money was frowned upon. You could read any newspaper online for free, whether it was the Times, the New York Times or the Telegraph. The idea of having to pay for antivirus protection was sneered at by IT professionals, who asked how web use could be encouraged if greedy software companies charged to keep out viruses. AVG antivirus was free. 13 years ago, trolls were rumoured to exist - and shock horror if one landed on your messageboard.

But things change. Many newspapers now charge to let people read their content. You have to pay for AVG. More people use the web than watch TV. Trolls abound. The web has changed fundamentally.

I therefore tend to think that people who advance the idea that creating a major event is not a business, are either old-style web users, who look back with rose-tinted spectacles to a world which no longer exists, or they are young students, who have little awareness of the commercial world.

At some point, I hope that supporters of this game will open their eyes and understand that what Ami has been doing is simply bcs he is ahead of the pack. I am reasonably confident this will occur, as blog discussions like this take place. When I see our casters like Imperial Dane, Romeo or Stormless make tidy little sums of money from their 'donations', or Kluge gratefully accepting 'donations' or gifts of Commanders, or Helping Hans reaping over $300 per month, it tells me that even our younger casters are now waking up to the realities of life.

Therefore, Juan, you will understand that I reject your implausible contention that organising big events should be done for nothing. Further, even Relic accepts it has to pay somebody, however grudgingly - it has simply chosen to pay somebody else. Have you done the Maff yet, Juan? Have you worked out what ESL are likely to be getting from the $18,000? Or do you think ESL are doing it for the love of the game?

ESL are not part of the COH2 community. Both Relic and ESL are now going to piggyback on a resurgent interest in this game, which came about from the community driven OCF, which was inspired bv Ami.

I very much agree with Awa's stance on all this. Ami leads and he knows what he is doing. Ipkai's blog criticises the investment in ESL, when a proven broadcaster had already demonstrated his worth again, through OCF. Relic should be pouring much more money into the marketing of this game, far more than they are currently doing. They can afford it. And they have made an error in promoting ESL, over what the community could have provided - and which it had proved through OCF it could deliver.

My question to Relic is: why?

You don't see professional salesman trying to sell people plain old atmospheric air and then complaining when no one buys it.

As I have no great love for salesmen and marketeers, it may not surprise you to know I disagree with this assertion. They are a necessary evil - but salesmen and marketeers who aim low, are not salesmen or marketeers who I would employ.

Edited

+1 @ Major and Ami.

I could write a page-long list of events that I have organized and/or broadcasted for this franchise for no money at all, over the last 7 years. What a ludicrous criticism! Here's a brief summary:

About a dozen GR 1v1 and 2v2 tournaments for COH1
SNF Season 1
SNF Season 2
SNF Season 3 (I raised $800 in prizes, 100% of which went to the players)
SNF Season 4 (I raised $1,600 in prizes, 100% of which went to the players)
Our beta COH2 event
The Langreskaya and Semoskiy Tourneys
Months of ESL
Alienware Arena EU

So pls, just stop with this smear campaign. How quickly you all forget

I will just quickly repeat what I already said:

"organising big events surely will cost some money"

haters gonna hate, Ami
i still think most of the people understand a thing

Further, even Relic accepts it has to pay somebody, however grudgingly - it has simply chosen to pay somebody else. Have you done the Maff yet, Juan? Have you worked out what ESL are likely to be getting from the $18,000? Or do you think ESL are doing it for the love of the game?

A lot of sense in there, even if I do begrudgingly say so.

However your point about "doing the maths" isn't a very good one:

Total overall prize pool: $16467.65

using (€1 = $1.09) as calculated by myself, all based on public info etc etc...

$18000 (assumed funds) - $16467.65 = $1532.35

workings spread sheet

Which for 34 staffed events would be a bargain and therefore I assume Relic are putting MORE than $18000 into all this, especially if you consider Relic staff costs and other overheads if it was to be costed into the project.

I actually think ESL offer a lot more than another Ami run tourney as Ami run .org tournies are largely saturated in their market, and this has more potential to bring other players and fans in from elsewhere, which is priceless.

Relic/ESL needs to restrict players to either the NA or EU tournament.

That's implemented from Sunday and onward.

As one of the few that have been around since "The Beginning" I'd have to shake my head at how ignorant some of you are...

Telling the Admins of this site in general to "PUT YOUR TIME IN!" is just lol. I guess it's a little understandable because SO MUCH work is done behind the scenes.

As for Relic, at least for me lately, I have been impressed with the communication in privy channels where things actually get done. I had a little free time last year and I picked up the ball that was dropped and I carried on and we got some shit fixed. The maps are 100X better than they were thanks to the hard work and effort of a handful (Thanks Ben and others!). I now don't have as much free time and since that movement has kinda dried up. I am proud that myself and some crafty forum goers got together with the Relicans and we got shit done and we'll still be seeing the fruits of that labor in the future with new fresh maps.

OK, that said. The above was A LOT of work done over months and months and it wore me out. BUT, what Ami and other staffers do with these events is 10X that amount of work and chaos. If I kept going with Relic, helping them as I could, I'd basically be a honorary Relic employee to be honest. They'd get the advice, council, and management of others that only comes from doing this since 2006 and actually being a big part of the 2.602 patch process in vCOH. All of the pains that their Dev's have been through, I've already been there! The same goes for Ami, he knows how to run events better than Relic believe it or not. What he does is a massive boost to their exposure and advertising, considerably bigger than a duct tape ESL series. You don't think someone should get a little coin for that? I sure do. Was Ami salty when Relic offered some DLC codes instead of actual support? You betcha, and he said some things as people do when they're steamed, big deal.

In summary, I think the biggest frustration from all of us as a collective is Relic not doing what is best of the franchise that we all love and have wanted to see succeed since "The Beginning". I really think sometimes they miss the boat and other times they surprise me with some outstanding individuals but as a entity I think Relic has really lost some big opportunities on the way. Not just with events but with how the game was designed and implemented with 2008 in mind instead of the future of gaming. I hope it works out in the end...

first of all a big thnx to all the guys that contribute that much time to this game because they love it!

They'd get the advice, council, and management of others that only comes from doing this since 2006 and actually being a big part of the 2.602 patch process in vCOH.

do you know why relic hasnt done a "2.602" for coh2 yet? what is hindering them to do it? even choosing 10 guys and giving 1000 bucks each as a compensation wouldnt break their back

imo there is quite a bit to be done balancewise, especially strategic diversity (take this with a grain of salt, im making this statement mostly based on the last tournaments, not my own 1v1 experience) and the last patch was interesting to say the least. i mean come on, you balance ONE unit and suddenly everyone spams this unit, because it is too strong? you had ONE job, ONE variable....
and then the announcement, that the next patches will be of the same size.....

do you know why relic hasnt done a "2.602" for coh2 yet? what is hindering them to do it? even choosing 10 guys and giving 1000 bucks each as a compensation wouldnt break their back

2.602 was a final patch. We knew nothing else would be changing, no new commanders, no DLC, etc. This makes the balancing much more straight forward.

There are so many more variables in COH2 that it makes it extremely tough to achieve exceptional balance in my opinion. We attempted during beta of COH2 to have another cooperative type approach but it was ultimately a failure as we became aware of the direction COH2 was going with DLC, Pay 2 Win, no features, no e-sports possibilities, and so on. Some feelings were hurt on both sides and it died. Since then Relic has had small alpha groups attempt to do the same and each time they get an excited bunch who enter with nothing but aspirations of a great COH2 and end up months later disappointed and it dies and the cycle begins again.

I've personally had far more luck in small groups of hand picked peepz where I can manage the workflow and keep everyone on track. For 2.602 it was like this and if people can keep pace it works exceptionally well but like I said, COH2 is just much more difficult.

Well, kinda. I also asked later on i think. And not knowing him was not a problem for getting janne on board for example ;-)

Janne worked an insane amount before getting where he is now, as much before being on staff than after. He also was not made coder until a long time, also because that wasn't his goal in the first place. He was first and foremost a modder who did his own stuff, and still do in parallel now as well. We didn't know him, but he more than proved himself with the tools he had at every step of the way. I wasn't always there to baby sit him or congratulate him (not implying that is what you wanted, I know we didn't even give you the opportunity to be in such position), but it didn't prevent him to get stuff done.

Apart from the fact that others knew me... but thats not even the point. Neither is that i could have finished my programm on my own. The point was that "searching for coders" is a bit weird when you have sitting around and not accepting them.

...and of course driving people away by making them feel unappreciated.

Indeed, we have made mistakes, and it will probably happen again (hopefully not the same mistakes!). Those regarding coding are most likely my bad, which I already acknowledged.

I think there was a mismatch between your expectations and ours, and our way of handling it. Personality issue or communication issue I don't know. We had other coders with whom it didn't work out either, and others with whom it obviously did work.

That said, I do not know a single company/community/group where every application leads to a successful hiring, and this is a good thing. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with searching for coders but not going through with all of them.

Two reasons, imho:

First one: intellectual property. Fully understandable.

Second one (potentially): security through obscurity. I don't like that one :-)

This is correct. Conceptually I don't like the second point either, but it would be more dangerous to release it now, compared to if it had always been open source. The code isn't that insecure as I actually do pay attention to that stuff, but I assume exploits could potentially be found still.

That said the main reason it just that we never planned it to be open source at all. Maybe that would be a business model for us right there, open it and provide paid support and custom features. But there are so many open source forums either way, and ours was not even built to be distributed and tailored.

About the site itself we also do want to keep control about what goes in. I know this is just as easy as denying a merge request, but what's the point of even allowing them if we potentially wouldn't agree with the changes made. I also would not always have time to review all the requests in a timely manner, so I would prefer to work with coders we can eventually trust.

calling Relic a shitty little company on yoink's stream right after they paid your for SNF5 probably didn't help.

Amazing how it always comes back to $$$ for you Ami. Really shows where your priorities are. God forbid people do it for the love of the game...

I woulda liked to see SNF6. Even then, are you defending Relic? I'm curious, because I'm wondering where your conviction is coming from, because I'm assuming your not a new player.

I've been reading this topic for some time. I gotto say Rogers great post was good closer to me and he reminded me this quote from Batman:

Can we put Kyles response as an edit on the end of the initial article please?

I feel that an article as obviously inflammatory as this requires the balance and fairness of having Relics response attached directly to it.

For the record, inflammatory != bad. These things need to be said, publicly, and if the facts are 100% true or not is irrelevant. As the response to the article shows, people feel this way for a valid reason. Good article, well written.

That's implemented from Sunday and onward.

Great! Now they need to introduce skill based divisions so they can build the player base.

RTS games are not as suited to grassroots competitive organization and monetization as are fighting games, which have solid monetization models for community contributors because people come physically to the tournament and pay venue / participation fees for a chance at the prize pool, and if a stream is being run commentators are likely to get paid--if the viewership is sufficiently high and they have a money pool to draw from.

There's an obvious party disconnect. Third parties like Relic and ESL have to come in and make ventures on games like RTS games which don't have the ability to support numerous (competing) grassroots tournaments.
Our community doesn't have that sort of viewer base to support sponsors and tournaments all the time. Third parties have to come in and take risks.

There's competition in numbers. We have fewer tournament organizers compared to any living fighting game community. This with a lack of grassroots monetary incentive or financial sustainability means we won't get them.

So, what's left to drive people that organize if their number is above the supply that's demanded?
Passion. This brings out the best and worst in people. On one hand the love for a thing shines through and they glow and positively attract to the community. On the other hand, egos grow. Pride becomes a driving factor. But, pride means an overestimation of one's own worth.

People, the prideful people, in accord with the degree of their pride, feel jipped unjustly because they think they deserve money for some thing. Let's put aside the fact that nobody deserves money for anything except mutually agreed upon exchanges.

They input a lot of time and effort, true, but they do not see the economic reality. They do not see that nobody wants to, as of a given moment, pay them for their efforts or respect their clout and legacy.
They do not see that, perhaps they are replaceable by competition if money becomes a sufficient factor; there are opportunists who are better than they.
They do not see that, perhaps the market, the demand, wasn't there, or isn't there yet, or likely won't be there...

The economic fact is that the third party investors have not deemed it necessary to offer monetary compensation in order to attract the talent they need to accomplish their objective, and they're right.

They don't want what you're selling, or they don't know that they want you yet (your fault for lack of marketing). In that light, this article and many of the sentiments discussed by "community contributors" in the comments are unjustified.

Leave to each man his will and be humble and of good cheer, and you will find peace and harmony everywhere touched.

Hey man, Relic declined our proposal for SNF6 and we accepted it. We weren't happy about it, but we accepted it, and we wanna support the success of ESL in every way we can. I only posted here because Kyle described our response without putting it in context.

I feel what I do has value. Just as it's Relic's right to decline our proposal, it's my right to not cast for ESL while ESL is getting paid and the casters are not. I'd appreciate it if you guys would simply accept that and leave this campaign to smear me and challenge my passion at the door. My passion for this game and this community is undeniable.

Hey man, Relic declined our proposal for SNF6 and we accepted it. We weren't happy about it, but we accepted it, and we wanna support the success of ESL in every way we can. I only posted here because Kyle described our response without putting it in context.

I feel what I do has value. Just as it's Relic's right to decline our proposal, it's my right to not cast for ESL while ESL is getting paid and the casters are not. I'd appreciate it if you guys would simply accept that and leave this campaign to smear me and challenge my passion at the door. My passion for this game and this community is undeniable.

I admit that I wrote my response in ignorance. (SNF6? Kyle? Huh?)
From the limited perspective I had, I only saw a few posts on and around page 5-8, and based it off glancing over those.
Perhaps I should be more responsible and know the full (?) story. I felt like I didn't need to in order to get the gist of it. It felt like "these people should be paid by the cash hogs of ESL and Relic, and they should demand it."
Still! I'd stress these virtues to all.
Surely, if we are all humble, all smear campaigns would die in an instant unless well founded.

And, as an aside, more economics!
The law of subjective valuation states, in a market setting, there is no inherent value to anything except the value assigned by the subject which beholds the object. You may feel you have value, and you may in some other way, but in an economic sense it is your subjective valuation you feel, and not an objective valuation.