Dota 2 commentator and analyst Vladimir ‘Maelstorm’ Kuzminov has stated that Paragon studio is extremely supportive of community casters, offering them access to high-quality materials for rebroadcasts. He shared a series of posts on Telegram, comparing the viewership of official streams with fan-made broadcasts.
In his initial post, Kuzminov pointed out that during the grand final of DreamLeague Season 25 on March 2nd, Paragon’s stream exceeded 100,000 viewers. According to the caster, no other content creator has reached such numbers.
Quotes are published with the original spelling and punctuation.
Studios are gathering fewer community casts. (crossed out)
That’s an opinion I read today. Maybe taken out of context, I don’t know.
Dry numbers
Paragon at peak yesterday [March 2nd] — 100k+
No other stream is even close.
What can you say? 100 will never be less than 99, but if everyone starts saying ‘100<99', then at some point, there will be people who believe it. Interesting fact. While we are figuring out who has more in the Russian segment, the English-speaking segment in total gathers about half of one of the broadcasts. Although the quality of the DreamLeague broadcast is [amazing].
Maelstorm also believes that many Dota 2 fans are mistaken about supposed issues between community casters and Paragon studio.
Paragon is stifling community casters. (crossed out)
Paragon does EVERYTHING for community casters. I am in the chat myself, as I am sometimes a community caster, where all possible broadcast feeds for community casters are posted. Moreover, in addition to the basic ones from tournament organizers, Paragon provides its own improved feeds in [very high] quality and from different locations worldwide, so anyone can stream without lag. If lags do occur, everything is immediately fixed upon request in this chat.
And, of course, under this post, those who can’t even slightly check the facts will write ‘but this, and that 5-minute delay, and this, and that tournament,’ but I just hope that there are still more of us who understand, and I see evidence of it. For those wanting to step out of the shadows, feel free to ask, and I will specifically explain where you are mistaken. Typically, these are simple errors where two facts are mixed up, or a false fact is attached to some ‘basis’.
In my main posts, I wrote about the biggest misconceptions. My colleagues here ask me ‘[why]’, but it seems to me that people need to be educated informationally somehow. This might not even be necessary if streamers and influencers didn’t make knowingly false statements. Even a reasonable and intelligent person can find it hard to understand what is true and simply too lazy to check sources to verify.
Last year, Alexander ‘Nix’ Levin publicly criticized Paragon studio. In May, the streamer was blocked during the grand final of PGL Wallachia 2024: Season 1. Levin explained that he was banned for “not adhering to casting rules.” “As I understand it, their logic is that a 15-minute delay in DotaTV is not enough for them,” Nix stated.
In September, Yaroslav ‘NS’ Kuznetsov spoke about pressure on community casters during The International 2024. “It’s just a watchman syndrome,” Kuznetsov commented. At the time, rumors suggested that Paragon studio was responsible for the official Russian-language broadcasts of TI13.