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On July 22 2011 13:15 Krehlmar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2011 13:09 Maynarde wrote:On July 22 2011 13:03 Krehlmar wrote:
Explain it as whatever you want.
It was still subvert and wrong morally, "business", "Dog eat dog" and "Survival of the fittest" can go fuck itself, I don't like it and I don't care what explanation you'd give us.
If that is what you'd like eSports to become I don't want any part of it, nor do I want to spend any money on that.
Yes there needs to be a better standard, yes there needs to be contracts.
But I will never think what EG did was anything but sneaky and underhanded. This is the nature of the business world mate, and eSports (to sponsors, players and teams) is a business at the professional level. You got your opinions and they're clearly very strong, but reality comes in eventually. Not at all, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapping_upWhat went on here, if it is as claimed (EG approached Puma directly), would result in fines and bans of various sorts in other sports. If you think it's acceptable, then what do you think of rules against such actions in other (professional) sports? It's just wrong. Nothing to it. I'm just tired of people defending the moral demise of eSports... what happend to all this talk about "The greatest community!" and all that? There was no honour in this. Also saying it is bullshit and morally faux does not mean I'm saying it was stupid or un-economical. I just think it was wrong and evidently the law does aswell.
Was there a rule currently in effect that states that korean players cannot be contacted directly for offers ? As far as i know, no. So on a rule enforcement level, EG did no wrong. If there is no official rule that forbid them to do so, why would thy restrict themselves to make steps to improve their buisness ? Buisness is buisness if the rules are verbal or based on "honor" instead of being set in stone, the rule never exists officially.
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I don't think you can "tap up" a free agent, so EG wouldn't have received a fine. Even if he was on a contract, it is still possible for players in football, for example, to sign pre-agreements with clubs six months before the expiration of their contract.
In addition to this, players can sign a pre-contract with another club for a free transfer if the players' contract with their existing club has six months or less remaining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling#Players
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I believe that the issue here is Korea's slow adaptation to an evolving market.
For quite a considerable amount of time Korea has been a fairly isolationist nation, particularly in terms of SC. SCBW in essence does not exist outside of Korea in any substantive way and hasn't for quite some time. Due to this, Korea has developed an isolationist and closed system of teams and "contractual agreements". I believe much of Korea's model for SCBW has been directly transplanted into SC2. However, the global environment surrounding SC2 is much different than it was with BW. There is much more money, sponsorship, teams, and sponsorships readily available outside of Korea. Beyond that, many of the business models of the new and developing SC2 and esports teams are very aggressive. They have to be in order to get the money to sustain themselves and profit. EG is simply an example of a somewhat aggressive business model. Even further, the vast majority of players are not yet under contractual obligations in Korea currently. One can only ask why? It is in large part to the September/October mass contract expiration date for SCBW players. In a sense, Koreans who are transferring games will do so there and much of the contract expiration times for both games will be aligned, making it much simpler to consolidate all of the legal dealings to a particular time.
So what do all of these facts mean:
Simply this: While Korean players are quite obviously maturing in terms of skill more quickly than the rest of the world, the world's adaptation to a global SC2 scene versus a Korea only SC2 scene is far more quick and comprehensive. And what has resulted is a situation like the one with Puma: one system has adapted with the times and made an aggressive move to try for some gain, while the other lumbers along stuck in a past system of agreements by word and honor. And we all know that word and honor mean nothing in a capitalist world.
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On July 22 2011 13:30 ritoky wrote:
I believe that the issue here is Korea's slow adaptation to an evolving market.
For quite a considerable amount of time Korea has been a fairly isolationist nation, particularly in terms of SC. SCBW in essence does not exist outside of Korea in any substantive way and hasn't for quite some time. Due to this, Korea has developed an isolationist and closed system of teams and "contractual agreements". I believe much of Korea's model for SCBW has been directly transplanted into SC2. However, the global environment surrounding SC2 is much different than it was with BW. There is much more money, sponsorship, teams, and sponsorships readily available outside of Korea. Beyond that, many of the business models of the new and developing SC2 and esports teams are very aggressive. They have to be in order to get the money to sustain themselves and profit. EG is simply an example of a somewhat aggressive business model. Even further, the vast majority of players are not yet under contractual obligations in Korea currently. One can only ask why? It is in large part to the September/October mass contract expiration date for SCBW players. In a sense, Koreans who are transferring games will do so there and much of the contract expiration times for both games will be aligned, making it much simpler to consolidate all of the legal dealings to a particular time.
So what do all of these facts mean:
Simply this: While Korean players are quite obviously maturing in terms of skill more quickly than the rest of the world, the world's adaptation to a global SC2 scene versus a Korea only SC2 scene is far more quick and comprehensive. And what has resulted is a situation like the one with Puma: one system has adapted with the times and made an aggressive move to try for some gain, while the other lumbers along stuck in a past system of agreements by word and honor. And we all know that word and honor mean nothing in a capitalist world.
Agreed, Korea will have to adapt if they are to retain their position on the global sc2 e-sports buisness.
EDIT : And even then, they will still keep their dominant position, but it will not be as dominant as it was before.
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On July 22 2011 12:07 57 Corvette wrote:
I don't see why things are so different with Starcraft 2 teams compared to teams from Brood war. Was there many/any conflicts like this in the past?
Why all of a sudden is this all important to people?
The Korean competitive BW scene was basically unique and unintended at time of release. Even now, there are only about 150-200 active A-team players at any given time, so except at the very top BW was able to operate on the "handshake" principle (that any new industry tends to). At the same time, top players do have contracts, and even B-teamers clearly can expect certain things even if far more power lies with the team than is fair (at least by Western standards).
The #1 method of "moving" players in Korean BW was to just buy out contracts, which always heavily favored the teams willing (or able) to invest more heavily (yes, I mean SKT and KT). July, Bisu, YellOw, Reach, as well as several from GO/CJ who ended up elsewhere; more recently, fOrGG, as well as STX, WeMade, and Woongjin getting in on the action acquiring July (STX), Midas, Nada (WeMade), and Kwanro and Light (Woonjgin). The only other thing I can think of was the bullshit "free agency" two years ago, where the net result was that Jaedong got a bigger contract. Trades, as far as I know, are unheard of.
I realize that KeSPA of course is way less than perfect and is heavily dependent on the corporate sponsors of the teams (although it's important to recognize both that KeSPA also oversees non-BW leagues as well and that corporate sponsorship of all sports teams is more prevalent in Korea). At the same time, their "public image" is "governing body", not "corporation". Probably the most analogous body in sports would be FIFA (especially fitting given the similar level of stupidity and rumored corruption).
BroodWar never really spread outside of Korea (except for WCG), and since Korean BW had a governing body (no matter how corrupt and hated) from its inception, the issue never really arose except for the GOM spat, which KeSPA won handily, both because they have perceived legitimacy and because the teams largely took their part. (Referencing the cricket example above, a Western court would likely have ruled that teams couldn't, as they in fact did, prevent players from playing in GOM - but the situation was completely Korean, meaning that first the court would have, from my understanding of Korean culture, ruled in the teams' favor had it gone to court and second it was never going to go there anyway. Notice the whole Blizzard vs OGN/MBC thing got settled out of court after all.)
In stark contrast, SC2 has been a worldwide esport practically since beta. (Me, I tend to think this hurt development somewhat as we got used to a beta level of patching, but that's neither here nor there.) In contrast to the BW scene, which in Korea was largely team-driven and overseen by KeSPA, the driving force in the SC2 scene has been corporate: MLG, GOM, etc. As a result, the various corporations aren't particularly interested (so far) in imposing a set of standards as regards contracts, tournament format, etc. Likely, we won't get one until the less successful tournaments start vanishing into the night (unfortunately, probably within the next two years) - at which point the very much fewer remaining leagues will see some value in setting up an "independent" organization. (Actually I think Blizzard intended to do this themselves from the beginning, but had vastly underestimated the popular explosion of tournaments and had to let things go their own way.) So far, the biggest move in this direction is the MLG-GSL exchange, which unfortunately has many practical difficulties - but is still being pursued by both sides.
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Interesting article. Quite the long read. I do think that some people aren't aware that this isn't just about games and there's always business involved.
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On July 22 2011 12:15 motbob wrote:Here's a snippet of an old post Mr. Garfield wrote 9 months ago that might shed some light on his point of view. Show nested quote +A lot of you guys are saying that my criticisms are invalid because so much of TL's coverage (this thread, for example) is community-based and generated by community members who aren't officially part of TL. This is not a valid counterpoint to my arguments - but it is, however, a very important observation about the nature of "coverage" and "news" on TL. We're now in an era of journalism and reporting in which a piece doesn't have to be "official" to be coverage. So, while some of you guys are essentially saying, "This isn't coverage - it's a forum thread and therefore you're wrong," I'd make the simple point: the two are not mutually exclusive anymore. It's both a forum thread and a coverage piece. I'd like to think that anyone in this community with enough dedication and passion to contribute to it via doing this kind of forum-based coverage would also apply that kind of dedication and passion to their approach to said community-based journalism.
While I think that Mr Garfield brings up an interesting point, ultimately it is unrealistic. Between this quote and the Weapon of Choice discussion, it is clear that Mr. Garfield wishes for coverage of various e-sports occurrences to be held to some sort of journalistic standard.
In order for this journalistic standard to hold up, writers and translators would have to be held accountable for their actions. At the present time they are only held accountable to two groups. The first is are the moderators of teamliquid/playxp. They must follow the forum rules and obey the moderators. The second group they must be held accountable to is the readers. You post crap, and nobody will read it.
Obviously, this leaves any regulation to be done by information gateways sites such as teamliquid and playxp. This is quite literally an impossible task. The first reason is that even if information gets held at teamliquid, it will still get out over twitter, reddit, facebook, ect. You can't stop it. But even if you could hold it, it then becomes a pain in the ass to moderate. Do you hold the entire message board to these journalistic standards (lol)? Or only news posts? When do you release it, if at all, if one party doesn't provide a statement?
All that people like Milkis do, is speed the diffusion of information in the internet. But regardless if their presence, it will still be diffused. Their are no mechanisms in place to stop it, and I have yet to hear a reasonable way of creating and applying such mechanisms.
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I having trouble seeing whether this article is really about the future of eSports or if it's a defense of EG.
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It is one thing to have an organisation like KeSPA in a country, having a similar organisation on the worldwide scale is something else entirely. But since sc2 is getting global, it will be necessary. The question is, how to set it up ?
Such organisation will have to be neutral and be acknowledged by all the teams worldwide. As far as I know, only one organisation would be able to pull off such an undertaking : Blizzard.
After all, it's their game and they can do whatever with it. The current buisness is based on their game, so they have all the power and credibility to create such a global organisation. And its in their best interests to keep this industry healthy.
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On July 22 2011 12:15 motbob wrote:Here's a snippet of an old post Mr. Garfield wrote 9 months ago that might shed some light on his point of view. Show nested quote +A lot of you guys are saying that my criticisms are invalid because so much of TL's coverage (this thread, for example) is community-based and generated by community members who aren't officially part of TL. This is not a valid counterpoint to my arguments - but it is, however, a very important observation about the nature of "coverage" and "news" on TL. We're now in an era of journalism and reporting in which a piece doesn't have to be "official" to be coverage. So, while some of you guys are essentially saying, "This isn't coverage - it's a forum thread and therefore you're wrong," I'd make the simple point: the two are not mutually exclusive anymore. It's both a forum thread and a coverage piece. I'd like to think that anyone in this community with enough dedication and passion to contribute to it via doing this kind of forum-based coverage would also apply that kind of dedication and passion to their approach to said community-based journalism.
To look to the community to stand up and take responsibility is a bit much, maybe the more vocal members of the community have a greater responsibility, but at the end of the day it's not our jobs to cover without bias. I don't even think that's possible for a majority of us, we're far to passionate about some of these subject matters to look at it objectively.
What I do know is that TL.net, as an organization does have this responsibility, and that there is a significant difference between just a forum post and a post that makes it to front page news. This isn't the first time this has happened where a story made it to front page before everything had been said. If fingers need to be pointed TL should be included.
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Great read. Unfortunately whenever money is involved shit gets real, and it looks like for e-sports shit just got real. Too bad that it happened in such a way, but it was bound to happen eventually and I'm sort of surprised nothing like this has come out yet. Let's hope there is enough respect in the community to keep things transparent and open as the scene becomes more regulated.
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On July 22 2011 13:44 SiCkO_ wrote:
I having trouble seeing whether this article is really about the future of eSports or if it's a defense of EG.
Nice job refuting any claims in the article and creating a false dilemma. He actually refutes claims that Alex from EG made about journalism on forums and simply explained arguments from today and cleared up things about contracts.
At the end of his piece he has a call to arms suggesting that the players the corporations and the teams need to come together to set up a system before ESPORTS gets to the point where the government sets up a system for us.
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On July 22 2011 12:14 Phaded wrote:I think the only thing you're missing from that post is mention of the Korean Starcraft 2 Association that was created last year to provide If the association has some terms protecting the teams, then EG may very well have stepped into a pile of mud with this deal.
I don't know the "details" of the KSA but not sure that would even apply here anyway, especially if Puma was contacted while outside of Korea but an organization that doesn't fall under the guidelines or clauses established by the KSA. But again, I don't know the details but considering EG's lack of involvement in the Korean scene (no house there, no team there etc) I don't think they'd fall under its requirements, if anything Puma would be the one to face the problems if he falls under any rules, but I would think the rules pertain more toward the teams.
Back on topic.
Extremely nice article their op, very well written and I enjoyed reading it. I completely agree with everything you posted.
On a side note when you went into the area covering journalists and whether people who post stuff that doesn't contain all the evidence, statements etc I couldn't help but keep repeating lines out of Green Street Hooligans... "are you a fucking journal!?" "there's nothing worse than a fucking journal!" (clearly all with a deep british accent) lmao.
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On July 22 2011 13:44 SiCkO_ wrote:
I having trouble seeing whether this article is really about the future of eSports or if it's a defense of EG.
Not really sure how you come to this conclusion... Did we read the same post?
Anyway, nice write-up. Very thought-provoking. Will provide further thoughts after I listen to the Weapon of Choice episode...
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Just wanted to say my 2 cents regarding the whole "journalist integrity" that Garfield brought up.
No, it's obviously not reasonable to expect a forum to hold the same level of standards that a newspaper or magazine would be held at. At the same time, I perfectly understand his anger at the situation. 24 hours ago he still didn't know what Puma's final decision would be, or how the discussion with the coach would go, and in the blink of an eye, Lee goes public with some rant about "stopping foreign" teams, and Team EG is faced with a firestorm that was created solely on the back of a rumour mill.
In an industry where "breaking news" is, at best, gossip being shouted to a huge audience that is taken at face value, it's a nightmare to handle.
I'm not saying there's anything that can be done about it, because the root of the problem is a community of a few thousand jumping to whatever juicy conclusion they can think of, but it's perfectly justified to be pissed off about it.
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very interesting OP and some really good and well thought out and argued points in this thread.
unfortunately, judging by the rest of the threads in general, this discussion is far too civilised to stay alive for very long. needs moar drama if its going to stay up for long.
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On July 22 2011 13:10 windsupernova wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2011 12:53 Turbo.Tactics wrote:
So the proper reaction for Korea would be KESPA 2.0 . Easiest way to save their players from "evil foreigners stealing their players and disrespecting their culture", also killing international Esports and denying foreign talent to benefit from korean players. Winter is coming... Oh don´t be so overmelodramatic. If something like this kills international e-sports then it wasn´t standing too strong anyways. And well, before we start saying stuff like this we should wait until things calm down and see what koreans do
I agree 100%. I just wanted to exaggerate the possible conclusion of the OPs lesson.
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Thank you.
Before reading this, I was fairly certain about my personal position and allocation of blame of this drama, but afterwards, I don't feel so sure. That means I have been informed, and it points to the ideals TL was found on - where all members, staffs or regulars, are expected to contribute content - still exists despite some evidence to otherwise.
I have been involved in gaming communities heavily for half my life now, and had seen plenty that grew in size then completely implode in an instance. For some time, I saw that TL is following that trajectory, but with threads and posts like this where it shows TLers can clearly be introspective and aware of our failures, I am no longer worried about any impending demise.
ESPORTS. lives. on.
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On July 22 2011 13:15 Krehlmar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2011 13:09 Maynarde wrote:On July 22 2011 13:03 Krehlmar wrote:
Explain it as whatever you want.
It was still subvert and wrong morally, "business", "Dog eat dog" and "Survival of the fittest" can go fuck itself, I don't like it and I don't care what explanation you'd give us.
If that is what you'd like eSports to become I don't want any part of it, nor do I want to spend any money on that.
Yes there needs to be a better standard, yes there needs to be contracts.
But I will never think what EG did was anything but sneaky and underhanded. This is the nature of the business world mate, and eSports (to sponsors, players and teams) is a business at the professional level. You got your opinions and they're clearly very strong, but reality comes in eventually. Not at all, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapping_upWhat went on here, if it is as claimed (EG approached Puma directly), would result in fines and bans of various sorts in other sports. If you think it's acceptable, then what do you think of rules against such actions in other (professional) sports? It's just wrong. Nothing to it. I'm just tired of people defending the moral demise of eSports... what happend to all this talk about "The greatest community!" and all that? There was no honour in this. Also saying it is bullshit and morally faux does not mean I'm saying it was stupid or un-economical. I just think it was wrong and evidently the law does aswell.
Actually if what was claimed to have gone on is what actually went on then what you brought up has nothing to do with it since Puma wasn't under contract by TSL because they didn't think it was necessary. So EG picked up a player who was playing with another team but currently wasn't under any sort of contract.
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What is wrong with you people? We have an established contract system in esports since half a decade.
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EPT
