I’m sorry. I tried everything i could think of, overextending myself to ridiculous extremes in the process; and i’m no closer to my goal of making any of this sustainable.
So i need to scale everything back, wrap up a few loose ends, and try to finish my Combo DVD for the handful of people who preordered it – while catching up on all the things i postponed or sacrificed along the way. I’ll try not to disappear completely, but no guarantees.
For those of you wondering what happened, here’s the problem. Anyone can do what i do for three months, maybe six months, maybe even a year. But it burns you out, like you wouldn’t believe. The 4-5 casual matches of MvC2 that i happened to play at SoCal Regionals were literally the only video games i’ve played in the past 2-3 months!
What can i say? Running these websites is a grind. Up until now i held onto hope that i could make something out of all this effort, but it’s just not happening and it’s time to face facts.
Our whole system of publishing content is broken beyond repair. If you look at any given video i’ve posted on u2b, roughly 2k views originate directly from Sonic Hurricane and roughly 10k views come from an embedded player on eventhubs.
That means “news” sites like eventhubs make at least five times as much ad revenue for every single video that i produce. Yes, we’re only talking about a few dollars here, but think of all the material that eventhubs leeches from external authors like me.
Over the last year, Sonic Hurricane has averaged around 95k hits per month, which probably makes me the most successful dedicated content producer in the community. For the record, i still haven’t made a single dime. I’ve actually lost money! That’s a really bad sign if you’re a video maker or article writer hoping to go somewhere with this.
On the other hand, eventhubs gets three million hits per month, which probably translates into a couple thousand dollars every month for that guy. Now ask yourself how much original content eventhubs produces. Yup, it’s damn near zero.
All their frame data is copied from Shoryuken.com translations of Japanese publications, all their strategy guides are stolen from SRK forums, and all their embedded videos are created by people like me. And the worst thing is, they’re actually pulling the community away from Shoryuken.com – using SRK content to do it!
It’s a sad state of affairs when the only person profiting from all this work is the guy who’s never produced a shred of original content and given nothing back to the fighting game community. And every single day, i have to watch people linking to eventhubs left and right. It’s just impossible to stay motivated when things are this fucked up.
It breaks my heart to see people talking shit about Shoryuken.com for every little error they make, then turning around and praising eventhubs. Where the hell was eventhubs when our community was struggling to stay alive, when all we had were decade-old games?
Say what you will about SRK, but you can’t deny everything they’ve done for the fighting game community. They’ve organized the best fighting game tournament in the world every year since 1996! And they lost money every year until at least 2006.
For the last three months, SRK has consistently posted game industry news faster than eventhubs. Yet every single time they slip up by a few minutes, some fool comes out of the woodwork to talk shit. Why?
You know, someone actually had the audacity to complain about a John Choi strategy article on SRK last month, because i guess he didn’t want to take advice from a top player who hadn’t won a recent tournament. I’ve had the same reaction to a few of my strategy articles. So why isn’t anyone questioning the matchup information on eventhubs?
I actually met the owner of eventhubs briefly at Evo. He seemed like a nice guy. I don’t blame him for trying to cash out on the mainstream success of SF4. But nobody knows who he is or where he came from. He just showed up with SF4 and capitalized on its instant popularity. And everyone jumped on his bandwagon and happily rode down the path of least resistance.
Honestly i love this community to pieces, but it’s hard not to be disappointed in the way this is playing out. For someone as burnt out as i am, it’s the final nail in the coffin.
Anyway i’m sure i’ll get a lot of flak from eventhubs supporters for pointing all this out, but whatever, bring it on. I can’t see any upside whatsoever from eventhubs becoming as insultingly popular as it has, and i haven’t even touched on half the negative impact that website represents. It’s just sad to see it go down like this after everything SRK has done for the community, and i’ll be quietly rooting for SRK to come out on top in the end.
@Shway
Shway, I help out with SRK all the time and when I saw this happening on SRK, I was no less pleased than when I see it happen on other sites. The reason you’ve had to go back to September to find such examples is because I personally spoke with the folks in charge of the front page about this very same issue and told them to stop that practice. This was about a month ago, and since then it hasn’t happened again and it won’t ever happen again. And if we do do this again, point it out in the comments immediately or PM me or someone else and we’ll fix it. But it is something we are consciously avoiding now. I personally want to help everyone in the community, so I prefer putting up excerpts and linking to the actual article, which is what we do now.
Guh. “…I was no less ANGRY than when…” is what I should have said. Gotta learn how to use my euphemisms properly. :-(
@jchensor
>I personally spoke with the folks in charge of the front page
Sounds like a good idea, to prevent confusion or blame. Honestly I am very annoyed that this all happened without anyone talking to anyone else first. Catalyst would gladly listen to anything JChen or Maj has to say about hosting, crediting, or whatnot.
Once I hear that communication lines have been established then this can all really be settled. No more shock-and-awe nukes dropped on the FGC no matter the website.
Maj, you are and have been an inspiration for many. Please take a well needed break and then come back, we will be waiting for you! If you need help let me know, I would like to give something back.
Hey Nyoronoru, please don’t forget to link properly to the sources, you know, like google likes, with nice a tags, titles and correct anchor text(sonichurricane.com, not just “sonic hurricane”, and correctly linked too). Because now you’re just keeping all the pagerank and google sauce to you, and you know it because so much google avarice can only be intended.
Sorry for the double post but EH should drop all the copied content when the authors ask for it(and don’t take it from them again if they ask it so).
@Shway
Both articles were posted with full permission. If an article is posted that an owner isn’t happy with, SRK immediately works with the original author by changing it to their liking, or removing it completely. Please get your facts straight before making such statements.
@gutabo
I don’t ever recall Eventhubs copying any content. I don’t post on the front page, I only write the guides. Until now neither I nor Catalyst knew that embedding videos on the news feed was a harmful practice at all. I especially didn’t think so because the front page of SRK and IPW does the same thing. ComboVid also does the same thing. All sites use the same link-and-embed system as far as I can tell.
If you think there’s better ways to link content (especially with all the google hit shenanigans that I don’t understand because I am probably the worst programmer on the face of the earth) then fire off an email to Catalyst, his address is on the front page of EH.
I primarily responded to this because someone accused me of writing guides that were copy and pasted, but it turns out the problem was a lot larger.
Interesting stuff. But in this post you made Maj, did you ever once ask Catalyst to stop doing what he was doing? You said you met him, but he claims you never said anything about this. . Catalyst claims he would have stopped if you had asked him to. When people have problems with what others are doing, they usually confront them or bring it up at some point.
Hi Maj. I haven’t gone through all the comments yet, but as a fan I am really sad you are quitting. I hope your layoff will be good for you, and that you get to enjoy yourself a lot more.
You were immense for the community, and kudos for even trying so hard until this point.
You’ve really opened my eyes up to the situation between the community sites, which is something I’ve never even considered before.
Good luck to you sir in your future endeavours, and I hope to see you back in the future!
Nyoronoru, please, don’t try to defend something you say you don’t understand. Linking is not the same at all between SRK and EH. If you don’t understand why I won’t waste my time with you on that matter.
Nyoronoru, it’s been stated, you have to leave reason for people to go back to the original site. Can’t post entire things. Need to double and triple check author name (you’ve gotten them wrong numerous times), possible homepage/youtube channel link to help them out.
copied content has also been explained in here. leaving a player name as the japanese slang the original author used is a dead giveaway…especially when you correct it later, realizing your mistake. (ctrl+f for hyoubal).
Actually, they didn’t correct it, they put “Balrog.” Which is Boxer here in America. Basically, yeah… I got nothing on stolen content. It was reported as this:
>> Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix singles
1. Damdai (Ken, Dhalsim)
2. Biran “Ganelon” (Balrog)
3. Chris “TechnicalMonkey” Doyle (Chun-Li)
4. Mars Gatti (Guile)
I wrote:
>> Ganelon/Biran didn’t play Balrog in ST. When I posted the result, I used an old Japanese ST gag term “HYOU BAL.” Hyou is the sound Claw makes when he does Wall Dives. Ganelon played Claw the whole tournament.
Yeah, just… they know what they’re doing and why they’re here. Shady.
@Shway
like kineda said, SRK has my permission to go and post my work on the site. The only sites that have ever contacted me about posting my content on their site beforehand were SRK and IPW, and I said that both sites can post the full content without having to ask again.
Eventhubs will post anything as long as they think their readers will consider it news. Heck, I’ve seen them use forums posts in Capcom Unity as news (including one of mine).
I was actually working on my own blog before I saw this on a link at focusattack.com
Maj, I definitely have to appreciate what you have done. It was awesome to see you at EVO and I always love the videos I see on your youtube, especially the combo challenges.
I know its difficult to do, but isn’t there a way you can basically say that your guide or video has been stolen and tampered with and that you can ask the offending site to remove it? Maybe DMCA or something?
I’ll be honest, the first site I ever looked at was Eventhubs when I first jumped into SF4, I knew a bit about SRK, but that’s about it. After SRK, after finding SHDC on youtube and SHDC, I’ve always found those sites to be more insightful and better. Keep doing what you’re doing man.
Most of the people defending Eventhubs are really missing the point. It’s not about Maj not making money. Realistically, he never wanted to make it big with this site and he created it as a way to support and contribute to the community, which he has been doing since I first met him in like 2000. This guy has always cared about the community and did everything he could to help it grow.
Eventhubs is making money through other peoples’ work. Through very little effort of their own(taking other people’s stuff) they are making thousands of dollars. By taking what other people write, by embedding other peoples’ vids, by copying other peoples’ work, they are making thousands of dollars.
Think of it this way. You spend months or even years cleaning and building for something you love. And one day, your cause gets the limelight, and some guy swoops in, and takes credit for what you do, and is given thousands of dollars for showing people your work. How would you feel? Now know that this person is doing this to lots of other people. Yes, your work is getting out a little more, but at what price?
It’s more than just money, it’s more than just credit, it’s about the integrity of the community. If EH was doing this all for the community, if EH was actually trying to give back to the community and was trying to be something more than a way to make money, I don’t think anyone would care. But fact of the matter is, they go around taking everyone else’s hard work(people who work for the community not for money), and wrap it up and sell it for money, not giving anything back to the community. They don’t give a damn about the community, they only care about taking advantage of idiots and making money. Is this anything wrong with this? No, it’s business, and they have every right to. But it’s still a scum in the fighting game community and their feeding off the idiocy of people.
Maj: We seriously need to hang out man.
Well all this has really enlightened me to the issue with Eventhubs. Maj, you do have a point with the whole use of content issue. My opinions aside, if there is anyway I and anybody else can help support your effort I’d be the first to jump aboard.
It’s sad that the only way I can really connect with this community is online (husband, father of 2, sole worker in family) so I don’t get to go to events like Evo and such. And being in Maryland it makes it even harder, so for me interacting with SRK online is the only way I can do it. I’ve had bad experiences, but I still go to and love that site. To be honest I’ve never interacted with the community at Eventhubs, just went there for news. Which I guess proves your point.
I seriously have high respect for the work you have put up here. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.
UrkAngiJordi
Big Fan.
Can’t you just disable embedding on your u2b videos? Then Eventhubs can’t “steal” your content.
There’s nothing else I can really add other than it’s really sad to see the first fighting game related site go down under. Things like this really make me second think why I still stick around in the fighting game scene, especially when this kind of crap happens, and we all know it will NOT be the last time something beloved within the scene is going to die out due to people taking advantage of things. I just wish you the best of luck with your real life stuff Maj, and hopefully I’ll be able to talk to you again.
@Mizuki
Welp, I meant fighting game related site I visited. Maybe I shouldn’t post so late.
Sorry to hear this. FWIW, I always came direct to this site.
Hopefully some of the ideas in the comments help you figure out a way to keep it going.
Hey Maj, I sent you an email because postiing it as a comment would be way too long. Basically I gave you protips on how to turn this site which is content-rich into something that would be, at the very minimum, self sustaining.
GLUCK
Sorry for my poor english
Hey guys, do you have done a CMV before? I’m sure many of you have done it themselves, and sure many others have not done before. Create a good CMV is very difficult, takes much time and effort, much more than what you believe.
So, why make them?
Because we love this community, and we love it that we want to contribute with something of value, knowing that we will lose a lot of hours of our time. To do this, we must make this our main hobby, sometimes the only one.Of course, this is not true for someone who occasionally with your mobile phone recorded some stuff, but for people like Maj, call hobby is not enough.
And what happens? inevitably, unless you’re a lucky rich, you start thinking that it might even make a bit of money with all this work that takes you many hours of your time (all you do is 100% original and your property so, why not?)
So the next step is to create a website or blog to get hits, and if do it really well and offer good material (ie, more hours and still lose not only make good CMVs, articles etc, but also updated to keep your website) with the hope that one day, you will begin to be recognized and your website have enough visitors so that begins to give you some money.
But, surprise! That day never comes because some sites will take most of those views. Views about your work. And above, these sites do not contribute too much with your beloved community (I’ve come to see titles like “combo video by CMV” lol). If, moreover, in some cases they do not put a link correctly, you just angry, a lot. Because it off, these sites do earn money …
This takes away the desire to continue anyone. I understand perfectly, Maj.
But in truth, what these sites do is barely legal, so the problem is for the combo makers (I speak from my point of view) not for them…
so we have only two options:
Get mad and send it all to hell, or take it easy, forget about winning anything but any comments like “nice vid man” and of course spend a lot less time on this (and therefore the community)
The sad thing about this situation is that choosing any of these options, the community will lose, but … that´s life! nobody is doing anything wrong, right?…
Sad to see you go Maj, but I’m sure you’ll get inspired in your time off and dazzle us with a great new video.
Too bad my vid still couldn’t be released before all this happened. I hope it’ll make Event Hubs a lot of money when it finally drops. (Seriously, following the links you posted is the first time I’ve ever even been there.)
So long and thanks for all the vids.
Even though it’s not all about making money, if youtube were to open up their partnership options to Maj who produces tons of interesting content, instead of denying partnership based on the idea that they view all video game content as not allowed without written permission, then the thousands of views on his videos would at least generate SOME income and the embedded linking from other websites could at least help his bottom line. As it is now, using youtube as a medium provides the easiest solution because it’s free and works great, but when other websites start direct embed linking the videos and you get no revenue from the traffic outside of the ads on your own website then theres no benefit at all to you outside of exposure.
Anyway, enjoy the break Maj and take some time to de-stress. If you ever want to get together for some casual games sometime just to enjoy Street Fighter for the sake of Street Fighter and not for the work, it’d be fun
Maj, I will personally miss all of your work. Thank you for taking the time out to level up all us newcomers and all the newcomers to come. Seriously, you are owned something for the input you have put in sonichuricane. Maybe a lifetime achievement award in SF like Valle got? I’d vouch for you.
hello beforehand sorry for my english.
Maj thanks for all the hard work, but you are being unfair.
“And the worst thing is, they’re actually pulling the community away from Shoryuken.com – using SRK content to do it!!”. I dont see how EH is pulling ppl since NOBODY EVER Links to EH at least in frontpages.
“Where the hell was eventhubs when our community was struggling to stay alive, when all we had were decade-old games?” when EH started Sf4 wasnt even annouced…
“I don’t blame him for trying to cash out on the mainstream success of SF4”. Part of SF4 succes is thanks to EH.
“But nobody knows who he is or where he came from” …this comment is absurd in so many levels.
“To anyone who calls SRK’s community “very arrogant and unfriendly” – That’s utter bullshit. Have you BEEN to eventhubs? Their users write the most insulting comments i’ve ever read. I’m sorry, there’s no argument to be had here. You absolutely can’t criticize SRK over this and praise the nightmarish atmosphere at eventhubs” you mean the frontpage news bcuz in forums is not like that.
@Maj
I can understand ur anger, but quite a few things stated here seem to be misinformed, and overall I feel that you could have just talked to the admin about it.
To copy pasta myself from SRK
“But still, if one were to look at it and assume that the info was for everyone and created a site with a similar purpose of expanding the overall knowledge of the info, wouldn’t one think to include the info there? It wouldn’t be about making money off of said work, but spreading it out to other people. Say, if I find a youtube video that I really like and think others would enjoy, I spread word of it. Only thing is, money IS involved. If Eventhubs was doing the EXACT same thing they were now but not getting paid for it, would it be so much of a problem?
I think that’s what happened here. Cat saw something nice that he wanted to spread word of and therefor more people began to see it. Only problem is, the more people that open the site, the more cash he gets, regardless of if its for Maj’s videos or someone went there via getting lucky on google.
Edit- Don’t get me wrong. Maj has perfect reason to be pissed. Im just saying there’s most likely a misunderstanding here. I’m fairly certain no one wanted to scheme anyone, and everyone involved just wanted to evolve the fighting game scene, whether it be analyzing data or posting it.
But now that we know the problems on both sides, a solution should be forthcoming and soon in a reasonable manner.”
hey Maj you shouldn’t have left Denjin so early last night I was hoping to say whats up and maybe try my hand at cvs2 against you but I wasn’t sure if it was you or not. Anyway, good luck with all this
Also, since I can’t seem to edit this and sorry to double post, but this thing SHOULDN’T split the community. There’s no need for this Team EH vs Team SRK bs. Cuz if things keep going, we’ll end up sounding like the Twilight girls on the commercials. I don’t think any community can get lower than that.
And really, Maj. Just talk to Cat about it. I’m fairly certain he’d be more than willing to direct link to your site, remove ur stuff, or the like. No need to completely badmouth a site that has been active in the community. If anything, EH has helped to spread word of the Fighting Game community, inducting more people into it. The community shouldn’t be some exclusive club, but an open and welcome environment so that 10 years later the only games in existence won’t just be FPS’s.
And here I thought we argued about this too much.
I’ll still defend evenhubs tho, as this is a problem endemic to the internet as a whole. There is a reason the big internet sites are ones that ether compile other peoples information ( Google, Yahoo ), or get people to make content for them ( u2b, facebook, wikis, gamefaqs ). It’s just the way the internet works, there’s no changing it.
Here is the real difference between eventhubs and srk, ipw they at least get the guys name right
http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2010/sep/12/biffotasty-ssfiv-combo-video-showing-hands/
I know Desk doesn’t mind ( and he certainty doesn’t make it easy to find out if you can’t read katakana or visit his u2b user page) but I always shake my head when I see him called biffotasty
I really respect you Maj, but you completely don’t understand why Event Hubs works..
The news posted there is calm and unbiased, without color commentary. That’s all there is to it.
People will flock to a site with intelligent and respectful posts, and that’s all there is to it. Shoryuken has been engulfed in flames ever since 2000, and while you’re very productive and great at what you do, you’re too tied to the old scene to respect any of the newer players.
I really hate to see OG’s get frustrated because of the new blood.. I really do… it makes me sad because that kind of disrespect is what kills our community, and is the reason we’re not as respected in the sports world..
People need to learn to take the fighting to the game. To Street Fighter. Not to the internet, and not to each other. It sucks you felt this way Maj, but what you really needed was a fresh way to channel your work, not attack the work of others.
@Maj
The only reason why I go on Eventhubs is for news on anything SF or MvC related, and I do the same for SRK but I haven’t been on it for the news lately since they’re pretty much the same. I feel horrible now for not going to SRK first for my news, but it was Eventhubs that led me to SRK and this website (from your youtube channel), so it kind of evens out.
As for the character guides, I prefer the SRK forums because they’re more detailed and I can discuss about them with other members. I just glance through the Eventhubs guides, so it doesn’t really benefit me on my part.
I’ll have to agree with you on the SRK community being better than Eventhubs’s. The comments on Eventhubs are pretty immature at times and don’t really know what they’re talking about.
At least Eventhubs gives credit to the person who made the video,data, guide, etc., but I didn’t know they actually make money from other people’s work. But then again how else would they embed the video on their website without profiting from it since people usually don’t want to go to another website to watch a video or read an article, guide, or data and want to view on the website they’re on. I believe Eventhubs is there to gather all of the information from the SF community into one place while still giving credit to the authors of those information. I don’t think it was their intention to leech off the original contributors.
@EA575
From the screenshots on Eventhubs I could definitely tell those are your work.
I found out about Eventhubs when I searched for 3rd strike Ryu guide. Their guides were pretty good, also liked the site layout. At that time I was on SRK too but Eventhubs was kinda better. Now I visit Eventhubs, SRK and IPLAYWINNER regularly and I pretty much get same news.
Anyway, I hope you will make a comeback sometime in the future. I loved your videos and articles.
I happen to visit your sites daily maj, and it is extremely upsetting for me to hear this. I actually hadn’t been back to SH in a long time due to your focus on getting Combovid up and running, but when i finally come back, this is what I see. There is not a single person in the entire damn street fighter community who could ever fill the void you have in these last years. The work ethic you have is just a lost art. You will be missed.
Never posted here and rarely post on SRK, but I wanted to say that I have been a fan of your work for a long time now, I think since the CvS2 days. Seeing your combo videos and the creativity behind them helped me to appreciate Guile, a character that I had disliked for about 10 years. Your articles and James Chen’s articles were always very interesting and thought-provoking, and they helped me to understand the games I was playing better. Sorry to see you go, but good luck on your next step.
http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=14952
^
oop I saw that and thought, ‘hmn… odd parallel’
U do good work. Your footsies handbook has helped elevate my game more than anything on eventhubs. Good luck.
I have been reading additional articles about my previous link, and I think it is a very educational topic. attached are additional links following up on a copywrite infringment incident which only happened last week.(that I had linked to previously)
this will probably be blocked initially, :(
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131168884
http://illadore.livejournal.com/31583.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooks_Source_infringement_controversy
also i’m still awaiting a public response from catalyst (not EH’s lackeys)
Holy hell, i take one day off and come back to 135 comments. I’m gonna need some time to read through them and figure out how/whether to respond.
For the record, to be absolutely clear, i’m not quitting because eventhubs is making money and i’m not. I’m quitting because i tried everything i was willing to do and couldn’t make this sustainable. If it was possible to keep going, i would’ve kept going. But it’s not, so i’m stopping. Simple as that.
The fact that eventhubs is making money off my work and the work of my friends only adds insult to injury. When i say i’m rooting for SRK to win out in the end, that’s my personal perspective, which i have every right to voice on my personal website.
For those of you criticizing me for posting all this publicly instead of talking with eventhubs staff directly, what you really should be asking is why eventhubs posts everyone else’s content publicly without ever bothering to ask for permission directly. I didn’t set the precedent for this. They did. Time to deal with the consequences.
I never knew this was a big problem, and I never realized the poor practices EventHubs took part in… But I can see why they were a big hit. BECAUSE they don’t produce their own content it’s usually easier to find the news you’re looking for because it’s all in one place, like the manga aggregators were for manga…
Well, I used to support EventHubs on my radio show because it was quick and easy, but now that I know a bit more I’m not going to be supporting them anymore. I’ll only support the sites that produce the content EH takes and sites that properly credit with incentive to visit other sites.
Though for now my show isn’t so big as to cause that big of a difference.
Your right Maj, EH should be asking everyone who creates the content if it is OK to post it on their “news feed”. It undermines the person work by, as you said, not giving them a reason to visit your website. Hell, all my friends know that EH copies its stuff from sites like yours, however the site is still visited because of it’s ease of use and lightweight feeling to it. Its convenient and because of that, people such as myself visit EH from time to time as a result. Maybe a new website could be started up to compete with it, or maybe SRK can step their game up on their home page. It might even be just a color change that might attract people. You never know.
The community as a whole will get their information however they can, and since it is a niche fighting game community, their is not a lot of internet traffic to battle over. In that aspect, EH already has a head start with the novice SF players to some competitive minded SF players (majority). SRK and your site tend to the higher level players to elite level players(minority).
I know your putting in massive amount of effort for very little or nothing, but when it’s a hobby, its just that. You cant expect to make money playing video games, and most people will not unless they have excellent execution and can compete at tournaments. Just think of it as you doing it for the fighting game community.
Your work has been much appreciated, and inspires myself and I’m sure others to try and emulate some of your crazy combos during battle, tool assisted or not. Because of you my game has elevated, and taught me some pretty neat stuff I didn’t know before. I’m sure ComboVid.com will continue your awesome work.
BTW if ya play PS3 my PSN iD is YUNGC. Lets battle for fun!