Check Six Disbands - Page 8

On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote:

As a former player for Check SIx, I agree with this.

I enjoyed my time in the team because the players in the team were great and one of my best friends was the sc2 manager at the time. The 'Check Six philosophy' though was completely flawed. They put more priority on their management than their players, it always felt like they thought that the 'team' was above the player. They were in a position where so many up and coming teams wish they were at; they had financial and gear sponsors and very skilled players. They won 2 ESEA's and got second in one, if I remember correctly. That's over $10,000 that the players earned them but what did the players that earned them that money get? Nothing except travel to MLG's , which is as much a benefit to the team as it is to the player.

They put more priority in bringing in personalities rather than players. They had Julia, PainUser, HD, and MaximusBlack getting as much or more from the team than the actual players. Why did Suppy go to EG? Because he wasn't contracted by xSix. How pathetic is that? Especially after his run at MLG they still didn't have him contracted, I think I heard him say that EG didn't even approach him until after he qualfiied for ASUS ROG. That means even after he did so well at MLG and after he showed what an amazing player he is, xSix still wasn't going to contract him until another team did. It happened in the past with other players on the team, they basically had the mindset of 'why pay a player unless we have to?'. I'm sure they scrambled to try to get Suppy to stay after he was contacted by EG but what a slap in the face! It's like saying "you weren't worth contracting before, but now that EG wants you we'll try to keep you".

I knew this was going to happen long, long ago. It's the result of incompetence and bad management philosophy. The players are what's most important, if that wasn't the case then why would you disband? You lost your best players but you still had the people who you put in a higher priority than the players that left! You still had Julia, HD, PU, and MaximusBlack, why disband? Because the players who are actually competing for you are what's important and you failed to realize that long ago. You should have promoted your players, made them famous. Not try to bring in already famous people and put them ahead of your players. Look at EG, they got a group of players and then marketed the hell out of them. They made their players into personalities, not recruit personalites and try to make them players.

This doesn't mean they were bad people or anything like that, I really liked Curt, Zax, Vhalin and Fuji. They're great people, I just think the way they went about leading and managing the team was wrong.

On August 15 2012 09:08 Chairman Ray wrote:
Dang, xSix was one of my favorite teams. Mkengyn super awesome

On August 15 2012 09:37 GTR wrote:
I hope a large team picks up Ver at least as a coach. One of the greatest minds for the game outside of Korea.

On August 15 2012 09:51 PhillyWild wrote:
RIP Check-Six, a cautionary tale of how NOT to run a Pro Gaming franchise. (No offense)

Truth is that esports is a fickle industry. Like running any successful small business, you have to be on top of your game from top to bottom and take advantage of EACH and EVERY business/marketing/competitive opportunity you can get. Support ALL of your players, don't pay them lip service, you signed them for a reason. People are making a big deal about management shelling out money for a Headset and Keyboard? Hell, that's the LEAST a team should do for a player. The players are the faces of the team. They are their investments. The team should do everything in their power to provide the players with the best opportunities to improve and perform BECAUSE it helps the team as well. Provide a foundation for each individual player to improve. Sponsor events. Promote the HELL out of what you have and show the world why they should pay attention to your brand.

This is the problem with NA teams today, no one's heart is in it. No one wants to do the dirty work. Yeah, money is nice to have, but xSix HAD the financial backing at one point and blatantly refused to take advantage of it. They signed Sleep and did nothing with him, they had Suppy for months prior to him leaving and did nothing with him, they had MaximusBlack for over seven months and expanded their fanbase and what did that get them? What did they do with it? A couple photo ops and mentions on his stream...a few T-shirt sales...that's it. It really seems like Check-Six wasn't a TEAM, they were a group of individuals. And management expected them to handle the leg work. This isn't a death knell to NA pro teams, but it is a wake-up call to them and a lesson to those who are looking at forming pro-level teams in the future.

On August 15 2012 10:09 KeyHunt wrote:


I certainly hope you're right. If the only problem is simply how CheckSix was ran..then that is fantastic and we should see newer teams break in without having to spend their life savings any day now.

On August 15 2012 09:47 KeyHunt wrote:


Agreed completely..I was actually too stupid to even talk to him about Starcraft on multiple occasions.

On August 15 2012 10:25 shinyA wrote:

So the problem wasn't with how the team was ran? I left because of how the team was ran, Supply and Fuji left as a result of how the team was ran, and now the team is gone. Who's responsible for the team disbanding? I don't understand this comment. You had money, players, management, everything you need to make a team successful and you failed. That's no one's fault but management; don't act like it wasn't.

On August 15 2012 10:29 PhillyWild wrote:


I wish you the best of luck in your future business opportunities KH. I'm not gonna sit here and try to argue that finances mean nothing, money always makes things easier. But a business partnership between a company and its employee (or a Team and a Player) is a two-way street. People will always be willing to work hard with/for people who work hard for them. And you mean to tell me that with names such as Aulij, HD, and MaximusBlack that the marketing opportunities simply weren't there or were that few and far between to where one would have to spend their "life savings"? Just an outsider's opinion, but it always seemed to be a disconnect between the members of xSix and Check-Six itself. For example, MaximusBlack wasn't really thought of "Check-Six Member MaximusBlack" he was thought of "MaximusBlack, member of Check-Six". As with the rest of the players as well. That's a marketing issue right there. There seemed to be little coordination between the team members and management, again from an outsider's perspective.

Today is a sad day for the Pro Gaming community, and it really sucks to see one of my favorite esports teams fall by the wayside but its the missteps that disappoint me the most. I can't help to think that this day could have been avoided.

On August 15 2012 10:39 Xeris wrote:
I'm not spending my life savings on LighT. Doing pretty well for myself thus far