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On May 19 2010 16:23 Creationism wrote:
Although the story is very compelling, taking a step back and looking at the situation from a different point of view helps. Progaming, besides the highest level, really has absolutely no service to society. It is basically a form of entertainment through competition in a genre that honestly has a large amount of negative externalities. This is different from sports in that sports require something called physical talent and narrows the pool down, while gaming's requirements are a lot lax.
So instead of the select few talented and truely amazing people taking up the industry of entertainment and competition, you have massive crowding. Realistically, the reason why the progamers come out of their short and taxing careers to nothing, because they developed no skills to produce or even function in society. This is somewhat akin to the African American population in America, where the teenagers basically give up education to endeavor in sports. Sure, many have made it; but the ratio of success is quite low.
I honestly don't think this kind of behavior should be supported at all. I think I remember a friend and I talking about progaming, and he said: "If you support your children in becoming progamers, you are a terrible parent." And there's a lot of truth to that. If the teenagers are too wound up in their dreams of grandeur, then the more mature parent have to keep them from throwing their lives away.
Reading this i can't help but think that Esport will never grow and only stay a niche activity.
Unless there's some sort of big change that will make people willing to pay for it.
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Why are so many people making up excuses for why these conditions are acceptable? If you people were in power the minimum wages in most countries would be atrocious and we'd have no unions or laws to mandate what kind of conditions people work in. Love of the game can only go so far when you're being exploited by greedy bastards. The players aren't asking for the world, just their fair amount of compensation.
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On May 19 2010 16:48 Serpico wrote:
Why are so many people making up excuses for why these conditions are acceptable? If you people were in power the minimum wages in most countries would be atrocious and we'd have no unions or laws to mandate what kind of conditions people work in. Love of the game can only go so far when you're being exploited by greedy bastards. The players aren't asking for the world, just their fair amount of compensation.
You mean why are we looking at this realistically? because the sponsors aren't actually drawing a profit from this, and so good PR and advertising will only pay for so much, its reality.
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There is no Union because they are too young, simple as that. Any kid can barely handle their own parents pressure, you think they could handle corporate-business-guys?
But i believe it can be solved.
Just imagine if a handful of big stars that are at least 20something, Boxer,Nada,Reach,Oov,Nal_Ra,Yellow,Jaedong,Stork (i think these guys are mature enough and will be able to take a stand against old-corporate-business-guys if they need to) form an alliance, and start presuring KESPA, just step by step, first demanding that they should be to able claim a map is imbalanced and the map need fixing asap otherwise they wont perform live.
Their firsts demandings shouldnot be anything outrageous, just claiming more fairness, so they easily gain the support of the audiences. And i believe this way, more progammers will join this alliance rapidly, and sooner than later, the Union will be born.
And honestly if there is one person that should start this, that should be Boxer. most programmers will follow him i think.
and if this doenst work then, meh, i cant think of anything else.
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Funny thing is, everyone talks about how KeSPA's supposed to represent the teams when they only represent the teams' MANAGEMENT. I'm Korean, I know what Korean culture is like, and I know for a fact that no progamer is ever going to be assertive or seek change, especially in the positions that they are in.
Only thing that can really alleviate the situation is to have some influence that holds corporate power to break KeSPA's monopoly.
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On May 19 2010 16:56 insanet wrote:
There is no Union because they are too young, simple as that. Any kid can barely handle their own parents pressure, you think they could handle corporate-business-guys?
But i believe it can be solved.
Just imagine if a handful of big stars that are at least 20something, Boxer,Nada,Reach,Oov,Nal_Ra,Yellow,Jaedong,Stork (i think these guys are mature enough and will be able to take a stand against old-corporate-business-guys if they need to) form an alliance, and start presuring KESPA, just step by step, first demanding that they should be to able claim a map is imbalanced and the map need fixing asap otherwise they wont perform live.
Their firsts demandings shouldnot be anything outrageous, just claiming more fairness, so they easily gain the support of the audiences. And i believe this way, more progammers will join this alliance rapidly, and sooner than later, the Union will be born.
And honestly if there is one person that should start this, that should be Boxer. most programmers will follow him i think.
You could fire 50% of each pro team (A and B teamers) and still come up with something people would want to watch. The progamers know this, and why would you turn your back on the industry that made you, especially when there are no other offers in town? Not to mention the fact that you are finally at the top after slogging through all the shit, you want to turn around and offer others a hand?
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On May 19 2010 17:09 tissue wrote:
You could fire 50% of each pro team (A and B teamers) and still come up with something people would want to watch. The progamers know this, and why would you turn your back on the industry that made you, especially when there are no other offers in town? Not to mention the fact that you are finally at the top after slogging through all the shit, you want to turn around and offer others a hand?
it is true, that what i proposed , will require a reaaaaallyyy biggggg solidarity motive behind, so i guess it wont happen. any better suggestions?
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Hello guys.
You need to know that the labor market in the eastern countries are incredibly competitive.
The labour market is highly volatile and heavily depends on job demand and supply. This is not UK or some socialist country, where you can make "bus driver union" or "toilet cleaner union" and somehow get a minimum wage, which made everything incredibly expensive. (in the expense of tax payers money *wink* *wink*)
Apparently, the supply of progamers is incredibly huge. hundreds of thousands of kids, their brothers and sisters all want to get paid to play games.
On the other hand, the demand for progamers is incredibly low. there are probably less then 200 a-team/b-team spots to be filled up.
High supply + low demand = low price (wage)
It has nothing to do with kespa, blizzard, sponsors or wateva. Its the fact that the b-teamers are NOT good enough, and even if they quit, 3-4 people will be willing to replace them for free just for the prestige attached to it.
Its just amazing how fast people trounce on kespa/blizzard whenever something that is normal as breathing happens
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
Thank you so much for the translation, I wonder if it will ever change anything.
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However you swing this it's still cheating. I lost most of my will to follow the pro scene any more =(
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i think its justified that you get alot of pay if you own, thats how its supposed to work. But yeah, they gotta work out some working terms, i mean shit. 13 hour days.... if its optional sure but 13 hours forced is fucked up.
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On May 19 2010 17:25 iloveHieu wrote:
However you swing this it's still cheating. I lost most of my will to follow the pro scene any more =(
i don't get it
it's only a handful of gamers who cheated
how about the majority of gamers who stayed clean? shouldn't you still support them especially since the bad ones have been rooted out
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Ahh, this article is a little bit... how to describe..
Dark Theme? Ah, reality is dark. 
I feel a little bit uncomfortable when reading ;(
It is scary, truth is scary. I thought it was fun being a pro-gamer. Play game earn money, get famous.
It wasn't fun at all.
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On May 19 2010 16:54 moopie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2010 16:48 Serpico wrote:
Why are so many people making up excuses for why these conditions are acceptable? If you people were in power the minimum wages in most countries would be atrocious and we'd have no unions or laws to mandate what kind of conditions people work in. Love of the game can only go so far when you're being exploited by greedy bastards. The players aren't asking for the world, just their fair amount of compensation. You mean why are we looking at this realistically? because the sponsors aren't actually drawing a profit from this, and so good PR and advertising will only pay for so much, its reality.
It's only reality if you sit back and let it happen. Of course being passive wont change anything.
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The reason why there isn't a union and the reason why the conditions are poor are the same. The whole system is incredibly self sustaining despite the terrible conditions. By creating such a huge differential between the star player and the average player, the sponsors can ensure that there will always be a pool of people chasing after the dream of being a star player, while also minimizing their costs by paying the average player less. The more you raise the salaries of the few outliers, the more people you have competing to be a progamer, the less you have to spend on the masses that make up the majorities of the teams. It's a highly efficient incentive structure that produces great players with minimal investment. It also prevents the possibility of union since the players who would be most important to the union have no incentive to join, they are living their dreams, they reached the top, this is why they went through all those years suffering on the B-team or an average A-teamer for, why in the world would they risk the industry and their 200k usd salary to try and create a union. The people who are slaving away and do have an incentive to form a union have no pull, there are hundred other still waiting for the opportunity to get on a team, and these average players aren't the ones people come out in droves to see.
For a young aspiring progamer they just see the dream, earning a boatload of money a year to play a game that you enjoy and the fame that comes with it. They aren't mature enough to do an accurate cost benefit calculus that combines the magnitude of fulfilling their dream with the tiny tiny probability of actually achieving star status. They may understand the difficulties of mediocrity but merely view it as a stepping stone to greatness.
Anyhow, this is sad, nothing new but certainly sad.
Also a few notes on the cheating.
1) I don't understand why this ruins the pro scene for people, the fact that a small minority of the programers threw a very very very small minority of their games does not take anything away from future matches. Why is it less enjoyable to watch Flash play stunning Starcraft just because Savior played under his capabilities?
2) The conditions these players are in definitely have a bearing on how we should evaluate the scandal. What right do we have to demand that they don't throw their games, we as consumers aren't paying a dime, if they are in piss poor conditions and aren't being fairly compensated why shouldn't they be able to play at the level that they want to. The sponsors, broadcasting networks, and even the people betting on them are making money from their labor, but they barely are. It hurts the reputation of the industry but we never had a right to that in the first place. It also hurts the people who bet for the players who threw the games but what claim did the betters have to the players 100% or even their trying to win. A lot of you are just saying "its still cheating" or "its still illegal" but that's not an ethical claim as to whether its right or wrong. The former is just an appeal to our intuitions and the latter appeals to a false conflation between ethics and the law (slavery in the US was legal under the law, the internment of the Japanese in the US is still legal under the law since Korematsu was never overturned). The question of whether it was permissible for the players to throw their matches is the same question as whether anyone has a right to them not throwing those matches, given the conditions I don't think anyone has that right.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On May 19 2010 06:12 disciple wrote:
Thank you for the translation l10f , the article is very interesting. Indeed dreaming about being a progamer could be naive, having in mind all the abuse these kids are taking once they join a team. I think beside clear rules and defined rights, potential progamers must really heave more realistic approach to their goals, for now its just like the story of Pokemon, where some kid travels across the world, meats new friends, becomes super famous and good and wins the Pokemon League at the end
This is the best analogy for progaming I've ever seen I think =o
I definitely wanted to go pro [in korea] back in the day when I was 14-17, and while I was probably on some level aware of how bad things were for lower end pros, I think your example probably summed up how I viewed progaming on the whole.
This was a very nice read, and it made me realize that even if the current progaming scene has to die, it might not be such a bad thing. It seems to be the only way forward; building in rights retroactively into this system seems hard.
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great job on the article, what DEFINITELY is needed is a gamer's union for the players. That way they can put some pressure on the corporations and they will have the negotiation power they need but lack as individual players. I think this would be good for e-sports as a whole too.
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On May 19 2010 16:30 nonduc wrote:
IMO that article is very superficial.
You must compare the situation of professional players and the situation of ballet dancers or that of musicians. Many years of full-time daily trainings and as a result only the stars get high fees…
You can't really do that, because musicians and ballet dancers, if they are not stars, still have talents that people who cannot afford the stars will be willing to hire, or if they end up being in the equivalent of the "B-Teams", they still are good enough to have a regular income from their performance skills that they can either teach younger people in return for pay (ever wonder where all those music and dance teachers come from?) and/or subsist on their talent because there's enough demand from the public even for their performances (through being less expensive to hire, easier to contact etc. etc.)
Pro-gamers don't have that kind of skills that can be taught to kids, nor do they have enough of a market for them to be appreciated as such. There's no "semi-pro" gig at all for gamers, it's an all-in to be in the team/s, or to be out of it.
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On May 19 2010 12:14 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2010 10:40 hacpee wrote:
Um, there is nothing new in this article. We knew this for a long time. Fact is that the progamers can choose to leave whenever they want and pursue an occupation a real occupation. So NBA players should get paid nothing because it's not a "real" occupation? Get real, they're entertainers/sportsmen who have worked for many years to develop a skill capital that you think they should just throw away because they are not paid appropriately and their job isn't legitimate. You're either a troll or should gtfo of this forum if you're that naive.
The NBA is exactly what's wrong with sports. Players like LEbron James and Kobe Bryant make exactly what players like Gilbert Arenas makes. The best players, the S class of basketball makes equivalent to what the Canata of basketball would make. How is that fair? James and Bryant work extra hard improving their game only to be paid just as much as players that don't work hard at all.
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