Stephano forfeits ONOG Finals - Page 48

On January 31 2012 11:59 Jibba wrote:



He knows how long SC2 matches go, if it's beginning to breach when he thought he could play then he should've said that from the beginning. Asking a tournament to delay and then pulling out afterwards is completely unacceptable, imo. I don't agree with forfeiting in a finals no matter what, but to do it after making a request of a tournament is even worse.

And the sports analogies seem moot, because ESPORTS is simply not near the level of professionalism of normal sports, but it's past a point of amateurism where people actually play for the enjoyment of the game/competition. I'd just like to point out that last night in DotA 2, an Australian team played a tournament all night long and lost in the grand finals at 8:30 AM their time. The first place prize was a headset, mouse, mouse pad and last generation video card. :| They obviously didn't need to, but I respect them more for it, just like we respect athletes more for playing through injuries and sickness.

Outside of a few select players, tournament organizers really have most of the leverage here and I think they did the right thing, and I probably wouldn't invite him to a future event. This drama really is a mess, and Stephano isn't a draw like IdrA or some Koreans. If the prize money continues to be good, they'll still get a ton of good players.

On January 31 2012 13:15 plogamer wrote:

I completely agree that Stephano did not handle it correctly.

However, analogy to sports should not be moot. It's not about the matter of professionalism, in my opinion, but rather simple utilitarianism. Tournaments have a reasonable responsibility to accommodate the players for one simple reason: it gives better games for the audience. Stephano playing half-awake would be a poor show.

As for the tournament delaying Stephano's match, it was "earlier in the day". Stephano did not delay his match to 2 am (CET, I assume) and then forfeit, from what it looks like. I could be wrong but but the tournament delaying Stephano's match did not cost the tournament much. Apparently, there were plenty of games that were not streamed and could have made up for the content. Whereas Stephano playing at 2am would have cost him the game. This kind of uneven characterization leads me to doubt the narrative provided by the tournament.

As a side note: a lot of the criticism seems to be about the level of professionalism displayed by Stephano, which I agree with. But the burden goes both ways, we also have to look at the professionalism of a tournament that did not account for the fact that games can get drawn out, and slot enough time without putting too much burden on players. Why not spread the tournament over 2 days if it was getting this drawn out? I am curious to know how long the tournament took in total. Knowing that Stephano will be playing from France (I think), everyone should have taken precautions about the time frame. None of this, however, changes the fact that Stephano needs to learn to prevent this type of a situation. I am also critical of his team for not managing his affairs better.

Perhaps looking at the silver lining, but incidents like this will hammer out eSports that is still relatively new and growing. As a sport that can be played online, we will have international players who will be playing from various time zones. How we do work around that? I think it's better to work on a positive solution than to penalize and alienate international talent for not handling situations that is also new for them. It is my opinion that more talent will bring in more viewers and further grow eSports.

TLDR: Rather than point fingers, we need to look at circumventing issues related to timezones and match times; given that eSports (SC2 especially) is an international phenomenon. If not, this will negatively impact the cohesion of international talent from various countries. The internet and its ability to connect players from across the globe easily is one of the advantages of eSports over traditional sports, and it will be a shame to squander it because we could not schedule things properly.

On January 31 2012 13:20 Wolvmatt. wrote:
"the racist coments against french people is not necessary."


Necessary? No. Funny? Yes. I mean, come on, there is nothing more stereotypically french than forfeiting. Surrender may be more inherent to french culture than even the french language itself.

On January 31 2012 13:27 FallDownMarigold wrote:
Hopefully he realizes it's not actually racist to make those "France surrenders all the time" jokes... Are the French a special race? No

On January 31 2012 13:57 RedBack wrote:


Yeah the French arent a race they're an ethnicity, although the way they act you wouldnt know it... i turned up to paris only speaking english.... lucky they didnt actually have pitch forks....

On January 31 2012 13:15 plogamer wrote:


I completely agree that Stephano did not handle it correctly.

However, analogy to sports should not be moot. It's not about the matter of professionalism, in my opinion, but rather simple utilitarianism. Tournaments have a reasonable responsibility to accommodate the players for one simple reason: it gives better games for the audience. Stephano playing half-awake would be a poor show.