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The OP is spot on.
See this as a learning curve for everyone involved in Esports. No ones really acted 'unethically', its just that people involved in Esports are still learning how to deal with its growth.
My only experiance with following professional sport has been professional football (or soccer). That industry is rife with corruption, and journalistic standards are a joke. There are regulations in place to prevent clubs 'poaching players' but if there werent, the clubs would be poaching players left right and centre, and even with those regulations in place, clubs still find underhanded ways of circumventing them. For example theres something called "tapping up" where the club uses the media to let a player know they are interested, putting pressure on that players club to sell.
I think people need to start laying solid foundations in place now so that as Esports grows, it wont become as corrupt and cut throat as some other industries.
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Ok uhh what is with the references to garfield
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Great write-up dude, really enjoyed reading it 
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first off, love the read great job! this is exactly how i felt about the whole situation. Kind of lost a lot of respect for Alex, throwing Milkis under the bus like that. Milkis translated what he saw, fuck you alex do your job properly stop blaming other people? seriously how lame, gj gj keep up the good work everyone!
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Incredibly valuable article. I wish I had something of more value to add but unfortunately after reading every word I can think of nothing more substantial to say other than I think you nailed it. Thank you.
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The OP makes a fatal mistake. All players are not contracted because the teams and players of sc2 do not want a kespa 2.0. They do not want to contract players with no salary for years at a time. If they did they would of stayed as B-teamers/practice partners. Instead coaches want to be able to trust their players to stay with them until they can salary them something worth their time. The coaches of sc2 understand that they are in an immeasurable level of power when it comes to the negotiating table for their pro teams and that there is nothing "legally" stopping them from forcing a 3 year no-pay/transfer contract in exchange for a place to live and food. Hence the emphasis on trust and away from KESPA rules.
Naive but it is noble.
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Ive spent the last 5 hours of my life reading Lee's response, watching WoC, reading OP and every post in this thread. This is the most stimulating thing that has happened in e-Sports for a while with the interesting dilemma and the high level of arguments in general.
On the acquisition of Puma
I came into this whole ordeal thinking that EG were the bad guys and had trespassed on grounds they shouldnt have. But they didnt, Puma wasnt on a contract - hence no legal foul nor dodgy behavior. It was TSLs task to get a contract and they didnt. But an even more important point that i cant remember hearing during any of the discussions about approaching players from Korea is how Korean culture works against players (i guess it has already been hinted at tho). This happens when teams go trough the coaches. And this is of supreme importance to me. djWheat mentioned the hurt feelings and what not when his player suddenly changed teams. This is of even greater importance in Korea where an individual is seen as an integral and inseparable part of a team. Should a foreign team approach a korean one through the coaches, it will naturally lead to the coaches asking their player if he wants to change teams. Should the player confirm this, but the deals falls trough for some reason, the sense of betrayal and honor lost/offence be much larger than in the West where we by and large accept such decisions. Hence, i would argue, a korean player runs a much bigger risk than a foreign one. And Puma definitely is the "little man" in this whole debucle. He has thankfully secured himself a team (more or less), but as we have already read the korean community is in outrage by his behavior (which we in the west for the most part have found acceptable). As the sense of loyalty is entirely different in korea, a medium or low skilled pro may actually run the risk of his whole carreer, should teams take the stance of zero tolerance for accepting foreign propositions. We have already seen this kind of mechanic work with KeSPA/BW and its also a natural and businesslike decision from the korean proteams point of view. Therefore i think the best way to handle such cases is actually to present a player with a binding contract that will be encumbent at a later date. This is clearly a bias towards players rather than teams, but i personally think its the right choice.
Darn it, i didnt even have enough time to finish this while at work. I'll get back to the issue that publicity is the premiere rescource in starcraft 2.
Also, everybody be way more careful about comparing e-Sports with certain sports. Not only is the argument already brought up, namely that e-Sports isnt nearly as institutionalized valid. But also almost every reference to sports that have come is in reference to team games. The discussion about players representing teams is much more different in team games, rather than a sport whose focal point is individual performance than team performance. (GSL more important than, GSTL)
Peace
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On July 22 2011 21:44 T0fuuu wrote:
The OP makes a fatal mistake. All players are not contracted because the teams and players of sc2 do not want a kespa 2.0. They do not want to contract players with no salary for years at a time. If they did they would of stayed as B-teamers/practice partners. Instead coaches want to be able to trust their players to stay with them until they can salary them something worth their time. The coaches of sc2 understand that they are in an immeasurable level of power when it comes to the negotiating table for their pro teams and that there is nothing "legally" stopping them from forcing a 3 year no-pay/transfer contract in exchange for a place to live and food. Hence the emphasis on trust and away from KESPA rules.
Naive but it is noble.
I think this is what a lot of people are missing when they have the OP's and a vast majority of people's mindsets. Yes it is logical to have contracts for all of these players, just like for any other job but I hardly think that the coaches and managers of these Korean teams are juvenile idiots that are incapable of establishing contracting among their players. It just seems to me that they want to avoid it given Korea's past with esports management. Of course it has to go in that direction at some stage for this kind of thing to not occur but I think they were just really hoping there was some way around it. Perhaps they will find some sort of middle ground where the main players for a team are contracted and the players in training are provided with what Puma had and a possibility of a contract should they perform well.
I agree that the information was mishandled regarding the acquisition and no I do not wish to kill Milkis nor should anyone else as a great number of articles from Korea that we all read in English are thanks to him and in this case it was just him doing his job and the source being at fault.
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On July 22 2011 20:37 Spitfire wrote:
The OP is spot on.
See this as a learning curve for everyone involved in Esports. No ones really acted 'unethically', its just that people involved in Esports are still learning how to deal with its growth..
I think people need to start laying solid foundations in place now so that as Esports grows, it wont become as corrupt and cut throat as some other industries.
Correct. If the foundation begins to form in regards to a system that can handle the growing needs of the e-sports world, specifically SC2, then progress is being made for the sport. Contracts are obviously not the only avenue for progressing the industry, but it's a very important starting point.
I think something that people need to realize is - not every player NEEDS to be contracted, either. But the true, professional level, assets of the team should be. Idra should be contracted, but the guy who plays with EG as a practice partner while not really winning or placing in any events, hasn't necessarily earned his contract with EG yet. I would say that teams would need to consider this as well - the less valuable assets are the ones that will float in a more competitive, global market. But at the same time, these fully sponsored teams still are a window of opportunity for guys like that, so there is plenty of reason to stick with team EG until the skills of the player have grown enough to where they warrant a contract.
See, this is the thing. Without a structured system being worked towards, there can be no real exploration of the business side of E-sports. As it stands, I believe it has hit a wall that can only be broken down with a complete overhaul of the basic ideas that the E-Sports world has held on to for X amount of years.
Having such an un-refined infrastructure right now, globally, limits the potential in what can happen in the SC2 scene. On the flip side, I think Korea with Kespa proved that holding onto the scene with an iron fist is detrimental all the same. A happy median needs to be discovered, and I think this EG situation has lit the fire for this lane of thinking to really be picked apart and looked at. I know many people don't want to look at this as a business, but as "competitive gaming", but when people are investing money, it's only a matter of time until the money also comes into play. It's not a sellout move - there's nothing wrong with wanting to manage the business of E-Sports to a higher degree .There's such huge potential for the scene to grow, though, and right now if a few influential heads could come together and start working towards a system where teams, players, and fans all benefit from taking e-sports to the next tier.
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On July 22 2011 22:08 Mr.Brightside wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2011 21:44 T0fuuu wrote:
The OP makes a fatal mistake. All players are not contracted because the teams and players of sc2 do not want a kespa 2.0. They do not want to contract players with no salary for years at a time. If they did they would of stayed as B-teamers/practice partners. Instead coaches want to be able to trust their players to stay with them until they can salary them something worth their time. The coaches of sc2 understand that they are in an immeasurable level of power when it comes to the negotiating table for their pro teams and that there is nothing "legally" stopping them from forcing a 3 year no-pay/transfer contract in exchange for a place to live and food. Hence the emphasis on trust and away from KESPA rules.
Naive but it is noble. I think this is what a lot of people are missing when they have the OP's and a vast majority of people's mindsets. Yes it is logical to have contracts for all of these players, just like for any other job but I hardly think that the coaches and managers of these Korean teams are juvenile idiots that are incapable of establishing contracting among their players. It just seems to me that they want to avoid it given Korea's past with esports management. Of course it has to go in that direction at some stage for this kind of thing to not occur but I think they were just really hoping there was some way around it. Perhaps they will find some sort of middle ground where the main players for a team are contracted and the players in training are provided with what Puma had and a possibility of a contract should they perform well. I agree that the information was mishandled regarding the acquisition and no I do not wish to kill Milkis nor should anyone else as a great number of articles from Korea that we all read in English are thanks to him and in this case it was just him doing his job and the source being at fault.
Yeah I hear you. Its really a cultural clash which is probably why the Koreans are taking this very offensively. But many people and the op need to understand that the current situation in SC2 korea is that teams could make the most horrible conditions and the players would have to sign them. You cant be a progamer without a team. You cant join a team "now" unless you are contracted. If you arent a proven player you cant expect to be paid. If you do prove yourself you have no power to renegotiate cos you are already signed and korean management has a history of abusing the shit out of their players. You compound that with the oversaturation of talent in the korean scene and you can guarantee that contracts are not going to be in the players best interests if they arent in the gsl.
Anyways TSL got burnt. Lesson learned now its up to what the korean teams decide to do.
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On July 22 2011 22:35 T0fuuu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2011 22:08 Mr.Brightside wrote:On July 22 2011 21:44 T0fuuu wrote:
The OP makes a fatal mistake. All players are not contracted because the teams and players of sc2 do not want a kespa 2.0. They do not want to contract players with no salary for years at a time. If they did they would of stayed as B-teamers/practice partners. Instead coaches want to be able to trust their players to stay with them until they can salary them something worth their time. The coaches of sc2 understand that they are in an immeasurable level of power when it comes to the negotiating table for their pro teams and that there is nothing "legally" stopping them from forcing a 3 year no-pay/transfer contract in exchange for a place to live and food. Hence the emphasis on trust and away from KESPA rules.
Naive but it is noble. I think this is what a lot of people are missing when they have the OP's and a vast majority of people's mindsets. Yes it is logical to have contracts for all of these players, just like for any other job but I hardly think that the coaches and managers of these Korean teams are juvenile idiots that are incapable of establishing contracting among their players. It just seems to me that they want to avoid it given Korea's past with esports management. Of course it has to go in that direction at some stage for this kind of thing to not occur but I think they were just really hoping there was some way around it. Perhaps they will find some sort of middle ground where the main players for a team are contracted and the players in training are provided with what Puma had and a possibility of a contract should they perform well. I agree that the information was mishandled regarding the acquisition and no I do not wish to kill Milkis nor should anyone else as a great number of articles from Korea that we all read in English are thanks to him and in this case it was just him doing his job and the source being at fault. Anyways TSL got burnt. Lesson learned now its up to what the korean teams decide to do.
Right. Essentially EG said, "This is the way the international market works under this business model," and then went and grabbed up Puma.
TSL and other Korean outlets expressed they were upset with the situation.
AG said this is the way it goes, there's nothing wrong with it.
Korea is left with the thought of how they "lost" one of their own because of the aggressive business decision that EG made.
Will Korea fort up and lock their prize players down? Or did this open a new avenue for the Korean scene to finally start really meshing with the rest of the world?
The ball is in Korea's court in regards to what they do. If they do nothing, then they can expect more of the same to happen over time. Which, at this point, really is just delaying the inveitable in my opinion. E-Sports is only going to bend around Korea for so long until the rest of the world grows tired with these old-world principles that can't be applied to the current state of the scene. It's progressed.
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On July 22 2011 16:42 IslandLife wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On July 22 2011 15:15 Dayrlan wrote:(This will be somewhat long. Please choose to read it all before responding to any piece of it.) I think this article/post makes many excellent points, but it ignores one significant piece: The display of international business ethics (or in my opinion, lack thereof) from Evil Geniuses. Indeed, if you re-watch the recent Weapon of Choice episode and trace the conversation, it is easily to notice that the conversation originally was a debate over TSL Coach Lee Won Jae's anger at EG's behavior. The salient observation is that after Milkis (convincingly) made the point that EG's behavior was extremely rude and improper by Korean cultural standards, Mr. Garfield of EG changed the entire direction of the conversation towards his insinuation that Milkis was at fault for damaging EG. Indeed, as a previous poster points out, Mr. Garfield has significant experience and skill with PR compared to Milkis, and in my opinion, he specifically leveraged this advantage to deflect the fact that Evil Geniuses blatantly disrespected Team TSL (at least, we can all presumably agree: "by Korean standards"). So while the OP brings up a number of "lessons" from this whole event (highlighted in bold), allow me to claim another: As Starcraft 2 ESPORTS grows to a global scale, managers and other ESPORTS agents must strive to be aware of and (reasonably) sensitive to individual countries' cultural values.And a corollary: If you ignore or disregard a culture's values, you're digging your own grave.[[For the next chunk, I'm going to make an assumption about international business ethics that I believe is true, but I'll briefly address "if you believe something else" right afterward. Look after the first set of dashes separating sections for that.]] From the perspective of an international businessman interested in signing a player in Korea, you have to take the (general) perspective that you're a non-native purchasing an asset in a foreign country. Necessarily, this is going to involve some type of interaction with the people of that country. After all, you're entering another country in order to do business. Thought experiment time: Imagine that a foreign company enters your country to do business and sets up a factory a mile from your hometown. Then suppose they dump all types of industrial pollutants into the environment, including toxic waste into a river that supplies your town with drinking water. As a result, many of your friends become sick. Your mother comes down with a severe fever and must go to the hospital for two weeks to recover. Obviously, this company is in the ethical wrong, yes? Of course if your country has domestic environmental policy laws forbidding this behavior, the company would be in the legal wrong too. But let's even suppose that no such laws exist. Still -- What would your reaction be? (Feel free to insert alternate culturally/ethically offensive behavior by this hypothetical company as desired.) I think you'd be pissed. I think you'd be mad as hell. I think you'd be right. No one's argued with the fact that it's a cultural expectation in Korea that if a team is interested in recruiting the player, that the manager of that team speak with the manager of the player's team directly. In my opinion, EG blatantly violated this, a cultural value of Korea, in allowing the negotiations regarding Puma to go as far as they did before contacting TSL management directly. --- On the other hand, there's the tacit response: "Look. This is Business; stop being so naive. Business is a cut-throat, no-holds-barred, cold-hearted thing, where money talks, and that's that." So hey, let's throw ethics entirely out the window (or, perhaps, just disagree with me about whether it's Korea's ethics that should be respected (despite the fact that, well, this is a Korean player previously on a Korean team we're discussing)). What's the bare-bones utilitarian outcome of this entire thing? Frankly, even if EG profits considerably by adding Puma to their roster (even with all of this dramatic ado), they've still seriously damaged their relationship with Coach Lee Woon Jae, their relationship with Team TSL, and their reputation in the eyes of some (if not many) Korean fans. A clear consequence is that EG cannot continue behaving this way repeatedly. If they do, they risk alienating a greater and greater segment of the SC2 community. Cut off one friend. Cut off another. Eventually, you won't have any friends. ( This means you, EG.) --- That all said, I tend to agree with djWHEAT's commentary at the end of the Weapon of Choice episode (as well as the general theme of the OP): Despite everything going on here, Puma should end up ahead, and that's a GOOD thing. But importantly, don't let that distract you from the fact that there's a possible world out there, where EG behaves more appropriately, TSL's coach keeps his dignity, and Puma still gets the same great outcome in the end. Saying it is a cultural expectation that you talk with the coach first is ludicrous. I haven't read the whole thing, but I don't think eSports is mentioned in the "Analects of Confucius". Tell you what, set up a poll and ask all the employees over at Samsung if they think it'd be cool to, just, you know, hang out and work without a contract so they can sleep on a 요 and eat 만두 and 냉면 all summer. Mmmmm 냉면. To tell you the truth, I think EG will be one of the few teams to survive as this scene becomes more and more popular. At least they have an inkling of business sense.
Consider:
1) In the NFL, MLB, etc. we routinely get media drama when another team's management has allegedly been talking to a player without anybody telling his current team. So even going by the standards of (American) pro sports, EG was out of line here (assuming for the sake of argument that everything went down as TSL alleges).
2) From what I know of Korean culture, the "community" reigns supreme, whether that
"community" is the country, the business you work for, your school, church, etc. - and especially given the esports model Korea is used to TSL clearly would have expected any negotiations to go through them even if Puma wasn't under a formal contract.
So the long and the short of it is that EG screwed up on a politeness/PR standpoint, even though they didn't do anything illegal or even underhanded (from what I know now).
On the other hand, TSL has been repeatedly in the news do to player dissatisfaction, leading several times to players leaving, so I'm inclined to doubt that the screw-ups are all on EG's side.
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dear god, I wish people would stop calling starcraft esports. Esports is A LOT MORE than just starcraft, it really gets annoying.
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Good read, I liked it and I agree with most of what you said. Garfield really cannot expect someone to hold off a story just because he doesn't want it to be public knowledge, regardless of whether this is a forum post or a rakaka/gosugamers/etc. article.
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On July 22 2011 22:44 VGhost wrote:
Consider:
1) In the NFL, MLB, etc. we routinely get media drama when another team's management has allegedly been talking to a player without anybody telling his current team. So even going by the standards of (American) pro sports, EG was out of line here (assuming for the sake of argument that everything went down as TSL alleges).
But in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc, the teams contract the players. Therefore it goes into the tampering issues. And, with the amount of money that's flowing in those systems (Millions - Billions), they have every reason to play things by the book. There's a ton of money being invested, and a ton of money being made. It makes for the owners, leagues, and unions to take the structures very serious. The teams take the time to protect those things, so by the standard of American sports. TSL did not. Therefore you cant really compare - if you're going to say by American standards you have to consider this, you also have to consider that if this DID happen to an American team, nothing would happen outside of media outlets asking why this team didn't sign their player to a contract if they wanted him to be a permanent part of the team.
On July 22 2011 22:44 VGhost wrote:
2) From what I know of Korean culture, the "community" reigns supreme, whether that
"community" is the country, the business you work for, your school, church, etc. - and especially given the esports model Korea is used to TSL clearly would have expected any negotiations to go through them even if Puma wasn't under a formal contract.
I agree this is definitely a Korean culture thing. While we can all agree that we cant just say the international take on this is right and end all be all, we also have to consider that Korea's mind set may or may not be right.
Or, what I think the bigger here is... Korea is what's best for Globalizing E-Sports, but Globalizing E-Sports isn't what's best for Korea. The Kespa system worked - why should Korea bend for the rest of the world?
So it becomes a very complex, fragile relation.
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Gonna start a bit off topic here. So many (for lack of a politically correct word or phrase) "herp-derp i lol'd so hard at work creep came out my nose" threads get a "zomg best thread ever LOL highlighted" response. IMO, well written non biased relevant OPs with a majority of intelligent banter after the post are what do it for me. SO uh yea, GREAT OP <3
To add a little to the actual discussion, I will simply say I won't support EG. People too often think that new enterprises have to develop in a classical model. I absolutely don't believe this. Furthermore, everything I've ever seen from EG, from it's decisions to it's players statements has been very passive-aggressive, usually done in bad taste, and morally unacceptable for me. And it just gets old in my opinion, among other things.
Since myself, as an individual, won't support them, I will actually do my best to intelligently not support their sponsors. I say intelligently, because some of their sponsors actually also sponsor other great things, or great things in the community. When I look at e-sports as a product, I have to look at not just what I am getting but how I am getting it. Were my e-sports sneakers made by a 4 year old in a sweatshop? Geez, maybe I wont support that anymore. Harsh metaphor, but I'm tired and it makes the point. Of course, you can't have this ideology with everything, i.e. I'm not going to stop using my cellphone because it's impractical, even if people have to mine materials in horrible conditions to make them. The biggest point is, I'm going to try to support and or do what I think is right, mitigating the ethical damage the best I can... I would sincerely hope individuals as well companies or associations would take the same stance or philosophies. But again, just my opinion here and how I feel about things.
And again, great OP
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A longwinded apologia for EG. Wordcount don't bring authority.
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damn dude you wrote alot haha... damn man
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This is a really interesting OP.
Two small points to add:
- I think when a forum post gets featured as community news - it's not just a post anymore, it becomes an actual source of news and the standard of quality should be higher. When new information comes out or something is proven wrong, the post should be updated (by the poster or by teamliquid) as was the case here.
- Had EG posted their point of view on this issue before WoC, the main post would have been updated and it would have cut the "misinformation". They let the TSL point of view run wild for so long that of course it was all over the Internet by then. EG has a company that knows how social media and the gaming communities work should be able to release a statement within an hour or two of an event happening.
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EPT
