IPL 4 took place this weekend and promised to bring a "new age of eSports"



I talked to IGN Pro League General Manager David Ting about his vision of IPL4 and eSports in general. We talked about his deeply personal motivation behind founding the IPL, monetization, co-operation and the eSport around StarCraft II as possibly challenging the likes of FIFA and NFL in the future.



If you want to know more about the idea and workings behind IPL and get to know the man behind the scenes. Follow me into a 30minute one on one interview with

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David Ting

"I believe the traction that we have with eSports, there's really no ceiling

because of the accessibility of it as well as entertainment value of it […]"



Interview by Jojo from SC2News

There are minor sound issues at 01:15. They will only last 30 seconds.

Timestamps:

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The quotes do not represent the entirety of David's replies. They are merely excerpts.

Just click on the desired timestamp to see the full reply with video.



00:30

01:25

03:00

UniversityJobsEarly love for StarCraftConvincing IGN to build up IPLFor example:IBMYahoo

Back when I was at Yahoo, a life changing event happened, I got into a near death experience on a car accident and at that point I am determined I am not going to budge anymore, you know, life is too short. I have the skills that are required to earn a good living and it's really about doing things that are meaningful and that I enjoy. […] I want to do something that people will remember me by […] and hopefully that's something that is great and that will benefit a lot of people. That's what I have been working towards ever since that accident.

04:00

I am the General Manager so this means I manage all aspects of IGN Pro League, at the beginning I started off […]



What I have been working on is getting the Casino deals done, I think that's a differentiator […]



A lot of leagues are notorious for losing a lot of money […]

06:00

08:55

In partnership with GSL, one of the things we are aiming for is to really start delivering the traditional sports numbers. A lot of the times people say IPL competes with MLG. For me, I said it many times, that's not interesting to me. If I started a business basically to take out existing competitors, that's not the way to run it.



The real thing to look at here as a community is how do we build up the fan base to basically rival the NHL, Major League Soccer here in the United States and eventually the NFL or FIFA, over time. [...]



I believe the traction that we have with eSports, there's really no ceiling because of the accessibility of it as well as entertainment value of it […]



If we can set viewer-ship numbers like the NFL […] then any venue in the world will be open for us to host our event and that's what we are shooting for!

12:00

If you are there in person, it is absolutely stunning. [...] It is about bringing the high level of the quality of the venue itself, the high level of quality of production and also treating the players right, as they are stars. Doing everything at the highest possible level of standard.



IPL4 – our goal is to raise the bar […] getting people spoiled.

14:30

SXSW – The event organizer said “Next year, I'm going to give you the entire hall.”

17:15

[…] The only one that we had trouble with right now is MLG. [...]



19:25

In terms of viewership League of Legends, for us, looks like will surpass StarCraft II. […] I personally love StarCraft II, that's why I started IPL. And I think that Blizzard is doing quite a few things that will help the community like […]



There is a huge opportunity ahead for StarCraft II being like the soccer of eSports. [...]



I know Blizzard is working on improving battle.net and they should set goals to make it easier to use and make it easier for eSports as well because I believe a lot of their growth is going to be dictated by eSports.

21:08

Absolutely and then on top of it I think that the growth in Asia is something to look at too. That's why we are looking for partners in Asia first […]



It's really about creating a global presence for eSport and making sure that the barrier is gone between different languages as well as different regions in the world. […]

23:00

24:20

I am looking at the big ones. Google has Youtube, they are working on Youtube live. For example, we have guests from Youtube live at IPL4. I am trying to get them really interested in eSports. There are guests from Microsoft. Microsoft is building what is called the cloud. The cloud is very very vague in definition but part of the cloud is video transcoding, encoding as well as distribution. For me it's about spreading the love to the enterprises.



I have a great relationship with Owned and Twitch and they are constantly improving their platforms so we are sitting in a really good spot, being content providers, that the technology is evolving very quickly because there is no one dominant platform yet.

27:52

We want to make things simple and affordable. That's basically the doctrine I have, I remember when I was a student and I only had $20 to spend for a whole week. So we want to make it so that more people can access it if they really want it. We will definitely stick with the Freemium model, anybody can get up to 480p for free so it's again more about growing the size of the community versus really trying to monetize them right now.



Our HD plan is really simple. We are not going to charge Pay-Per-View. If you love our stuff, you just pay $5 a month and you can cancel any time. You get to view all IPL content in HD for the entire month.



The challenge is on us to create engaging content so people will want to pay for an entire year.



Just to address the Winter Arena a little bit, I know Sundance said the sky is falling if people don't support Pay-Per-View [...]

31:20

I am just one of the fans, I am just privileged to be in a position which could influence a company like IGN to do the right things for the community.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated either here or on twitter/facebook/youtube!

Most importantly, If you like the interview, let David know on twitter