PPV Must Be A Fine Balance

[PoolSharkAllen]

Regardless of who is playing, the most I will pay for a PPV is $25. Part of the reason for that is I'm not going to spend a whole week or a weekend watching PPV. Consequently, I'd rather see a PPV broken up into daily daytime and evening segments that give me more flexibility in choosing when I want to watch something and how much I want to pay for it.

The next TAR event, for example, has a daily PPV of $15 but I'm not going to watch it for the reasons cited above. However, if there were an evening PPV segment for say, $8, then I would definitely consider watching it.

 

[JCIN]

It seems to me, that the only people i know that actually shell out cash to buy streams, are older guys, or pool bums.
Guys who are semi retired, or guys who work in a situation where they can actually watch the stream, or the die hard fanatics who have no responsibility. (bums)

Most of the younger guys i know, NEVER buy a whole stream if they buy it at all. And usually, that's not because they don't want to, but simply because they don't have the time.

They end up opting for a single day when they have off (typically sunday) if that option is available. But they won't buy a stream for whatever set price, if they can only watch half of it.

Lets face it. $20 doesn't represent the same amount of money to two different people. Some people are frugal, some people aren't.
And they will gladly watch a crappy match for free, but somehow feel an aversion to shelling out money, when there is a crappy match that might get streamed.

The only thing that i have yet to see is some sort of micro payment or micro revenue approach much like charges for apps for smart phones and downloaded music. I think a micro plan would be suitable to even the pickiest stingiest cheap bastards around.

Why not toss something out there for $1.99 or $2.49 per match on top of the other options so people can watch a single match if they want to and actually have the time to watch it while avoiding those matches that they feel might suck that they don't want to pay for to watch.

I'm not sure that any of the places that host stream events would even be able to support a by the match format, but if they did, i can see people shelling out a couple bucks for a match they want to see, where normally, they wouldn't be spending a dime.
Sure, you'd have to be on top of the announcements and brackets so people would have an idea if a match they want to watch is coming up on the stream table, but considering it might be extracting extra revenue where it didn't exist before, it might be worth it.

It might be more of a pain in the ass and more trouble then it's worth, but i know TONS of people who absolutely positively REFUSE to shell out set amounts like $10 or $20 bucks for a service, who will blow $2 and $3 bucks all day long on all sorts of stuff.

Might be worth looking into.

The problem with micro pricing is that if you use AudioVideoWeb as the backend to serve the on demand content you might make 50 cents or so on the purchase. Re-Encoding, uploading and cataloging individual matches is a lot of time spent for 50 cents and it takes a decent amount of buys just to cover the nut. I know the answer to that is find a cheaper solution. If anyone has one I would be interested in talking about it.

 

[JCIN]

Regardless of who is playing, the most I will pay for a PPV is $25. Part of the reason for that is I'm not going to spend a whole week or a weekend watching PPV. Consequently, I'd rather see a PPV broken up into daily daytime and evening segments that give me more flexibility in choosing when I want to watch something and how much I want to pay for it.

The next TAR event, for example, has a daily PPV of $15 but I'm not going to watch it for the reasons cited above. However, if there were an evening PPV segment for say, $8, then I would definitely consider watching it.

If you are on the east coast the match starts at 7 pm and each day lasts about six to seven hours. At $8 for half that its really not worth doing on our end mainly due to the added complexity and the customer service requests that come with that complexity.

 

[danquixote]

It seems to me, that the only people i know that actually shell out cash to buy streams, are older guys, or pool bums.
Guys who are semi retired, or guys who work in a situation where they can actually watch the stream, or the die hard fanatics who have no responsibility. (bums)

Most of the younger guys i know, NEVER buy a whole stream if they buy it at all. And usually, that's not because they don't want to, but simply because they don't have the time.

They end up opting for a single day when they have off (typically sunday) if that option is available. But they won't buy a stream for whatever set price, if they can only watch half of it.

Lets face it. $20 doesn't represent the same amount of money to two different people. Some people are frugal, some people aren't.
And they will gladly watch a crappy match for free, but somehow feel an aversion to shelling out money, when there is a crappy match that might get streamed.

The only thing that i have yet to see is some sort of micro payment or micro revenue approach much like charges for apps for smart phones and downloaded music. I think a micro plan would be suitable to even the pickiest stingiest cheap bastards around.

Why not toss something out there for $1.99 or $2.49 per match on top of the other options so people can watch a single match if they want to and actually have the time to watch it while avoiding those matches that they feel might suck that they don't want to pay for to watch.

I'm not sure that any of the places that host stream events would even be able to support a by the match format, but if they did, i can see people shelling out a couple bucks for a match they want to see, where normally, they wouldn't be spending a dime.
Sure, you'd have to be on top of the announcements and brackets so people would have an idea if a match they want to watch is coming up on the stream table, but considering it might be extracting extra revenue where it didn't exist before, it might be worth it.

It might be more of a pain in the ass and more trouble then it's worth, but i know TONS of people who absolutely positively REFUSE to shell out set amounts like $10 or $20 bucks for a service, who will blow $2 and $3 bucks all day long on all sorts of stuff.

Might be worth looking into.

I like this idea. I fit the description to a tee. Time is a factor for me as is the quality of competition. I would be tickled to death if I could " pick and choose" which matches to watch in a particular tourney......Dan

 

[SUPERSTAR]

The problem with micro pricing is that if you use AudioVideoWeb as the backend to serve the on demand content you might make 50 cents or so on the purchase. Re-Encoding, uploading and cataloging individual matches is a lot of time spent for 50 cents and it takes a decent amount of buys just to cover the nut. I know the answer to that is find a cheaper solution. If anyone has one I would be interested in talking about it.

I understand.
It's just an idea.

I think if the technology ever evolves so that it is relatively inexpensive to do so without being a superior pain in the ass to provide that service, it might be worthwhile.

I guess only time will tell.