EPTDisappointed.
I'm afraid everyone was or will be disappointed about what's there to be said. On my side, I'm disappointed that the ideas and plans that laid ahead were not able to come into fruition. On the other side of the fence, I'm sorry to disappoint you all that I am coming out better than when I walked in in 2013. The most prevailing comment I got, as many of my co-workers did, was that we were/are idiots for moving to Berlin; as if anyone was oblivious to the common risks of start-ups, no matter the initial funding or the frail tether of support it had. I'm not really bitter about some of the cynicism and comments made towards me or about me, it was either an opportune time to bash me when I'm down, when I put myself in a vulnerable position to speak on a rocky platform or simply caught in the crossfire of people's skepticism (and everything in-between).
some of this is from an old draft I wrote, so recurring themes pop up more than I wanted, sorry.
Personal Feelings
I'll have to be careful about what I'm going to say. The first time I blogged about ESGN, it was of my own volition and this is no different. When I wrote that piece, I wrote it with the most sincerity and honesty. Everything in it is still true and the last line, about things going South, was an acknowledgement that there is a possibility, as all new and ambitious ideas. Everything in that blog is and always was on a personal note, about how well they treated me and how much they cared for me as a person and for my well-being. The many problems that arose in my life within that year further cemented this perception and I repaid that dedication with my own; sticking around until the very end, giving a chance to a company that took a chance on me. It was as simple as that and in the end, I walk away with just another month, in a stack of months, of potentially unpaid work, no different than all of my work from the years before and no different than the writers and community contributors who work their butts off for free anyways.
This is just a start for me for future employments. Maybe in eSports, maybe not; but I assume first jobs are like first loves in which the first one usually never works out. But it's a start, a scratched one with some cuts and bruises but nevertheless. I still treated it with the same optimism I wrote on that first week.
Treatment
When I wrote my first blog about working at Clauf. It sounded very happy-go-lucky and naïve. Nothing had happened yet and only murmurs and comedic jabs were tagged onto the name. It didn’t mean I didn’t know what I was getting myself into nor that did I obliviously ignore the rumors and talks about the company. I’m on the site every day for several hours; I knew what was mentioned and talked about. It wasn’t about the income, it was about starting somewhere. It was about me getting on my own feet, taking advantage of my citizenships and seeing just how much use I really was in the sector. I had done a lot of free work during my time in university from player-managing, event organizing and writing; now I wanted to see its value on a grander scale.
Clauf was an enriching place of where I got to experience the fast-pace workstyle of creating new broadcasted content on a daily basis while also working towards overarching goals on the business side of things. Media was mostly American and Business Development was mostly Korean making how I communicated to my superiors a constantly shifting form of tone, approach and understanding. It also made documentation and planning a lot tougher as Koreans preferred Windows Powerpoint and Excel sheets with only the most relevant documents while Americans spun creative ideas and you had to jot everything down with great detail and visualization. When communicating to Koreans, you had to provide analysis with your personal opinion and on the other culture; you provided analysis with the conclusion to which the solution would be obvious.
The Plan
The plan for ESGN and ESGN TV was a long-term thing. We deviated from it pretty fast. The gist of it was exactly what our mission statement listed. We wanted to unite all eSports organizations (tournaments, teams and publishers) to a footing that worked alongside one another but also helped formed an even larger platform of competition and fair play.
This can be a bit difficult to grasp. Internally we commonly referred to a FIFA model, obviously not exactly, but something of the sort of partnership where we coincided with one another for individual growth and then a large-scale “festival” or “convention” that united the finals of all major tournaments and players into one major celebration. This was an initial idea and we build on from there. This might not be of interest to organizations who have the funding to make a grand spectacle of their eSports titles, but it appealed to smaller-produced events and regional companies that wanted to attract an international audience or amplify eSports titles an organization didn’t have the funding to fully invest for a grand finale.
ESGN Points would follow in-line with that by creating a storyline of points and competitions. The problem is is that there was absolutely no point using ESGN Points initially as we had 0 leverage or presence in the scene. Everyone knew it and even jested at how dumb Points were. We knew, who didn’t? Having our own major tournaments would help align people towards the idea with news becoming a staple resource for headlines and update for points.
This is where we deviated:
- Initially, we wanted to do two regional tournaments and a World Championship finale every year. The issue is, as everyone knows, is that there are a lot of established organizations doing tournaments already. PLUS: publishers are doing full-time leagues. There isn’t any room for us to fit in our master plan. Let’s also not forget that you don’t make any friends if you strong-arm your way through it, hindering their growth for your own self-interest.
In some way, we needed to brand ourselves that heightened both professionalism within the scene with how we treated the players as well as production: thus the studio. The studio, originally, was meant to be complementary (not complimentary) to competitions but it soon became the focus as it gained more and more pressure to both exceed its expectations with 24/7 content as well as turn all eyes on ESGN.
Miraculously, the company was achieving about 4 hours of content everyday but we were doing it on a mobile studio setup (what you were watching was not our final product but rather what we could muster up with mobile equipment and a skeleton crew). As content was getting more and more demanding; the hours were getting longer and the team was getting overworked. Employment numbers rose, a lot of people were hired to fill in missing gaps and the budget set for ESGN TV was becoming increasingly, but necessary, too large.
As our tournaments idea fell through and our ESGN TV mark was hit and miss (it was a good idea, but the execution was questionable), we eventually considered doing online leagues (ESGN Hearthstone Champions) before everything came crashing down.
The way we would make a return is by reselling the content to broadcasting organizations (which was possible). Advertising, sponsorships and partnerships that would help lower cost for a collaborative event were also ideas. A simple way to explain it is that we were looking for ways to reduce costs by cooperating with others while also reselling content at a very good price. Some other long-term ideas were also under consideration, but there’s no point in mentioning them as they would sound so blasphemous given the stage we were at now.
In retrospect, we can all shake our heads and go: ‘wow, overambitious much?’ and I’d be inclined to agree. But before launch, it seemed possible if we went about it properly: grassroots and all.
PS: The initial plan was in our press release when we launched, so this isn't actually very new.
My Position
My position was varied. While I was in Business Operations; they operated mostly in web development as I did a little bit of everything. From the very start, I was open to get involved in public relations, event planning and business strategy. This involved rewriting everything on the website, rewriting all mission statements, business portfolios/corporate profiles and introduction to our brands and company (sorry, but I wasn’t poetic enough for the Cloud meets Roof placeholder slogan). The other jobs ranged from tournament structure, depiction of how points would be awarded and venue research and cost evaluation, as well as location analysis for venues (and which market would attract the most online viewership in line with time-zones and live attendance).
When our Chief of Production arrived to start our media division, I started working on our news infrastructure (it was going to be a massive thing), databases highlighting the top five teams and players of each eSports title and brainstorming show ideas with everyone. I even had to redraft our CEO’s speech before launch to a variety of forms. The other delight I got to do was interview Korean hosts for our correspondence in South Korea; a defining feature I felt that would really set us apart from everyone else. As soon as I saw Susie Kim’s name pop up as a candidate, I pushed hard and the interview process went relatively smooth.
For written news, I also got to hire writers for our ESGN.com site. From then on, my position moved to helping ESGN TV with talent contact and acquisition, show planning and ideas (most didn’t go through) and then handling licensing and negotiations with publishers. Eventually when the company restructured, I became Business Relations which meant connecting with lot of people as rapidly as possible. This also meant going to IEM: Katowice: my first major event and one I will never forget. I have been to one other eSports event throughout my years of being involved and that was NASL: Season 3 Finals in Toronto. That was pretty memorable and so was IEM: Katowice in its own right. Though my experience is/was limited, it was like nothing I’ve ever been to before and the atmosphere, crowd and even people I got to meet were of the many I admired for their work and passion. From TeamLiquid staff to ESL and Dreamhack employees to team managers and owners. For me to list their names would cause me to forget someone so I just won’t but they should know that I looked at them with an immense feeling of admiration and commendation.
In the end, I stayed behind because they took a chance on me and I owed similarly for them. As the last employees were either let go or voluntarily went home, I stayed behind to clean up and see this thing through. Unfortunately this is where it ends for me, after nearly a year.
Notorious Rumors
Bah, I wrote a whole lot about this section. About the idea of money laundering but I'm going to remove it because it just never made sense to go down that road. I think in the end, this label was purely set as a misconstrued feeling of fear and skepticism. The vocal minority of eSports audiences are both quick to judge, but also swift to forgive and forget. It makes those who've earned their place and their organizations all the more respectable and accomplished. Their confidence is justified, though it may come off as a bit arrogant from further away.
Anyways, that’s just me putting things into perspectives. I think the concerns about new companies coming in are legitimate but it should be from a historical point of view and not hearsay. When a large amount of funds go into expanding a sector, there should be concern as to what happens should these finances disappear. That’s correct and a non-debate, no one would be able to deny the risk of it. The rumor of shady financial footwork were a translation of that; that legitimate fear that if the money is “hot” then it could potentially vanish. Why couldn’t we just talk about the issue head-on? The issue of creating space and then its sudden emptiness should things go belly-up.
The rest is just irrelevant.
If you read up on how shady finances work, you don't announce it publicly and you don't invest it into an initial loss (or for a very long-term return). You create easy businesses that filter cash fast (think casino).
Outlook
I hope this blog is informative. I also hope nobody gets too fixated on what I’m stating here as it was to serve as an information point, not to defend a dead company. I don't know how payments for myself or others work nor about some of the players which isn't something I knew until a month or two ago.
I do have flaws about myself. I’m not one who is invulnerable to criticism and a lot of it stems from my inexperience in a professional environment as well as my desire to be a part of and contribute to every part of the company I could help out with. Sometimes I stretched myself too thinly and it was obvious I was taking on more than I should have. One thing I did learn was to harden up regarding jokes about the company. Either those who did it to my face or over social media were never judging me beyond my affiliation (okay, some were for sure), but mostly it was just their form of either camaraderie or simply their attempt to be smug/wit(less). Maybe I’m just naïve, but I prefer that line of rationale than any other viewpoint. Like they were too polite to tell me I’m a dumbass or something. Some even told me that there was no ill-intention, just poking fun, so I'll swallow that. I'm not bitter either about writers or websites revealing information that was given to them. It wasn't about me and it's not like they said any mistruths. I will say that some people are vastly different than how they are online and to be honest, I wish they were more like who they truly were in-person but it's not like their online persona is malicious, just different.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. So here I am, wrapping this up. Yes, I was on contract from day 1 and I’m still owed a few months of payment and that’s ok; I’m used to working for free from when I was volunteering in eSports. I’m hoping I get what’s owed as does everyone else.
I like to think I’m still part of the community. Maybe I’m a little hopeful, especially after the amount of people bashing me personally for a company’s direction, but nonetheless, I still am an active member. One thing I’ll miss about working at ESGN were the staff, they weren’t all knowledgeable in eSports but all open to it and especially absorbing about the concept, interest and totally understood the groove of it all. A lot of them stemmed from professional mainstream production and work; making a name for themselves for decades and they oozed cool, self-confidence and something Jeff Bridges can only act in his movies. I hope they remember me as I made a special effort to get to know and become friends with a variety of them. I liked knowing everyone, feeling comfortable in my skin around like-minded individuals. It was a good time and they were truly special people. Truly dedicated and hard-working upbeat people.
From here on, who knows. I will still keep doing Dota 2 in-client Hero Builds. We recently just hit about 22 million subscriptions[/url] so that’s pretty cool and I’m really happy a lot of people rely on the guides as it always gives me joy to know that I am some use to the games I enjoy the most. I will maybe go back to doing some editorial work on my blog: http://tortedelini.wordpress.com/］Armchair Athleticism[/url]. I’ve had some ideas floating around for awhile so that’s something to consider as a personal project. I don't dread searching for a new job, I just hate the dead hours you need to fill up between searching and waiting for responses so picking up old projects should be something to consider.
All in all, good experience, lesson learned and other clichés like another chapter being closed. I’ll be hanging around Berlin, Germany and Delft, The Netherlands for the coming months. Things went south and I can still laugh and smile because despite how much vengeance some of the most bitter people want to do to me, I still got more out of this in terms of experience, relationships and self-confidence than ever before.
And its true (even for some more in the company :D)
