Official State of the Game Podcast Thread - Page 1948

On December 15 2011 05:51 DystopiaX wrote:
Actually if he had been Korean I think the punishment would have been more severe; an actual ban if not a lifetime one. I think they went easier on Naniwa precisely cause he was a foreigner, and also because he seemed to not really know the severity of his actions after committing them. Anyway, that's all speculation so it's hard to tell what they actually would do. I do agree with Tyler though- the nature in which they banned Naniwa is sketchy as hell. I have no problems with them actually banning a player but it's the vague rule and punishment that they used to do so that bothers me.

On December 15 2011 08:30 Grumbels wrote:
To be fair to Geoff, I don't think Mia Rose is the most camera-friendly person in existence. I think he was expecting her to be used to such trollish questions and to get some engaging conversation out of it (it's the drunk SotG, so anything goes?). Instead, she was defensive (deservedly, I suppose, since I can imagine always being teased about your career can get obnoxious) so it all backfired, especially since it was so late and JP seemed to be too tired to really intervene and salvage the situation. Which left Geoff to carry the conversation which had already become somewhat hostile.

On December 15 2011 03:37 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

i dont know what punishing naniwa by revoking the code S spot he earned accomplishes that couldn't be accomplished in any other way.

i have already discussed this issue with a lot of knowledgeable and experienced people and one of the points that is pretty much universally agreed upon is that the organization running the competition is in the best position to prevent this from happening. they prevent it from happening by removing any possibility for inconsequential games and by making sure players know in advance that they will be required to try their hardest in every match in order to participate in their event. the most effective way of preventing it is certainly not making an example out of the guy who did it ignorantly. no one has ever suggested that.

gomtv decides to act on a very vague rule with a very severe punishment, why? naniwa's offense was not clearly defined going into the tournament and there was no hint at what the punishment would be at all. i can't read the original korean, so i can't speak with complete confidence, but it seems to me like the application of the rule they cite is quite a stretch based on the translation. and they just make up a punishment when someone breaks it. they're very far removed from proper and effective use of a system of rules and penalties. they certainly were not compelled by their own rules to do what they did. so using this rule is an excuse to punish him.

what this move accomplishes business-wise is to make everyone working with them fear them. if you do anything that they don't expect, anything that they weren't clear on or didn't bring up at all, and it works against them, then you should expect a very severe response from them. even if they set you up to do something that's bad for them, they'll still not say anything beforehand and if you go ahead and do something that's bad for them, they retaliate harshly.

imo the standard good business philosophy is to cover your ass as much as possible. and when a business fails to do so, it minimizes damages and learns and fixes the problem for the future. if you are the big kid on the block and you wanna be a bully, then yeah you can be careless and when something goes wrong, don't admit fault and then slap the other guy down and make everyone hate him. if they really think that's optimal, then i'll admit that i don't know everything they know about their own business, so i can't press that too hard. all i can say is it's very improbable that that is optimal. and even if it is optimal for their own business, it's not optimal for the industry. so even if you do want to shield them with "they're just doing what they think is best for their business" i still lose 3 respect points for them.

if they owned up to their mistake and stood by naniwa, then i think this is a situation where it's quite possible to use propaganda (not in an evil deceptive way, but legitimate propaganda to get the masses to understand your decision and agree with it) to make themselves look good, make naniwa look good (which they want because he's in their league and he's one of the few foreigners, extra valuable to them) and make their league look stronger than ever heading into the new year. but no, they're apparently incapable of that (either because of incompetence or emotions).

edit: apparently the conduct rule wasnt used in the official explanation. if that's true, then it's even worse. they went from having a rule that, when stretched, barely is reasonable, to having no rule and just a spontaneous penalty.

On December 15 2011 08:20 fumo wrote:

Well they (or rather he) should care - just because there was thousands of fan watching and also it's his f***in job. Also if he managed to won with Nestea it would look much better than going 0:4 in group.

On December 15 2011 08:32 AbstractRDK wrote:


As much as i like you Tyler, i don't think ur being reasonable here...

First of all having matches that don't affect any tournament results, is already happening in other sports like football, where sometimes in group stages, in the last matches some teams play even though the result doesn't matter for neither of the teams. I agree that GOM should find a format so that every match counts, but that certainly doesn't mean that what Naniwa did doesn't deserve punishment. Can you imagine watching basketball, and one team sitting below their basket just cause the end result doesn't matter for them? Or watching a tennis game and one player sending the ball out of the court for 10 minutes and then calling the game off for no reason, just cause he doesn't care?

On December 15 2011 08:40 Rannasha wrote:


The big difference here is the time between the matches that do matter and the final matches of a league. In sports like football, there is always a few days (World championships) to a week (national leagues) between two matches. This gives the team some time to get over their elimination, relax, get their heads straight and give it another go for the fans. Sometimes they even field the B-team players, who will be motivatd to show what they can do.

At the Blizzard Cup, matches are played back-to-back and you only have a few minutes (worst-case scenario) after you get eliminated in a potentially exhausting and frustrating way before you have to play again. If the match is then completely inconsequential, you're not going into the game fresh and motivated. Even if Nani/Nestea would've been played "properly", it would've been a half-assed game between two frustrated, uncaring (about that game) players.

On December 15 2011 08:07 nekuodah wrote:


Yes and it was glorious.



In a stream for the blizzard cup it is pointless as it has no standing on how the tournament is going.

On December 15 2011 08:36 Bozotclown wrote:


That is fucking retarded. Wanting them to give up information on their play style for a meaningless game. They aren't going to do that and they aren't going to care. No amount of worthless meaningless idealistic nonsense is going to change that nobody gives a fuck about it.