There was a post here on TeamLiquid by Cloud stating several things about prize money which has not been paid out. Some of the complaints were addressed at ESL.
The thread has obviously generated a lot of comments - many of them conveyed deserved criticism, some had questions, others simply had the issue wrong. I'm here to clear things up a bit and shed some light on the matter without any bullshit.
1) Why doesn't prize money get paid out instantly?
[This paragraph is meant to explain the procedure.]
The three month period of waiting for prize money should be communicated more as an "up to three month period". There is paperwork involved in processing prize money - money is being paid out literally every week to dozens of players (ESL hosts a very large number of cups). If an event was held on German soil, then a prize money tax needs to be applied and paid out to the German government (the player pays that amount less of income tax at home).
The 90 days is there also because most companies (sponsors) pay in chunks on a quarterly basis (90 days). Companies (leagues) with venture capital to spend tend to not have this problem.
2) ESL owes prize money.
What Cloud wrote is true (at least as regards the ESL part). In total ESL owes 32,870 EUR and 400 USD to StarCraft II players. Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenges: Cologne, Guangzhou and New York have not been paid out yet, but they are within their 90 day period and are expected to be paid out on schedule.
ESL does pay out prize money. Actually, ESL pays out every week, though there is a delay for many tournaments. Over the years ESL has already paid out close to $10,000,000 in prize money (that's money paid out, not promised-and-unpaid) - I think that's more than anyone else in the industry. This is a pretty decent track record of having paid out money. The money comes eventually, which is why players still come and compete in ESL events.
The current situation is not excusable and the fact that he will get his money eventually is no good consolation to Cloud (or anyone else, for that matter). ESL is working hard to make sure this goes away. The issue is treated very seriously in this company – in spite of appearances threatening is not needed.
3) Miscellaneous issues.
a) Team Na'Vi for Counter-Strike (mentioned in Cloud's thread) is getting paid their outstanding winnings on a seperate agreement between them and ESL. There's also some outstanding money from the last Intel Extreme Masters World Championship (but not for StarCraft II) that will be paid out soon, so my tweet was only correct for SC2. I was unaware of it at the time.
b) ESL is not blameworthy every single time (not to take blame away or anything, but to shed more light on the issue). A team or participant registering for ESL tournaments normally specifies the recipient of prize money - it can be a person or a company ("pro gaming team"). It can happen that the team withholds it from the player(s) without them being aware of it. I was told about such an issue today, actually (you'd be surprised who…).
c) It happens that a team or player does not get paid out simply because they don't manage to provide ESL with a bank account to send the money to. Marginal cases.
d) The average prize money delay differs between individual tournaments, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be. Obviously it should not happen. People at ESL are aware of it and are working to make sure everything gets paid and that the delay in prize money goes away.
The CEO of the company was a pro gamer himself in one of the manliest of games ever made (next to BroodWar). He knows about the issue, he treats it seriously and he keeps telling me it will be fixed. A Lannister always pays his debts.
Thank you for another perspective on this in a well formatted post. I feel most of the industry side's posts were spur of the moment in that thread, good to hear!
Hey Carmac, always appreciate the no BS attitude....
The current situation is not excusable and the fact that he will get his money eventually is no good consolation to Cloud (or anyone else, for that matter). ESL is working hard to make sure this goes away. The issue is treated very seriously in this company – in spite of appearances threatening is not needed.
Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
Very nice to see community outreach and an attempt at transparency/explaining. I think a better perspective to take is: you have a long way to go until you become ESEA or ESWC.
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
This whole topic could have easily been summed up into "Because we haven't been paid, you're not getting paid".
The disconnect between the players that play at the event and the organizers is that for some reason you feel this is acceptable. I doubt very much that the players would be complaining as much as they were if they were actually regularly paid within 90 days. It's not the players responsibility to continuously contact organizers after their promised pay periods to hope they'll receive money eventually. How tournament organizers allow players out the door without collecting all the information they require to pay the players is beyond me. How the players leave questioning how and if they'll be paid is just insane.
A lot of this simply was boiling down to poor organization leading to the players questioning if they would ever be paid (and obviously in some examples, they never have been).
Please note, this is not a direct attack at the ESL, it's just my opinion in general about poorly run tournaments
On November 04 2011 04:57 Carmac wrote: The 90 days is there also because most companies (sponsors) pay in chunks on a quarterly basis (90 days). Companies (leagues) with venture capital to spend tend to not have this problem.
This is something I addressed in Cloud's thread, and is something a lot of people are completely aware of or understand.
Kudos to Carmac for the post, and helping clear up some of the cloud (pun somewhat intended) over the idealization a lot of forum-goers have.
This is like politics i for one have to say , i rather see the people dieing then lieing theres goes stuff back to years , ESL isnt trustworthy.
for comparision this is like Bush making a statement about terrorists.
Even if that may sound ridicilous... thats how it is.
We need a sort of KeSPA organisation for EU no statements from the worst organisation. wich didnt had just wrongdoings in this games but general in older competive played games.
On November 04 2011 05:01 pHaRSiDE wrote: this should help clear some things up, but as usual some haters still gonna hate because drama in esports is fun to some.
What does this issue have to do with haters or drama? It's a serious issue and problems with payouts do exist. Even Carmac wrote it. It just clears up why it's up to 90 days, which is a pretty damn long time.
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
So you are saying part of the problem is not only paperwork, but also that you don't have the money in time? If so, how did you get in a situation where you don't have the prizemoney 90 days after the completion? If you think you can "catch up" just by normal day to day business the company can't run that bad, right?
On November 04 2011 05:01 pHaRSiDE wrote: this should help clear some things up, but as usual some haters still gonna hate because drama in esports is fun to some.
What does this issue have to do with haters or drama? It's a serious issue and problems with payouts do exist. Even Carmac wrote it. It just clears up why it's up to 90 days, which is a pretty damn long time.
Oh I know its a serious issue that needs to be debated. But I'm talking about posts like this :
On November 04 2011 05:13 Serashin wrote: This is like politics i for one have to say , i rather see the people dieing then lieing theres goes stuff back to years , ESL isnt trustworthy.
for comparision this is like Bush making a statement about terrorists.
Even if that may sound ridicilous... thats how it is.
We need a sort of KeSPA organisation for EU no statements from the worst organisation. wich didnt had just wrongdoings in this games but general in older competive played games.
On November 04 2011 05:18 riverkim09 wrote: What happens if you guys go over this time limit??
Nothing, that's the problem. The players just have to wait and hope they're on the top of the totem poll when the tournament organizers receive some of their sponsorship money.
b) ESL is not blameworthy every single time (not to take blame away or anything, but to shed more light on the issue). A team or participant registering for ESL tournaments normally specifies the recipient of prize money - it can be a person or a company ("pro gaming team"). It can happen that the team withholds it from the player(s) without them being aware of it. I was told about such an issue today, actually (you'd be surprised who…).
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
The plan is to eventually have ESL pay out in a normal, preordained pay window (90 days I think you mentioned) but there's no time frame as to how long that will take to be implemented? Is there a plan to keep at least teams/competitors updated on the issue?
On November 04 2011 05:16 SnapCall wrote: So you are saying part of the problem is not only paperwork, but also that you don't have the money in time? If so, how did you get in a situation where you don't have the prizemoney 90 days after the completion? If you think you can "catch up" just by normal day to day business the company can't run that bad, right?
ESL has grown considerably more multifaceted over the years. Throwing the amount of events they organize, in all the different countries that they do is going to be slowed down through red tape, certain accounting practices, general overhead and a lot of other factors.
He also confirmed the common practice of sponsors paying in chunks. Somewhere in all the transactions they have to deal with, for the money they receive and dish out through bills, salaries and prize money, they were bound to be short at various stages.
Saying their day to day activities will catch them up means that they have adjusted their model to use supplanted revenue from whatever new sources they've worked towards.
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
So you are saying part of the problem is not only paperwork, but also that you don't have the money in time? If so, how did you get in a situation where you don't have the prizemoney 90 days after the completion? If you think you can "catch up" just by normal day to day business the company can't run that bad, right?
They have the money, did you not read how sponsors pay in installments? Surprise surprise, most companies aren't too keen on throwing millions of dollars around in one massive chunk.
It would be nice if people from the industry who have current (not past) issues with ESL not paying/delaying prize money post in this thread with as much detail as possible, so that Carmac would be able to address them in front of everyone.
I think the perfect and only responsible way to resolve this entire issue is one simple thing.
Do not hold events. Do not hold Cups or any competition unless you have money to pay. Waiting for chunks and quarterly earnings is at best irresponsible and worst, almost criminal.
Get the money in the bank, announce your event. Take your thirty days or sixty or however long it takes to clear up the bureaucratic red tape, and get players paid. Do not host any event with nonexistent prize money. If it hurts your bottom line for a couple of months, that sucks. However you shouldn't be toying with your employees like this under any circumstance. Until changes like this are made, known tournaments like ESL, or any tournament, I personally will never support them. Sure, I'm a nobody. One person not watching or buying a sponsored product doesn't matter. I am a person of morals, however. Straighten out your business and then you'll have mine again.
Also wondering what happens when you go over the 90 day, self-imposed time limit.
Another major concern was how so many pros were iterating that they had to consistently hunt down the tournament managers on their own to collect prizes rather than having the tournaments take responsibility and contacting their champions. How is this dealt with?
Isnt Extreme Masters owned by Intel? Is Intel serious about this?! One of the largest processor companies worth billions of dollars? So lame. If you do something do it right.
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
So you are saying part of the problem is not only paperwork, but also that you don't have the money in time? If so, how did you get in a situation where you don't have the prizemoney 90 days after the completion? If you think you can "catch up" just by normal day to day business the company can't run that bad, right?
They have the money, did you not read how sponsors pay in installments? Surprise surprise, most companies aren't too keen on throwing millions of dollars around in one massive chunk.
How does "most companies (sponsors) pay in chunks on a quarterly basis (90 days)" explain almost a year delay on EPS Germany prizemoney? I'm sorry but you don't have the money if you haven't payed out 8 months after your own deadline...
Is it just me, or is throwing out a cheesy pop culture reference at the end of such a serious topic kind of belittling the whole subject?
At least have your own people be in charge of keeping players up to date and tracking them down for payment. They should never have to do it themselves. That is like a mail in rebate scam.
On November 04 2011 05:33 Enhancer_ wrote: Also wondering what happens when you go over the 90 day, self-imposed time limit.
Another major concern was how so many pros were iterating that they had to consistently hunt down the tournament managers on their own to collect prizes rather than having the tournaments take responsibility and contacting their champions. How is this dealt with?
In most of our tournaments players are contacted soon after a tournament by email for their details. In my experience, many of the times a player says they were not contacted, they were but did not see it in their email (or additionally ESL site message) etc. For example Darkforce's Dailymotion prize money is unpaid because he did not see the emails (for which I have now contacted him to correct).
For some (e.g. EPS, and IEM at least in the past, not sure with the new format) the prize money details are given in advance by the players or managers.
It does not matter that you pay most of your prizes and that you paid out over 10mil in prizes so far - people will call you out on the unpaid stuff and will remember ESL for the negative stuff untill it is fixed.
I'm sorry Carmac, but mud does need to be flung! You boys need to fix your business model. If MLG can pay out right away - you should be able to aswell and they aggresivly seek out the people that they owe money which doesnt seem the case with esl. Money loses value over time these days so the longer you wait the less it is actually worth.
On November 04 2011 05:46 Edtjuh wrote: Hello, I played an ESL hosted tournament 1.5 years ago and i won the cup. Till this day, i still haven't received my ESL prize money from it, even though i made support-tickets on the ESL site and contacting admins, explaining my current situation with it. So far, nobody at ESL could give me a proper explanation other then "We're paying out soon, dont worry about it". Its been 1.5 years ... Reading this thread, and Clouds thread, just shows that the ESL prize-payout system is one big joke.
EMS 5 and 6 DoW2, Dragon Alliance? Has been paid. Contacting you to clarify.
On November 04 2011 05:48 Kluey wrote: It sounds like you're trying to cover up not paying. Obviously either you're lying or Cloud and many other progamers are lying.
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
So you are saying part of the problem is not only paperwork, but also that you don't have the money in time? If so, how did you get in a situation where you don't have the prizemoney 90 days after the completion? If you think you can "catch up" just by normal day to day business the company can't run that bad, right?
They have the money, did you not read how sponsors pay in installments? Surprise surprise, most companies aren't too keen on throwing millions of dollars around in one massive chunk.
How does "most companies (sponsors) pay in chunks on a quarterly basis (90 days)" explain almost a year delay on EPS Germany prizemoney? I'm sorry but you don't have the money if you haven't payed out 8 months after your own deadline...
Well according to his post the vast majority of the money owed is still within the 90 day period.
And he also said that leagues like the MLG that have stockpiles of their own money have an easier/faster time paying out. Eventually all the big leagues will be like that but right now a lot of our leagues are still living tournament to tournament.
I'm honestly not entirely sure where I stand on this issue but I'm definitely not happy with all the people who clearly have no idea what's going on double fisting pitchforks.
On November 04 2011 04:57 Carmac wrote: It can happen that the team withholds it from the player(s) without them being aware of it. I was told about such an issue today, actually (you'd be surprised who…)
On November 04 2011 05:48 Kluey wrote: It sounds like you're trying to cover up not paying. Obviously either you're lying or Cloud and many other progamers are lying.
ESL does pay, just not on time(wayyyyy to much time) and thats the problem. Stop trying to make it something its not
On November 04 2011 05:46 Edtjuh wrote: Hello, I played an ESL hosted tournament 1.5 years ago and i won the cup. Till this day, i still haven't received my ESL prize money from it, even though i made support-tickets on the ESL site and contacting admins, explaining my current situation with it. So far, nobody at ESL could give me a proper explanation other then "We're paying out soon, dont worry about it". Its been 1.5 years ... Reading this thread, and Clouds thread, just shows that the ESL prize-payout system is one big joke.
EMS 5 and 6 DoW2, Dragon Alliance? Has been paid. Contacting you to clarify.
Thank you. EMS 6 hasn't been payed out, EMS 5 did. Heh, after such a long time i get noticed here, instead of ESL. Ironic ...
Carmac, it depends what you guys write into your contracts. If you actuelly have a clause that gives you 90 days to pay, it is no legal problem when both parties have agrred on it. If there is no such clause, the ESL should be very careful. I would not hesitate to give you a short timespan to pay and then sue you in the court in Cologne.
On November 04 2011 05:46 Edtjuh wrote: Hello, I played an ESL hosted tournament 1.5 years ago and i won the cup. Till this day, i still haven't received my ESL prize money from it, even though i made support-tickets on the ESL site and contacting admins, explaining my current situation with it. So far, nobody at ESL could give me a proper explanation other then "We're paying out soon, dont worry about it". Its been 1.5 years ... Reading this thread, and Clouds thread, just shows that the ESL prize-payout system is one big joke.
EMS 5 and 6 DoW2, Dragon Alliance? Has been paid. Contacting you to clarify.
Thank you. EMS 6 hasn't been payed out, EMS 5 did. Heh, after such a long time i get noticed here, instead of ESL. Ironic ...
On November 04 2011 05:47 DISHU wrote: I'm sorry Carmac, but mud does need to be flung! You boys need to fix your business model. If MLG can pay out right away - you should be able to aswell and they aggresivly seek out the people that they owe money which doesnt seem the case with esl. Money loses value over time these days so the longer you wait the less it is actually worth.
I will stop explaining esports business on TL as it seems to fall on deaf ears, but here goes one last time:
I am not saying MLG do not have a sustainable business model, I will however say that a company that gets a 10 million dollar investment in 2010 will of course be able to pay out prize money that is not much more than 50k total right away in 2011. Ask the console players if they get paid out right away, and the past contenders if they have been. Look at what GotFrag has become to see how investments can go wrong. These things happen, and a company in existence for more than 10 years which contributed a great deal to the development of esports in the world will experience their fair share of it. At least try to look at the business side of things for a moment.
Stop hosting tournaments? Who's going to benefit from that, surely neither players nor spectators. The delays are bad, but they don't destroy what esports is like, in fact over years in the past where delays and non-payment was worse they sure did not.
On November 04 2011 05:57 Dexx wrote: Carmac, it depends what you guys write into your contracts. If you actuelly have a clause that gives you 90 days to pay, it is no legal problem when both parties have agrred on it. If there is no such clause, the ESL should be very careful. I would not hesitate to give you a short timespan to pay and then sue you in the court in Cologne.
Don't know when it was updated last time, but it says 90 days as a standard case and 180 days as the worst case in the tournament rules. No sanctions or anything on violations mentioned of course.
On November 04 2011 05:56 Trusty wrote: A lot of cut nerds in here who don't understand how real-world business works.
Paying players doesn't have anything to do with how real business works.
I run a business, I can't go to my suppliers "Hey guiz, not enough customers came in to my store to buy stuff, I can't pay you. Sowwiez" Or if I did, they'd be sending me a legal letter threatening to sue me for past due product.
That's how real business works.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my lawyers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
On November 04 2011 04:57 Carmac wrote: 1) Why doesn't prize money get paid out instantly?
That's not the issue.
Nobody's flipping out because prize money isn't in their bank accounts the day after an event. People want to how an organisation like the ESL can come to find itself with debts that are, in some cases, years in arrears.
There's clearly a problem within the ESL of people not getting their prize money and it's not because someone glanced over an email or forget to give a bank account number. It's systemic and has been for many years, so address the issue now. Why is it happening and what do you plan to do about it?
Try keep in mind this is peoples livelihoods you're dicking around with.
Thank fuck you aren't just throwing this under the carpet, like many companies in other (non-esports related) industries. Even though the situation sucks, thanks for addressing it <3
On November 04 2011 05:56 Trusty wrote: A lot of cut nerds in here who don't understand how real-world business works.
Paying players doesn't have anything to do with how real business works.
I run a business, I can't go to my suppliers "Hey guiz, not enough customers came in to my store to buy stuff, I can't pay you. Sowwiez" Or if I did, they'd be sending me a legal letter threatening to sue me for past due product.
That's how real business works.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my layers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
And they are...90 days. The ones that aren't have been called out and are dying.
Like Carmac said in the OP, the vast majority of the money owed is still within the contracted time-frame.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my layers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
On November 04 2011 05:47 DISHU wrote: I'm sorry Carmac, but mud does need to be flung! You boys need to fix your business model. If MLG can pay out right away - you should be able to aswell and they aggresivly seek out the people that they owe money which doesnt seem the case with esl. Money loses value over time these days so the longer you wait the less it is actually worth.
I will stop explaining esports business on TL as it seems to fall on deaf ears, but here goes one last time:
I am not saying MLG do not have a sustainable business model, I will however say that a company that gets a 10 million dollar investment in 2010 will of course be able to pay out prize money that is not much more than 50k total right away in 2011. Ask the console players if they get paid out right away, and the past contenders if they have been. Look at what GotFrag has become to see how investments can go wrong. These things happen, and a company in existence for more than 10 years which contributed a great deal to the development of esports in the world will experience their fair share of it. At least try to look at the business side of things for a moment.
Stop hosting tournaments? Who's going to benefit from that, surely neither players nor spectators. The delays are bad, but they don't destroy what esports is like, in fact over years in the past where delays and non-payment was worse they sure did not.
I sir make it for everyone simple , currently eSports is like McDonalds in its early time relative unknown but this is like the time where any bad stuff can hurt you in the long run.
eSports made steps wich future is ensured by now i give it 3-4 years and there are viwerships of atleast 1 / 20 of current well known sports.
Im not further explaining why , all i know and what is fact ESL is a not trustworthy organisation the post from Carnac itself just made it even more redicilous , ESL will go down eventualy or stay in future as a corrupt pillar no one needs that.
On November 04 2011 05:57 Dexx wrote: Carmac, it depends what you guys write into your contracts. If you actuelly have a clause that gives you 90 days to pay, it is no legal problem when both parties have agrred on it. If there is no such clause, the ESL should be very careful. I would not hesitate to give you a short timespan to pay and then sue you in the court in Cologne.
Don't know when it was updated last time, but it says 90 days as a standard case and 180 days as the worst case in the tournament rules. No sanctions or anything on violations mentioned of course.
180 days seems unreasonable and I don't think that clause would hold in a court, even more so if it is a small sum. But 90 days seems fine for such a clause.
Here is my advice for the pros, if German civil law is applicable:
Wait until that timespan expires and then put ESL "in Verzug" (§ 286 BGB). When they are "in Verzug" you can claim all your damages (costs for laywers etc). The ESL has no "Einwendungen und Einreden" against the claims of the players. They are the ones who are breaching the contracts, if they don't pay out, not you. Don't let yourself be put under pressure by a big guy, if he is wrong. The law is on your side.
This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
Are you talking about ESL in general or just IEM? Because i know people who has been "waiting" for their money/gear for a months (not just 3) and even years from ESL tournaments. The thread Cloud made, made it very clear that ESL is one of the worst organizers when it comes to paying out prizes and there was many examples of this. To be honest, if you have been around in e-sports, either as a spectator or as a player, this shouldn't come as a surprise.
So is there a huge communication problems between the teams/players and ESL or are is it simply ESL's poor handle on things? I really hope ESL can turn this around and i hope for IEM's sake especially, that the prizes will be paid "in time" and without any problems.
On November 03 2011 22:12 Thebbeuttiffulland wrote:
On November 03 2011 21:34 Grettin wrote:
On November 03 2011 19:00 Thebbeuttiffulland wrote:
On November 03 2011 06:49 xi Tempest x wrote:
On November 03 2011 04:08 Socke wrote: im still waiting for more than 15600€ in total at the moment. im quite sure ill get the prizemoney with the exception of these 3 tournaments though. DSRACK Lan 400€ im quite sure by now not to ever see the money.
for DH Cointoss Tournament 10.000 SEK ~1100€ and ESL Torneo Campus Party 2000€ i think its not too unlikely that ill get it.
so if anyone has an idea on how to get payment from these events, feel free to pm me :D
Do you get a salary from aTn? 15600 is a lot of money :O
no he plays for them for free :D
Just FYI, it's not uncommon that teams/players doesn't receive salary at all or nothing fancy. They might just be in the team for the support, i.e flights to tournaments.
On November 03 2011 19:49 Thebbeuttiffulland wrote:
On November 03 2011 19:36 Satiinifi wrote: Sent message to mr Shawn esl admin about wc3 enc 2010 prizes some days ago, no asnwer surprise surprise! Apparently 18months isnt enought time for esl to pay up.
lol sending messages after 18 months seriously?
Common sense would tell you that OF COURSE he has messaged/contacted them already. Why would you even think otherwise? -_-
what i ment is if someone doesnt pay you for 18 months they are obviously not going to pay now
That's not true, I got paid in 2010 for IEM 2007, about 3 years after I got 3rd in it. TT
This clearly shows that someone is doing a poor job.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
I think what most people/players are upset about is the bad communication. When will the money be paid? When are the players being asked for the bank account data? Do they feel cared about if the have any question regarding the prizes, or do they face people not able to answer their questions? These problems aren`t new and they won`t go away during the next days/weeks. Nonetheless I appreciate Carmacs action and thank him for the statement. But now it`s time for every tournament organizer to brief their staff and improve general communication skills. (that the money has to be paid is a no-brainer)
On November 04 2011 05:46 Edtjuh wrote: Hello, I played an ESL hosted tournament 1.5 years ago and i won the cup. Till this day, i still haven't received my ESL prize money from it, even though i made support-tickets on the ESL site and contacting admins, explaining my current situation with it. So far, nobody at ESL could give me a proper explanation other then "We're paying out soon, dont worry about it". Its been 1.5 years ... Reading this thread, and Clouds thread, just shows that the ESL prize-payout system is one big joke.
EMS 5 and 6 DoW2, Dragon Alliance? Has been paid. Contacting you to clarify.
Thank you. EMS 6 hasn't been payed out, EMS 5 did. Heh, after such a long time i get noticed here, instead of ESL. Ironic ...
Yes it has. Emailed you.
Thank you for contacting me Mr. ESL-Admin. They has provided me with the information about the prize and has payed me out. Case closed guys.
On November 04 2011 05:56 Trusty wrote: A lot of cut nerds in here who don't understand how real-world business works.
Paying players doesn't have anything to do with how real business works.
I run a business, I can't go to my suppliers "Hey guiz, not enough customers came in to my store to buy stuff, I can't pay you. Sowwiez" Or if I did, they'd be sending me a legal letter threatening to sue me for past due product.
That's how real business works.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my layers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
And they are...90 days. The ones that aren't have been called out and are dying.
Like Carmac said in the OP, the vast majority of the money owed is still within the contracted time-frame.
That's the bit that I am having a problem with. We all know the IdrAs and the Stephonos will get their big novelty checks. The problem I have are people like Cloud, and Darkforce and all lesser known players that bust their ass on the weekly cups from around the world to keep their lights on. Sure, thousands upon thousands are being paid or will be shortly. But $150 here, $200 there is the difference between staying home and practicing to make their aspirations a reality and then going to work at Home Depot 40 hours a week so they can have a plate of food to eat. That's where my problem lies.
On November 04 2011 05:48 Kluey wrote: It sounds like you're trying to cover up not paying. Obviously either you're lying or Cloud and many other progamers are lying.
On November 04 2011 05:56 Trusty wrote: A lot of cut nerds in here who don't understand how real-world business works.
Paying players doesn't have anything to do with how real business works.
I run a business, I can't go to my suppliers "Hey guiz, not enough customers came in to my store to buy stuff, I can't pay you. Sowwiez" Or if I did, they'd be sending me a legal letter threatening to sue me for past due product.
That's how real business works.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my lawyers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
And they are...90 days. The ones that aren't have been called out and are dying.
Like Carmac said in the OP, the vast majority of the money owed is still within the contracted time-frame.
What they're telling us and what the truth is are two different things. It may not be too far apart, but I guarantee you that they'll tell you nothing else. They need people to believe they're as close to on time with their payments as they can, they need to try to stay in the good light. But too much negativity has come out directed towards them to believe it.
On November 04 2011 05:56 Trusty wrote: A lot of cut nerds in here who don't understand how real-world business works.
Paying players doesn't have anything to do with how real business works.
I run a business, I can't go to my suppliers "Hey guiz, not enough customers came in to my store to buy stuff, I can't pay you. Sowwiez" Or if I did, they'd be sending me a legal letter threatening to sue me for past due product.
That's how real business works.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my layers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
And they are...90 days. The ones that aren't have been called out and are dying.
Like Carmac said in the OP, the vast majority of the money owed is still within the contracted time-frame.
That's the bit that I am having a problem with. We all know the IdrAs and the Stephonos will get their big novelty checks. The problem I have are people like Cloud, and Darkforce and all lesser known players that bust their ass on the weekly cups from around the world to keep their lights on. Sure, thousands upon thousands are being paid or will be shortly. But $150 here, $200 there is the difference between staying home and practicing to make their aspirations a reality and then going to work at Home Depot 40 hours a week so they can have a plate of food to eat. That's where my problem lies.
And all of the evidence and testimony indicates that any delays in paying them are exceptions, not the norm.
Tournament organizers are not downs ridden idiots. They got their positions because they do their jobs well.
They are not evil maniacs laughing in their volcano lairs about how they tricked stupid players into performing for free.
Mistakes happen and there are some bad tournaments. But lambasting good tournamnts (I believe IdrA said you should support ESL on the last SotG), is absolutely silly and is more likely to damage esports than correct any problems.
Kudos on responding to everything that has been talked about. I think you guys are the first ones to really stand out and state your side of the story. Hope it all improves greatly, more of these late paying tourneys should post things like this to give insight on what is happening on their end, and if they are doing anything to improve. Obviously this is very PR, so only time will tell if it will get better or perfect, but the fact that you show you are reading and hearing these things, and can respond to it is a very good sign.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They paid back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
As much as i really like Carmac and what he's doing to the community, this post is not satisfying at all, especially considering all those pros agreeing about ESL and their long lack of payment.
I understand and kinda approve the first point - all the paper work can delay things significantly, so setting an 90 days payment delay is reasonable and ok in general. But the rest... the rest is just soaping communities eyes. Ok, it's cool that ESL payed 10 million $ in price money and it's "more than everyone", but how much of it was really delayed, kinda last years cash? Not the mass matters in these days, but the quality, so either chill with the amounts of tournaments or hire more people to manage the cash flow - that would be my lil solution to this problem.
I find statement about people not leaving their bank accounts just silly, not only in the context of ESL, but all the "problematic" tournaments - take the data in the application for the tournament, do not let the players even touch their keyboards without that. I think this is more than manageable, and if not - again, hire more ppls to do the job
And for the last -
The average prize money delay differs between individual tournaments, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be.
So, how bad is it? Why is so many people complaining, that in fact IT IS as bad as it's made out to be. And in general, i would like to know (as many pointed out earlier), what happens with a progamer that waits more than 90 days for their money? How do you handle that kind of situation? Where can progames go to talk with someone competent about it (because that seem to be the worst case in my eyes)?
I think that big tournaments need to require progamers to sign contracts before participating, specifying the exact time frame in which the money is to be payed out and exactly what bank/personal information they need to provide in order to make sure that taxes are taken care of properly and the money makes it to the correct bank account. Most likely, as Carnac said, there's a lot of paperwork involving taxes and other things when the tournament is held in one country, there are players from all around the world, and the company running the tournament might be headquartered somewhere else; this is why there needs to be a contract that clearly describes the whole process of receiving prize money and what bank information players must provide.
That way, it is easier to hold tournament organizers legally responsible if they do not pay out the prize money as promised, and means that progamers can't complain if they don't provide the necessary information since it would all be explained in the contract.
Why would you host a tournament knowing you cannot pay out straight away? Don't tell me it's because of paperwork and other nonsense when MLG pays out on the day. What makes ESL different to MLG in terms of paying out to players?
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
On November 04 2011 06:22 YounKa wrote: Ok, it's cool that ESL payed 10 million $ in price money and it's "more than everyone", but how much of it was really delayed, kinda last years cash? Not the mass matters in these days, but the quality, so either chill with the amounts of tournaments or hire more people to manage the cash flow - that would be my lil solution to this problem.
When they stop doing tournaments, they don't generate money. It's not like money just magically flows in...
Also, "hire more people". They cut a lot of costs including personnel to stay operational.
I don't know how to read financial reports but seeing big numbers behind the minus in the Turtle Entertainment (the company behind ESL) financial report of 2009 doesn't indicate that they have a lot of money laying around.
How about players start requesting interest let say 5% their winnings monthly if ESL is late (after 90 days, if player has given bank account of course). This should make ESL much quicker.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
Exactly, just look at the guy above. He said that he hadn't been paid for something that happened last year, but it was revealed that he hadn't checked his balance / email. I'd imagine that email was sent last year. Once something appears to have passed, it can stay undetected for a loong time...
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
Players keep going to their tournaments isn´t what i would call proof. And no, i don´t think the 2010 ESL "fix" is indicative for improvements since many sc2 progamers still say they miss money from more more than a year ago. Also the number "46 000 dollar" comes from ESL if im not mistaken? They are not really what i would call objective.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
? to the last line , thats more called the influence of propaganda and stupidy the smart players and very notable ones dont attend , i do not know how the IEM / ESL influence is meaning i do not know how they are split or formed together , but i do know that the current ESL excluding IEM about wich i dont have enough intel is totaly a organisation that has to fall.
But given how Carnac posts and how it works together the odds are 80 / 20 that Carnac is for the 80 % chance a corrupt buisnessman , or the 20 % he gets abused. only taking stuff in account that is visible , invisible realistic options i keep quiet about.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
Players keep going to their tournaments isn´t what i would call proof. And no, i don´t think the 2010 ESL "fix" is indicative for improvements since many sc2 progamers still say they miss money from more more than a year ago. Also the number "46 000 dollar" comes from ESL if im not mistaken? They are not really what i would call objective.
Fine, so you just think they're liars. You're allowed to have that opinion but I don't see why you're in this thread. If every explanation and story they offer is going to be met with "you're a liar" then any discourse with you probably won't be terribly productive.
The biggest issue that I found when I read Cloud's post was the fact that pro gamers personally have to contact and "remind" the organisations that they actually owe them money, else nothing will happen for up to a year.
On November 04 2011 06:36 Too_MuchZerg wrote: How about players start requesting interest let say 5% their winnings monthly if ESL is late (after 90 days, if player has given bank account of course). This should make ESL much quicker.
Not sure about other countries but 5% interest on US dollars is downright usury. Current interest rates are flirting with 0% on pretty much everything except the most jackpot investments.
the problem here simply has to do with business matter.
the players has no leverage on expecting his prize money on time. he has to "trust" the tournament organizer.
contracts can only be upheld if and only if both players AND organizers have leverage, simple game theory.
as of right now, players have no real power. there's absolutely nothing cloud or any other player can do about ESL taking up to a year to pay the prize.
now, i understand carmac's position which is "hey guiz trust us, we're legit, and we'll pay within 90 days, so long as we get information from players". Which is a great PR, and I'm sure IEM is legit on their payment.
but the problem here is 'trust". trust doesn't actually mean shit in legal transaction, it has to do with leverage. Players can't indite the organizers since the legal fees would out weigh whatever the disputed amount of prizemoney being owed.
So everyone that said they hadn't gotten money from esls for a 6 months to 1+ years is just lying and its only 3 months max? Kinda find it hard to believe that many people would lie.
On November 04 2011 06:36 Too_MuchZerg wrote: How about players start requesting interest let say 5% their winnings monthly if ESL is late (after 90 days, if player has given bank account of course). This should make ESL much quicker.
By putting the ESL in default (§ 286 BGB) you can claim 5% interests (§ 288 BGB) according to German civil law.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
? to the last line , thats more called the influence of propaganda and stupidy the smart players and very notable ones dont attend , i do not know how the IEM / ESL influence is meaning i do not know how they are split or formed together , but i do know that the current ESL excluding IEM about wich i dont have enough intel is totaly a organisation that has to fall.
But given how Carnac posts and how it works together the odds are 80 / 20 that Carnac is for the 80 % chance a corrupt buisnessman , or the 20 % he gets abused. only taking stuff in account that is visible , invisible realistic options i keep quiet about.
Wow, someone's in bad blood about Carmac. What happened??
On November 04 2011 06:36 Too_MuchZerg wrote: How about players start requesting interest let say 5% their winnings monthly if ESL is late (after 90 days, if player has given bank account of course). This should make ESL much quicker.
Not sure about other countries but 5% interest on US dollars is downright usury. Current interest rates are flirting with 0% on pretty much everything except the most jackpot investments.
current interest rates in a bank is around 0%, but interest rate on a LOAN on another hand is much higher. If anything, it should be considered a 'loan', since they're effectively loaning their prizemoney to "x" tourney to continue using the prizemoney as a fund.
On November 04 2011 06:47 darkest44 wrote: So everyone that said they hadn't gotten money from esls for a 6 months to 1+ years is just lying and its only 3 months max? Kinda find it hard to believe that many people would lie.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
Players keep going to their tournaments isn´t what i would call proof. And no, i don´t think the 2010 ESL "fix" is indicative for improvements since many sc2 progamers still say they miss money from more more than a year ago. Also the number "46 000 dollar" comes from ESL if im not mistaken? They are not really what i would call objective.
Fine, so you just think they're liars. You're allowed to have that opinion but I don't see why you're in this thread. If every explanation and story they offer is going to be met with "you're a liar" then any discourse with you probably won't be terribly productive.
You lay words like liar in my mouth. I just said those numbers aren´t objective, which they aren´t. You have to be a fool to completely rely on only one parts "facts" in a drama like this.
Doesn't MLG have 0 delay in handing out their cheques? Of course, their prize pool is much smaller but I am still not understanding the huge discrepancies: it takes one company 0 days and another company 90 days? Please explain, thanks!
On November 04 2011 06:50 wxwx wrote: Doesn't MLG have 0 delay in handing out their cheques? Of course, their prize pool is much smaller but I am still not understanding the huge discrepancies: it takes one company 0 days and another company 90 days? Please explain, thanks!
Like he said in the OP, MLG has piles of cash sitting on hand. Very few leagues have that.
On November 04 2011 06:36 Too_MuchZerg wrote: How about players start requesting interest let say 5% their winnings monthly if ESL is late (after 90 days, if player has given bank account of course). This should make ESL much quicker.
Not sure about other countries but 5% interest on US dollars is downright usury. Current interest rates are flirting with 0% on pretty much everything except the most jackpot investments.
Lol? When you don't pay your debt, the bank comes and takes your house and other stuff (mortgage or something) And if it's in the mafia bussiness, you are dead....
On November 04 2011 06:47 darkest44 wrote: So everyone that said they hadn't gotten money from esls for a 6 months to 1+ years is just lying and its only 3 months max? Kinda find it hard to believe that many people would lie.
No, that's not what my post says.
So you do or do not own money to players past 90 days?
On November 04 2011 06:50 wxwx wrote: Doesn't MLG have 0 delay in handing out their cheques? Of course, their prize pool is much smaller but I am still not understanding the huge discrepancies: it takes one company 0 days and another company 90 days? Please explain, thanks!
I think it has to do with MLG funds. I think MLG makes majority of its money from itself, not including sponsors. I think for other tournaments majority of its money is gained directly from sponsors.
On November 04 2011 06:47 darkest44 wrote: So everyone that said they hadn't gotten money from esls for a 6 months to 1+ years is just lying and its only 3 months max? Kinda find it hard to believe that many people would lie.
No, that's not what my post says.
Your posts says that you try to pay it out in 90 days, but if you don't, it's cool. Nothing will happen anyways. I mean, you guys don't want to take longer.. so it's A okay!
On November 04 2011 05:03 Adebisi wrote: Can you explain what ESL is doing to make this go away? Or at least your goals as to how fast money should be paid out, and when you think your events will be able to pay out that quickly?
It really depends on what money goes in, what goes out. Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities.
If you want to run a successful business this is really not the way to approach the situation. I don't know what your organization strive for but anyway:
If you (ESL) want to reach out to sponsors by showing off large audiences and ad exposure and what not, you should be aware that the players are one of the prime attractions. Before, and maybe currently, these players have little choice but to play in non perfect tournaments.. but this is changing as more tournaments appear, the players can choose not to participate in ESL and spend their time elsewhere, followed by the viewers.
Catering to the players and teams are therefore one of the most important activities to maintain a long term survival.
Average price money payment time should be one of a few keys to measure your performance to catering the players. You need to compare it to similar tournaments, and also against the players expectations if you want to be highly regarded.
So... to appease us... 1) Please go back and find out what the average payment time is 2) Find out what the desired state is (arrive at a number of days) 3) Look into what can be done to reach this desired state And finally, 4) share us something more detailed than what you did, so we can see the intent rather than the current excuses.
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
Paying some prize money years after deadline is a joke. Worst part is that you cannot give an example of what you are doing to solve the problem. ". Most likely ESL will be catching up slowly via normal ESL day to day activities." is NOT enough.
It's 2011 (almost 2012) now buddy. Citing an incident almost 5 years ago is hardly proof that today's ESL is running things poorly.
And yes, as their revenue picks up and their payout system becomes more efficient, their day to day activity will catch them up.
Also, for the record, their outstanding payments represent 0.46% of what they have currently paid out in total, they really don't have far to go to "catch up."
Oh so since they dont pay for 3 years you cannot be citing it? They payed back the money ONE year ago, so i wouldn´t call it outdated by any means.
Also, how can you be so sure that their payout system becomes more efficient? What kind of proof do you have? Do you work there or what? If its been like this for years, and they think the problem basically solves itself is just naive.
Also where did you get the number 0.46% from? would be interesting to know since a lot of progamers came out and told us that ESL still owed them money.
Convert Euros to dollars and add it to their current USD "debt."
They owe approximately $46,000.
46000/10000000 = ~0.46%
And that problem with Grubby stemmed from how things were run back in 2007. Documents get lost and things get forgotten. It's not surprising that once it fell off the radar it took the 2010 ESL to fix it. If anything that's indicative of how the improvements in the league have allowed them to catch up and correct past mistakes.
My proof that their system is good and getting better? Players keep going to their tournaments.
? to the last line , thats more called the influence of propaganda and stupidy the smart players and very notable ones dont attend , i do not know how the IEM / ESL influence is meaning i do not know how they are split or formed together , but i do know that the current ESL excluding IEM about wich i dont have enough intel is totaly a organisation that has to fall.
But given how Carnac posts and how it works together the odds are 80 / 20 that Carnac is for the 80 % chance a corrupt buisnessman , or the 20 % he gets abused. only taking stuff in account that is visible , invisible realistic options i keep quiet about.
Wow, someone's in bad blood about Carmac. What happened??
I'd hardly call that a list of players who aren't smart or well known...
no bad blood , more like killing time while playing a game thats called "buisness" its pretty popular in real life you know. will sleep now and check when i got time again on updates or i find something more interesting but this stuff is just to crystal clear and very bad propaganda ^^
On November 04 2011 06:54 LovE-z33k wrote: So basically, you're saying it will be paid. Cool...
Why is it that MLG pays out right away, and ESL doesn't. The whole 90 day thing is BS, and nothing stops you from going over that time period anyways.
If you read above, its because MLG already has money on hand, something rare for tournament. (though i think MLG's financials is something a lot of other tournament should copy).
I bet it's aTn that's not paying their players. Incoming Socke team change.
In any case, I'm sure most of us appreciate what you've written but it's nothing we don't already know. What we want to know is how you're fixing things and what could be done to improve this issue. Look into ways to reduce that 90 day time, you know? Discussion.
Also @carmac, a lot of the posters are semi-angry, but I think I speak for everyone that we're glad that you're at least opening a line of communication to TL community.
On November 04 2011 06:54 LovE-z33k wrote: So basically, you're saying it will be paid. Cool...
Why is it that MLG pays out right away, and ESL doesn't. The whole 90 day thing is BS, and nothing stops you from going over that time period anyways.
If you read above, its because MLG already has money on hand, something rare for tournament. (though i think MLG's financials is something a lot of other tournament should copy).
On November 04 2011 06:54 LovE-z33k wrote: So basically, you're saying it will be paid. Cool...
Why is it that MLG pays out right away, and ESL doesn't. The whole 90 day thing is BS, and nothing stops you from going over that time period anyways.
It has been repeated 1000000000000 times !
MLG had a lot of venture capital thrown at them this year, something like 10,000,000$, so, well, obviously they will be able to pay instantly, in the other hand, ESL depends on sponsorship money...
On November 04 2011 06:57 wei2coolman wrote: If you read above, its because MLG already has money on hand, something rare for tournament. (though i think MLG's financials is something a lot of other tournament should copy).
Venture capital is not something everyone should copy.
On November 04 2011 06:47 darkest44 wrote: So everyone that said they hadn't gotten money from esls for a 6 months to 1+ years is just lying and its only 3 months max? Kinda find it hard to believe that many people would lie.
No, that's not what my post says.
To just the first section: You say "up to three months," but you know it is very often they wait almost the full 3 months or more. Then you talk about paperwork, but if my company was planning an event in X country I'm pretty sure we could handle preparing the paperwork (since we already know the prize money payout system because we created it!) ahead of time, so that there would only be a few blanks to fill in. I have no clue about your sponsors payment schedule, but you can't mean to tell me that they offer to sponsor X event, and put zero dollars down ahead of time right? Meaning that there is some money in the pot beforehand, which should probably be reserved for the players and down payments for event costs while the event organizers pay should come secondary. Now, perhaps the event has quite a bit of upfront costs, and we won't ever actually know how much a sponsor gives and when, but I doubt your paycheck is missing for more than a day
On November 04 2011 06:54 LovE-z33k wrote: So basically, you're saying it will be paid. Cool...
Why is it that MLG pays out right away, and ESL doesn't. The whole 90 day thing is BS, and nothing stops you from going over that time period anyways.
If you read above, its because MLG already has money on hand, something rare for tournament. (though i think MLG's financials is something a lot of other tournament should copy).
Having a lot of venture capital?
Well, its technically not longer "venture' because MLG's pretty old now, a few years old. But having "cash on hand" is very important, at least having the cash prizes that you already promised.
On November 04 2011 06:54 LovE-z33k wrote: So basically, you're saying it will be paid. Cool...
Why is it that MLG pays out right away, and ESL doesn't. The whole 90 day thing is BS, and nothing stops you from going over that time period anyways.
As above, basically MLG is almost self sufficient (they make most of their money from Memberships/ Spectator/ player passes etc. so they have a load of cash ready to dish out there and then.
On November 04 2011 05:33 Enhancer_ wrote: Also wondering what happens when you go over the 90 day, self-imposed time limit.
Another major concern was how so many pros were iterating that they had to consistently hunt down the tournament managers on their own to collect prizes rather than having the tournaments take responsibility and contacting their champions. How is this dealt with?
In most of our tournaments players are contacted soon after a tournament by email for their details. In my experience, many of the times a player says they were not contacted, they were but did not see it in their email (or additionally ESL site message) etc. For example Darkforce's Dailymotion prize money is unpaid because he did not see the emails (for which I have now contacted him to correct).
For some (e.g. EPS, and IEM at least in the past, not sure with the new format) the prize money details are given in advance by the players or managers.
Understandable for sure. Thanks for the answer.
Please don't skip over the first question I asked regarding the consequences of going over your guy's 90 day limit though .
On November 04 2011 06:11 Loooui wrote: This is by NO means an acceptable excuse. There were many examples in Clouds thread that was just downright disgusting behaviour from ESL. Just an example here, Grubby had to wait 3 years (LOL) for a win from 2007 before he got prize money from ESL. Like tyler said, money actually declines in value over time. You guys need to revalue the prizes after inflation when it goes over 90 days, otherwise you don´t pay your debts.
I agree that some interest should be added on payments that take such a ridiculous amount of time. Where I work we start adding interest for every day over one week. That's obviously not reasonable here given the size of the company I work for and the size of most eSports companies but if you're going to set 3 months as the cut off for a reasonable/unreasonable amount of time for payment, it's only fair that interest should start accumulating after that date.
This problem reminds me of those stupid websites that make you click ad's and they never ever payout. But good to hear you guys are taking responsibility. I find what Cloud did was exactly correct because if companies aren't paying it will only ruin E-sports. Keep your heads high, You made a mistake.. and as white-ra would say. MORE GG MORE SKILL.
I do not agree with the way ESL has treated some winners of their cups, but a lot of people on this forum replies without even understanding what Carmac wrote.
On November 04 2011 07:07 pewpew444 wrote: I wonder who the team was that withheld money from the players.
Speculation with the info from Clouds thread: Team Alternate... (Socke, DarkForce, Cloud) And Cloud was in MYM last year (not sure but i think they had also a record of not paying correctly)
On November 04 2011 04:57 Carmac wrote: b) ESL is not blameworthy every single time (not to take blame away or anything, but to shed more light on the issue). A team or participant registering for ESL tournaments normally specifies the recipient of prize money - it can be a person or a company ("pro gaming team"). It can happen that the team withholds it from the player(s) without them being aware of it. I was told about such an issue today, actually (you'd be surprised who…).
Since there was a call to arms by SotG to out tournaments that are bad about paying out, there should be a similar call for transparency from the team side. If there are pro-gaming teams that are withholding cash from their players, they should be outed.
I dont get the paperwork thingy. It seems like stuff you can do in advance. I mean every torunament in germany cant have thiere prices delayed by 3 months right?
I think what frustrating to many is that some organisations seem to pull it off really welll while others say it doesnt work that way and have various explanations why not.
I think it would have been better if you framed it in the context of how many events you have going on and trying to organize the different exchange rates and organizing the different countries that you have to work with and the different tax codes. I'm not sure that people should compare MLG and ESL when there could be a hell of a lot more financial issues with paying out "prize's" or rewards when in america they just give you the cash and your expected to file it on your own tax documents.
If ESL say had transparency about the events they had and checked off the different people that where paid and the people who weren't yet it would be a lot better then blind suspicion about the people who haven't been paid yet.
Not to seem like ESL is a special case but if they where they where responsible for just IEM's they'd be in the same boat as MLG but they manage so many other things that they deserve special treatment from people. I'm sure that ESL has many more problems with paying out that isn't they're fault but your not stating and so making it seem like you're not very good/ don't care enough about paying out prize money.
To the dozens of people posting in this thread - before you post some indignant post about business morals and proper practices, please have some kind of idea what you're talking about.
The idea that every tournament can instantly pay out 100% of all prize money is ridiculous. I'd much rather have a league be late on payments than not exist at all.
ESports could profit from agents / player managers.
Ehh. This really doesn't change much for me until the players get paid. These organizations really should be pushing their employees really hard to get the players paid because if they don't get paid and they stop coming, nobody will want to watch the tournament.
since we are talking about prize money and that profesional organizations have troubles paying like 1k$ prize money, i wonder how long did it take for TL to payout TSL prize money ^^
On November 04 2011 07:34 whiteLotus wrote: since we are talking about prize money and that profesional organizations have troubles paying like 1k$ prize money, i wonder how did it take for TL to payout TSL prize money ^^
But they are in America. Notice all of the American tourneys are good with their timings, because tax laws are different there.
As someone who has worked in the tax industry, here in the UK things are quite late (strangely enough, 2-3 months....)
I won French EPS Season IX in 2010 and ended 3rd the Season X this year, I'm still waiting my money. Is there any particular problem with French ESL ? Since someone told me that we should be paid around 6 months....
I won French EPS Season IX in 2010 and ended 3rd the Season X this year, I'm still waiting my money. Is there any particular problem with French ESL ? Since someone told me that we should be paid around 6 months....
Thanks for your answer
Might be worth shooting him a PM, twitter etc... then letting us know what the situation is. :D
Thank you so much for making such a clear and succinct post on the matter. Companies being transparent on such matters is very important to myself and others of these events. Thank you and I hope all of this gets cleared up soon!
So from what I've read here, average ESL payout is 90 days, but depending on the tournament it can go longer.
My question is, why did Cloud have to wait 11 months (December 2010 2nd place in EPS Germany) to get his money or even get acknowledged? Was it explicitly stated that this tournament would take 12 months or longer for payouts to occur?
My point in making this post is that I think you guys need to have a meeting or something and seriously rethink the process you use to determine who gets paid and when. 90 days is understandable, 6 months is pushing it, 11 months is ridiculous.
Good post carmac I am a big fan of esl from the point they introduced quake to now and for definitely will be much longer.
From reading some of these replies it makes feel a little shameful that I used to post the same on such topics, it's very hard to put perspective to people on how many variables are in one situation as to them its all just white and black. I hope that people understand that if one thing that was said is true the opposite is not always false.
Good luck in the future i hope this thread brings good things more then bad, at least it will filter out some stupid people watching your tournaments.
Well this is pretty much what I expected before I started reading. They eventually pay, but they are slow to do so. It is obviously not ideal, but not the worst thing in the world. I just wish they would take some action to say "Look, we are changing this. That means we will definitely be paying earlier."
On November 04 2011 08:07 Chicane wrote: Well this is pretty much what I expected before I started reading. They eventually pay, but they are slow to do so. It is obviously not ideal, but not the worst thing in the world. I just wish they would take some action to say "Look, we are changing this. That means we will definitely be paying earlier."
they did say that
d) The average prize money delay differs between individual tournaments, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be. Obviously it should not happen. People at ESL are aware of it and are working to make sure everything gets paid and that the delay in prize money goes away.
If you cannot get the money to a player within 90 days and the player provided you with proper information for payment, then you should be paying interest on that prize money to the player.
On November 04 2011 08:14 Duravi wrote: If you cannot get the money to a player within 90 days and the player provided you with proper information for payment, then you should be paying interest on that prize money to the player.
On November 04 2011 08:14 Duravi wrote: If you cannot get the money to a player within 90 days and the player provided you with proper information for payment, then you should be paying interest on that prize money to the player.
That would be a nice "business"-punishment .
ESL had no intentions of talking about this subject in any way, shape or form until their hand was forced. Do you really expect them to implement self-impose fines?
I really hope they get their shit together. The ESL serves an important function in esports, providing a linear path from beginner, to semi-pro to professional gamer all under a single framework. There aren't very many organisations like that around.
It's a shame there aren't more. Nothing motivates a company to get their house in order quite like a competitor champing at the bit to replace them.
On November 04 2011 08:14 Duravi wrote: If you cannot get the money to a player within 90 days and the player provided you with proper information for payment, then you should be paying interest on that prize money to the player.
That would be a nice "business"-punishment .
ESL had no intentions of talking about this subject in any way, shape or form until their hand was forced. Do you really expect them to implement self-impose fines?
I really hope they get their shit together. The ESL serves an important function in esports, providing a linear path from beginner, to semi-pro to professional gamer all under a single framework. There aren't very many organisations like that around.
You would need some kind of governing body or union to enforce late prize payment penalties (or risk a player/team boycott of their events) or enough public outcry about how their prize money is paid late that it is starting to hurt their bottom line. Without a financial incentive they won't self impose penalties on late payments.
On November 04 2011 08:39 mighty_honour_korea wrote:
On November 04 2011 08:31 Khanz wrote:
On November 04 2011 08:14 Duravi wrote: If you cannot get the money to a player within 90 days and the player provided you with proper information for payment, then you should be paying interest on that prize money to the player.
That would be a nice "business"-punishment .
ESL had no intentions of talking about this subject in any way, shape or form until their hand was forced. Do you really expect them to implement self-impose fines?
I really hope they get their shit together. The ESL serves an important function in esports, providing a linear path from beginner, to semi-pro to professional gamer all under a single framework. There aren't very many organisations like that around.
You would need some kind of governing body or union to enforce late prize payment penalties (or risk a player/team boycott of their events) or enough public outcry about how their prize money is paid late that it is starting to hurt their bottom line. Without a financial incentive they won't self impose penalties on late payments.
Championed by who, the teams? Most of them pull the exact same shit, oftentimes they're worse. I don't believe there's any malice on the part of ESL, they're simply not paying the issue enough attention. You can't always say the same for teams. Sometimes it's incompetence, sometimes it's just bad luck, but sometimes is a vindictive ploy to screw someone out of what's rightfully theirs for personal gain or petty pleasure.
An independent governing body that looks out for the best interests of everyone is a potential solution. However, there's no way anything resembling that would ever rise to power because there's no upside for teams or leagues to comply with their rulings. It only serves to disrupt their business in one way or another.
I can't believe these companies, at least the larger ones have no money in their bank accounts until the sponsors pay. I'm going to assume their bank accounts do have money in them and they just wait on the sponsors to pay up first before paying the players.
They should pay out the money to players right away and then they should wait 90 days for the sponsors to pay them back. They most likely wait for sponsors to pay them, so if the sponsors stiff them on money, they won't be out of pocket by paying the players in advance.
Its great that your trying to be open about this Carmac maybe the 90 days thing you can look to improve on ?
ps: I reckon the team that doesn't tell players about payments is EG, he said you'd be surprised so i think EG players with crazy salaries huge gaming house i think they would surprise me most for this.
Lannisters may always pay their debts, but they'll also cut your head right after. ^^;;
Anywho, it's good that you're being more open about this issue, but it speaks volumes about how bad the current system is when pro players have to go public on basic issues like these for tournament organisers to admit there are problems.
ESL still owe me and my team prize money from over a year ago from their EPS CSS UK league... nothing ever gets paid and the admins tell us not to send them tickets or messages about it
I may be a pessimist or something close to it but when I read this OP I just see this: "You know we handle tons of things so we may take 90 days to pay people what we promise but it's no big deal they will get paid within 90days. People don't get anything even past 90days? Well not like we or you can do anything about that can we?
We threw 10Millions$ to players already, will you get off our back already. And you know sometimes even if we don't screw you, your team, manager or teammates may screw you just aswell. I just got back from the offices with the paperwork guys and the accountant and told them to to the best they can at their work!"
That was a lot of word and very little of to clearing things up a bit and sheding some light on the matter without any bullshit. Seemed more like doing Public Relations declarations just after the company you work for get some justified criticism on a serious subject.
On November 04 2011 07:16 Derity wrote: Speculation with the info from Clouds thread: Team Alternate... (Socke, DarkForce, Cloud) And Cloud was in MYM last year (not sure but i think they had also a record of not paying correctly)
Someone earlier in the thread speculated that the issue was with IdrA. Worth noting that he placed 2nd at IEM Cologne in August, 2010, when he was still associated with CJ Entus. Since he left the team shortly thereafter, I could certainly imagine the money getting waylaid by the team. I'd also imagine a Korean team, as opposed to European or American, might be more likely to insist on the money being paid to them rather than the player.
Pure speculation, of course, and I am not familiar enough with CJ Entus to have a sense whether they might do something like that.
On November 04 2011 08:23 KAkos MAgos wrote: kind of strange that SK-gaming and mousesports never have problems with ESL but all the others have......
Well both of them are German organizations, which probably means less paperwork. I would like to point out something that's a little weird, cloud is member of German organization alternate. And something that is rather interesting is that the alternate sc2 manager (also known as TaKe) works for ESL? shouldn't he been aware and solved clouds situation long time ago?
Its interesting how people are okay with getting paid 90 days after the date played. Tournaments should be like MLG and paid on the day of or at least within 2 weeks. They should not be hosting a tourney if they don't have the cash flow to do so .
Please keep in mind that esl is a profitable organization, they are NOT doing this out of good heart just to spread esports .. They ARE making money, otherwise they would not have lasted as long as they have. It seems like the culture of the company is focused more on organizing tournies, attracting more sponsors and paying their own employees over the prize payout to pro gamers.
Its obvious that not everything is Carmacs fault and he is trying to assure people that esl is not intentionally holding pro gamers money, he's not saying pro gamers such as cloud and Grubby are lying. But it is also true that he isn't doing anything to speed up the payout process. Maybe more people need to be hired to handle all the paperwork.
As for people saying we have to support esl for the growth of esports...that is obviously untrue too. Where there is market, sponsors and profits, there will be organizations that are willing to fill the gap.The fall of one organization leads to the growth or formation of another. I just hope pro gamers who voiced out these serious issues and concerns do not get punished in any form or way.
On November 04 2011 10:00 IMStyle wrote: Its interesting how people are okay with getting paid 90 days after the date played. Tournaments should be like MLG and paid on the day of or at least within 2 weeks. They should not be hosting a tourney if they don't have the cash flow to do so .
Please keep in mind that esl is a profitable organization, they are NOT doing this out of good heart just to spread esports .. They ARE making money, otherwise they would not have lasted as long as they have. It seems like the culture of the company is focused more on organizing tournies, attracting more sponsors and paying their own employees over the prize payout to pro gamers.
Its obvious that not everything is Carmacs fault and he is trying to assure people that esl is not intentionally holding pro gamers money, he's not saying pro gamers such as cloud and Grubby are lying. But it is also true that he isn't doing anything to speed up the payout process. Maybe more people need to be hired to handle all the paperwork.
As for people saying we have to support esl for the growth of esports...that is obviously untrue too. Where there is market, sponsors and profits, there will be organizations that are willing to fill the gap.The fall of one organization leads to the growth or formation of another. I just hope pro gamers who voiced out these serious issue and concern do not get punished in any form or way.
Well 2 weeks is pretty much impossible in most countries so that's not a possibility at all.
Having a prize pool with money that is coming from sponsors at a later date doesn't seem wise. Also handling all the taxes for the prize pool money is something that should be accounted for BEFORE the tournament takes place, not in the months after. It is not out of the realm of possibility for ESL to take the same approach to prize distribution as MLG or IPL has. Anything over 60 days is pretty inexcusable, especially for an organization as big as ESL.
I have to say, what Carmac says isnt complety true, not to attack him personally but: he says IEM Cologne (leaving that out), China and NY arent paid out yet. NY: 21.000$ + China: 21.000$ = 42.000$ ~ 30.413€ --> what Carmac refers to
but there are way more ESL events which haven't been paid out only three examples: Torneo ESL StarCraft II in July (4 months ago), HasuObs #1, Socke #2 --> 9.350€ (~$13.370) ESL Pro Series Germany Season 17 (12 months ago) Socke #1, ClouD #2 --> 5.500€ (~$7595) ESL Pro Series Germany Season 18 (4 months ago) Socke #1, HasuObs #2 -->6.000€ (~$8285) --> only those three: 20.850€ (~$28792) im also aware of the fact that those didnt happen too long ago, but still, its just a fact that esl owe's players a lot more. but its nice that carmac is open to the community and explains the things, and i guess its understandable to some extent.
im aware of the fact, that those three tournaments maybe aren't in the responsibility of carmac, but still they are ESL events
On November 04 2011 05:01 pHaRSiDE wrote: this should help clear some things up, but as usual some haters still gonna hate because drama in esports is fun to some.
What does this issue have to do with haters or drama? It's a serious issue and problems with payouts do exist. Even Carmac wrote it. It just clears up why it's up to 90 days, which is a pretty damn long time.
It also doesn't explain why it is sometimes much more than 90 days... But I still do love IEM events ect, so I wish you guys the best of luck ^^
I guess my question then is, when under this pay model, why host all these tournaments, cups, and so on, if you don't have the money to back it up? Why not wait until your sponsors pay you on the quarterly system, and then host said tournaments?
Most tournaments outside of esports pay the money up front, which is held in escrow as the tournament proceeds.
What I'm trying to say is, this post gives an explanation as to why there is delay ("we don't have the money"), but it doesn't do anything to address the issue. Cloud still doesn't have his money, as don't other players, and it looks like players participating in future ESL tournaments will have the same problem.
We know you don't have the money, otherwise you would have paid and there wouldn't be a problem. The question is, what can be done to fix it.
Also, didn't some players mention something like a 7-9 month delay for their payments, or were those other tournaments? (sorry that thread is so busy it's hard to relocate information, but I'm pretty sure it was directed at ESL).
Basically, I don't want to trigger any controversy,
But people are taking any response on the matter by IEM as satisfactory, when the truth is what has been said is nothing that we didn't know already.
Carmac has said nothing except that the sponsors haven'tt given them the money (which we could have figured out by lack of payments).
But question is, how to fix this? How to shorten the times? How to get the money owed to players now? THESE were the problems in the original thread, that Cloud and others were addressing. They weren't asking for an explanation, they were asking for a solution.
I'm not very familiar with the business side of e-sports. But I've been involved in managing prize winning competitions and promotions in dozens of countries for several years and I know more than most people do about the commercial and legal side of this. Prize winning competitions are a huge industry and in almost every country on earth there is precedent, industry practice and legislation/regulation that deals with these issues pretty well, so I'm surprised that the e-sports businesses do not (and are not forced by regulation as they should) follow the same ways.
1. There is no country in the world (at least none in the "developed" world) where it's legal to have a competition that promises prizes without issuing a legal document called Terms & Conditions that is available to all participants prior to signing up for the competition. This document should define exactly when and how prizes will be paid (as well as any taxes applicable on the organizer side, and exclusions / reasons to be disqualified from receiving the prize) You don't need to invest in a lawyer to have this enforced; a simple complain/notification to the relevant authority will result in the state going after the illegal competition without any expense on the player's side
2. In most countries the law has restrictions about the payout process; how it is done, the maximum period allowed to deliver prizes, etc. 1-3 months periods are typical. Again, the state will automatically chase after irregularities with this, if someone files a complaint
3. In many countries the organizer is obliged to provide the prizes in advance of advertising the competition, either in the form of a deposit in a trust account or in the form of a bank guarantee - usually these are issued towards a regulatory authority, the ministry of finance or an appointed organization that supervises such processes.
4. Brands/sponsors are not unfamiliar with the idea of fronting prize money. In fact, when a brand sponsors a competition they would often ask the organizer for guarantees or other proof that they can make sure everyone is paid out on time. Simply because a payment fiasco can do 10 times more damage than the positive marketing they are hoping the sponsorship to create. Often a complaint on the sponsor's marketing department (especially with the silent threat of making a fuss about it on social media) should be enough to create pressure from the sponsor's side for timely payments
5. Brands don't understand e-sports very well because it's not very well established. They don't necessarily know which tourneys are the safest, most diligent ones. They probably don't realize the risk they're taking by putting their name (and money) behind unprofessional organizers. A community rating/transparency system that would offer this information to sponsors would not only help more sponsors make good decisions and pour more money on the scene (I'm sure many big companies who have more rigid due diligence processes, are shy to sponsor tournaments precisely because they can't find good information on risk) but it would also set up the right incentives for organizers.
6. The fact that things have been done in a bad way from most organizers for a long time doesn't make it right. If e-sports is going to grow, at some point the community (and the players) should take the hit of closing down a significant number of tournaments (by boycotting or blacklisting them) to let the few good ones flourish. Even if 90% of tournaments went out of business, eventually the value would be recovered, because bad practices and shady reputations are holding the entire scene from becoming a mainstream budget items in big brand's marketing plans.
7. I'd like to note that the total size of prize funds for tournaments in SC2 (as I can see by tallying up the numbers public) is peanuts compared to marketing budgets that big brands have for activities of this sort (below-the-line placement marketing, passion points marketing, etc). But to unlock these budgets, the e-sports scene needs to look like a clean, safe, predictable marketing avenue to the big companies, because that's what they need to get anything done. I don't buy the excuse that sponsors don't pay - I've organized marketing competitions all my life and I know that it's not so hard to get a brand to care for timely payments when they've put their name behind something. That is, if you educate them and if you re professional and serious about what you're doing.
8. We can't expect players to fight these battles as individuals. Even in the absence of a governing body for e-sports we can at least get more transparency, make the information that is available public and organized. I would love to see TLPD or a similar database listing payout records along with results. I would love to see the community create a list of authorities per country that teams can notify when organizers fail to live up to their promises. Others who are more experience than me in community-organizing matters should be able to come up with even better ways to get the people who love e-sports to help clean up the commercial side of it. If we don't, then it will always be a marginal and non-sustainable activity.
This, together with the recurrent contract dramas and unenforcability, are major blockers in the way between hobby and actual commercial industry. But luckily there exists two industries that we can copy practices from to make it happen. For prizes that would be the marketing competitions industry. For contracts that would be the football/basketball industry.
This actually aligns with my previous perception of the situation in regards to ESL. At this point the biggest problem are other companies, such as ESWC. The only matter that this should resolve is raising awareness as to how the business model functions, leading to more understanding on the part of the players and spectators who are outraged now that they're in the know.
On November 04 2011 12:16 sougamiso wrote: 1. There is no country in the world (at least none in the "developed" world) where it's legal to have a competition that promises prizes without issuing a legal document called Terms & Conditions that is available to all participants prior to signing up for the competition. This document should define exactly when and how prizes will be paid (as well as any taxes applicable on the organizer side, and exclusions / reasons to be disqualified from receiving the prize) You don't need to invest in a lawyer to have this enforced; a simple complain/notification to the relevant authority will result in the state going after the illegal competition without any expense on the player's side
At least in the United States, that's not generally the case. Disputes over the payouts of competitions here is a civil matter, and the authorities would only get involved in cases of fraud (where there's evidence that the organizer was deceiving participants in order to get something of value from them, like a registration fee), where the type of event is specifically regulated (like boxing in Nevada or New Jersey), or where there's some kind of question about whether the event is a game of chance, i.e. gambling.
In the U.S., legally vetted terms and conditions documents are a very good idea as a means of protecting oneself from legal liability, but they're not required.
You can read one page of one of these threads and see that there's a lot more than Carmac's figure of "32,870 EUR and 400 USD" of ESL prizes unaccounted for...
On November 04 2011 12:16 sougamiso wrote: 1. There is no country in the world (at least none in the "developed" world) where it's legal to have a competition that promises prizes without issuing a legal document called Terms & Conditions that is available to all participants prior to signing up for the competition. This document should define exactly when and how prizes will be paid (as well as any taxes applicable on the organizer side, and exclusions / reasons to be disqualified from receiving the prize) You don't need to invest in a lawyer to have this enforced; a simple complain/notification to the relevant authority will result in the state going after the illegal competition without any expense on the player's side
At least in the United States, that's not generally the case. Disputes over the payouts of competitions here is a civil matter, and the authorities would only get involved in cases of fraud (where there's evidence that the organizer was deceiving participants in order to get something of value from them, like a registration fee), where the type of event is specifically regulated (like boxing in Nevada or New Jersey), or where there's some kind of question about whether the event is a game of chance, i.e. gambling.
In the U.S., legally vetted terms and conditions documents are a very good idea as a means of protecting oneself from legal liability, but they're not required.
Bear in mind however that the US has pretty strict laws about misrepresentation of "promised benefit" in marketing material. So if a competition has created anything that can be considered marketing material (an announcement thread, or a website) and they don't live up to these promises it's just as bad as violating terms and conditions. So, not being forced to have terms and conditions doesn't mean you can promise prizes and not give them. Plus, even skill-based competitions are subject to restrictions (not as hard as "gambling"-type competitions). Yes, indeed in the US the state does not act on its own, however competition organizers are under even bigger risk because of that: because anyone can sue you for anything and then you just have to fight over the interpretation (there is no authority that give you a permit and enforces the law on competitions). Even worse, class action is a possibility. The last bit is the most important, because that's the type of lawsuit that can be self-funded from the greed of a single lawyer seeing the opportunity.
Yes, my initial post may sound like an oversimplification and there are a lot of nuances in the legal environment in every country in the world, but the bottom line that I feel we can agree to is that so many other competition-type or promise-based industries exist and they can function because the stakeholders (sponsors, organizers, participants, consumers) have the motivation to follow some rules. There will always be a scammer, but when you look at e-sports and 90% of tourneys are unprofessional this does not mean scam, it means an industry that lack basic commercial sense. The legal framework is adequate. Stakeholders need better information to make better choices - that is what's missing I believe.
If you cannot pay the money in timely fashion, as recorded by countless players here, why do continue to offer prize money in sums you obviously you are unable to pay out?
We want real answers to the problem, not fluff about what we already know. I haven't seen anything new. Just seems like to me you're trying to save face by making a post about it.
On November 04 2011 10:00 IMStyle wrote: Its interesting how people are okay with getting paid 90 days after the date played. Tournaments should be like MLG and paid on the day of or at least within 2 weeks. They should not be hosting a tourney if they don't have the cash flow to do so .
Please keep in mind that esl is a profitable organization, they are NOT doing this out of good heart just to spread esports .. They ARE making money, otherwise they would not have lasted as long as they have. It seems like the culture of the company is focused more on organizing tournies, attracting more sponsors and paying their own employees over the prize payout to pro gamers.
Its obvious that not everything is Carmacs fault and he is trying to assure people that esl is not intentionally holding pro gamers money, he's not saying pro gamers such as cloud and Grubby are lying. But it is also true that he isn't doing anything to speed up the payout process. Maybe more people need to be hired to handle all the paperwork.
As for people saying we have to support esl for the growth of esports...that is obviously untrue too. Where there is market, sponsors and profits, there will be organizations that are willing to fill the gap.The fall of one organization leads to the growth or formation of another. I just hope pro gamers who voiced out these serious issue and concern do not get punished in any form or way.
Well 2 weeks is pretty much impossible in most countries so that's not a possibility at all.
I'm pretty sure it takes less then two weeks to process less then 100 players worth of prizes... it takes a week to audit a small business that makes 4.5 Million U.S.D a year.. don't tell me it takes longer to calculate taxes and paperwork ... most of which should have been ready and done before the tourney. Tax rates and paperwork don't change daily, they are set.
On November 04 2011 12:16 sougamiso wrote: I'm not very familiar with the business side of e-sports. But I've been involved in managing prize winning competitions and promotions in dozens of countries for several years and I know more than most people do about the commercial and legal side of this. Prize winning competitions are a huge industry and in almost every country on earth there is precedent, industry practice and legislation/regulation that deals with these issues pretty well, so I'm surprised that the e-sports businesses do not (and are not forced by regulation as they should) follow the same ways.
1. There is no country in the world (at least none in the "developed" world) where it's legal to have a competition that promises prizes without issuing a legal document called Terms & Conditions that is available to all participants prior to signing up for the competition. This document should define exactly when and how prizes will be paid (as well as any taxes applicable on the organizer side, and exclusions / reasons to be disqualified from receiving the prize) You don't need to invest in a lawyer to have this enforced; a simple complain/notification to the relevant authority will result in the state going after the illegal competition without any expense on the player's side
2. In most countries the law has restrictions about the payout process; how it is done, the maximum period allowed to deliver prizes, etc. 1-3 months periods are typical. Again, the state will automatically chase after irregularities with this, if someone files a complaint
3. In many countries the organizer is obliged to provide the prizes in advance of advertising the competition, either in the form of a deposit in a trust account or in the form of a bank guarantee - usually these are issued towards a regulatory authority, the ministry of finance or an appointed organization that supervises such processes.
4. Brands/sponsors are not unfamiliar with the idea of fronting prize money. In fact, when a brand sponsors a competition they would often ask the organizer for guarantees or other proof that they can make sure everyone is paid out on time. Simply because a payment fiasco can do 10 times more damage than the positive marketing they are hoping the sponsorship to create. Often a complaint on the sponsor's marketing department (especially with the silent threat of making a fuss about it on social media) should be enough to create pressure from the sponsor's side for timely payments
5. Brands don't understand e-sports very well because it's not very well established. They don't necessarily know which tourneys are the safest, most diligent ones. They probably don't realize the risk they're taking by putting their name (and money) behind unprofessional organizers. A community rating/transparency system that would offer this information to sponsors would not only help more sponsors make good decisions and pour more money on the scene (I'm sure many big companies who have more rigid due diligence processes, are shy to sponsor tournaments precisely because they can't find good information on risk) but it would also set up the right incentives for organizers.
6. The fact that things have been done in a bad way from most organizers for a long time doesn't make it right. If e-sports is going to grow, at some point the community (and the players) should take the hit of closing down a significant number of tournaments (by boycotting or blacklisting them) to let the few good ones flourish. Even if 90% of tournaments went out of business, eventually the value would be recovered, because bad practices and shady reputations are holding the entire scene from becoming a mainstream budget items in big brand's marketing plans.
7. I'd like to note that the total size of prize funds for tournaments in SC2 (as I can see by tallying up the numbers public) is peanuts compared to marketing budgets that big brands have for activities of this sort (below-the-line placement marketing, passion points marketing, etc). But to unlock these budgets, the e-sports scene needs to look like a clean, safe, predictable marketing avenue to the big companies, because that's what they need to get anything done. I don't buy the excuse that sponsors don't pay - I've organized marketing competitions all my life and I know that it's not so hard to get a brand to care for timely payments when they've put their name behind something. That is, if you educate them and if you re professional and serious about what you're doing. 8. We can't expect players to fight these battles as individuals. Even in the absence of a governing body for e-sports we can at least get more transparency, make the information that is available public and organized. I would love to see TLPD or a similar database listing payout records along with results. I would love to see the community create a list of authorities per country that teams can notify when organizers fail to live up to their promises. Others who are more experience than me in community-organizing matters should be able to come up with even better ways to get the people who love e-sports to help clean up the commercial side of it. If we don't, then it will always be a marginal and non-sustainable activity.
This, together with the recurrent contract dramas and unenforcability, are major blockers in the way between hobby and actual commercial industry. But luckily there exists two industries that we can copy practices from to make it happen. For prizes that would be the marketing competitions industry. For contracts that would be the football/basketball industry.
On November 04 2011 12:16 sougamiso wrote: 8. We can't expect players to fight these battles as individuals. Even in the absence of a governing body for e-sports we can at least get more transparency, make the information that is available public and organized. I would love to see TLPD or a similar database listing payout records along with results. I would love to see the community create a list of authorities per country that teams can notify when organizers fail to live up to their promises. Others who are more experience than me in community-organizing matters should be able to come up with even better ways to get the people who love e-sports to help clean up the commercial side of it. If we don't, then it will always be a marginal and non-sustainable activity.
I demand this. I believe it is extremely important that we, as a conscientious viewership, know which organizations are note-worthy and which ones operate in an illegitimate manner and act upon it. I refuse to watch a tournament or support an organization with a questionable business model. Whether ESL is questionable or not, IMO, is gonna be determined by [whether or not]:
A) All professionals are paid their due sums(where evidence exists, of course) and preferably in reverse chronological order. B) A business model that does not fuck up is enforced, and consequently no further fuck-ups happen.
Until then, I believe it within my right to consider ESL an illegitimate organization on grounds of operating with an improper business model, although clearly they are more true to their word than a lot of other tournaments *cough*. That does not excuse ESL in my eyes though, unfortunately. Furthermore, I will be incredibly scrutinous of every tournament I watch from now on, I may even swear off wasting my time watching SC2. At least for a while. Personally, I thank you Carmine for bringing me this realization and I look forward to the day everybody at ESL can straighten this out and I can continue to enjoy the content you and your organization has to offer.
In hindsight, I understand the "list" I demand would be highly controversial, but at the very least I'd like to know that my favorite organizations know how to run a fucking tournament, because it just so happens that they pay my favorite players.
On November 04 2011 07:18 sermokala wrote: I think it would have been better if you framed it in the context of how many events you have going on and trying to organize the different exchange rates and organizing the different countries that you have to work with and the different tax codes. I'm not sure that people should compare MLG and ESL when there could be a hell of a lot more financial issues with paying out "prize's" or rewards when in america they just give you the cash and your expected to file it on your own tax documents.
If ESL say had transparency about the events they had and checked off the different people that where paid and the people who weren't yet it would be a lot better then blind suspicion about the people who haven't been paid yet.
Not to seem like ESL is a special case but if they where they where responsible for just IEM's they'd be in the same boat as MLG but they manage so many other things that they deserve special treatment from people. I'm sure that ESL has many more problems with paying out that isn't they're fault but your not stating and so making it seem like you're not very good/ don't care enough about paying out prize money.
ESL Fighting!
Good point, need to quote.
As an organizer handing out cash cheques and the player just cashes it , the player isn't mostly aware of any taxes and the organizer can blame the player for tax evasion. As it was stated in the other thread, IPL said that there are bureaucracy issues to pay "foreigners".
But to not miss the point of the discussion: payments in a 90 day frame are acceptable. I think both parties (players/organizers) should handle this more professionally. Especially for "live events". A players appears and he signs a contract for performance.
Player to clan/organization communication needs to be more transparent. When as stated in the "other" thread this communication fails players are disappointed towards organizers when they are not at fault.
This post is not meant to defend tournament organizers of paying late (later as 3 months) which is in my opinion clearly unacceptable). It is more dedicated to more professional behaviour from both sides. Set more rules. Players blaming DreamHack and PolarFluke for not paying should read the rules before they make accusations.
Edit: i don't know, but the ESL are already known for paying late (extremely late). But it seems they mostly pay after all. For me it is also very interesting to know about clans/organizations which are restraining prizes and do not pay them to their players.
hm, quite sure i forgot something or missed a point, but forgive my grammar/wording. Feel free to send me a PM.
Pretty much the best response thread to accusations I've ever read on TL. Informative yet not shunning blame. Carmac is my new hero.
I will now refrain from passing too quick of judgement on tournaments that don't give their money out ASAP now.
However, as Carmac said, and as has been talked about to death the past few days, it does need to change. 3 months, while not the worst thing, is still far too long for people to get their money. Personally I feel like 30 days is about the maximum.
I understand the whole "quarterly sponsor payments" and stuff, but I'm sure there is a way to change how you are paid if there is enough pressure from the community, players, and tournament organizers. Things might be as simple as saying "Hey, you can't sponsor this tournament unless you pay us every 30 days."
On November 04 2011 04:57 Carmac wrote: It can happen that the team withholds it from the player(s) without them being aware of it. I was told about such an issue today, actually (you'd be surprised who…)
I'll put 50 quid on it being Idra and EG...
SK is the only organization I know who's had a history of not paying players, so i'd put my money on them.
First of all, Turtle Entertainment (ESL, IEM etc) is as far as i know still at risk.The "big" eSports scene (all of it, not only SC2) is far of being self sufficient. Hosting live events cost the organizers way more money than the revenue (premium, ads etc) generates. Only staff costs way more than every prize pool so far. Excluding rent for halls etc...
These big prize pools come only from sponsors and their will to advertise. Esports is still only a marketing trial, nothing else.
Much respect. Simply stepping up and directly providing insight to the public gives a sense of care for the sport and community. There is a chance it is artificial publicity stunt, it's still more effort then simply blowing it off and then not letting the player participate in the future.
Also I haven't seen any other organization cloud mentioned make any attempts to justify their actions or protect their name.
Hey check it out, peer pressure works and the fact that the community suddenly cares makes the actors behind the scene reveal their workings.
I call this a success, though don't become complacent and start doing bullshit things again, people will hear about it and we'll start our hate campaigns once again if it happens.
On November 04 2011 07:18 sermokala wrote: I think it would have been better if you framed it in the context of how many events you have going on and trying to organize the different exchange rates and organizing the different countries that you have to work with and the different tax codes. I'm not sure that people should compare MLG and ESL when there could be a hell of a lot more financial issues with paying out "prize's" or rewards when in america they just give you the cash and your expected to file it on your own tax documents.
If ESL say had transparency about the events they had and checked off the different people that where paid and the people who weren't yet it would be a lot better then blind suspicion about the people who haven't been paid yet.
Not to seem like ESL is a special case but if they where they where responsible for just IEM's they'd be in the same boat as MLG but they manage so many other things that they deserve special treatment from people. I'm sure that ESL has many more problems with paying out that isn't they're fault but your not stating and so making it seem like you're not very good/ don't care enough about paying out prize money.
ESL Fighting!
Good point, need to quote.
As an organizer handing out cash cheques and the player just cashes it , the player isn't mostly aware of any taxes and the organizer can blame the player for tax evasion. As it was stated in the other thread, IPL said that there are bureaucracy issues to pay "foreigners".
But to not miss the point of the discussion: payments in a 90 day frame are acceptable. I think both parties (players/organizers) should handle this more professionally. Especially for "live events". A players appears and he signs a contract for performance.
Player to clan/organization communication needs to be more transparent. When as stated in the "other" thread this communication fails players are disappointed towards organizers when they are not at fault.
This post is not meant to defend tournament organizers of paying late (later as 3 months) which is in my opinion clearly unacceptable). It is more dedicated to more professional behaviour from both sides. Set more rules. Players blaming DreamHack and PolarFluke for not paying should read the rules before they make accusations.
Edit: i don't know, but the ESL are already known for paying late (extremely late). But it seems they mostly pay after all. For me it is also very interesting to know about clans/organizations which are restraining prizes and do not pay them to their players.
hm, quite sure i forgot something or missed a point, but forgive my grammar/wording. Feel free to send me a PM.
I 100% agree with Derity on this. We need to be more official if e-sports is gonna go anywhere, because our current model seems to have a lot of flaws. I base this on all the "esports drama". I wish it all to end, but somewhere, somehow, people are gonna have to work on it and I am hella glad it isn't me. Because we're in a pickle and this pickle is dripping vinegar.
what tournaments organisers should do is to ensure the prize money are already on their hands prior to the start of the tournament and not wait till the champion has been crowned before getting the sponsors to release the money, thus incurring the transaction delay. NO money ready to pay out = NO prize pool = NO tournament. simple as that.
This is pure unprofessionality. If u don't have Save sponsor contracts don't advertise! Get the Money 1st and then Start the tournaments, everything Else is unprofessional, deal with it!!! And last but not least esl is unprofessional who are u to Pay out the prizemoney to those who got ranked 1. and 2. Fast and the Rest have to wait Close to 1 Year and above ?!!!
Damn Carmac you rule, perfect explination of how ESL works, just admitting things ain't all 100% yet, but that you work on it. This is the only right way to react.
Other organisation should learn from this, I saw ESWC for example attacking players at the "price money" topic, you'll reach nothing with that
Keep up the good work, and I hope you guys can solve the problems that still are there as soon as possible
On November 04 2011 05:47 DISHU wrote: I'm sorry Carmac, but mud does need to be flung! You boys need to fix your business model. If MLG can pay out right away - you should be able to aswell and they aggresivly seek out the people that they owe money which doesnt seem the case with esl. Money loses value over time these days so the longer you wait the less it is actually worth.
This is BS, ESL is soo much bigger then MLG, MLG host 1 event a month, ESL 100+ events a month. So the system gets slower. But they also admin they are wrong.
So because you acknowledge you haven't paid your players yet you think it's all peaches and cream now? This just makes it worse in my opinion.
I wonder how much money they are owed from their sponsors? Probably zero because they make sure they get paid. To pay the players? That's an entire other issue, hah. Gotta make sure they get their money though!
On November 04 2011 05:47 DISHU wrote: I'm sorry Carmac, but mud does need to be flung! You boys need to fix your business model. If MLG can pay out right away - you should be able to aswell and they aggresivly seek out the people that they owe money which doesnt seem the case with esl. Money loses value over time these days so the longer you wait the less it is actually worth.
This is BS, ESL is soo much bigger then MLG, MLG host 1 event a month, ESL 100+ events a month. So the system gets slower. But they also admin they are wrong.
Exactly, it's pretty ridiculous to compare the two when you realize just how much ESL dwarfs MLG.
Is it not common for having 3 month pay period? I'm not surprised at all that sponsors have that leeway, thought it very well could be more.
In Sweden it happens "all the time" (it happens, it is not uncommon - is the gist of it) that companies pay their suppliers 3 months or more since delivery.
On November 04 2011 17:29 rANDY wrote: 90 days?? I wish. I've been waiting since March 2011 for my prize money from ESL (EPS UK Season 4)
Here is the response I got when I asked about my unpaid prize money about a week ago.
"messioso #2 | 26/10/11 00:20 Hello rANDY,
We are aware of the issue. All outstanding prize money is paid in chronological order and EPS UK Season 4 has not gotten to the top of the list yet.
When the time comes for the payments to be made you will be notified.
Best regards, messioso, ESL Admin"
If money is paid out in chronological order, and this hasnt been paid out in 6 months. Doesn't the less than 90 days mean nothing? Either this reply from the ESL Admin or Carmac's opening post is a lie. How can things be paid out in chronological order and under 90 days, but I am still waiting after 6 months?!
On November 04 2011 17:29 rANDY wrote: 90 days?? I wish. I've been waiting since March 2011 for my prize money from ESL (EPS UK Season 4)
Here is the response I got when I asked about my unpaid prize money about a week ago.
"messioso #2 | 26/10/11 00:20 Hello rANDY,
We are aware of the issue. All outstanding prize money is paid in chronological order and EPS UK Season 4 has not gotten to the top of the list yet.
When the time comes for the payments to be made you will be notified.
Best regards, messioso, ESL Admin"
If money is paid out in chronological order, and this hasnt been paid out in 6 months. Doesn't the less than 90 days mean nothing? Either this reply from the ESL Admin or Carmac's opening post is a lie. How can things be paid out in chronological order and under 90 days, but I am still waiting after 6 months?!
you should read more carefully. Carmac states this for IEM, not ESL. He admits that ESL events are delayed.
On November 04 2011 17:29 rANDY wrote: 90 days?? I wish. I've been waiting since March 2011 for my prize money from ESL (EPS UK Season 4)
Here is the response I got when I asked about my unpaid prize money about a week ago.
"messioso #2 | 26/10/11 00:20 Hello rANDY,
We are aware of the issue. All outstanding prize money is paid in chronological order and EPS UK Season 4 has not gotten to the top of the list yet.
When the time comes for the payments to be made you will be notified.
Best regards, messioso, ESL Admin"
If money is paid out in chronological order, and this hasnt been paid out in 6 months. Doesn't the less than 90 days mean nothing? Either this reply from the ESL Admin or Carmac's opening post is a lie. How can things be paid out in chronological order and under 90 days, but I am still waiting after 6 months?!
At the moment only IEM is back on track with 90 days.
Having re-read the opening post I still cannot see that it is clearly explained, and even if it was it's not acceptable. Since that event finished the money I won belongs to me, I am not a credit card or a bank, I do not offer credit or interest free loans, The value of my prize money decreases every day I do not see it. Since I won it, it has been worth 0 to me. I have not been able to pay my rent, bills or buy food with it. It is worthless.
On November 04 2011 17:29 rANDY wrote: 90 days?? I wish. I've been waiting since March 2011 for my prize money from ESL (EPS UK Season 4)
Here is the response I got when I asked about my unpaid prize money about a week ago.
"messioso #2 | 26/10/11 00:20 Hello rANDY,
We are aware of the issue. All outstanding prize money is paid in chronological order and EPS UK Season 4 has not gotten to the top of the list yet.
When the time comes for the payments to be made you will be notified.
Best regards, messioso, ESL Admin"
If money is paid out in chronological order, and this hasnt been paid out in 6 months. Doesn't the less than 90 days mean nothing? Either this reply from the ESL Admin or Carmac's opening post is a lie. How can things be paid out in chronological order and under 90 days, but I am still waiting after 6 months?!
At the moment only IEM is back on track with 90 days.
Basically it looks like the main problem is with national's EPS (i dont mean the NA one... but UK,Ger, PL and so on..). They seems like adding another layer of red tape that slows down all processes.
This post will be a little hectic, but what I want to talk about is fueled by my impressions from the European Battle.net Invitational, which was awesome.
If e-sports is to grow, it needs to be less English-America-centric (by that, I mean the language/s). Sure, a lot of people know English and it's not like most commentators bust out their dictionaries Faulkner-style. However, making a localized stream for a big tournament like IEM, MLG or Dreamhack, or even the up-coming ASUS ROG could not only help draw in more people who don't know English and/or SC2 or other e-sports, but also boost confidence of potential local advertisers (which could help with prize funding).
If you want e-sports to go mainstream, you need to localize a little bit more. Localized streams, localized ads (if only those that run on TV in a given country), maybe even some localized player promotion (for example, I don't watch football, but if the Polish team is playing, I tend to tune in and root for them). It might take some growing pains to do that all that, but hey, Gretech has Korean commentators running a localized stream for Korean viewers during MLG (I seem to remember something like that), so it is possible. You just need to ask some local commentators (like Morglum, for example, he was awesome during the European Battle.net Invitational), provide them with a video feed and have at it. I, for one, would tune in to a Polish stream (like I did during the Invitational).
I agree with Blattdorf - maybe localized elements of tournaments will help raising funds. It is not that people don't know English well enough, but there's lot of young players who don't know the terminology and prefer their mother language (there's quite a lot players who downloaded Polish version of SC2 - that's just an example). But back to the topic - I hope IEM will keep up with the 90 days period. And all you, who defend ESL, IEM and others - take into account that players have to live somehow during these 90+ days. Luckily some of them still live with their parents, but what about the rest? Do you at your job imagine that you're not being paid for 3 months or even more? Just think about that. It's not like we're bashing organizations without good reason.
On November 04 2011 18:10 Blattdorf wrote: This post will be a little hectic, but what I want to talk about is fueled by my impressions from the European Battle.net Invitational, which was awesome.
If e-sports is to grow, it needs to be less English-America-centric (by that, I mean the language/s). Sure, a lot of people know English and it's not like most commentators bust out their dictionaries Faulkner-style. However, making a localized stream for a big tournament like IEM, MLG or Dreamhack, or even the up-coming ASUS ROG could not only help draw in more people who don't know English and/or SC2 or other e-sports, but also boost confidence of potential local advertisers (which could help with prize funding).
If you want e-sports to go mainstream, you need to localize a little bit more. Localized streams, localized ads (if only those that run on TV in a given country), maybe even some localized player promotion (for example, I don't watch football, but if the Polish team is playing, I tend to tune in and root for them). It might take some growing pains to do that all that, but hey, Gretech has Korean commentators running a localized stream for Korean viewers during MLG (I seem to remember something like that), so it is possible. You just need to ask some local commentators (like Morglum, for example, he was awesome during the European Battle.net Invitational), provide them with a video feed and have at it. I, for one, would tune in to a Polish stream (like I did during the Invitational).
IEM usually has localized streams in at least English, French, German and Russian. IIRC we've also had Spanish and Portugese before. It largely depends on suitable partners to do it though
Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but you should edit your first post here: "2) ESL owes prize money.
What Cloud wrote is true (at least as regards the ESL part). In total ESL owes 32,870 EUR and 400 USD to StarCraft II players. "
Because this number is probably just for IEM, and not for the total that ESL (!) owes to Starcraft II Players (!). So this number is very missleading. The 2 EPS Season in germany alone are like 22k€ that havent been paid out yet.
Lets see... ESL have 90 days police for paying money... So it has 90 days to send them to the right EPS organizer who also have 90 days to pay... So we have located the problem.... EPS's are withholding money^^.
On November 04 2011 10:46 Delphi wrote: I have to say, what Carmac says isnt complety true, not to attack him personally but: he says IEM Cologne (leaving that out), China and NY arent paid out yet. NY: 21.000$ + China: 21.000$ = 42.000$ ~ 30.413€ --> what Carmac refers to
but there are way more ESL events which haven't been paid out only three examples: Torneo ESL StarCraft II in July (4 months ago), HasuObs #1, Socke #2 --> 9.350€ (~$13.370) ESL Pro Series Germany Season 17 (12 months ago) Socke #1, ClouD #2 --> 5.500€ (~$7595) ESL Pro Series Germany Season 18 (4 months ago) Socke #1, HasuObs #2 -->6.000€ (~$8285) --> only those three: 20.850€ (~$28792) im also aware of the fact that those didnt happen too long ago, but still, its just a fact that esl owe's players a lot more. but its nice that carmac is open to the community and explains the things, and i guess its understandable to some extent.
im aware of the fact, that those three tournaments maybe aren't in the responsibility of carmac, but still they are ESL events
I did not add Cologne, Guangzhou and New York to the total because they're still "on schedule," within their 3 month time frames. And no, they have not been paid out yet.
I did not add Cologne, Guangzhou and New York to the total because they're still "on schedule," within their 3 month time frames. And no, they have not been paid out yet.
The only thing I wonder is why the money isn't available BEFORE a given tournament; maybe I'm delusional but in a perfect world everything you need at a tournament would be available at said tournament.
Why isn't the money by sponsors paid upfront? If something goes wrong they can still sue you afterwards. The players are the most important thing about it and they should always come first.
There needs to be a governing body, such as a organization that can certify tournaments that pay a small fee and agree to being able to take legal action if the players are not paid out within a certain amount of time (IE 6 months).
I did not add Cologne, Guangzhou and New York to the total because they're still "on schedule," within their 3 month time frames. And no, they have not been paid out yet.
The only thing I wonder is why the money isn't available BEFORE a given tournament; maybe I'm delusional but in a perfect world everything you need at a tournament would be available at said tournament.
Why isn't the money by sponsors paid upfront? If something goes wrong they can still sue you afterwards. The players are the most important thing about it and they should always come first.
This is not directly the case with Intel since they're the best sponsor I've ever dealt with, but...
And it's not always easy for companies to free up a lot of cash "at once" [what defines "a lot of cash" to a company obviously differs depending on the size of it and its liquidity]. Also, in most companies the the guy that signed the esports sponsorship deal has a boss that will sometimes shift budgets to different quarters, etc. Lots of things can happen. Sometimes there's a marketing agency that serves as a buffer between the actual money spender and the sponsored company.
It's not as simple as it seems. I found out already when I was working at SK Gaming. They ended up taking a sponsor to court (and winning).
It's nice that you go out and address the community directly, and it is good to see some general information on how the payment is done from someone on the inside.
However, I don't really feel that you address the issue: why is IEM so much slower than other tournaments? (It seems like you admit that IEM is indeed slower.) And what will you do about it?
You list a number of things that can delay the money coming to the player: taxes, teams, bank account information etc. None of these are specific for IEM. How come other tournaments like MLG and GSL are never a year behind schedule? The one thing would be the if the German tax system is more involved (which I can imagine it is.. ) but I don't think you claim that the tax report is the main reason for the delays?
Until you address exactly what other tourneys are doing that IEM is not, I feel it will be hard to improve this issue. What do you think?
Best of luck, thanks for community contact and long live ESPORTS.
Doesn't ESL have enough of a bankroll to pay without having to wait for the sponsor money from that specific tournament? Seems quite unstable if you are running such paper-thin margins.
Ofcourse esports wouldnt be what it is today without ESL, so great thanks for that, but im sure the players frustration is understandable having to wait for over an year for prizes, like Grubby stated in the prize money sc2 thread that he waited 3 years for 2007 IEM prize, any waiting time over 1 year is just totally ridiculous.
Silly situation but I'm kinda sad that they only owe 30k euros. Because if they can't get that kind of money quickly then we can clearly see how fragile esports scene really is. I mean, look at it, ESL is one of the biggest brands in esports, everyone knows about them, they host hundreds of good tournaments and they can't throw out 30k euros? It is just clear how there's a "bubble" in esports right now. Everyone threw some cash into it so we see bunch of new teams, organizations etc, but it seems like big sponsors aren't really buying it yet. And once all those smaller sponsors stop paying it will all go back to where it started.
On November 04 2011 20:29 bLah. wrote: Silly situation but I'm kinda sad that they only owe 30k euros. Because if they can't get that kind of money quickly then we can clearly see how fragile esports scene really is.
ESL owes way more than 30 000 Euro overall – that is just the money owed to SC2 players. Obviously, it wouldn't be fair to privilege them over other games.
On November 04 2011 20:29 bLah. wrote: Silly situation but I'm kinda sad that they only owe 30k euros. Because if they can't get that kind of money quickly then we can clearly see how fragile esports scene really is. I mean, look at it, ESL is one of the biggest brands in esports, everyone knows about them, they host hundreds of good tournaments and they can't throw out 30k euros? It is just clear how there's a "bubble" in esports right now. Everyone threw some cash into it so we see bunch of new teams, organizations etc, but it seems like big sponsors aren't really buying it yet. And once all those smaller sponsors stop paying it will all go back to where it started.
Having no debts whatsoever is the model we should be trying to achieve but you can't say that having a small debt is a problem... Like, you are sad because they owe a small sum and not a big one? 30k is an amount of money that a business can owe without being too concerned. Of course, they should be paying the players as a priority but from a financial perspective it's not that bad.
On November 04 2011 20:37 xtfftc wrote: Having no debts whatsoever is the model we should be trying to achieve but you can't say that having a small debt is a problem... Like, you are sad because they owe a small sum and not a big one? 30k is an amount of money that a business can owe without being too concerned. Of course, they should be paying the players as a priority but from a financial perspective it's not that bad.
I didn't say that in a way that I want them to have bigger debt. I said that I'm kinda bummed that they can't get out of trouble with such a small debt. I mean, if an organisation like ESL can't just throw 30k euros out after this series of accusations then we should all take a step back when talking about huge growth of esports.
You guys do know they esl is an organization that profits from esports right? They certainly arnt doing it for just a good cause. They should certainly not be behind in payments for so many months. It was only stated that the IEMs are 90 days period, the rest are late because of sponsors...if sponsors can't pay up before the tournament ..they they obviously can't afford to sponsor the tournament...they should sponsor one when they can afford to. It doesn't make sense to host something, promise a prize then tell the winner you havnt gotten paid yet. Your job is the pay the winners and get money from the sponsors. The pro gamers job is to play in a tourney and expect to get paid for the prize that they are entitled to without needing to wait more then 3 months.
I said before that MLG can pay out on the day of, and people argue that MLG is smaller... Well then, problem solved if esl stops hosting so much tournaments and let other organizations that can handle it take over the market share. Are you saying you expect a local grocery store to pay their employees on time but its ok for Apple to hold paychecks because they are a multibillion dollar organization with a lot of more important things to take care of? If you can't handle lots of tournaments .....dont.
For those blaming it on Carmac... this issue existed in the esl corporate culture long before him. He is addressing the issue the best he can, he not the boss or owner of the company, there is only so much he can do. But a lot of times, owners use people like him as a scapegoat...if the issue gets out of hand..so for Carmac, we should still support esl and focus our rage on his bosses.
On November 04 2011 20:29 bLah. wrote: Silly situation but I'm kinda sad that they only owe 30k euros. Because if they can't get that kind of money quickly then we can clearly see how fragile esports scene really is. I mean, look at it, ESL is one of the biggest brands in esports, everyone knows about them, they host hundreds of good tournaments and they can't throw out 30k euros?
That is a strange conclusion u drew there. Please don't nail me down at the numbers, but isn't it more reasonable that ESL can't throw out 30,000€ quickly _because_ they already payed (and according to Carmac continue to every week) out $10,000,000 in prize money.
My impressions after reading the OP. Read in the old spice guy voice:
Hello tl readers! Look at your eSports manager, not back to me, now back at your manager, now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me, but if he made more game of thrones references he could be like me. Look down, now back up. What's that in my hand? It's the money we promised to pay Cloud. Look again! The money is now paid. Anything is possible if you're Carmac!
On November 05 2011 03:17 Blindlad wrote: My impressions after reading the OP. Read in the old spice guy voice:
Hello tl readers! Look at your eSports manager, not back to me, now back at your manager, now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me, but if he made more game of thrones references he could be like me. Look down, now back up. What's that in my hand? It's the money we promised to pay Cloud. Look again! The money is now paid. Anything is possible if you're Carmac!
I'm killing ESPORTS.
Hmm... who should I respect more, the transparent, hard-working ESPORTS figure, or the clever poster on TL with only 15 posts?
On November 05 2011 03:26 zarepath wrote: Hmm... who should I respect more, the transparent, hard-working ESPORTS figure, or the clever poster on TL with only 15 posts?
Or you could've realised it was intended as a lighthearted joke, and I wholy approve of Carmac : )
On November 05 2011 00:26 IMStyle wrote: You guys do know they esl is an organization that profits from esports right? They certainly arnt doing it for just a good cause. They should certainly not be behind in payments for so many months. It was only stated that the IEMs are 90 days period, the rest are late because of sponsors...if sponsors can't pay up before the tournament ..they they obviously can't afford to sponsor the tournament...they should sponsor one when they can afford to. It doesn't make sense to host something, promise a prize then tell the winner you havnt gotten paid yet. Your job is the pay the winners and get money from the sponsors. The pro gamers job is to play in a tourney and expect to get paid for the prize that they are entitled to without needing to wait more then 3 months.
If that was the case, there would be considerably less tournaments to support the players at all; regardless of payment schedule, it lessens the overall impact and contribution to the scene. If having less money and less involvement is a good thing for eSports, then I guess it's better that way.
And I'm sorry, the players are entitled to their money, sure, but why does everyone seem to insist that waiting for the money is unjust or something? The players entered a tournament that was organized for their benefit; why or how does this sense of entitlement come about? If I win a prize for some type of contest or tournament, I'm bound by whatever stipulations exist within that framework. I can't enter, and complain after the fact, because I knew or should have known full well what I was getting myself into.
If players are concerned that they will not be able to rely on the payment from tournaments, they can simply choose to not enter. As people keep saying, players should boycott. You know what that does? Devalues the tournament's ability to create a product worth sponsoring, and sends sponsors to either another organization that will do the exact same thing, or removes that company from eSports for good.
How or why is that a good thing? Idealism is nice, but is probabilistically impractical and shortsighted.
On November 05 2011 00:26 IMStyle wrote: I said before that MLG can pay out on the day of, and people argue that MLG is smaller...
It's not that MLG is smaller; MLG has raised over $50 million in venture capital to date, irregardless of their profitability (many people saw their $10 million round of funding last December as concerning to whether they are going to be able to make money). That, and along with some of their sponsors, they obviously can afford to do what they have done in regards to payments for players.
If MLG was forced to rely on the same formula as every other organization and didn't have the "benefit" of venture capital, they would be in a very similar boat.
On November 04 2011 05:56 Trusty wrote: A lot of cut nerds in here who don't understand how real-world business works.
Paying players doesn't have anything to do with how real business works.
I run a business, I can't go to my suppliers "Hey guiz, not enough customers came in to my store to buy stuff, I can't pay you. Sowwiez" Or if I did, they'd be sending me a legal letter threatening to sue me for past due product.
That's how real business works.
Tournament Organizers need to pay their prize winners in whatever time-frame the players sign for in the contracts, failing to do so if I were in the players spot, I'd be contacting my layers to have them give the tournament organizers a nice phone call.
And they are...90 days. The ones that aren't have been called out and are dying.
Like Carmac said in the OP, the vast majority of the money owed is still within the contracted time-frame.
Carmac is only talking about for IEM when he says that. And IEM being ESL's most prestigious league youd expect that their time frames for it would be off. I rarely heard (if ever) anyone complain about IEM in the other thread, it was the smaller ESL tournaments which are way behind and carmac made a post about it later on
This is not directly the case with Intel since they're the best sponsor I've ever dealt with, but...
And it's not always easy for companies to free up a lot of cash "at once" [what defines "a lot of cash" to a company obviously differs depending on the size of it and its liquidity]. Also, in most companies the the guy that signed the esports sponsorship deal has a boss that will sometimes shift budgets to different quarters, etc. Lots of things can happen. Sometimes there's a marketing agency that serves as a buffer between the actual money spender and the sponsored company.
It's not as simple as it seems. I found out already when I was working at SK Gaming. They ended up taking a sponsor to court (and winning).
It is missleading to numerate only outstanding IEM-Prizemoney, when the whole ESL is owing people money. Your (the ESL not you speficically) information policy in gernerall has never been good (im following since DeCL and ESPL) but in this case it is catastrophic. That in a time where you are really falling behind compared to NASL, MLG, and so on...
Name one company that shifts projectbound budgets to different quarters. That would be highly unprofessional when dealing with sponsors that dont pay you for something of your personal choice but explicitly for a specific tournament or event. Of course "lots of things" can happen, but its your/the ESLs job to ensure, that they do not happen in this magnitude and so far, the ESL does a terrible job, especially in the german EPS as it seems.
Other Tournaments like the NASL, MLG or the GSL are able to pay prizemoney in a short time after events. The fact, that some of them may be newer and that they did not already disburse the amount of 10.000.000 € like the ESL does have nothing to do with the ESLs apparent inabilitiy to pay prizemoney in at least 90 days after the event.
The least you can do to gain back lost trust is to add interest to owed prizemoney for the time that lies in the ESLs responsibility, notify people when the cause lies with the sponsors or as someone here said the german tax authorities (i really doubt that) and third ensure that at least for upcomming events you can pay the prizemoney 90 days after the event (at the lastest).
Thank you for taking your time to respond to the community, Carmac. I realize your role of a diplomat can't be easy, and the community can sound very hatefull at times. But know that we do appreciate the transparency that you're trying to bring here.
One thing I would like to bring up again though is your work to make these payment issues go away. Forgive me if I misinterpreted your response to the other guy, but it makes me wonder.
On November 04 2011 04:57 Carmac wrote: ESL is working hard to make sure this goes away. The issue is treated very seriously in this company – in spite of appearances threatening is not needed.
When asked to elaborate on how you're trying to make this go away, you practicly said it's by doing business as usual. This doesn't sound very active and hard working to me. Obviously your "day to day activities" is part of the cause to this problem, not its solution.
A more satisfying answer to me, when you say you're working to eliminate a problem would be something along the lines of:
We have formed a task group within the ESL with the goal to have pay-out times lowered to 60 days in 2 years. They're looking at ways to re-write our sponsor contracts, save money on prize pools in smaller tournaments to have a buffer for the bigger tournaments, finding any new revenue streams both from our viewers and perhaps new sponsors etc.
That would be "working hard". Not "uh well, we're doing what we've always done".
Again, I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your response, but that's how it came off. As basicly doing nothing other than "wanting".
On November 04 2011 06:00 FlyingDJ wrote: The delays are bad, but they don't destroy what esports is like, in fact over years in the past where delays and non-payment was worse they sure did not.
Hey Carmac, I gess you will be able to read my post
I'm really interested in status of Frostbeule the 5 times winner of the EMS TMNF Seasons, this is very cool outstanding result and I suppose you just have to estimate this by paying him his prizemoneys.
On November 04 2011 06:54 LovE-z33k wrote: So basically, you're saying it will be paid. Cool...
Why is it that MLG pays out right away, and ESL doesn't. The whole 90 day thing is BS, and nothing stops you from going over that time period anyways.
Keep in mind, MLG doesn't host nearly as many tournaments as ESL does.
How many does ESL hosts?
MLG hosts 6 live events and a couple online tournament/show matches.
Lets see.... 6 IEM live events.. 3 live EPS finals
Gazillion online tournaments and show matches ^^ Ok maybe not gazillionbut at least 12-15 a month.
EN is not my native language so sry but it should be understandble?
We cauld just start a list cause he is obvious not able to google, right? Lets see what ESL provides for his Players and then lets compare the pure number of Games with the other leagues. Because its a lot of Work i will simply not also "GOOGLE FOR YOU YOU SIR!" i will post them here for free. I know how hard it is to google for yourself and try to get an own oponion based on facts, especialy in america where Bush won illiagal but they let him be President ROFL. Basicly - if enouph play it ESL always hosts a tournament with some prize for every game. The List is ofc not complete. Just Listed games, so there are competitions and in some way a prize. You can google it for your self, ofc you can google with binks or whatever you enjoy the most. I will not because its even more work for nothing. I follow this forum and in this section (Money/ESL) i see people writing something true but people just ignore it. FlyingDJ is just one of them who gets completly ignored and he is so long in eSport.
Remember, ESL gives every game kind of a chance, they open a Portal for a game and if the community is active they get powerd up with cups and stuff and ofc prizes. If a title becomes EAS (ESL Amateur Series) they have or are close to become a EPS title if they are not still a EPS title, but they are really active and get "sponsored" and watched more. Google yourself for EAS but its like the step to ProGaming playing there. Compared to USA - playing MLG OpenBracket but it has a other shadul ofc. Not the stupid one of MLG where its a real wonder if you make it through it and win a mlg.
PS3/PSP BF 3 Brink CoD 4 CoD Black Ops CoD MW2 CoD MW3 Crysis CS:GO Dirt 3 DukeNukem Forever F1 2011 Fifa 11 Fifa 12 Magic: TG . DotP PES 2012 Shift 2 TopSpin 4
Wii/NDS CoD 4 Fifa 10 Mario Kart Wii Pokemon Diamant / Perl / Platin SuperSmashBros Brawl
Xbox: Backshoots Billards 2 BF3 CoD 4 CoD BlackOps CoD MW2 CoD MW3 Crysis 2 CS:GO Dirt 3 Doritos Crash Course DukeNukem Forever F1 2011 Fifa 10 Fifa 11 Fifa 12 Forza Motorsport 4 Full House Poker Gears of War 3 Guitar Hero: WoR Halo Reach Kinect Sports Magic: TG DotP 2012 Magic: The Gathering PES 2012 Shift 2 Unleashed Thexas Hold em Top Spin 4 Uno YuGiOh 5Ds Decade Duels
Xbox: CoD 4 CoD BlackOps CoD MW2 F1 2011 Fifa 12 Forza Motorsport 4 Gears of War 3 Halo Reach Naruto Shippuden Storm 2 PES 2012 Red Dead Redemption Super Street Fighter 4 Top Spion 4
PS3 BF3 CoD Black Ops CoD MW2 CoD MW3 F1 2011 Fifa 12 Naruto Shippuden Storm 2 PES 2011 Super Street Figher 4 Top Spin 4
Wii/NDS Fifa 12 Mario Kart Wii PES 2011
Arcade: Bankshot Billiards 2 Bomberman Live Doritos Crash Course Full House Poker Uno
They have their Own Language Part But ofc for all others there is the EU Part, so lets take a look:
Playstation 3 BF3 Brink Cod 4 Cod Black Ops CoD MW2 CoD MW3 CS:Go F1 2011 F1 2011 Fifa 11 Fifa 12 PES 2012
Xbox Bf3 Brink CoD 4 Cod Black Ops Cod MW2 CoD MW3 CS:GO F1 2011 Fifa 11 Fifa 12 Forza Motorsport Gears of War 3 Halo Reach PES 2012 Uno
So now you count the number of games and compare them to for example MLG. Now you cauld start to check out what games get a cup or something. just check out if there is any prize you can with with the title and then think of that sb has to manage all that too. so it takes time? OFC not, YOU can handle all of this games in 2 Hours right?
So this is a big bunch, interesting that this three diffrent countrys have also some difference in games. But lets go to tha part that matters right? Away from this kidshit aka console gamers to men sports aka PC !
EPS: CS 1.6, CS:S, Fifa11, SC2, Trackmania, LoL, World of Tanks
LigaPokal: CS 1.6, CS:S, Fifa11, SC2
There is a EAS too and more like CityChampoinchips and stuff wont list them, google for yourself. They need ofc time and get some kind of prizes too. Myb i will explain EAS later on. Now i am not interested
Darkspore DawnOfWar 2: Retribution Day of Defeat Source DotA Duke Nukem Forever Enemy Territory FEAR F1 2010 F1 2011 FanatasyMasters Fifa 12 Football Manager 2011 Football Manager 2012 Haxball HoN Homefront ICQ Games JediKnight: Jedi Academy
LoL L4D 2 Level R Live for Speed Magic: The Gathering Medal of Honor MSN Games N4Speed Hot Persuit N4Speed Most Wanted N4Speed Shift OFP: Red River Operations 7 Playforia PlayOK PokerTH PES 2011 PES 2012 Quake Live
Race 07 RaceDriver Grid rFactor S4 League Shift 2 Unleashed Starcraft 2 Storm of the Imperial Sanctum Team Fortress 2 Teeworlds Trackmania 2 Trackmania Nations Forvever Unreal 3 Unreal 2004 Vietcong WC3 War Rock World of Tanks Worms Reloaded
All this Games have their german Part. Some are active some are close to death but as long as ESL provides it there is a chance for the players to be active and get prizes. I will just now go one with the Top Games for countrys.
BF3 BlubGame CS 1.6 CS:S CoD 4 DotA Fifa Online Fifa 11 CoD MW2 Poker Th PES 2011 Quake Live Skype Games Stalker COP SC2 Trackmania Nations Forever WC3 Chess
EPS: CS 1.6, CSSS, Fifa11, SC2, Trackmania, LoL, World of Tanks Cause of changes they are again a part of EPS Germany. And ofc they just suck and play no real part in it. Sry but its true
CoD Black Ops Fifa 11 SC2 Well they are basicly part of the German ESL so take their a look. They have some things germans dont really play like Skiing and stuff. Thats it basicly
Nordic: Nordic Parts of EU like Sweden/Finnland/Sweden and and duno. Basicly 5 Countrys + Show Spoiler [ProGaming] +
EPS Nordic was a big desaster, Teams just not coming, problems. They are LanActive in the end. Nordic EPS not found so they stoped it?
Americas Army 3 Americas Army Operations Armed Assault 2 Assault Cube BF2 BF 1942 BF 2142 BF Viatnam CoD 2 CoD 4 CoD World at War Combat Arms CS CS:S CS Condition Zero Cross Fire Crysis Wars Cube 2 Day of Defeat Day of Defeat Sourcve Digital Paint: Painbtall 2 ET: Quake Wars FarCry 2 GTA IV HL2 Insurgency JediKnight 2 Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy L4D Operaiton 7 Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising Quake 3 Rainbow Six: Raven Shield S4 League Soldat Star Wars Battlefront Star Wars Battlefront 2 SWAT 4 Tactical Ops Assault on Terror Team Fortress 2 Unreal 3 Unreal 2004 Urban Terror Vietcong War Rock Warsow
Battleforge C&C Red Alert 3 Company of Heroes Dawn Of War Demigod DotA Empire Total War LotR Battle for middle earth 1 LotR Battle for middle earth 2 SC:BW SC 2 WC3 World in Conflict
EAS CoD Black Ops CoD 4 Combat Arms Poker TH Haxball CS:S Point Blank
Lo Scontro Continua Point Black
regional Championchips: CoD 4 CoD Black Ops Combat Arms CS:S haxball Warrock BF Bad Company 2 LoL
I am now kind of bored doing this. What i wanted to Show is what the ESL provides for his Members. Basicly every Game gets his chance and basicly every Game has his chance to be a part of pro Gaming. And every year their are big discussions going on when a game drops out of EPS and a new title comes in. World of Tanks was the last title with drama going on. And you see that countries have diffrent "most loved games". What is interesting. Italy simple does not Play CS 1.6 and years ago they played AgeOfEmpires and not Wc3 or SC:BW. In the end there are a bunch of games.
And i say it again: Every Community Gets His Chance To Push Their Title To A Pro Title!
Something that MLG / IGN and all others dont do. They announce their title and if you dont like it what to do? There is no chance to get a pro competition for your game. And as you see this company has a lot to do. They have not just ONE TOURNAMENT where they have a prizepool that is just a joke (hi MLG) or one Game with a big prize pool.
I forgot a lot but you can just google for yourself. Just keep in Mind this German Company provides a lot of tournaments in diffrent countrys and then they have ofc the bit cross country tournaments
ESLMajorSeson: CS:S, CoD4, Fifa11, HoN, LoL, Q Live, Trackmania, World of tanks
Asus ENC: CS1.6, WC3, Fifa, CS:S, CS1.6 Female, QuakeLive
ESL Female EU: CS 1.6
And now its up to you to compare. MLG drives their stuff with trucks to diffrent locations but still its the same country. They pay a prizepool that does just say: Hey i go there and i will loose money anyway. Even if i win its a minus buissnes for each player. and for the teams too. Thx sponsors are paying it but if you look the matches they play its just an incredibal joke. And then we compare the number of games...the joke gets bigger and bigger. ESL has problems. My first problem is their joke of a streamquality. So i try to go to live events as often as i possibly can. And they release their replays instant. Not like MLG. Showing basicly 20% of all Games and then you have to wait for the replays. And the funy thing, the OpenBracket players, the new / young growing ProGaming generation gets zero attention. The ESL does it the other way around. There are so many competitions where clans are able to check out the maybe upcoming stars, small clans that can make a name and ofc players can grow to stars. MLG? dont see them at all. And there are a lot ot other facts that speak in my eyes for the ESL. But hey they pay out more BUT FUCKING LATE WTF Oo and thats ofc not good but the people dont see the complete structure of the ESL
They pay out PrizeMoney! Late but they pay prizemoney out that is far away from MLG. If they wouldnt have the deal with GSL the tournament would be a joke. Not to talk about protecting players in PoolPlay that just feed their groups and its so hard to kick them out. The good thing about MLG, its like the Warcraft 3 Championsleague. A prestige team league. To win it was more woth then the money you get from it. But in the end not like it. Its the easiest way to get a Code S/A spot in the world and that makes it so fucking attractive. But as a Fan of SC2 its a joke till they release their replays and give me a chance to see the not top dogs.
And do not forget the PlayerDivas. Not able to show good behavior and professionalism. There are big examples like Naniwa. Basicly a bad manner player in WC3. EPS Nordic, no online tournament at all, then they get their chance and it becomes a joke in the end. DoTa/LoL where you see Teams droping out. Even in the EAS you see so many penaltyPoints and players dropping cause they dont show up, cant read rules or just act like the rules want them. Keeping this in mind makes it so easy to believe players are not able to give the ESL their bankdates? Yes? I mean ok USA is known worldwide for stupid stuff like the guy in his campingmobile activating his tempomat and, stand up, make a coffe, crash, and win on court cause nobody said he has to stay in cockpit while tempomat is on Oo.
Still: Yes ESL pays out late but they have so much stuff going on and not just one tournament. So please keep this in mind. And keep in mind its a bit diffrent in EU then in USA. For example the Cologne tournament. Its basicly a joke. Yes the GamesCom is not a pure tournament. All publisher come there to show up their Games but the organisation is a joke. I have been there, Saturday they have not been able to get the logistic done. People cant go in cause they forgot to caunt a Daypass, the weeklypass and the people who just bought a online ticket for saturday. Its a joke and then the GamesCom itself. The ESL stage was dobbel as big as last time and the ESL cauld easy fill up a whole Part and the people will pay to enter the GC but just check out the ESl. But Gamescom dont give them a place. Complete Parts where closed for no reaseon...enouph of it. I hopefully made my point. Cybersports is still not there where it cauld be but the ESL did more then any other organisation.
Still paying out late is bad, but paying out! So dont make it to a big deal. And if you dont like it, then dont play there. FXO is doing it and missing in my eyes a way of showing them selves and sponsors in esport. ESL is also in TV - Eurosport. But haters gona hate. Its the Internet right?
EPT
but this stuff is just to crystal clear and very bad propaganda ^^
