EPTCan't believe of the childish entitlement that Alex put on, he sounded like a elementary school kid. Like he has serious issues about situations when he doesn't get his will trough.
Journalism and E-Sports - Page 6
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Facultyadjutant
Sweden1876 Posts
Can't believe of the childish entitlement that Alex put on, he sounded like a elementary school kid. Like he has serious issues about situations when he doesn't get his will trough. | ||
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EG.lectR
United States617 Posts
On January 17 2013 06:37 echO [W] wrote: Which is how it works in the real world in professional sports across the board. GMs talk to other GMs, agents talk to other agents, players talk to other players, and of course people within the organizations that are way bigger than eSports organizations also talk. Across the board that you're referencing is a body called the NFL, MLB, NHL, and others similarly named which have specific contracts across their franchised teams which prevent them from distributing this information before an appropriate time. Even in the event of leaks, those governing bodies can quickly replace people who they feel have leaked information at no detriment to the organization. That is not the case with e-sports. Not only do those types of contracts not exist across e-sports teams, but there is no governing team body to enforce them. Plus, those teams (the e-sports ones) mentioned are incredibly fragile and operate entirely differently between organizations. | ||
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Vei
United States2845 Posts
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imre
France9263 Posts
On January 17 2013 06:44 EG.lectR wrote: Across the board that you're referencing is a body called the NFL, MLB, NHL, and others similarly named which have specific contracts across their franchised teams which prevent them from distributing this information before an appropriate time. Even in the event of leaks, those governing bodies can quickly replace people who they feel have leaked information at no detriment to the organization. That is not the case with e-sports. Not only do those types of contracts not exist across e-sports teams, but there is no governing team body to enforce them. Plus, those teams (the e-sports ones) mentioned are incredibly fragile and operate entirely differently between organizations. we're losing money qq, let's hang someone. AFAIK such a rule doesn't work in soccer/every major sport in Europe and things are leaked all the time, doesn't look like the bayern munchen, top rugby or handball clubs are failing despite their absence of exclusivity on news lol. If your business model is awful enough to rely on getting such annoucements on your own website, well i'm glad your company (not specifically eg) is going down. funnily there is no pbm with kespa teams as far as business model goes, maybe the fact they rely on strong sponsorship and a real league instead of online jokes is the core of the answer... | ||
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montysaurus
United States27 Posts
On January 17 2013 06:44 EG.lectR wrote: Across the board that you're referencing is a body called the NFL, MLB, NHL, and others similarly named which have specific contracts across their franchised teams which prevent them from distributing this information before an appropriate time. Even in the event of leaks, those governing bodies can quickly replace people who they feel have leaked information at no detriment to the organization. That is not the case with e-sports. Not only do those types of contracts not exist across e-sports teams, but there is no governing team body to enforce them. Plus, those teams (the e-sports ones) mentioned are incredibly fragile and operate entirely differently between organizations. Then the organizations within esports that would benefit from regulation need to put effort into creating contracts between the larger teams and organizations. Using that as a reason that things get easily leaked I understand, but if you know how easy it is to leak big information why would you put all your eggs in that basket? If you know how likely it is that a leak will happen perhaps simple announcements are not a smart way to pull ad revenue to EG's site. Maybe a smarter plan would be to have your announcement ready, but put more emphasis and effort on other things, like videos of these players interacting with their new team mates, or releasing replay packs of the player as a "celebration" of the announcement, literally anything but just an announcement. Otherwise you are playing a high risk high reward gambling game, and when it didn't go well the owner of your team took it personal that a journalist did exactly what a journalist does. You and Alex (on reddit) have made it clear you understand how hard it is to keep this info under wraps. Now, instead of scapegoating a journalist your organization should be proactive and say either "how can we work with other esports orgs to make sure this doesn't happen" or "how can we shift our marketing focus away from risky moves?" Blaming a reporter for reporting not only, in my personal opinion, looks foolish, but it does absolutely nothing to prevent your team from having this same issue in the future. Even if you do cut all communication to Slasher, if as I've seen EG say, the info came from others that will do nothing to stop this from happening again. | ||
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Gingerninja
United Kingdom1339 Posts
In that case, EG or whoever doesn't want their info leaked, needs to have contracts in place to stop info being leaked, or it needs to work with people who it can trust. I know I'd be pissed if someone I was doing business with leaked information to journalists. Why would I trust you to work with you again if your going to reveal secrets to outside parties? EG doesn't want to piss off IGN or whoever leaked the JD thing because they still have a business agreement with the leagues, they don't have an agreement with Slasher, so they choose to scapegoat him. It may have been more beneficial for slashers page views if he'd accepted Alex's deal and got the exclusive interview and had it ready to post once the announcement was made, but that's on Slasher, once the information is out there it's up to him if he wants to break the story or use it as leverage to get something bigger, that's what journalists do. (Go watch Page One, the New York Times documentary to see how real journalists negotiate bigger and better stories for themselves.) I was the one who re-posted the Snute scoop immediately to TL after reading it, I had no qualms about spreading that info as that's how sports journalism works in the wider world. I don't know about anyone else here, but I get most of my news through TL, and not via other E-sports teams websites. After the JD story appeared, I visited the EG site more than once for updates and confirmation, so they probably got 2-3x the hits from me, rather than if I had only went the once when it was announced. I visited prior to the announcement, and after the announcement. Usually I don't visit EG's site at all. Journalism drives hits, after reading about a breaking story, I go straight to the homepage for confirmation. Both sides benefit from page views. The whole blackout thing is stupid too, what if Slasher and other E-sports journalists just decided to then put an embargo on reporting about EG, I'm sure their sponsors wouldn't be best pleased, as they're getting a lot less PR, advertising and general awareness. I'm fairly sure Gamespot gets more general gaming readers than it does E-sports readers, so anything that pushes E-sports into further markets is by definition growing E-sports. People are just too narrow minded to see it. | ||
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rotegirte
Germany2859 Posts
On January 17 2013 06:29 bayaka wrote: The journalistic standards for big sports and esports should not be the same (for the time being.) Slasher is trying to be a "I am a protector of truth and justice" journalist when in actuality he isn't putting in any of the effort required for that, he is merely claiming to stand by his journalistic code in order to be able to shirk any sense of responsibility for doing things like leaking news before the teams release it. Leaking the Jaedong/Stephano information beforehand I can see having minimal repercussions, but leaking the Snute example no doubt hurt that announcement/player. I don't buy Slasher's argument that he is anything other than a parasite at this point. To the people who say that he is doing his job, if my job was to screw people over, would it not still be screwing people over? And by that logic, where is all of the hate for Alex Garfield coming from? I appreciate Slasher's work otherwise, and I understand that that is what journalism calls for, but I don't think that journalism of this kind is helpful at all right now. Slasher's job only exists because esports exists, and as of now he is just undermining the people he should be helping out. I understand journalism is different from being a publicist, but what "real" journalism is he actually doing at the moment? It seems as though he is aiming for quantity over quality, and maybe that's his job, but that makes him a tabloid/paparazi style journalist... you call that parasitic, but at the end of the day the goal is for everyone to get a paycheck. the whole issue is about how much of the current limited pie gets allocated to what party. Slasher is not leeching off teams more than teams leeching off the cheap publicity they get from online communities. we, the audience are accustomed to the status quo that content of any kind is freely available. what exactly do TL writers get as compensation for their work? it is expected of Slasher to get the scoops out on the field, doing editorial work, providing in-depth interviews and articles (so-called "quality" work), yet it's suddenly horrible of him to look out for himself. the recent incident is all but a sign of the natural struggle for resources. and yes, it is a give and take. "we give you X and you give us Y" but every time such ramblings surface, it's the parties fighting over ground. Slasher very well might have jeopardized his relations, he may have been too greedy the last couple of times. or, the current quid-pro-quo between the organizations, teams and media is no longer felt appropriate by one of the parties. just like player contracts are re-evaluated after each term. Slasher breaking the news can be him hunting for pageviews or spotlight. or, there were insufficient incentives for him to keep quiet. EG may have offered him deals they deemed appropriate. or, what they offered was not enough. of course, given the small amount of cash available in our space, prioritization is a valid point. but undoubtedly every time it comes to distributing the cake, every party involved will tend to overstate their importance and downplay that of others. it is healthy to ask ourselves how much everyone's contributions is worth, and should be compensated for it. if that means, we want or don't want to finance full-time journalism so be it. but no one is at fault for trying to reserve their share. Slasher may find out that no one will be willing to agree to his terms. EG might find other people to fit their needs and agree to their offerings. or not. but no one, Slasher nor EG should be surprised that current power-lines are under constant contention. | ||
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Lumi
United States1616 Posts
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mango_destroyer
Canada3914 Posts
On January 17 2013 04:02 Jazzyseid wrote: the fact that Garfield threatened to have Slasher black balled by other esports teams because of this is shocking. it shows how small time and small minded and immature this industry still is. his treatment of slasher last night was appalling and was akin to a child throwing their toys out of the pram. garfield threatening to try and form a media cartel of who they will and wont talk to is something that needs to have the glare of the spotlight put on it. small time cheap behavior from one of the industries biggest names Yeah it is quite embarrassing. Waiting for the day until real leaders in this industry demonstrate they can see the bigger picture. | ||
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Zapnut
United States1 Post
All of that is not the case with eSports, eSports traffic is generated through eyeballs, there is minimal (if any) ticket revenue. Little merchandise sales, at least not on the scale of the Big 4 and no revenue sharing. Most of the market is built around the big announcement of player moves or a new eSports team in say LoL or DotA through advertisers or streams with ads. Basically it just comes down to Advertisement rev, which in its self and multiple people are pointing out is a bad model. Single point of failure is usually never a good thing and that is the Western eSport model. And the only way to fix the problem is with teams working out its revenue stream, either through garnering some tv interest or a multitude of other solutions. Until that is address there needs to be work around for the current problem that we are "blessed" with today. Journalists like Slasher have their role, and TB pointed this out very well last night, they are Tools, and they have to understand that yes they are tools. We need eSports journalism to capture, as someone put in another thread, the background of the players. Who they are, what are their interests and why we should give 2 shits about them as a player. They can do all this and generate interest in their site (gamespot, pcgamer, etc) but not by taking away from other teams revenue. Personally I would like to see some like AG approach Slasher and be like "Hey we are about to sign JD, announcement is this date here is an NDA or embargo with naming the player specifically but we will give you first interview or something along those lines." Balance between the teams in journalist. Then with the NDA or embargo setup properly Slasher can tweet (as TB had Slasher do with Axiom/Acer) Team X is reported to be close to signing a top player. hearing details that announcement in the next couple of days. Link.... Boom interest to reporters site and the feeling among fans of oh hey, this guy has inside knowledge i have to check him out more often, while generating interesting in the teams announcement. Its not perfect but eSports to survive needs to understand its place, revenue stream and player management. Grow at an rate that is sustainable and try not to expand quickly. MLS is a perfect example, they fucked up in the beginning, went down to almost no teams and were close to folding. But Garber address the needs of the league and now its doing the best it has ever done. Does western eSports need a format with a real league, commissioner and a set CBA? Its quite possible, hell it would organize it. But they key is creating a need to fix the single point of revenue. And eSports as a whole has to fix that for it to survive or yes it will die in the west. | ||
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blizzind
United States642 Posts
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Ansinjunger
United States2451 Posts
On January 17 2013 03:03 Jibba wrote: For Alex, his biggest mistake was just announcing it publicly. If you quietly blacklist Slasher, then most people would just assume Slasher is bad at getting content. "No comment" would've saved them this mess. It's a bit ironic that Alex did more harm than good for his own cause. Although considering the SlayerS practice boycott (I'm still unsure how real that was outside of the first month) eventually came to light, it makes one wonder if a silent blacklist against Slasher would have been outed eventually, perhaps creating an even bigger scandal. | ||
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Aelonius
Netherlands432 Posts
Journalist or not, you're ought to adapt to that which you report on. | ||
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mrtomjones
Canada4020 Posts
On January 17 2013 07:19 rotegirte wrote: you call that parasitic, but at the end of the day the goal is for everyone to get a paycheck. the whole issue is about how much of the current limited pie gets allocated to what party. Slasher is not leeching off teams more than teams leeching off the cheap publicity they get from online communities. we, the audience are accustomed to the status quo that content of any kind is freely available. what exactly do TL writers get as compensation for their work? it is expected of Slasher to get the scoops out on the field, doing editorial work, providing in-depth interviews and articles (so-called "quality" work), yet it's suddenly horrible of him to look out for himself. the recent incident is all but a sign of the natural struggle for resources. and yes, it is a give and take. "we give you X and you give us Y" but every time such ramblings surface, it's the parties fighting over ground. Slasher very well might have jeopardized his relations, he may have been too greedy the last couple of times. or, the current quid-pro-quo between the organizations, teams and media is no longer felt appropriate by one of the parties. just like player contracts are re-evaluated after each term. Slasher breaking the news can be him hunting for pageviews or spotlight. or, there were insufficient incentives for him to keep quiet. EG may have offered him deals they deemed appropriate. or, what they offered was not enough. of course, given the small amount of cash available in our space, prioritization is a valid point. but undoubtedly every time it comes to distributing the cake, every party involved will tend to overstate their importance and downplay that of others. it is healthy to ask ourselves how much everyone's contributions is worth, and should be compensated for it. if that means, we want or don't want to finance full-time journalism so be it. but no one is at fault for trying to reserve their share. Slasher may find out that no one will be willing to agree to his terms. EG might find other people to fit their needs and agree to their offerings. or not. but no one, Slasher nor EG should be surprised that current power-lines are under constant contention. Slasher could get a bigger and better paycheque if he worked together with the teams and was able to get things like exclusive first interviews on these deals rather than releasing short badly written "Stepahno joined EG" type comments. I wrote a much bigger piece earlier in this thread but meh. Slasher imo is not doing what is best for him and he is obviously alienating people who he has to get along with to a certain extent if he wants to be successful. | ||
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sparklyresidue
United States5523 Posts
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JBright
Vancouver14381 Posts
On January 17 2013 07:53 mrtomjones wrote: Slasher could get a bigger and better paycheque if he worked together with the teams and was able to get things like exclusive first interviews on these deals rather than releasing short badly written "Stepahno joined EG" type comments. I wrote a much bigger piece earlier in this thread but meh. Slasher imo is not doing what is best for him and he is obviously alienating people who he has to get along with to a certain extent if he wants to be successful. How would Slasher get a bigger paycheque unless EG was giving him money (bribing) to delay his story. He has a salary from Gamespot and he has to meet quotas/deadlines. | ||
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clever_us
United States329 Posts
On January 17 2013 07:48 Ansinjunger wrote: It's a bit ironic that Alex did more harm than good for his own cause. Although considering the SlayerS practice boycott (I'm still unsure how real that was outside of the first month) eventually came to light, it makes one wonder if a silent blacklist against Slasher would have been outed eventually, perhaps creating an even bigger scandal. Everybody who makes a post like this is missing the point that it is well within EG's rights to refuse to give Slasher information. Free press does not mean a right to have everybody tell you everything they know, and EG can withhold whatever information they want. Slasher screws over organizations like EG and TL? Then expect EG and TL to be a lot less helpful when Slasher comes around looking for the inside scoop. It's as simple as that. It's ridiculous to me that people are acting like blacklisting Slasher for cutting directly into team revenue is some kind of nefarious act. The kind of journalism that Slasher produces is harmful to e-sports teams. Therefore progaming teams are likely to get fed up with him and prefer giving their information to other sources. How can you possibly get upset about that? | ||
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Kishin2
United States7534 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:41 vesicular wrote: To answer your question, yes. If Slasher wants to be a journalist, not just the SC2 journalist, then his own decision on when to break (or not) a news story comes before anything esports related. If esports can't survive because its business model revolves around secrecy then it has one of two choices. A) get everyone to keep quiet and don't leak anything ever, or B) close up shop and move on. My guess is neither is a realistic option, and the business model can survive quite well if the companies surrounding it were smarter. Any actual journalist has no responsibility to anything other than the story. Every good journalist will know where the line is drawn to maximize both exclusives and scoops, but the notion of needing to work a certain way "for esports" is a ridiculous notion. The only one who would be able to actually answer my question is slasher himself. Is it really a ridiculous notion in this case? Everyone working in a prominent in e-sports knows one another. Rod and Alex know each other. Him breaking the story isn't just him as a journalist releasing information, it's him betraying the trust of a friend, Alex. Why did he make this decision? Alex asked slasher this on ITG. Slasher did not respond as to why he did it but only that he has the right to, and he does. There's no debating that he has the right to do so. But why did he release it even though he knew it would detriment another organization within e-sports? That is the question. Everyone is speaking for Rod in the journalistic perspective but we don't actually know his true intention. | ||
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Ansinjunger
United States2451 Posts
On January 17 2013 08:01 clever_us wrote: Everybody who makes a post like this is missing the point that it is well within EG's rights to refuse to give Slasher information. Free press does not mean a right to have everybody tell you everything they know, and EG can withhold whatever information they want. Slasher screws over organizations like EG and TL? Then expect EG and TL to be a lot less helpful when Slasher comes around looking for the inside scoop. It's as simple as that. It's ridiculous to me that people are acting like blacklisting Slasher for cutting directly into team revenue is some kind of nefarious act. The kind of journalism that Slasher produces is harmful to e-sports teams. Therefore progaming teams are likely to get fed up with him and prefer giving their information to other sources. How can you possibly get upset about that? You missed the entire point of my post, which was in the first line. The rest was simply mentioning how secrets have a way of being outed eventually. | ||
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clever_us
United States329 Posts
On January 17 2013 07:05 sAsImre wrote: we're losing money qq, let's hang someone. AFAIK such a rule doesn't work in soccer/every major sport in Europe and things are leaked all the time, doesn't look like the bayern munchen, top rugby or handball clubs are failing despite their absence of exclusivity on news lol. If your business model is awful enough to rely on getting such annoucements on your own website, well i'm glad your company (not specifically eg) is going down. funnily there is no pbm with kespa teams as far as business model goes, maybe the fact they rely on strong sponsorship and a real league instead of online jokes is the core of the answer... This is downright moronic. Major sports teams do not work the way e-sports teams do. Baseball teams get their revenue largely from stadium tickets and TV/radio rights. E-sports get their revenue from sponsors, and they do that by promising their sponsors exposure. If Slasher cuts 35,000 views off an announcement post by spoiling it a week in advance, that directly sabotages the statistics EG uses to recruit sponsors and therefore secure income. When you say "doesn't look like top rugby or handball clubs are failing despite their absence of exclusivity on news lol" you illustrate exactly how little you understand the sweeping differences between the business model of traditional sports and e-sports. | ||
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