ESL wants to pioneer esports on Facebook; the fans want freedom to choose streams
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The Electronic Sports League (ESL), the world’s largest and oldest international esports organization, has recently been subjected to criticisms over their decision to exclusively broadcast their official tournaments and contents on Facebook and its respective event websites.
Last week, when ESL announced that Facebook is going to be their main broadcast partner, Johannes Schiefer, Vice President of Social Media and Editorial at ESL, admitted that they were excited with the decision; citing it as a “huge step toward expanding the reach of esports among mainstream audiences.”
“Last year, ESL content generated over 2 billion impressions and reached over 200 million users on Facebook globally. Now, with the addition of live streaming for all major ESL events, as well as exclusive content around CS:GO and ESEA, we are excited to expand our reach to more audiences and build strong local communities of highly engaged esports fans,” Schiefer stated in a press release.
According to ESL, Facebook Watch, a structured platform for video distribution which features 1080p/60fps streaming and VR, was one of the main reasons behind the project’s success. With its over 1.94 billion monthly active users, Facebook will not only make video content easily accessible, but is also set to allow a much easier promotion of esports contents.
The Dota 2 community, however, was skeptical about the decision, primarily because ESL’s partnership with Facebook bars official broadcast on Twitch, which unlike Facebook Watch has 1080p/60fps streaming, video clipping, and unique chat emoticons. The issue grew bigger when the quality of the Facebook stream turned out to be lower than what avid fans are used to on Twitch.
Audiences flocked to Twitch streamers broadcasting the games of ESL One Genting directly from Dota 2’s in-game match-viewing service, DotaTV. In response to decreased viewership on their official broadcast on Twitch, ESL began issuing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices to the broadcasting Twitch streamers.
In an elaborate Reddit thread, Bryce Blum, founder of ESG Law, the world’s only law firm that is solely dedicated to esports, explained the legal nuances of the issue while also giving his own take on how the situation should unfold. Blum pointed out that though ESL owns their broadcast of ESL One Genting, Valve technically owns the un-casted raw match footage on DotaTV, which the Twitch streamers were using. According to Valve’s content streaming policy which they released last year, DotaTV matches are free for anyone to stream.
In response to the community backlash, Ulrich Schulze, Senior Vice President of Products at ESL, set up an AMA on Reddit to respond to the community’s questions and complaints regarding the FB-exclusive broadcast and ESL’s decision to issue DMCA takedowns to Twitch streamers. Though the thread was active, it receiving a large number of downvotes in a short amount of time (a sign of the community’s displeasure with the situation) caused Schulze to delete the thread, only to re-open it twenty minutes later.
In the thread, Schulze admits that ESL did expect a dip in viewership due to the sudden switch to Facebook, but maintains that the decision will help in creating more content and tournaments in the future. Schulze also explained the DMCA takedowns as within ESL’s rights given that they “create and produce the content of the tournament”.
Though the community still disagrees with ESL’s decisions, the fact remains that the storied esports organization has chosen a new direction for their company and this is not likely going to change due to the backlash. If anything, esports streaming on Facebook Watch is expected to improve now that the community has aired out its complaints. In the Philippines, for example, where Dota 2 fans usually clamor for Facebook live streams as an alternative option for tournament viewing, the response to a Facebook-exclusive tournament broadcast might not be so negative.
Meanwhile, Valve, on early Friday morning, has finally released a statement which seeks to address the current issue regarding DotaTV Streaming. Valve first tackled the DMCA notices sent by ESL by saying that no one, aside from Valve themselves, is “allowed to send DMCA notices for games streamed off of DotaTV that aren’t using the broadcasters’ unique content (camera movements, voice, etc).“
They followed up by spotlighting the DotaTV guidelines, specifically who is permitted to cast games off of it. According to Valve, the Dota TV guidelines are designed to allow up and coming casters, as well as community figures like BananaSlamJama and Admiral Bulldog, who both got their streams taken down, to be able to stream off of DotaTV. This however, prohibits commercial organizations like BeyondTheSummit, a new-media company which specializes in esports content, to compete with the primary stream.
Valve ended their statement by accentuating that they are the only one who can judge on who violates the DotaTV guidelines, and not any other third party.
In the meantime, the tournament itself continues. For more information and coverage of the tournament, please click our event tracker below.
