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France2061 Posts
On June 01 2010 04:46 Bill307 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 04:35 snowdrift86 wrote:But it's the players themselves, the Boxers and the Yellows, who chose to devote themselves to gaming full-time. They wanted to make a career out of it and the sponsors gave them that opportunity. Even if today's work conditions are pretty bad and I hope they're improved, they're still better than what the players experienced before their sponsorship deals.
Sponsors aren't humans. They are companies. Unless you're a friend of the CEO, the company is going to evaluate you based on how they can make money with you. That's how companies work. So some companies found they could make more money by sponsoring a handful of StarCraft players. And they set up an organization to collectively make them even more money.
How does this relate to my argument? Yes, sponsors saw an advertisement opportunity in esports, and their money improved the work conditions of most gamers.
You haven't addressed my point that it's the players themselves who gave up their education and started playing full-time.
On June 01 2010 04:46 Bill307 wrote:
Boxer didn't need perosnal sponsors to make a living, anyway. IIRC he's made over $500,000 from tournament winnings alone, which came from Starleague sponsors, who (judging from one of your earlier posts) are not necessarily members of the KeSPA.
He's one player. The current model is much better for the vast majority of progamers who'll never win a tournament.
On June 01 2010 04:19 Milkis wrote:
Translating the rest of the Q&A soon.
Gogo Milkis 
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On June 01 2010 04:47 Bill307 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 04:43 infinity2k9 wrote:
You should stop using the term slaves its completely wrong. Tell me, what do you think the b-teamers were doing all day before they became progamers? Pursuing an education to some degree.
Uh they were playing SC all day to begin with or they wouldn't even get into a b-team in the first place. You seem to have a problem with bad parenting not KeSPA.
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On May 31 2010 15:39 Milkis wrote:
Q: Blizzard claims that game usage in leagues is not a communal right but something under intellectual property. What do you think about this?
- Sports is not just for/owned by the "Manias" (T/N: Fans really involved in it. Think "Otaku") or special organizations. It has a communal property where normal spectators can watch and be involved in.
- If eSports is not a communal property and belongs to an international company called Blizzard, then the entire eSports industry in Korea and the existance of KeSPA becomes wrong from the beginning. All recognition and gains as a culture and sponsorship from Airforce etc disappears.
Q: Does KeSPA does not recognize Blizzard's IP rights at all?
- Fundamentally Sports are not something to be tackled using Intellectual Property. Does Adidas that makes Soccer demand usage fees from the World cup? Much like this, Car Companies do not ask for usage fees from racing car contests.
I don't know how Korean law works, but IP rights in the rest of the western world is contradictory to this.
According to Kespa's logic, a television network can play a movie as many times as they want without consent or royalties to the owner of the movie's rights, or a radio station can play a song as many times as they want without consent or royalties to the rights of the song holder.
Nobody owns the sport of soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. Those sports were not created by a company. Also, soccer, basketball, and volleyball are not products. You use products to play these sports, but the sport in itself is not a product.
Starcraft was created by a company and Starcraft is a product. Blizzard has full IP rights on their product and KESPA's rationale is laughable.
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5003 Posts
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
On June 01 2010 04:50 snowdrift86 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 04:46 Bill307 wrote:
Boxer didn't need perosnal sponsors to make a living, anyway. IIRC he's made over $500,000 from tournament winnings alone, which came from Starleague sponsors, who (judging from one of your earlier posts) are not necessarily members of the KeSPA. He's one player. The current model is much better for the vast majority of progamers who'll never win a tournament.
So you specifically name Boxer and Yellow in an example, then you backpedal and start talking about all progamers, not just the ones who were as successful as Boxer and Yellow?
You specifically mentioned "Boxers and Yellows" having a "career" in progaming. Well, the vast majority of progamers have no career since they get paid essentially nothing for their work.
Did you not read the article on this? Progamers, the ones who aren't "Boxers and Yellows" have no future because they wasted their time making money for the sponsors while missing out on an education and receiving nothing useful in return.
Personally, I'd rather they be forced to stay in school or learn a real job to support themselves, rather than this illusion of a career.
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France2061 Posts
On June 01 2010 05:00 Bill307 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 04:50 snowdrift86 wrote:On June 01 2010 04:46 Bill307 wrote:
Boxer didn't need perosnal sponsors to make a living, anyway. IIRC he's made over $500,000 from tournament winnings alone, which came from Starleague sponsors, who (judging from one of your earlier posts) are not necessarily members of the KeSPA. He's one player. The current model is much better for the vast majority of progamers who'll never win a tournament. So you specifically name Boxer and Yellow in an example, then you backpedal and start talking about all progamers, not just the ones who were as successful as Boxer and Yellow? You specifically mentioned "Boxers and Yellows" having a "career" in progaming. Well, the vast majority of progamers have no career since they get paid essentially nothing for their work. Did you not read the article on this? Progamers, the ones who aren't "Boxers and Yellows" have no future because they wasted their time making money for the sponsors while missing out on an education and receiving nothing useful in return.
Oh come on, Boxer and Yellow are examples. There were other players, most of them never won anything, and yet they chose to give up their education and devote themselves full-time to gaming. It's the same thing today -- no one is forcing these kids to play. And them being housed and fed without having to win tournaments is definitely an advantage over the previous model.
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5003 Posts
They end up as veritable bums because they wasted their time making money for the sponsors while missing out on an education and receiving nothing useful in return.
making money for sponsors -> advertising for sponsors. Sponsors don't make a dime from this other than advertisement. Please stop implying keSPA and sponsors "make money" -- because they clearly don't and grossly twists the situation at hand.
Stop using "Sponsor makes money" or "KeSPA makes money". If they made money, then eSports would actually improve. The issue is that they're nonprofit and think in a very "cultural" "nonprofit" sort of way, which is why gamers have ridiculous contracts.
Oh, and. They made the choice to do that. They gambled, and they lost. They can then go back and get an education, it's not like life ends when you're over 20 just because they got little education -- you can still go to some technical college and go from there.
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On June 01 2010 04:44 Teddyman wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 04:19 wiesel wrote:Maybe we can rebuild an e-sports scene where the average progamer isn't a slave. Just wondering how much is a B-Teamer earning each year compared to the average yearly south korean income? Only heard stories like a B Teamer makes ~10k a year which in addition with housing and food would still be decent compared to a average south korean income of 20k$+(like my googled source says, i dont know) a year. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126075Show nested quote +B-team players are given a dorm, but they don't get paid. They don't even sign a single thing, let alone a contract. A-teamers: Show nested quote +What if you're one of the players that play in proleague? They sign a contract. It's not a labor contract, but a civil contract. Even then they get paid 10 million won a year on average and usually doesn't pass 20 million. A few "star" gamers earn over 200 million a year. Average $8300 per year.
Brainlag on my side sry, of course i should have written how much the average "unknown" progamer earns. That a B-teamer as practice partner doesn't make 10k should be obvious hehe.
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On May 31 2010 18:48 kmdarkmaster wrote:
Kespa is a non-profit organization.
Blizz is a money-monger.
That's enough for me, Kespa will win.
So you still believe that Santa comes for Christmas, eh??
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On June 01 2010 05:06 wiesel wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 04:44 Teddyman wrote:On June 01 2010 04:19 wiesel wrote:Maybe we can rebuild an e-sports scene where the average progamer isn't a slave. Just wondering how much is a B-Teamer earning each year compared to the average yearly south korean income? Only heard stories like a B Teamer makes ~10k a year which in addition with housing and food would still be decent compared to a average south korean income of 20k$+(like my googled source says, i dont know) a year. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126075B-team players are given a dorm, but they don't get paid. They don't even sign a single thing, let alone a contract. A-teamers: What if you're one of the players that play in proleague? They sign a contract. It's not a labor contract, but a civil contract. Even then they get paid 10 million won a year on average and usually doesn't pass 20 million. A few "star" gamers earn over 200 million a year. Average $8300 per year. Thanks. Of course i should have written how much the average "unknown" progamer earns. That a B-teamer as practice partner doesn't make 10k should be obvious hehe.
Making 10k or making nothing. Your choice.
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I think KeSPA should try to negotiate/convince a Korean software company to "clone" StarCraft. Would circumvent all of this. Koreans make a SC clone, SC pros move to SC clone, SC clone becomes new premier game. Done deal. Not like Atrox or Kingdom Under Fire, but a true SC clone just with different models/design/names/etc.
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On June 01 2010 05:20 bokchoi wrote:
I think KeSPA should try to negotiate/convince a Korean software company to "clone" StarCraft. Would circumvent all of this. Koreans make a SC clone, SC pros move to SC clone, SC clone becomes new premier game. Done deal. Not like Atrox or Kingdom Under Fire, but a true SC clone just with different models/design/names/etc.
That would be like Sudden Attack; a game no one outside of Korea give a damn about.
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Kespa is right. They should just ignore Blizzard's insane demands.
That doesn't mean I'm not excited about Gom.
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I think both sides have their valid points. Kespa, for all intensive purposes, does run the largest, most professional esports activities in the world, and if they are telling the truth about being nonprofit, then kudos to them. However, they've done so by for the most part treating the majority of players like indentured servants, and making a lot of "calls" over the years that have been questionable at best, and totalitarian in some people's eyes.
Blizzard should have rights and royalties every time a starcraft game gets broadcasted for money. The game of starcraft and SC2 is more akin to a song or a movie, to which Blizzard is the writer, than a bat and a ball is to baseball. Sure you have the right to broadcast your games for the licenses you bought, but if you are charging advertisers marketing time, then some of that money needs to be passed on to blizzard, in the same way HBO pays royalties to the movie makers for showing their movies. Television channels get money through advertising, and the higher viewer rating they get, the more they can charge for that slot of advertising. Using blizzard's product is the way they get the viewership rating. I'm sure counterstrike and such others don't get nearly the rating that SC matches do, thus the cable networks can make more money from SC programming than others.
What makes Blizz look very, very bad, is the fact that they are coming in so late to the party. If they STARTED negotiations with Kespa in 2007, that's a long time they let the pro gaming scene develop, flounder, and finally succeed before jumping in and saying, "hey i want a piece of that." We would not be having this discussion if Blizzard had made these assertions from the beginning and followed esports as a partner this whole time. I think the advent of the WoW generation has clouded Blizz's eyes for the last 5-6 years at least, and only now that WoW is in semi-decline/plateau, that Blizz is looking back to esports as a large part of its business.
It has yet to be seen if Blizzard's main motivation is just money (we can only speculate) or executive control, or if they want to create a whole different style of pro scene globally. Whatever the case may be, none of the parties has made it very clear what their goals are. In my mind, Blizzard should have come in the spirit of saying, "What can we do to help esports grow," instead of off the bat claiming illegal activity and wrongdoing. Kespa, on the other hand, responds with the classic fear-inspired, "we don't wanna lose our power, go away!"
For the best of everyone at least who visits this site, it is important that both parties listen to the fans and players to come to a solution, because it really isn't that hard to make a solution that benefits everyone. Kespa retains primary control of esports in Korea and provides English content/commentary along with all their leagues, Blizzard takes modest royalties, and has UN security council veto-like say in issues they feel are harmful to esports or the company. Problem solved.
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On May 31 2010 23:24 ret wrote:
People definately should NOT feel sorry for KeSPa.
Look at how progamers are treated, look at the lives they are living, look what happens to retired progamers, there are tons of 'progamers' out there playing 12 hours a day for years without getting paid...
And then just look at their history and what they have done to companies like GOM etc...
I don't buy any of the stuff KeSPa is saying.
I find it hard to believe that Blizzard/GOM would make things worse for your average B team or Low A team progamer.
Where is the money going to come from? You don't honestly believe Blizzard itself is going to put money up so that the 'lower ranked' progamers can have a good life, do you? I really would like to believe that people aren't that delusional in regards to favoring Blizzard here.
I mean, it's not surprising that you have strong feelings toward the situation, but I think a lot of those still stem from the same cultural differences that made you leave eSTRO in the first place. When those of us living in the west see conditions like that we freak out (and yes those are rough living conditions no matter if you're used to such things). However, every one of these guys is playing for the potential to become the next Jaedong or Flash right now. The potential is there, and they're willing to work for it.
Don't get me wrong, though. I do think that their conditions should be improved, I just don't think that killing KeSPA is even anywhere close to working toward that. Which makes me cringe when I see this:
On June 01 2010 04:08 Bill307 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 03:52 hacpee wrote:
Who will pay for the team's salaries? For the housing and food? Blizzard? If so, great. Maybe no one will, at first. That's fine. Players don't need to be paid salaries to produce great games of StarCraft. Honestly, they don't need to play 11-13 hours a day, either. Maybe they won't have perfect macro anymore, or perfectly-timed builds for every situation, but so what? Players 5+ years ago sucked compared to today -- hell, the best player at the time, Boxer, was known for having some of the worst macro of any of the high-level pros. But they were still fantastic to watch. Even now, there's no money in progaming for the vast majority of players. That wouldn't change. You just wouldn't be able to have houses of players who play 13 hours a day and don't have to pay for food. Maybe that would actually be for the better. Maybe we can rebuild an e-sports scene where the average progamer isn't a slave.
It's 'fine' if the largest and most successful eSports scene just disintegrates overnight? You know, on the After Talk regarding match fixing they commented that there were 10 years of eSports they might have to completely rebuild because of the scandal. Somehow I don't think they would like for that thought to be as concrete as you suggest.
Your posts in this thread completely perplex me. How exactly do you suggest conditions would improve in your scenario? Everyone would have 'real' jobs and play games on the side, or something? Would eSports be illegal? Will you ban people from tournaments if you find them practicing for more than 8 hours a day?
This isn't about game quality, it's about the fact that most of us who support eSports do so because of a hope that one day it will be a respected profession (or at least one that you can live off of). The Korean scene is by far the closest we've ever come to that goal, and you're okay with destroying it for the benefit of the b-teamers. You want to kill it to save them. Sigh.
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Im almost siding with kespa due to the last Blizzard fiasco, but then I remember jaedong issues, then I dont know who should I be supporting....
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Does anyone know where we can find the Financial reports from KESPA?
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I simply want players to have better housing and more pay with fair contracts. You shouldnt be working 10 hours a day and not get paid, regardless of skill. It's like having a baseball farmleague and saying "You're in AA not the majors so we wont pay you." The hell is that? So you want free labor and to just completely abuse kids because they like a game?
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5003 Posts
On June 01 2010 07:03 Serpico wrote:
I simply want players to have better housing and more pay with fair contracts. You shouldnt be working 10 hours a day and not get paid, regardless of skill. It's like having a baseball farmleague and saying "You're in AA not the majors so we wont pay you." The hell is that? So you want free labor and to just completely abuse kids because they like a game?
Well you do pay them less than minimum wages in minor leagues!
Better housing? Fair contracts? Huh? If it wasn't fair they wouldn't have signed it. Can you explain to me why they would agree to something they wouldn't find acceptable?
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On June 01 2010 07:10 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2010 07:03 Serpico wrote:
I simply want players to have better housing and more pay with fair contracts. You shouldnt be working 10 hours a day and not get paid, regardless of skill. It's like having a baseball farmleague and saying "You're in AA not the majors so we wont pay you." The hell is that? So you want free labor and to just completely abuse kids because they like a game? Well you do pay them less than minimum wages in minor leagues! Better housing? Fair contracts? Huh? If it wasn't fair they wouldn't have signed it. Can you explain to me why they would agree to something they wouldn't find acceptable?
Because they love the game they're willing to do certain things they wouldnt in normal circumstances....and in the minor leagues you get enough for living expenses and can get more money without even being in the pros by going to AAA and redoing your contract. Why do you think just because someone agrees to something that they think it's fair? They probably are just hoping they can make it big and not have to worry about the unfair contract. Stop trying to make excuses for why its ok to not even get paid for what they do.
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