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United States7483 Posts
On November 01 2011 06:23 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 06:00 ThisGS wrote:
So many people in this thread think ESL doesnt pay.
Thats WRONG.
They always pay, just really, really slow.
As Carmac posted, its a bit better @ IEM events than national events (eps) / random other cups That is a really bad way to put it. Time changes the value of money. It's not the same thing come late. It's something different. Withholding payment for so long is like requiring every prize winner to give ESL a free loan for the amount of money won for the period of time the money is withheld. Loans shouldn't be free. ESL should pay promptly or pay a late fee or pay interest. Otherwise they absolutely are exploiting their players.
Tyler is 100% correct: it's the difference between present value and future value of money.
If I promise you $100 for winning a tournament, and give you that after 1 year, yes, you did get $100 technically, but the present value of that $100 is a bit lower, because you could have put that money into a savings account and collected interest on it for that entire year, or invested it elsewhere. When you start looking at larger sums like 600 euros here, $2,000 there, it really starts to add up, and it really hurts the players badly.
Further, there's another issue with it: it's the most illiquid of assets, an IOU. Yeah, it's value is $100, after all, you will eventually get the money (without interest), but you can't exchange it with someone else, and you can't spend it until you receive it, so it's not useful for someone who needs to buy food or pay rent.
If you have a choice between two different forms of money, and the amount of money offered is exactly equal, you will always choose the more liquid form of money, because it is more useful. There's value in liquidity, so it's an even less valuable form of payment than present/future value calculations would indicate.
It's completely unacceptable. If you don't have the money ready to be paid out after the event is over, why are you running the event?
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I expect this will be on SoTG on Thursday too.
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This is disgraceful 
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On November 01 2011 06:16 divito wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 06:08 HappyChris wrote:
Ahh, So you saying the owners of tournament organisations dont get payed either? I call that complet bullshit. Im 100% sure the guys in charge of the different tournament is getting payed for there time and they do that of the back of the pro players that works hard each day but can barely make a living. I'm not saying they don't get paid. They get a portion of what they were promised by sponsors per month. Their initial costs are paid first, followed by the players. Think of it this way, if you have a $20,000 bill (player payouts), a $10,000 bill (venue expenses etc) but you're only making $5,000 a month (combined sponsor income), how does one pay all of their expenses immediately? Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 06:08 HappyChris wrote:
What a bloddy horrible sentence. You blame the players for not getting payed or getting very l8t payment? I'm not blaming the players for the "late" payment. This situation has existed for years in eSports, and I understand it's a new concept for those at TL. If players are expecting to make a living, they need to be assured of things. If they know that tournaments will not pay with in a few months, they need to make other arrangements. If I'm late on rent or mortgage payment, I can't go to my landlord or bank and say, sorry, I haven't gotten paid yet. They'll tell you too bad. Like I said, spoiled generation. Heh, no.
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Spoiled generation? What? So a player has to plan in advance to make the payments that they've agreed to, but an organizer does not?
This thread isn't really about not getting paid the day you win. Players are told "Well have your payment out at the end of the month." Then at the end of the month they're told "It's in the mail." Then three months later they're told "Oh, we'll have it ready at the end of the week."
The problem is that players are being assured of things, but organizers aren't meeting the agreement. Obviously this isn't true of all organizers, but that's not what we're talking about here.
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On November 01 2011 06:40 BluePanther wrote:
I have a question for the progamers out there (even those who only make a little here or there):
I am a law student. It is clear to me that you have legal recourse to secure your prize money. However it's not worth hiring a lawyer because we charge more than it's worth for say... a 100 dollar prize. I get that.
However, would there be an interest in a lawyer who does these things for you guys? Something like a "players union"? I'm just musing to myself, but I think an organization that would do this would really help you guys out. I'm not suggesting something like a Kespa "we run the sport" type organization, but literally... a players union. I think it'd help a lot if organizers knew they'd have a lawyer up their ass if they didn't pay promptly (not to mention the fact you could sue for interest for delayed payments, get default judgments, and hold organizers responsible for promises). At first it might be a lot of litigation for not a lot of return, but within a short time you'd set a precedent that you expect to be paid and paid on time.
I know I'm just thinking out loud, but what do you guys think? I'd be interested in talking about this, I love contract law and I love what you guys do.
sure that would be very useful, but in the end someone has to pay for it i guess. and if it costs me hours to talk to a lawyer about it etc. and mb even go to court its not worth it for me.
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as someone who was into cs and followed the scene.. lets just hope sc2 never experiences a cxg type fiasco :s
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On November 01 2011 05:38 D.Devil wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 05:23 Naniwa wrote:On November 01 2011 05:10 D.Devil wrote:On November 01 2011 04:41 Naniwa wrote:On November 01 2011 01:21 D.Devil wrote:
This isn't a recent problem but something that haunts esports since its early days. The CPL didn't ever pay some teams the prize money for events in 2002 and 2003 and still continued to live on for quite a while.
Nonetheless, even it might seem counter-intuitive at first, blacklists and publicly calling out organizations won't help anyone. Hosting a big event requires a lot of work, and the prize money is a rather small (yet important) aspect overall. So don't expect anyone to be there to just "replace" today's organizers if they are forced to quit. Even if they're at fault, there's no point in boycotting as it'll only make everyone wait longer or not receive any money at all. So it's not really coincidence that most teams prefer to be quiet as long as the organizers play fair (which the CPL ultimately didn't, so it was boycotted and forced to quit after all). funny that you are talking since Your wc3 team Hoorai scammed me off 600 euros you piece of...... hi :o You know very well that I didn't handle the payments at hoorai and it wasn't my responsibility to take care of that. Also we always treated -and paiid- you well. But anyway, that's many years ago (and certainly hoorai was far from perfect).. tbh I don't even remember if you're right, but it may very well be. In any case: I'm sorry, dude. I just don't see why you even bring this up now as I don't feel like it's related to my post. (and I believe calling me a piece of shit isn't the way to go.) My point still stands: By creating blacklists and boycotting events, you only make things worse. This isn't the solution to this problem. Of course, something needs to be done about it, but I don't like that the majority of people here believes that you achieve that by punishing ESL, ESWC and others. you think i would have some fake grudge against you? for fck sake get real, you were co owner of the team so stop tossing away responsibility pay up or gtfo Sorry, I didn't mean it like that - it came across wrong. It's just because I don't remember if it's due to the contract modification we agreed upon or your last salaries... but it doesn't really matter, I believe you, really. Like I said: sorry. I hope you agree with me that we at least paid most of your money. It's not like we just "scammed" you. Anyway, I'm honestly glad to see you're doing well in SC2. Best of luck, man.
How is not paying him all of the money he was promised not scamming him? Do you even know what scamming is?
You already sounded like a douchebag from your previous posts but this post just made you sound retarded on top of it all.
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I read through the whole thread and it was it was pretty shocking.
Sometimes funny Naniwa calling out that D.Devil guy that scammed him back in WC3
But since the thread is getting so big it would be realy cool if someone would quote all pro posts and the answers some of the organizers gave to give more oversight about the very interesting insights we are getting here.
Maybe in a new thread or something because this will hopefully get a 100+ pages with an important or interesting post on every page.
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On November 01 2011 06:27 rawrss wrote:
I know this is a little offtopic, but does anyone know if that DotA2-The International paid out their ridiculous almost $1.5million prize money?
(Granted, they have Valve as their backbone)
Yes they have gotten it. Valve is a pretty serious company, and when they host something they do it right.
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On November 01 2011 06:40 divito wrote:
MLG is able to do it because one, their events are planned far in advance, and they have tons of venture capital; they got $10 million in Q1 of this year. It has nothing to do with their business model. They are over $50 million in venture capital to date.
So what you're saying is we're going to dismiss all the other organizers who are screwing up, and as a result don't get a consistent revenue from sponsors, as normal in ESports and then instead of complimenting MLG's business model of PLANNING FAR IN ADVANCE we simply dismiss their success and skills by saying they have a ton of money instead of questioning or asking where or how they got their money (read: it was from employing a great business model and getting an MBA).
Your logic boils down to certain shitty companies not being able to think in advance and therefore unable to pay everyone out in time. However you and all your "experience in Esports" thinks this is ok because everyone does it... meanwhile 80% of this everyone group ends up going bankrupt. Either you graduated out of a community college and never went for grad school or you just feel like trolling us.
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On November 01 2011 06:41 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 06:23 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 01 2011 06:00 ThisGS wrote:
So many people in this thread think ESL doesnt pay.
Thats WRONG.
They always pay, just really, really slow.
As Carmac posted, its a bit better @ IEM events than national events (eps) / random other cups That is a really bad way to put it. Time changes the value of money. It's not the same thing come late. It's something different. Withholding payment for so long is like requiring every prize winner to give ESL a free loan for the amount of money won for the period of time the money is withheld. Loans shouldn't be free. ESL should pay promptly or pay a late fee or pay interest. Otherwise they absolutely are exploiting their players. Tyler is 100% correct: it's the difference between present value and future value of money. If I promise you $100 for winning a tournament, and give you that after 1 year, yes, you did get $100 technically, but the present value of that $100 is a bit lower, because you could have put that money into a savings account and collected interest on it for that entire year, or invested it elsewhere. When you start looking at larger sums like 600 euros here, $2,000 there, it really starts to add up, and it really hurts the players badly.
Ahh, but what if the exchange rate doubled over the course of the year :p
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That player union is a nice idea actually.
Lets say every player who joins, will give 5% of his yearly earnings to it. So, with many players they could sustain some lawyers. I'm sure there are guys willing to help.
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ESL is two years behind on paying out their prize money for Counter-Strike: Source at least, doesn't surprise me at all that they're hanging behind in SC2 aswell. ESWC is also quite shit when it comes to payments, but like ClouD said, it's nothing new!
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On November 01 2011 01:41 Bonkarooni wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 01:40 ToguRo wrote:
this is awful .... but it does make me appreciate GSL,MLG,IEM, etc. that are professionally run and not screwing people over Did you miss the part where IEM was complained about?
I'm sorry I meant IPL not IEM
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On November 01 2011 06:40 BluePanther wrote:
I have a question for the progamers out there (even those who only make a little here or there):
I am a law student. It is clear to me that you have legal recourse to secure your prize money. However it's not worth hiring a lawyer because we charge more than it's worth for say... a 100 dollar prize. I get that.
However, would there be an interest in a lawyer who does these things for you guys? Something like a "players union"? I'm just musing to myself, but I think an organization that would do this would really help you guys out. I'm not suggesting something like a Kespa "we run the sport" type organization, but literally... a players union. I think it'd help a lot if organizers knew they'd have a lawyer up their ass if they didn't pay promptly (not to mention the fact you could sue for interest for delayed payments, get default judgments, and hold organizers responsible for promises). At first it might be a lot of litigation for not a lot of return, but within a short time you'd set a precedent that you expect to be paid and paid on time.
I know I'm just thinking out loud, but what do you guys think? I'd be interested in talking about this, I love contract law and I love what you guys do.
Tournaments and even the companies that run them are all in different parts of the world. You'd have to have a players association that has lawyers registered in like 20 countries lol. So not viable
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So many pages to read, assuming no one has asked this yet does anyone know if this is the norm in all E-sports? Did Grubby and Moon have to put up with this in their warcraft 3 days ?
Part of it sounds like a law issue wherein tournaments sponsored by big companies have to jump through hoops to make their payments all legal according to the record books. I mean Totalbiscuit pays out for shoutcraft invitationals within what a week but he doesn't have to answer to anyone but himself and can do his own record keeping. Still there's a differences between understandable delays for legal reasons and companies that keep putting things off in hopes you'll forget or something.
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On November 01 2011 06:42 Gauje wrote:
Spoiled generation? What? So a player has to plan in advance to make the payments that they've agreed to, but an organizer does not?
The way the organizers have it setup, they are at the mercy of the sponsors. It's a terrible model, but a lot of organizers are stuck with that model. It's the reason ESWC went bankrupt. Not only do you have to worry about payments over monthly schedules, you can also deal with what has happened a lot, in non-contractual agreements.
If, for instance, let's say the organization "XGL" is having a tournament in three months (it's January, so tournament in April). Mark in the marketing division of a company is approached by the XGL and says "sure, we'll put up $5,000 for your tournament."
Later on, in March, executives meet for a meeting and discuss their revenue and expenses. They find that they're down across the board and have to make cuts. They see a note for April being allocated to a tournament from marketing. They all vote to pull the money.
Now sure, nowadays, a lot of tournaments are getting a lot more legal, but this is still the case for a lot of people. Things were agreed to, but you didn't have a contract or paperwork detailing anything, or the sponsor finds a loophole to escape. This happened a few years ago when AMD and several other sponsors pulled out during the financial crisis. Their marketing budgets dried up, and eSports wasn't even close to worth it.
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On November 01 2011 06:43 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 06:40 BluePanther wrote:
I have a question for the progamers out there (even those who only make a little here or there):
I am a law student. It is clear to me that you have legal recourse to secure your prize money. However it's not worth hiring a lawyer because we charge more than it's worth for say... a 100 dollar prize. I get that.
However, would there be an interest in a lawyer who does these things for you guys? Something like a "players union"? I'm just musing to myself, but I think an organization that would do this would really help you guys out. I'm not suggesting something like a Kespa "we run the sport" type organization, but literally... a players union. I think it'd help a lot if organizers knew they'd have a lawyer up their ass if they didn't pay promptly (not to mention the fact you could sue for interest for delayed payments, get default judgments, and hold organizers responsible for promises). At first it might be a lot of litigation for not a lot of return, but within a short time you'd set a precedent that you expect to be paid and paid on time.
I know I'm just thinking out loud, but what do you guys think? I'd be interested in talking about this, I love contract law and I love what you guys do. sure that would be very useful, but in the end someone has to pay for it i guess. and if it costs me hours to talk to a lawyer about it etc. and mb even go to court its not worth it for me.
Well, the players would have to pay for it in some way, obviously, just as any other union with "dues" and such. Given the nature of esports, it'd likely be that x% would be taken from each members prize winnings in return for relevant representation. I mean, like I said, I'm just thinking out loud. I know there are some problems with the idea as I presented it here. Just curious if it'd be worth exploring at this point in time. Unlike in the past, there is actual money flowing through esports now.
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The weirdest part about all the ESL small cup money is the lack of professionalism:
-Why aren't the admins being proactive about asking for player money details?
------------------------------- giving the players updates about the status of sponsor funds?
------------------------------- replying to emails containing bank info stating that they received the info?
------------------------------- not connecting tournament admins with payment folks, etc?
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EPT
