You need to differentiate between expenses for his stream and expenses for hosting the tournament. Yes, we like to confuse between those because we are used to having hosts = streamers, but actually its different pools. Yes, organisation to host the tournament takes a lot of time and that is something that should be rewarded by a bit of self-payment. But streaming equipment casting time overlay etc etc is nothing that has to do with hosting the tournament. Thats just stuff every caster has to invest to cast the tournament. And yes, if the income via stream isnt large enough to give him a plus over the regular income when he casts tournament hosted by other people, then yes he wouldnt host it. But viewers specifically support Memb because he is host, sub to him watch at him, because they wanna reward him for the efforts.Oh I've been involved in the organization of some of the biggest AoE tournaments pre-2016, so I do know quite a bit about what goes on behind the scenes of such big events. Ask Orjan, he remembers.
Well...that's just your ignorance showing. No offense.
Overlays, Admins, equipment, it all requires an investment.
And Memb has already made at least 1 video that I saw where he details how he barely breaks even after such an event, even with all the donations and subs that always come with it.
Memb had a job too before he started streaming, you just probably weren't around to know it.
That's mostly not true.
Microsoft sponsors HC3 because they liked how the previous iterations were run. They sponsored NAC3 because they like how the previous iterations were run.
And they sponsor KotD3 because they like how Memb and his team ran the previous iterations.
So they don't just sponsor 'something', they sponsor stuff they know are well organized and have prestige in the community.
But thats not the question in place. It is rather: Would have been 20 minutes of letting the game resume, lead to the fact that all the subs he already got will be refunded. Viewers decided to watch at his stream once in the sea of competition and they would return again when he is back. It is not like they left to other streams anyhow rather than looking into the void for 20 minutes without any information when it will return and whats the plan for the rest of the night in case there is no quick solution. They would have watched the game at another channel, maybe Dave's if he was streaming himself, and then jump back if he is back.
I think the decision was a quick shot that is based on his host authority to be actually executed but actually not in the realm of power of his (neither as caster nor as admin), steamed by the casters fear of losing viewers to other streamers. But it hurt the players and competition without any benefit because viewers left anyhow and in the case here more left the tournament in its entirety than just leaving to another stream and then return to Memb again as soon as he is back. I think it was a decision without any benefit.And in the end the success of the tournament as a host is counted by the overall viewer number not the viewer number on his channel for 20 minutes. Open casting is a taking and giving. If casters like lidakor spent all their streaming income on hosting a tournament they know that they only have 500 viewers, but its better for themselves too if there are 20k viewers overall rather than 1k on his channel.
And in the end its Memb's responsibility when his internet connection has issues or he hits the cable or whatever happened, you cannot blame the players for that and make them pause because you spilt coffee over the keyboard.
It happens, but still I think it should be reviewed and reconsidered if that is what we as community and the host really wants.