Prize money in Starcraft 2 - Page 61

Hello Cloud,
I was reading your topic on the price money issue.
I'm extremely disappointed in the fact that you publicly put the ESWC brand in a bad spot light just a few days after our event. You decided to go public first instead of asking us about it. You say that you have no idea who to talk to, but you could have replied to your invitation email. Visit our website for contact information or ask your management for our contact information. From my point of view you didn't put much effort into the contacting us. Posting before asking is a really bad move towards any organisation.
The new owners of the ESWC paid out price money last year in less than 1 month. Which is extremely fast in my opinion.
I can totally imagine your fear or your problems with organisations regarding pay out. But you should be careful. Not to threaten you, but just to explain you why. Can you imagine, that if I want to invite you next year that my bosses will ask me "why would you invite a player that posted unjustified bad news about us".
That's not the situation I want to be in because I loved the fact that you attended our event as an Italian representative. You getting top8 justified my invite as well.
Anyway; it takes about 1 to 2 weeks for us to finish logistics for the event. After that we take care of price money. We have your mail address from the application, you'll be contacted regarding bank information. You can always message me on Skype: *. teamliquid, mail() whatever.
With kind regards,

On November 01 2011 09:57 Cep wrote:
first of all, it's great that someone (cloud in this case) finally goes public with this issue.

i also like to thank csn_JohnClark who gave us the point of view from those who are running a cup/tourny. any chance you could point out the problems you guys have with sponsors e.g. not pay in time or amount promised? i'm sorry if you already did and i missed it. at some point this thread started to be a mess. sadly.

because a good discussion from all partys involed - players, tourny admins, sponsors - could really help to make esports way more professional.

I will address this and will do so with a real esports experience. Recently, CSN was approached by a sponsor, who I will not name.. because the representative of their company is not only a friend but is just as frustrated as we are.. his paycheck comes from them. (He has actually offered to pay us with his own paycheck!). Anyway.. he approached us with full support from his company to throw some money and hardware into an event we were running. CSN offered to match the amount to double up the prize payout, we put a lot of effort into our production value, created many graphics and did everything we could to market the event. This was a big deal for both us and the sponsor.

Unlike in the past eSports world (having lived through it).. we knew to have some assurances up front about the payment and the fact that this is a good friend certainly played a role in our decision to move forward with it. We also knew that we did have a monthly games budget from our investor that was at our disposal for use if needed. Start up companies and even more so... eSports companies are not at a point yet where paper documentation is used regularly. Yes, it should be.. as we are all finding out.. but as others have pointed out in this thread, eSports is still going through some growing pains (all over again!).

We finished the event without a hitch, minus the low stream numbers (Due to lack of 'real' support from those claiming to support the community..but that's a topic for another day!). Players were happy with the event.. the admins did their job and production value was solid. All was well and now it was time to pay out. We had our money ready and went to collect from the sponsor.

Before some of you start flaming away.... NO.. we did not collect prior to the event being held.. as the sponsor made it clear to us that payment would come at completion and with decent results. We reached the results that were expected of us and then some. (even the stream numbers!).

A week went by and still nothing from the sponsor. We did have regular communication with their pro-player representative (my friend) and he gave us what information he had and assured us that payment would be made. Another week went by and we realized that it would be in our best interest to go to our investor and ask for the additional money up front. (Keep in mind..this is all money we are expected to pay back!). We paid out every single winner that we were able to get into contact with within the next week and finally every player was paid within 3 weeks of completion of the event. Although this was frustrating for CSN, the players and even the sponsor rep... 3 weeks was well within timely. Players were happy and CSN had met it's personal goals of paying within 3 weeks. The sponsor rep.. not so happy. Just recently, he sent me another message expressing his displeasure (having been a pro player in eSports for over 8 years) with the situation and has now offered to pay from his own pocket if his company does not respond/pay within the next 2 weeks.

So.. the thing is this.. I am not defending any organization that FAILS to pay or that says one thing and does another or even one that pays more then 3 months out. What I am defending is a real life understanding of how this all works. Many of you on here are calling for 'player unions' and boycotts and trashing this and that.. without any real understanding of how it works. I am not trying to belittle anyone in this thread..but more damage has been done by those with little to know understanding then any good has been. I am simply trying to help those throwing rocks to better understand the process and what parts of the process are really important. Ultimately.. getting players paid is the most important.. but sometimes there are many factors that go into this and in the end.. communication goes a long way (both sides) in making this process less painful.

On November 01 2011 12:43 sermokala wrote:


Thats such a weird pr response. He didn't post his response in the TL thread but the reddit thread in response to the tl thread. Its incredibly stupid as well as it just listed along with the other ones that havn't paid out to him yet. Darkforce backed him up with another list so that its just not his own raving about. He shouldn't talk like that at all. whoever bought the organization wants to use the brand so people can remember some of its history but not all of it? what kind of messed up stuff is that? The organizers should be aggressive in paying off and investigating if they paid or not like IPL instead of trying to make shame some player who blew the whistle on reddit.

On November 01 2011 12:31 GenoPewPew wrote:
That means that you should bother the hell out of Fireflash until he pays up

On November 01 2011 07:27 Enhancer_ wrote:

Something is still wrong with the idea that you expect players to have to contact you to get an update on the money owed to them. If you owe someone money, the responsibility is on you to pay it it.

Or at least that's how I think it should be.

On November 01 2011 07:29 aTnClouD wrote:

I think the same, but he thought it was wise to PM me saying I put ESWC in bad light for no reason and I might not get invited next year because of it. lol.

On November 01 2011 15:02 jsemmens wrote:
The reason this is possible in the chess world is because many players have agents that negotiate these things on their behalf. Since the prize funds for SC2 tournaments are getting larger and larger, perhaps it's time for SC2 pros to start thinking of hiring agents just like pro players from most other sports.