EPTWhat Gus of the PPSL has done - Page 47
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XRaDiiX
Canada1730 Posts
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lisward
Singapore959 Posts
On November 10 2011 18:11 Sky101 wrote: A tree fell in the forest, you didn't see it, so it must not have happened, right? He could have spent it on a million things related to this event production cost, etc. Just because we don't know how much he spent on what, doesn't mean that he's pocketing 100% of this money. Why can't you just wait for his side of the story regarding to how much money he received, where all that money went, before accusing him being a scammer? He may very well end up being exposed as a scammer, withholding a large chunk of that money, BUT WE DON'T KNOW THAT YET!!! What we do know, however, is the way he's carried himself so far. Yes, he's a douche bag, yes, he's a dick, yes, he's dumb... Anyone could see that. We all should just calm down and wait to see how the story unfolds. Raging isn't gonna help anybody, it only hurts your head :D The money never went to his staff or the to tickets, where the money is supposed to go so as far as I am concerned, and most of us here, he's a conniving thief. Also I don't get what you are trying to prove here, you're trying to force your opinion on others with NO EVIDENCE. Gus has had ample time to answer his allegations, and he did, with more lies. He doesn't deserve his side of the story. Plus it is very hard to tell when he is telling the truth  It's not about why he did it. It's about what he did, it's about what he didn't do that matters. | ||
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Frankon
3054 Posts
On November 10 2011 17:14 Sky101 wrote: The money he owes to everyone was "probably" (that's why I hate to include this because I don't know where exactly he spent this money on, but neither do any of us really) spent on production, trying to make this event as big as possible so that he can boast about it later. It was stated that the production didn't get paid for this event... | ||
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lisward
Singapore959 Posts
On November 10 2011 18:35 Frankon wrote: It was stated that the production didn't get paid for this event... The technicians didn't get paid, they were running on the mall's ISP, the computers did not have enough RAM (ha ha), there were so many delays. The event was so poorly produced that it has been universally acclaimed the title 'Worst Sc2 Event Ever' | ||
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cost2010
Germany46 Posts
On November 10 2011 17:53 karpo wrote: Seems like it's isolated to this Gus guy. Why would no tournament be held in the country again? because it's not isolated to this Gus guy. It is naturally hard to estimate corruption, embezzlement, fraud, ... in the private sector but Transparency's 2009 Global Report on that topic ("corruption and the private sector") states quite clearly that "Graft and corruption are a fact of life in the Philippines". The public sector is ranked 134th in Transparency's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, on par with countries such as Zimbabwe and Nigeria (and public sector behavior does set expectations for what's acceptable in everyday life). The way (international) esports tournaments are organized includes a lot of reliance on implicit/incomplete contracts, a functioning legal system, very loose oversight by the sponsors, medium to large dollar amounts paid ex ante, ...and does imo not lend itself to application in developing countries at all. I am not saying that it is impossible to organize tournaments in developing countries (or NICs if you care about absolute political correctness with rgds to the Philippines) but sponsors and high-level organizers (such as IPL) would have to take a different approach to make them reliably successful. And that's probably more effort than any sponsor would want to exert. No matter how the Gus case turns out, it will alert sponsors and organizers to issues they should have thought about long ago but chose to ignore so far. | ||
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aimaimaim
Philippines2167 Posts
On November 10 2011 18:43 cost2010 wrote: because it's not isolated to this Gus guy. It is naturally hard to estimate corruption, embezzlement, fraud, ... in the private sector but Transparency's 2009 Global Report on that topic ("corruption and the private sector") states quite clearly that "Graft and corruption are a fact of life in the Philippines". The public sector is ranked 134th in Transparency's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, on par with countries such as Zimbabwe and Nigeria (and public sector behavior does set expectations for what's acceptable in everyday life). The way (international) esports tournaments are organized includes a lot of reliance on implicit/incomplete contracts, a functioning legal system, very loose oversight by the sponsors, medium to large dollar amounts paid ex ante, ...and does imo not lend itself to application in developing countries at all. I am not saying that it is impossible to organize tournaments in developing countries (or NICs if you care about absolute political correctness with rgds to the Philippines) but sponsors and high-level organizers (such as IPL) would have to take a different approach to make them reliably successful. And that's probably more effort than any sponsor would want to exert. No matter how the Gus case turns out, it will alert sponsors and organizers to issues they should have thought about long ago but chose to ignore so far. I'd say it's better that way .. You have to realize this from a filipinos point of view. We got a chance to be a part of something when before we were so left out and then this Gus dude came and ruined it all but I'm definitely sure that if this was another person, he would have done the exact same thing. There maybe some folks here that would do things otherwise but facing hardships in this country, it's basically a dog-eat-dog society. We do not have decent internet connections here. Also, society tends frown upon computer games and most gamers are casuals who have 0 idea as to what E-sport actually is. I think it would be better for this country to discover E-sport on it's own with a small help from the outside. P.S. not a fan of SC2 but a huge fan of HoN | ||
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jimbob615
Uruguay455 Posts
On November 10 2011 13:01 Shel wrote: Yeah, there's more here then just the money he didn't pay out and the facts that point to poor planning. There's, what appears to be, Gus not sending YYJ and instead sending syckness. There's him not sending the 4 Cube players. There's general behavior in regards to Dox and his streamer, I think he owns KT productions (I don't remember the name), that points to a scamminess. He also held a qualifier for PPSL in-house, meaning only AZK and their friends were allowed to enter. I believe 6 spots in the tourney came from this qualifier. As for the money, here's the list I know of: Didn't pay the crew at the event Didn't pay a hotel bill that TGR paid instead Didn't pay Seltzers or Tasteless' hotel bill (they paid it themselves) Seltzer said it was $700 just for her. Didn't pay for the plane tickets Didn't pay the guy who did the streaming (KT productions?) Didn't pay back S2 the money they gave for the HoN event's prize pool Given that he got the plane tickets in advance, and that the tickets for the Cube players would only have been $1000 or so, I'm thinking he deliberately didn't send them to the event. And since there clearly was money to send syckness, there clearly was money to send YYJ, even though Gus maintained there wasn't when YYJ asked him what was going on. tickets for Cube players being $1000 ???? to fly from Cebu to Manila? you can get those flights for like $50 each from Cebu Pacific, which is a budget airline. Don't know about that... | ||
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Coruscant
Singapore84 Posts
On November 10 2011 09:52 JinDesu wrote: Gus stated on Lo3 that he cannot make it in due to the lack of a microphone. That's bullshit. I just spoke to him on skype last week. Most definitely has access to mic/mics. I don't know what's happening right now - i'd love to give him the benefit of the doubt but this is pushing it. | ||
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OopsOopsBaby
Singapore3425 Posts
On November 10 2011 21:09 jimbob615 wrote: tickets for Cube players being $1000 ???? to fly from Cebu to Manila? you can get those flights for like $50 each from Cebu Pacific, which is a budget airline. Don't know about that... domestic flights cant be that expensive so its highly gus deliberately denied their flights to give his teammates free walkovers in the group stages. | ||
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clownzim
Brazil267 Posts
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ETisME
12386 Posts
On November 10 2011 18:42 lisward wrote: The technicians didn't get paid, they were running on the mall's ISP, the computers did not have enough RAM (ha ha), there were so many delays. The event was so poorly produced that it has been universally acclaimed the title 'Worst Sc2 Event Ever' some pages ago, the technicians cleared upon the not enough ram is only a false rumor. The computers were having hard drive conflicts or something and caused a drop in framerate | ||
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theBALLS
Singapore2935 Posts
I think he's just a really, really low-IQ individual who just goes along with whatever his little brain tells him to. The position he has gotten himself into is one due to his sheer laziness, lack of basic common sense and a dearth of EQ. I actually feel more sad than angry for him. It would suck to be not only such a dumb person, but also thinking that he's always right about stuff. | ||
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SilverLeagueElite
United States626 Posts
On November 10 2011 17:14 Sky101 wrote: *sigh* seriously, nobody is doubting these claims of what Gus' done. What I said, if you guys read carefully, was how I believed his intention wasn't to swindle money. Rather, in my opinion, it was just manipulation, lying, cheating, boasting, etc... because he is simply a dumb kid, who fucked up big time with this event. Let's think about it for a second. Why did he not want to fly YJY and the other dudes over? Err, maybe because he wants to steal YJY's spot and give it to someone he wants to? And the other dudes were facing AZK members, so why take the chance? Make up excuses so his team can receive walkovers. The money he owes to everyone was "probably" (that's why I hate to include this because I don't know where exactly he spent this money on, but neither do any of us really) spent on production, trying to make this event as big as possible so that he can boast about it later. So since I don't know WHY he did what he did, I'm not gonna accuse him of anything just yet. I do, however, have an opinion on his character, and it isn't very favorable (duh!) and explicit (#$%!), but I'm not gonna accuse him of anything just yet because I don't want to assume why he did what he did. My thoughts written above are just thoughts on the other side of a coin, they're not valid to be used as evidences to support any argument, which is why I'm not gonna use it. Rather, I want to sit back and wait for everything to unfold before I come to a conclusion. Update as of LO3 E94 Gunrun is down $900. Seltzer says she and Tasteless didn't get paid (~$700) Amanda is down $12,000 S2 is down $2,000 I'm sure it wasn't his intention to shaft these people out of money either. Whether you call it swindling, cheating, spending it on production, being a dumb kid; it's all semantics. The fact remains he misappropriated funds. People that should have been paid were not. It may not have been his intention to set out to do any of these things, but he did do them. His intentions are irrelevant and why he did it is unimportant. It's his actions that matter. He may not have intended it but in the end, people got scammed due to his actions. Gus was given an opportunity to speak his side on Live On Three. He didn't show. His excuse, 'couldn't get a mic'. Being the organizer of an event that had mics and headsets but still couldn't get a mic, call me skeptical. With notable community members speaking out, evidence is mounting against him. | ||
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Newbistic
China2912 Posts
I think chances are after a while the people who he owe money to will never see him again, the community will get tired of the drama, and nothing will happen. Sure, there's rumors that he promises that the money will get paid out on the 17th (or whenever), but his word means nothing right now. Additionally, on the list of people who (allegedly) haven't been paid: Rachel hasn't been paid? Tasteless hasn't been paid? Aren't these people loaned out from IGN and GomTV, which are major companies with a lot of pull? Why haven't these companies tried to step in to protect their employees? | ||
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FirstGear
Australia185 Posts
On November 10 2011 21:33 ETisME wrote: some pages ago, the technicians cleared upon the not enough ram is only a false rumor. The computers were having hard drive conflicts or something and caused a drop in framerate I read somewhere (reddit I think), that there wasn't enough ram so it was pulled out of some computers to reinsert into others. | ||
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Zanno
United States1484 Posts
On November 10 2011 22:03 Newbistic wrote: It's really only starcraft which is green to this kind of fraudThis is utterly stupid. It just goes to show how unorganized, unregulated, and how green the e-sports industry is. If you go back 5-10 years this happened all the time in the fps scene, even major top level competitions like CPL and GGL tended to not pay out prizes below 4th place given how many tournaments i've seen held in sketchy exotic corners of the world where a bunch of money went missing, i'm not surprised this happened at all, what does surprise me is that the production team got burned instead of the players it's pretty clear that some major fraud has occurred, but i don't think that the operation started off as a scam from the start, given how gus was involved in some major SEA clan i imagine the way it probably went down is once the sponsorship money started rolling in he realized that he could cut a corner here on the computers, cut a corner there on the internet, and pocket the rest for himself. then he realized he could pocket money allocated to flights by dropping qualified players and inviting local people from his clan instead. i think the biggest indicator of this is how the hon tournament outright evaporated. given that his twitter and facebook are gone i imagine he's probably going to drop off the face of the earth pretty quickly and it won't even be possible to sue him, i think what a lot of people in this thread don't realize is that relative to the cost of living in his country, the amount of money he stole is an astronomical sum, and he can easily live off the radar for 5 to 10 years of the amount he's allegedly pocketed | ||
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lisward
Singapore959 Posts
On November 10 2011 22:25 FirstGear wrote: I read somewhere (reddit I think), that there wasn't enough ram so it was pulled out of some computers to reinsert into others. Seltzer and thegunrun confirmed it. | ||
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pdd
Australia9933 Posts
No, the technician for the event posted in one of the threads that it was a driver conflict forcing them to have to reinstall the drivers. There was sufficient RAM. | ||
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17Sphynx17
580 Posts
On November 10 2011 22:26 Zanno wrote: It's really only starcraft which is green to this kind of fraud If you go back 5-10 years this happened all the time in the fps scene, even major top level competitions like CPL and GGL tended to not pay out prizes below 4th place given how many tournaments i've seen held in sketchy exotic corners of the world where a bunch of money went missing, i'm not surprised this happened at all, what does surprise me is that the production team got burned instead of the players it's pretty clear that some major fraud has occurred, but i don't think that the operation started off as a scam from the start, given how gus was involved in some major SEA clan i imagine the way it probably went down is once the sponsorship money started rolling in he realized that he could cut a corner here on the computers, cut a corner there on the internet, and pocket the rest for himself. then he realized he could pocket money allocated to flights by dropping qualified players and inviting local people from his clan instead. i think the biggest indicator of this is how the hon tournament outright evaporated. given that his twitter and facebook are gone i imagine he's probably going to drop off the face of the earth pretty quickly and it won't even be possible to sue him, i think what a lot of people in this thread don't realize is that relative to the cost of living in his country, the amount of money he stole is an astronomical sum, and he can easily live off the radar for 5 to 10 years of the amount he's allegedly pocketed Granted it is a huge sum of money but I really wouldn't go as far as to say he really stole the money. I would agree with the cutting corners, heck the PC lag and compatibility/driver issues that plagued the CPUs on day 1 were really something that should have never been an issue given that he was also an SC2 player knowledgeable with the spec requirements of the game itself. But I wouldn't go far to say he pocketed it, but rather he made too many promises to too many people and wanted too many things when there was clearly no funding even from the totality of the sponsors money. If you would just go by the logic of 14k from IPL as a major sponsor then we could gather from there that the remaining sponsors would dole out smaller amounts if they ever said they were going to. Razer would/should be excluded from monetary commitments cause surely gear would come from them (Sponsor in kind). You had Palit, Nvidia, EMAXX and WD and I would say that could be some of the prize money and equipment (maybe discounted prices) Given the logic, I find it hard to digest that the total sponsor cash (liquid) would exceed 20k usd once the event finished. So you needed to pay for print media, ads, domain names, the BIG ASS LED SCREEN he commissioned (not sure if it was paid), Lighting and Audio equipment rental and you'd easily eat up that cash real fast if you didn't project your expenses properly. Airfare supposedly totalled around 700k php (around 16250 usd) so what would you have left. He just mismanaged the funds but I doubt he had any intention or even did steal/pocket it. He didn't have a business plan and just committed to every one to make it "Grand" in his scheme of things and it blew up big time. As for how come others were left to foot the bill, well, I think the plain and simple answer to it is he was already falling short and maxed out his card on "stuff" and he avoided putting his name on anything that meant more payments. Because these guys were friends (Clive, Amanda and Gus) they trusted him and too much at that and it bit them back, one more worse than the other. One must also not forget that this was an event by Team AZK and not just Gus. Granted they are also victims here but what happened during the planning stages is my question? Was there anything concrete in their meetings? Was there ever any official meetings or were they just eating/gaming/drinking sessions with light discussions of the event and a lot of fun times? See on my end, what I can't figure out is did they just really leave everything to Gus and trust that the almighty Gus would pull through for them with this big of an event with their name on the line? I feel sorry they had to shoulder everything and endure the hardships but let's face it, they were also part of the planning. The event was powered by Team AZK, not just Gus Ledesma so what happened? | ||
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FirstGear
Australia185 Posts
On November 10 2011 22:47 pdd wrote: No, the technician for the event posted in one of the threads that it was a driver conflict forcing them to have to reinstall the drivers. There was sufficient RAM. On November 10 2011 11:30 TheGunrun wrote: lol, we didn't steal the ram. We had to use it to get some computers SC2 capable. Essentially just transplanting ram so some rigs could actually play the game well. Also, Amanda still has yet to get paid by Gus. And I'll deal with what Gus owes me once I'm back in the states. Sadly my flight just arrived at the gate, and I'll be out of commission for the next 20 hours, hope to see good news once I'm back! There might have been enough ram (that just needed reinstalling). Regardless, Seltzer and TheGunrun transplanted the ram into a few machines thinking there wasn't enough. | ||
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