|
Ayayay so much drama, why dont people just pay and make it easy 
|
Players should find a way to get a contract signed between them and major tournaments having the tournaments promise to pay out players within x number of days/weeks after an event is over. That way the tournaments have more to lose than just their public image if they don't pay out. Seems to be the only reasonable way to fix this issue and tournaments who in fact have the money they promise to give shouldn't be hesitant to sign such agreements.
|
On November 01 2011 14:02 firehand101 wrote:Ayayay so much drama, why dont people just pay and make it easy
because bureaucracy's a pain
|
On November 01 2011 14:03 Treva wrote:
Players should find a way to get a contract signed between them and major tournaments having the tournaments promise to pay out players within x number of days/weeks after an event is over. That way the tournaments have more to lose than just their public image if they don't pay out. Seems to be the only reasonable way to fix this issue and tournaments who in fact have the money they promise to give shouldn't be hesitant to sign such agreements.
"Reasonable " as in the only reasonable solution you are proposing is that every player enters into contract negotiations with tournaments which would exceed thousands of dollars in legal fees so they can have a chance to win money that they have no guarantee of winning? What you are suggesting is simply not plausible. A tournament will never enter into negotiations with players unless there is some sort of player organization that will back the player and pay all legal fee or organize boycotts of tournaments that do no pay out.
|
It seems like the best solution wouldn't be to have a system that punishes tournaments that are slow but, one that rewards tournaments for being faster. It will provide encouragement and goals for tournaments to work towards without causing the death of a tournament that may just be having some issues with communication between sponsors/players. as well, this would give the players power but only en masse as a reputation can be destroyed by one very vocal player having a bad experience but it takes several people to build a reputation..
|
I have a question. Why are the bigger tournaments with big prize payouts not bonding their prize fund? The comparison I use is there is a yearly bowling tournament run by a guy July 4th weekend. He has been doing it for over 30 years. He has 20 or 30 sponsors(local mom and pop type business for the most part), But every year he bonds his prize fund and every year for as long as I can remember he pays out 20-40k depending on the turnout. He has never in at least the past 10 years Ive been around it have had any problems.
None of these big tournaments are planned on impulse so why not have this piece of mind???? Because what is going on now is some shameful shit reading though some of these post.
|
On November 01 2011 12:26 DoomsVille wrote:Quakerix posted this on Reddit: Show nested quote +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, Put your pitchforks away people. Cloud sure did exaggerate the hell out of that PM.
Same problem that I brought up in my first post in the thread: It's the tournament's responsibility to be in contact with it's winners. A mass email to all players in the money stating the expected payout schedule, or even better, having all of this transparent in your tournament's rules and signups (given to players or their management and hopefully signed) seems like something that should be standard.
Tyler's point about the potential for money to gain/lose value can also be covered by being straight up and saying no interest is to be incurred for late payments, or that interest is to be added if payments are not on schedule. If you really want to be anal and protect your organization from bad PR like this thread, include an NDA concerning payouts (though I would hate this for players and their management). Vague threats (saying "not to threaten you" pretty much guarantees that you're about to threaten someone) after the fact are not the way to go. The key here is that there is a schedule and an agreement, both of which offer stability. This seems like it should be important.
On November 01 2011 13:01 csn_JohnClark wrote:Show nested quote +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. Show nested quote +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.
Really sorry to hear this =/. I do work with a branch of government and despite my hate for all the (often redundant) paperwork required of consultants and inter-departmentally, I'd much rather be with it than without it.
Side note: This makes me a little happier with MLG since they had a plan and budget for the year and they stuck with it, enabling them to pay out their prizes so quickly. Their prize pool is relatively terrible, but at least the money was set aside and paid quickly.
|
This is really unsettling. Thanks for posting this info, and please continue to post updates on it. The community needs to know about it, and people need to be held accountable.
|
On November 01 2011 14:01 hybridsc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 12:43 sermokala wrote:On November 01 2011 12:26 DoomsVille wrote:Quakerix posted this on Reddit: 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, Put your pitchforks away people. Cloud sure did exaggerate the hell out of that PM. 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. This exactly. Who the fuck is that guy to give shit to ClouD for bringing up an (obviously) important topic. ClouD even clarified his remarks and made special exception to ESWC. Quakerix is acting like this is some isolated incident, when in reality ESWC and other major tournaments all have similar problems of straight-up fraud. Why is it ClouD's responsibility to chase you guys down? Do you think his suspicions are unjust? Given the circumstances, I wouldn't say so. Your whole attitude on this topic is wrong. Take a note from IPL who, at least in appearance, seem like they're earnestly trying to fix their shit up and separate themselves from this shitshow. Instead you're acting all offended as if this post is a huge disservice to you guys. Well look it wouldn't be if you just paid the man and he cleared you guys publicly. What do you expect him to do when you show up with that condescending tone. What is ESWC without your players and fans? As an organization this is a chance to distinguish yourself and show that you care; not get all defensive. What horrible PR. (dumb fuck) And you know what, regardless of whether or not this issue has anything to do with the tournament organizers as opposed to the sponsors, my point is you shouldn't be pointing fingers at the players and fans. It's our duty to bring this shit up so it stops becoming a recurring problem.
I think Quakerix is just following his company line. IPL is run by the former reddit invitational staff and at least from what I've read they're surprised by this and are doing stuff about it which sounds a hell of a lot better then some other organizations. ESL is a huge organization and I think they should get some slack for all the events they have to keep up on and all the different payouts that they need to keep track of (and make sure that the money is going to the right people. ESWC is in a completely different boat as I can't really tell what other event they have done other the the Paris event (which was horribly done might I add).
I can imagine someone being really pissed that this is coming down on them right after an event and they're still within their payout time. being passive aggressive about not inviting a player for blowing a whistle on something leaves you in a really shitty spot. either you go though with it and get a hell of a lot of bad pr and risk other players following him or not doing anything and players taking advantage of you.
Player loyalty is something that made mlg successful. Even with shitty prize pools compared to other events teams always went to mlg. I remember hearing about sundance giving t2 a free shirt when he was thinking that he would be the superstar he is today. ESL supports a hell of lot of esports so I'm going to keep watching them.
|
Well, in chess tournaments (not that this is entirely the same scenario, but it's a good analogy), tournament organizers are typically expected either to pay out prizes on the spot, or to announce ahead of time to the players when they will receive their prize money, or lose their license to hold rated (sanctioned) tournaments. Chess tournaments always seem to manage to accomplish this even though their prize funds are typically much larger than your typical Starcraft touranment (world championship prize fund is $2.55 million USD).
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.
|
On November 01 2011 13:33 DuFFmAn69 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 12:31 GenoPewPew wrote:
That means that you should bother the hell out of Fireflash until he pays up i have, and he's promised to get it to me soon many times. the latest was him asking me for my real ID so he could contact me after mlg. but he recently removed me from real friend so i had to lurk in ONE's channel to get a hold of him, so that he could ignore all my comments.
That's how he handles all disputes. Here's an interesting tidbit of FireFlash's SC2 past:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173236
|
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.
LOL
I'm pretty sure hiring "agents" would cost more money than the amount they would recover. People don't do this pro bono, y'know.
|
On November 01 2011 07:29 aTnClouD wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 07:27 Enhancer_ wrote:On November 01 2011 07:01 quakerix wrote:On November 01 2011 06:04 AndersR. wrote:
Kinda feel like ESWC has been bashed a bit too much in this thread, the owners now are not the ones who were known for not paying out the money, that where the previous owners who went bankruptcy with the brand. I'm pretty sure that the current owners have done a fine job paying out, at least as far as i remember that was what Na'Vi.cs said last year after they won it. Thank you. I'm extremely surprised that aTnCloud already posted about ESWC not paying out just a few days after the event. We didn't even finish up logistically and this event is already listed in this topic. Ok, i can imagine that because of the previous company going bankrupt the brand had some damage. But posting this before even contacting us is a bit harsh towards the new owners. Last year they paid out just a few weeks after the event and now we didn't even had the chance. You could have contacted us in 100 ways, your management has direct contacts with us, you could have replied to your invite email you could have even gone to our website and look up contact information. Anyway; i messaged you privately and i also already replied to you in the ESWC topic a few days earlier. Give us a break and we'll contact you as soon as possible. On November 01 2011 01:48 Jcnorheim wrote:
I am sorry that this happens.
Many community figures talk about how events compete with one another for viewers, and I think that this is definitely one of the factors that concerns at least some viewers.
On the other side of the coin though, ESWC probably didn't get nearly enough viewers due to having to compete with Blizzcon. So they already lost the competition for viewers. Maybe ESWC will use that as an excuse to disappear again. We had 100k simultaneous viewers as peak during our weekend and there were about 1500 people watching games at the stage. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tu7Fa.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/E1UWs.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0YlVL.jpg) Don't worry about the fact that ESWC wasn't a success. It was. 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. 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.
wow why do you put them in a bad light when that what you say is true...FP
|
start the boycotting, especially IEM and affiliated tournaments. It also seems to be a European problem which might be a consequence of the general corruption levels.
I hope e-sports grows not the amount of unpaid price money.
|
Absolutely disgusting. So glad this was brought to light.
ESL seems to be the worst of the lot by far, I think we are due an explanation at the least.
|
On November 01 2011 15:09 Cuiu wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 07:29 aTnClouD wrote:On November 01 2011 07:27 Enhancer_ wrote:On November 01 2011 07:01 quakerix wrote:On November 01 2011 06:04 AndersR. wrote:
Kinda feel like ESWC has been bashed a bit too much in this thread, the owners now are not the ones who were known for not paying out the money, that where the previous owners who went bankruptcy with the brand. I'm pretty sure that the current owners have done a fine job paying out, at least as far as i remember that was what Na'Vi.cs said last year after they won it. Thank you. I'm extremely surprised that aTnCloud already posted about ESWC not paying out just a few days after the event. We didn't even finish up logistically and this event is already listed in this topic. Ok, i can imagine that because of the previous company going bankrupt the brand had some damage. But posting this before even contacting us is a bit harsh towards the new owners. Last year they paid out just a few weeks after the event and now we didn't even had the chance. You could have contacted us in 100 ways, your management has direct contacts with us, you could have replied to your invite email you could have even gone to our website and look up contact information. Anyway; i messaged you privately and i also already replied to you in the ESWC topic a few days earlier. Give us a break and we'll contact you as soon as possible. On November 01 2011 01:48 Jcnorheim wrote:
I am sorry that this happens.
Many community figures talk about how events compete with one another for viewers, and I think that this is definitely one of the factors that concerns at least some viewers.
On the other side of the coin though, ESWC probably didn't get nearly enough viewers due to having to compete with Blizzcon. So they already lost the competition for viewers. Maybe ESWC will use that as an excuse to disappear again. We had 100k simultaneous viewers as peak during our weekend and there were about 1500 people watching games at the stage. Don't worry about the fact that ESWC wasn't a success. It was. 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. 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. wow why do you put them in a bad light when that what you say is true...FP
ESWC ended only in october so they still have a lot of time to pay
|
On November 01 2011 15:08 FairForever wrote:Show nested quote +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. LOL I'm pretty sure hiring "agents" would cost more money than the amount they would recover. People don't do this pro bono, y'know.
Agents usually only make a % of what the player makes. Losing out on 5% of 100% of your earnings is cheaper than losing out on 0% of 80% of your earnings. Plus you don't have the headache of dealing with the organizers basically at all.
|
FFW: I did not read the last 30 pages, but from my spectator point it comes to mind that the players are often involved to late pay outs.
The players need to have all their contact/payout informations ready. It can't be that organizers wait for a player to submit their contact/account info after the tournament is finished. For me a "pro" has it all ready and submitted before the tournament even start. In this thread there were already false accusations. But maybe the organizers should also enforce to have all players to have their payout infos submitted, before the tournament etc even starts. Some leagues give penalty points for no shows etc (ESL, not exactly sure about NASL) which results in reduced prizes.
Dreamhack for an example has a clear rule in which it states that players forfeit any prizes if they do not invoice in time.
|
Lol? ESWC paid prize money out a couple weeks after a tourney ended? I'm sorry, but that sounds like a fantasy. They don't get the benefit of the doubt - not with their track record.
|
On November 01 2011 14:51 sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 14:01 hybridsc wrote:On November 01 2011 12:43 sermokala wrote:On November 01 2011 12:26 DoomsVille wrote:Quakerix posted this on Reddit: 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, Put your pitchforks away people. Cloud sure did exaggerate the hell out of that PM. 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. This exactly. Who the fuck is that guy to give shit to ClouD for bringing up an (obviously) important topic. ClouD even clarified his remarks and made special exception to ESWC. Quakerix is acting like this is some isolated incident, when in reality ESWC and other major tournaments all have similar problems of straight-up fraud. Why is it ClouD's responsibility to chase you guys down? Do you think his suspicions are unjust? Given the circumstances, I wouldn't say so. Your whole attitude on this topic is wrong. Take a note from IPL who, at least in appearance, seem like they're earnestly trying to fix their shit up and separate themselves from this shitshow. Instead you're acting all offended as if this post is a huge disservice to you guys. Well look it wouldn't be if you just paid the man and he cleared you guys publicly. What do you expect him to do when you show up with that condescending tone. What is ESWC without your players and fans? As an organization this is a chance to distinguish yourself and show that you care; not get all defensive. What horrible PR. (dumb fuck) And you know what, regardless of whether or not this issue has anything to do with the tournament organizers as opposed to the sponsors, my point is you shouldn't be pointing fingers at the players and fans. It's our duty to bring this shit up so it stops becoming a recurring problem. I think Quakerix is just following his company line. IPL is run by the former reddit invitational staff and at least from what I've read they're surprised by this and are doing stuff about it which sounds a hell of a lot better then some other organizations. ESL is a huge organization and I think they should get some slack for all the events they have to keep up on and all the different payouts that they need to keep track of (and make sure that the money is going to the right people. ESWC is in a completely different boat as I can't really tell what other event they have done other the the Paris event (which was horribly done might I add). I can imagine someone being really pissed that this is coming down on them right after an event and they're still within their payout time. being passive aggressive about not inviting a player for blowing a whistle on something leaves you in a really shitty spot. either you go though with it and get a hell of a lot of bad pr and risk other players following him or not doing anything and players taking advantage of you. Player loyalty is something that made mlg successful. Even with shitty prize pools compared to other events teams always went to mlg. I remember hearing about sundance giving t2 a free shirt when he was thinking that he would be the superstar he is today. ESL supports a hell of lot of esports so I'm going to keep watching them.
Just so you know, ESWC 2006 in Bercy was the BEST eSports event that EVER happened in the western world.
ClouD is a notorious rager and flamer and Quakerix already answered in another thread that ClouD shoudl contact him. But because he is as lazy, he prefers to complain.
Before you un-knowledgeable kids go on rampage like you know a damn shit about this, ESWC had ALL of the prize money in a bank account BEFORE the event. Like last year. Information is power, and all the quoted posters are obviously powerless.
On November 01 2011 15:23 PH wrote:
Lol? ESWC paid prize money out a couple weeks after a tourney ended? I'm sorry, but that sounds like a fantasy. They don't get the benefit of the doubt - not with their track record.
What do you know about their record ? Do you know why they couldn't pay out the 2008 edition ? Probably not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
