On August 15 2012 04:56 KeyHunt wrote: Just be sure to read the interview. CheckSix is not done because of a "slew of players leaving". We parted ways with Sleep mutually and if anything that helped, not hurt us as a team..and MaximusBlack and Seo both left after we had decided to call it quits. Only player we really "lost" was Suppy. Thanks for the support guys and good luck.
The team has been around since 2010 in SC2, and 2004 in other games.
Please read the interview, it addresses more than what I say here. I don't want to make assumptions about what happened because I personally do not know all of the details (which can be found in the interview. Thanks! And much appreciation from CheckSix and KeyHunt!
Sleep disbanded July 14th Suppy to EG on July 24th SeoHyeon to Light and MaximusBlack to Quantic
I will keep the players that left at Starcraft 2, but let it be known that people from their CS team also have departed recently.
Here is what Kurt "KeyHunt" Carter had to say about the teams best months prior to their members leaving:
I would say we had some of our best months prior to Suppy's departure. Our future was really looking great. We had just signed a deal with RushOrderTees that allowed us direct support and also the ability to buy amazing shirts at a very low price for resale. Our first order of 50 completely sold out at MLG Anaheim and were receiving great sponsor reaction. The players had an amazing run at MLG Anaheim, we had started to get Suppy streaming more and then supported his stream through campaigns with MaximusBlack..all was well. Then, with the departure of Suppy it all started going a bit downhill. I would not dare blame this on Suppy..it is most certainly not his fault. However, it did sort of start the chain of events. As far as SeoHyeon and MaximusBlack..they left the team after the decision to close was made. There was a period of time in which we were still undecided on closing up shop, but for the most part we had decided to pack it up..and they could see the writing on the wall. We both knew and completely supported MaximusBlack's move over to Quantic and could not be happier for him.
The full interview can be found at the above link
But here were his last words:
It has been an amazing ride that we could not have done without help from a lot of people. First off, the sponsors that supported us in TteSports, RushOrderTees and Puretrak. They put faith in us, and we truly enjoyed proving to them that you don't have to receive a huge budget to provide a substantial return for them. To the people looking to start their own team, please do not let my comments scare you away from doing so. Please, give it a try. We were nowhere near perfect, and if you believe you can do better I invite you to try and if you need any help please feel free to contact me and I will be as honest with you as I possibly can be. You do not have to make the same mistakes others do. There are resources out there to help you. Finally, to our fans..we appreciate all your support and amazing words of inspiration over the past 2 years and we would not have made it half as long without your direct support and willingness to help out when necessary. Because of you, we were able to help get many players to multiple events over the course of our existence and hopefully you understand just how important that has been for this community.
Where will these players go? Anyone see some recruitment's happening?
Too bad, xSix had some great players who had some potential. Not necessarily surprised, because they lost most of their stars and haven't been looking as great recently.
On August 15 2012 04:49 WeedRa wrote: how long did they last? I might be wrong but wasn't x6 around for only about 1 year?
If you even glance at the article it states that the SC2 division has been around since August 2010.
With that said, I think this is a sad news. CheckSix has been around forever, fielding some really impressive teams across a variety of games. I had no idea they were so heavily invested in SC2 to the point where it would shut down the entire team acriss all platforms.
I still remember competing against them in America's Army in TWL and other leagues... they were one of the best (if not the best).
Just be sure to read the interview. CheckSix is not done because of a "slew of players leaving". We parted ways with Sleep mutually and if anything that helped, not hurt us as a team..and MaximusBlack and Seo both left after we had decided to call it quits. Only player we really "lost" was Suppy. Thanks for the support guys and good luck.
A sad day indeed when one of North America's Professional team disbands. Best of luck to all of the players that were on the Team ThisIsJimmy, Perfect, Ailuj, Mystik, Mkengyn, and Ver!
Just by the words of this KeyHunt guy, I can tell he is a top-quality entrepreneur with a lot of integrity. I wish him and his partners the very best, and the same to the ex-x6 players who are now teamless.
Man, this sucks. They were my favorite NA team. Once Suppy left, I kinda expected something like this to happen. I hope all their players are able to find new teams! GL!
Hope to see Ver and Mkengyn go places! As for Keyhunt and all of Check6, it's a real shame to see them disappear, there's a lot of truth about middle-ground spreading.
Sometimes I ask myself what's the real point of teams in SC2, besides managing players and getting sponsors.
It's not like SC2 is a team sport, and at least some people do enjoy and value regular tournaments/leagues over team based things. Part of this can be seen in the quick switching of players and the (more often than not) short lifespan of teams.
Sad to see them go, was a big fan of their TF2 and CS teams a few years ago, and supported them mostly for jimmy in their starcraft years. Very disappointed to see this, best of luck to all who are teamless.
It sounds like they put a lot of emphasis on Suppy leaving. I can understand it though. Watching Suppy's stream the day he joined EG, I was instantly impressed. He'd be a tough player to lose.
On August 15 2012 04:52 spbelky wrote: If you even glance at the article it states that the SC2 division has been around since August 2010.
So I was almost right... to me it is sad to see any clan disband after such a "short time" ... all the work etc for nothing...
I wouldn't say it was all for nothing, as a fan of Check Six, because of PainUser and HD, as well as a few others, the team helped people within the community, either by experience or connections. It was a good team that will be missed for sure. The people that have been leaving have been bringing some attention for themselves, Sleep most notably.
Totally expected this, I personally never liked this team. In my eyes they seemed like a gimmick team, they had a cute girl in diamond, a funny streamer, 2 casters who dont cast much, then suppy and sleep.
I was following PainUser and Suppy for a while and it is kinda sad to see this happen. Big or small it is sad when something had to close after putting a lot of time and effort into it.
On August 15 2012 05:02 testthewest wrote: Sometimes I ask myself what's the real point of teams in SC2, besides managing players and getting sponsors.
It's not like SC2 is a team sport, and at least some people do enjoy and value regular tournaments/leagues over team based things. Part of this can be seen in the quick switching of players and the (more often tan not) short lifespan of teams.
Something is lacking in the whole "team" story...
I wish SC2 had a very prestigious teamleague (like the WC3L). It makes teams more important for the fans and gives oppurtunities for the non-stars in the roster. But with teams all over the world and the focus on solo tournaments nothing like this will happen ever happen I feel :|. You either get replay casts, walkovers/scheduling or lag problems.
On August 15 2012 05:18 Balgrog wrote: Totally expected this, I personally never liked this team. In my eyes they seemed like a gimmick team, they had a cute girl in diamond, a funny streamer, 2 casters who dont cast much, then suppy and sleep.
You barely even know their players. Checksix was a good team that was always competitive in the ESEA and qualified for IPL TAC in the first qualifier.
Not having Suppy under contract seems like a misstep from team management to me, then again I don't know shit about how teams work when it comes to things like that. Best of luck to everybody on the roster and on the management team, hope people land on their feet.
checksix was always sorta ameteurish when it started back in cs. i was honestly surprised to find out they were still around when i got into sc2....cant say this is surprising, but at least their better players found new homes.
These semi pro teams dying in NA is starting to become a real worry imo, people might say that they are not surprised or that it doesn't matter because they were such a small team but the NA scene is becoming badly top heavy with basically only EG, Complexity and Liquid as serious professional teams. Not sure how much people understand about architecture but it applies to anything you build. If you don't have a solid foundation to support the top it will collapse on itself and I am worried that might happen to the sc2 scene in NA or even the esports scene in general in NA.
Luckily there is ROOT, ROOT reforming is the single greatest beacon of hope for the NA scene right now, however it still remains to be scene if the can survive and if other teams can get the same chance. Also ROOT can't carry the NA scene by itself and there is also a risk that ROOT will join EG, Liquid and Complexity as a big dog and then it will free fall.
Wow very as day I hope the best to all players and epically jimmy hard working player. And to curt hope you can bring the team back later down the road hope to see the checksix. Name down the the road.
Its quite saddening but, expected. I hope some of the good players on their team can find a new one. I really hope they can find a new team or get their own sponsors, which seems to be coming up more and more.
I really, really like Curt. I've known him for years, even worked alongside him at one point when we were young'uns, and he's one of the few genuine and trustworthy people I've found in e-sports in the past decade.
While it's definitely disheartening that Check-Six is closing and it's obviously becoming tougher for entry and mid-tier teams to stay established, this is probably not solely a result of the growth of e-sports, but likely a result of the e-sports structure itself. Teams are small businesses and as with any emerging business, it takes some luck, some skill, and the right people to make it all work out. Teams come and go as a result, and it's been like this within e-sports since its inception. It's one of the greatest and worst things about e-sports.
I wish Curt the absolute best, though. He's an absolutely great person from what I know of him!
Sad to hear. EG and Liquid will probably be the only 2 remaining NA teams once the dust settles. You need huge money or huge popularity to survive as a team in the long run.
On August 15 2012 04:52 spbelky wrote: If you even glance at the article it states that the SC2 division has been around since August 2010.
So I was almost right... to me it is sad to see any clan disband after such a "short time" ... all the work etc for nothing...
Uh. You are not almost right. August 2010 would be since the Starcraft 2 release date. The article also mentions their CounterStrike team, so they have been around for a while. :D
So sad, so sad. Hopefully NA gets more competitive semi-pro teams..
On August 15 2012 05:56 Canucklehead wrote: Sad to hear. EG and Liquid will probably be the only 2 remaining NA teams once the dust settles. You need huge money or huge popularity to survive as a team in the long run.
Is Liquid even considered an NA team?
It was founded by Nazgul (Netherlands) and only 2 of the 8 players on its roster are from NA. The only thing NA about Liquid is the website/business side of things where they're based out of New York, if I''m not mistaken. If anything it's a European team.
EG and ROOT seem to be the only leftover NA teams that get any publicity.
I dunno whether you guys are referring to just the sc2 division or the organization in general. CheckSix has been around for close to a decade. Key Hunt don't lose momentum, now is the time and you know what you need to do.........
On August 15 2012 05:56 Canucklehead wrote: Sad to hear. EG and Liquid will probably be the only 2 remaining NA teams once the dust settles. You need huge money or huge popularity to survive as a team in the long run.
Is Liquid even considered an NA team?
It was founded by Nazgul (Netherlands) and only 2 of the 8 players on its roster are from NA. The only thing NA about Liquid is the website/business side of things where they're based out of New York, if I''m not mistaken. If anything it's a European team.
EG and ROOT seem to be the only leftover NA teams that get any publicity.
On August 15 2012 05:56 Canucklehead wrote: Sad to hear. EG and Liquid will probably be the only 2 remaining NA teams once the dust settles. You need huge money or huge popularity to survive as a team in the long run.
Is Liquid even considered an NA team?
It was founded by Nazgul (Netherlands) and only 2 of the 8 players on its roster are from NA. The only thing NA about Liquid is the website/business side of things where they're based out of New York, if I''m not mistaken. If anything it's a European team.
EG and ROOT seem to be the only leftover NA teams that get any publicity.
Complexity and Quantic are pretty big no?
Oops. Was about to edit my post to include them. You're right.
On August 15 2012 06:04 GunPaladin wrote: I dunno whether you guys are referring to just the sc2 division or the organization in general. CheckSix has been around for close to a decade. Key Hunt don't lose momentum, now is the time and you know what you need to do.........
On August 15 2012 06:04 GunPaladin wrote: I dunno whether you guys are referring to just the sc2 division or the organization in general. CheckSix has been around for close to a decade. Key Hunt don't lose momentum, now is the time and you know what you need to do.........
ENERVATE
Hahaha. That would be interesting, eh?
CS:GO is the biggest fps release in a while, it'd be a great note to start on.
On August 15 2012 05:56 Canucklehead wrote: Sad to hear. EG and Liquid will probably be the only 2 remaining NA teams once the dust settles. You need huge money or huge popularity to survive as a team in the long run.
On August 15 2012 05:56 Canucklehead wrote: Sad to hear. EG and Liquid will probably be the only 2 remaining NA teams once the dust settles. You need huge money or huge popularity to survive as a team in the long run.
Is Liquid even considered an NA team?
No, you're correct. I shouldn't have labelled Liquid as an NA team considering it's mainly a world team. Though their HQ is in NY.. As for Root, I'm not sold on them yet. Sure they keep adding players, but I'd be very surprised if they're all getting salaries, which is the foundation for a team surviving since players can't survive without a salary in the long run. Players will just use Root as a stepping stone, till they can find a team that will give them a salary.
Wow that's really too bad Good luck to everyone who was still left on the team and the management. Sorry to see x6 go. While they were never necessarily a tip top foreign team, they were still a very strong team with a good roster. Hope everyone can find somewhere else to go.
On August 15 2012 05:56 EG.lectR wrote: I really, really like Curt. I've known him for years, even worked alongside him at one point when we were young'uns, and he's one of the few genuine and trustworthy people I've found in e-sports in the past decade.
While it's definitely disheartening that Check-Six is closing and it's obviously becoming tougher for entry and mid-tier teams to stay established, this is probably not solely a result of the growth of e-sports, but likely a result of the e-sports structure itself. Teams are small businesses and as with any emerging business, it takes some luck, some skill, and the right people to make it all work out. Teams come and go as a result, and it's been like this within e-sports since its inception. It's one of the greatest and worst things about e-sports.
I wish Curt the absolute best, though. He's an absolutely great person from what I know of him!
On August 15 2012 04:49 WeedRa wrote: how long did they last? I might be wrong but wasn't x6 around for only about 1 year?
The star 2 squad yes, but checksix is a lot older than starcraft 2. Sad to see a team with so much history gone T.T, still remember when I heard about them for the first time seeing their name in one of itwaslucks montages, good times.
not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
Check-Six has been around since atleast 2004, if not longer. But I don't think they have ever had a huge budget. They have had some peaks and lows, but are they closing down their sc2 division or the entirety of Check-Six?
Curt, you have been my best friend in eSports, always supporting me and my organization along our path. I want to thank you for all your guidance and support, and wish you nothing but success in your future eSport endeavors. You deserve it bro!
Check Six was one of the teams that enlightened me into the e-Sports world when I first started playing Counter-Strike competatively. Hope everyone the best.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I remember you singing a very different tune when one of the CheckSix management spent his own money to get you equipment by a certain time frame so you could "practice". And what team was it who's director personally invested in a full set of gear for you? Very funny how things like that work, I guess people's true character always comes out in the end.
But, you are welcome to your opinion even if it is flawed.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
err, I have to agree with this. It seemed that CheckSix had until Sleep's contract expired to gain a few really strong players and create a name for themselves with an incredibly strong team that could gain notoriety through online events and team leagues. The problem I saw was that CheckSix didn't work with their players on the competitive side and didn't market them properly. Suppy was the only person who managed to improve from a strong GM zerg to one that can compete on the international stage. If there wasn't any practice regime then the players will stagnate and dwindle and you can never improve as a team. Also, this was a team with Maximus Black, Painuser, and HD Starcraft: absolutely incredible celebrities to have on a team. But I didn't see any word of them promoting CheckSix at all. Maybe hosting in-house clan wars with PU and HD casting would have been really successful. All in all there seems to have been a lack of follow-up and commitment to improve and market the team.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I remember you singing a very different tune when one of the CheckSix management spent his own money to get you equipment by a certain time frame so you could "practice". And what team was it who's director personally invested in a full set of gear for you? Very funny how things like that work, I guess people's true character always comes out in the end.
But, you are welcome to your opinion even if it is flawed.
Okay.
I was on the team for what, 6+ months? During which time I won the vast majority of all my inhouse practice games, I tried out players for the team, and was always active and ready to do anything you guys needed. During the first few months I told you multiple times that my mouse and headset was broken and that I would focus on other things if you guys didn't want to give me gear. You guys had other Protoss players so you didn't give me anything and I stopped playing.
A while later after Shadow and Arcanne stopped playing and you had no other Protoss I get msgd about getting gear and coming back to practice, I agreed. I came back and practiced hard for over a month with the gear that I received. I tried giving suggestions to the team and showed interest in wanting to help in management decisions because I disagreed with how things were being run. I was basically shoved off to the side like I was unimportant so I left the team and then was accused of stealing the gear.
I appreciate(d) what you did for me and told you so multiple times; even after I left I still expressed my gratitude. But don't act like it was something done out of the kindness of your heart. I was on the team for many months and the only time I got anything was when you felt you needed me and had no other options.
e/ also funny that you would try to attack my character and then imply that my opinion is flawed without every actually addressing anything I said in the post.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I remember you singing a very different tune when one of the CheckSix management spent his own money to get you equipment by a certain time frame so you could "practice". And what team was it who's director personally invested in a full set of gear for you? Very funny how things like that work, I guess people's true character always comes out in the end.
But, you are welcome to your opinion even if it is flawed.
full set of gear?
sc2 can be played on a toster :p
what kind of stuff do teams give out to players? seems like paying for travel would be more than enough lol
I was given a TTeSports Mouse and Headset along with a PureTrak mousepad.
Didn't realise their CS team had fRod on it.. the guy's a legend. Shame to see a more established team go under, especially as CS;GO is about to be released and HotS coming up too.
I would say I disagree Shinya. However, I recommend the new team your on..or even you personally to prove us wrong. Just like I said in the interview, it is not my place to argue with those that disagree with what I said. That is my opinion based on being around for a long period of time and understanding how things work ( I like to think ). But, if you can do it..please, please do. Thanks for the feedback and hopefully if it doesn't help us, it will help someone else.
On August 15 2012 07:55 KeyHunt wrote: I would say I disagree Shinya. However, I recommend the new team your on..or even you personally to prove us wrong. Just like I said in the interview, it is not my place to argue with those that disagree with what I said. That is my opinion based on being around for a long period of time and understanding how things work ( I like to think ). But, if you can do it..please, please do. Thanks for the feedback and hopefully if it doesn't help us, it will help someone else.
What part of his multi-part argument do you disagree with?
On August 15 2012 07:55 KeyHunt wrote: I would say I disagree Shinya. However, I recommend the new team your on..or even you personally to prove us wrong. Just like I said in the interview, it is not my place to argue with those that disagree with what I said. That is my opinion based on being around for a long period of time and understanding how things work ( I like to think ). But, if you can do it..please, please do. Thanks for the feedback and hopefully if it doesn't help us, it will help someone else.
What part of his multi-part argument do you disagree with?
Being through 2 teams with incredibly strong NA pools of talent I agree completely with Shiny. If there is seriously something wrong with his argument I'd be more than inclined to listen and try to understand your point of view. To me, it always seemed like xSix had everything they needed, and at one point I was very close to attempting to tryout for the team. However, as Shiny pointed out, it seemed like there was just so much emphasis on being a "personality"; rather than a player, I thought I'd never make it. :l
I wish especially good luck to the NA zergs from xSix. Mystic and the others are really sick. Completely standard play, and often very old meta game zerg, but they do it so well it still works. Good luck to the players and xSix's future. Makes me sad to see this
Shinya seems right...recruiting ailuJ and sending her to mlg's was a joke...e-sports doesnt need sub-mediocre girls getting special attention for looks.
I am sad but at the same time its not like when oGs disbanded for me. Idk why I don't actually feel that bad even though this team fielded a TON of talent and made them so much better.
On August 15 2012 08:13 docvoc wrote: I am sad but at the same time its not like when oGs disbanded for me. Idk why I don't actually feel that bad even though this team fielded a TON of talent and made them so much better.
Checksix really felt like a foreign version of zenex, under the radar most of the time and whenever they had a player break out big time another team would take them. Sad for them gl to the players and management on getting a new team.
Picking up the personalities was a good marketing decision for the team however it feels like they were never capitalized on.
For instance, when they added MaximusBlack, I think a lot of us were expecting the melding of two worlds: LAGTV and CheckSix the pro team. But it never happened. As a fan of MB, I was under the impression the team was going to try to coach him into GM as the publicity stunt, and that MB would interact with and promote the team's players as the payback.
But the two worlds appeared segregated for the entirety of the relationship. On a few occasions some players entered LAGTV tournaments and got their games casted but other than that I never saw them interact. Team practice time, at least when it was live streamed on MB's channel, consisted of the team mopping the floor with him and signing off. Why did MB have to get all his coaching from outside the team when his teammates were GM? And why did they not help Ailuj get into Masters? I don't know what the dynamics were behind the scenes but that's what I saw as a fan.
If I was a player on that team, I would have leeched off of MB so hard, getting as much face-time and growing my fan base as much as possible. I'd be streaming games with him, hanging on his shoulder at all the MLGs, sending replays of my funny games to LAGTV for them to cast, etc. I thought that was the whole purpose of acquiring these personalities.
On August 15 2012 06:04 GunPaladin wrote: I dunno whether you guys are referring to just the sc2 division or the organization in general. CheckSix has been around for close to a decade. Key Hunt don't lose momentum, now is the time and you know what you need to do.........
Can't really say much about this team, just that is was infamous on signing ailuj and sending her to MLG events, though she was diamond and still to this day do not understand why sign a diamond player and send them to MLG events... blows my mind.
Anyways, GL to the players on finding suitable teams!
Damn... that sucks. x6 had the best Unreal Tournament 2004 lineup in the USA. That's why I've got sort-of a sentimental attraction to them. Nobody could come close to their players.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I remember you singing a very different tune when one of the CheckSix management spent his own money to get you equipment by a certain time frame so you could "practice". And what team was it who's director personally invested in a full set of gear for you? Very funny how things like that work, I guess people's true character always comes out in the end.
But, you are welcome to your opinion even if it is flawed.
full set of gear?
sc2 can be played on a toster :p
what kind of stuff do teams give out to players? seems like paying for travel would be more than enough lol
I was given a TTeSports Mouse and Headset along with a PureTrak mousepad.
Feels like everyone who ever dreams of becoming "pro" should read this exchange. For every idra (player who's really well off, at least financially), you'll have many players like this who are just left in the gutter with very little future in the scene.
I remember Check6 from when they sponsored u96d in the Enemy Territory tournament at QuakeCon 2005. Epic tournament and great memories from then, sad to see them go!
Always sad to see a team go. I'm not surprised that their SC2 division shut down, but the entire division across all platforms? That was a bit unexpected. Some good players up for grabs now then, hopefully they will all find good new teams.
ggwp, CheckSix, thanks for being awesome til the very end. You will be missed.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I can understand the frustration with the management and I've seen it happen time and time again.
However, your assessment of EG is flawed. Guys like IdrA, Incontrol, HuK, Thorzain, etc. were all established players/personalities before they got signed. I could even make an agreement for everyone else who came from a BW/WCIII background. What EG & it's sponsors do well is the fact they highlight their players and plug them constantly so you don't forget. Very good branding, so your argument losses it's weight. It's a bad example but I get the message you wanted to get across.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I can understand the frustration with the management and I've seen it happen time and time again.
However, your assessment of EG is flawed. Guys like IdrA, Incontrol, HuK, Thorzain, etc. were all established players/personalities before they got signed. I could even make an agreement for everyone else who came from a BW/WCIII background. What EG & it's sponsors do well is the fact they highlight their players and plug them constantly so you don't forget. Very good branding, so your argument losses it's weight. It's a bad example but I get the message you wanted to get across.
We'll be seeing a lot more teams fold.
In the very beginning EG got most of the known BW USA guys. IncontroL, Machine, LzGameR, IdrA, iNkA, PsyonicReaver, Colbi, etc were all recruited into EG before SC2 was even released. The foreign BW scene was incredibly small compared to the foreign sc2 scene, so to say that they were established before EG is a little bit of a stretch. IncontroL and IdrA have a bit more of a case but the rest of their original players weren't famous or anything and even inc and idra were limited to non-korean bw relevance which isn't that much, athough Geoff was on a little reality show thing for WCG.
EG had their players and went with it, they marketed the hell out of them and made them into personalities. The recruits since then are obviously a different case, I wasn't referring to HuK, ThorZaiN, etc. But originally they took players and made them what they are.
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 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.
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.
I kind of wish xSix could have survived since its been around for a very very long time even if it couldn't be a top tier sc2 team.
As it is I think we will see more teams that aren't top top tier fall like this as time goes on. Without major exposure its hard to keep sponsors. Perhaps some bigger teams will ally with smaller teams to have the smaller teams/clans breed players for the larger main team?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I kind of wish xSix could have survived since its been around for a very very long time even if it couldn't be a top tier sc2 team.
As it is I think we will see more teams that aren't top top tier fall like this as time goes on. Without major exposure its hard to keep sponsors. Perhaps some bigger teams will ally with smaller teams to have the smaller teams/clans breed players for the larger main team?
Capitalism my friend... on a larger scale we saw that with TSL aswell for a while. Lost their good players that the produced, then produced a bunch under like polt as captain..
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.
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.
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.
You have way more credibility (personal experience) on this than I do obviously. I refuse to believe that if all aspects of Check-Six were performing to the best of their abilities (even after losing Sleep and Suppy) that we would still be standing here today. The ball was dropped somewhere, but no one is admitting to doing so...some are even denying THAT it was dropped.
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.
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.
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.
I really do not have the strength to argue about this; nor do I want to. Once again, it all comes back to you have your own opinion I just disagree.
I do want to give you something to think about though. Maybe, just maybe..it wasn't us not wanting/properly managing to want to do those campaigns. Maybe, it was the fact we did not have the money to sufficiently pay people what was necessary to get those things done. Jeff's livelihood is LAGTV..you think he is just going to openly share that traffic without getting something substantial in return? Just posing a question. There is a lot more to think about than just, "Oh..they didn't do that."
On August 15 2012 10:39 Xeris wrote: I'm not spending my life savings on LighT. Doing pretty well for myself thus far
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.
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.
Of course there are elements of chance, I don't want to deny that. And people need money in order to get players, results and personalities, which you need to get sponsors, which you need to get money, which you need to get players, results, and personalities. The difference between new start-up team X and CheckSix is that CheckSix BEGAN with a good pedigree, a good (i assume) amount of money and an experienced management team (again, I'm assuming here, but I think these are good guesses) and nothing happened. You got players like Sleep and didn't promote him. You got players like Suppy and ThisisJimmy (who went on great runs in 2010 and 2011 MLGs) who were never advertised as the new hip thing. You had celebrities like Painuser, HDstarcraft and Maximus Black who were never used as marketing tools. Your last written article on your site is from May. Your featured articles are ancient, from nearly a year ago. Now, I don't know everything behind the decision, but from what was said here I would have to say that the major fault of this team lay within the managements inability to create marketing opportunities from this incredible list of pros. Suppy was writing for the ESEA last season, why not get him to write stuff for your site? Why not get a few volunteers to do written content? Why not do showmatches with HD and Painuser to advertise? When you had major, why not work with Artosis to create regular 'Major in Korea' content? To your point, it takes more than good management decisions to get to the big leagues. There has not been a good example of a team coming from out of nowhere to make it to EG's level. Its Gosu and Infinity Seven are probably the best examples of teams getting to near that level, but nobody has ever truly made it there. There is no one reason that teams can't make it there, but coming from 7 years of experience in esports and already having sponsors means that CheckSix didn't come from nowhere. CheckSix had the resources to create the elements above and if more effort was put in on the marketing and production side it probably would have been a success. Instead The management decided to squat on what they had and not do anything with it.
This is a little harsh I think, but I think that the point has to sink in: getting to EGs level is not impossible, but people have to use the best cards they have. CheckSix had a great deck, but didn't use any of their cards.
On August 15 2012 10:40 KeyHunt wrote: I really do not have the strength to argue about this; nor do I want to. Once again, it all comes back to you have your own opinion I just disagree.
I can respect that, I'm not looking for a drawn out argument. We can just agree to disagree. Just sad to see you guys go.
My well wishes to your future opportunities was sincere btw.
On August 15 2012 06:58 VPCursed wrote: not to sound like a complete fucking dick or anything but, you guys were sending ailuj to every event... whose a diamond player. idfk what you expected when the person in control of your finances doesn't understand that diamond players aren't going to get results at mlg. Also being in contact with many of your players it seems to me you guys had very little direction with your team. seemingly having no control over what your players do and how they practice. It didn't appear you had a coach or anything of the sort to help your players grow. I am personally disgusted that you guys seem to think that you couldn't improve without spending " copious " amounts of money in your leaving statement. It was just complete incompetence. I hope this will serve as a warning to future teams and as a learning bench on how not to utilize a team with a strong roster. GL to the players on your roster, I hope they can find a team in the near future.
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.
I can understand the frustration with the management and I've seen it happen time and time again.
However, your assessment of EG is flawed. Guys like IdrA, Incontrol, HuK, Thorzain, etc. were all established players/personalities before they got signed. I could even make an agreement for everyone else who came from a BW/WCIII background. What EG & it's sponsors do well is the fact they highlight their players and plug them constantly so you don't forget. Very good branding, so your argument losses it's weight. It's a bad example but I get the message you wanted to get across.
We'll be seeing a lot more teams fold.
In the very beginning EG got most of the known BW USA guys. IncontroL, Machine, LzGameR, IdrA, iNkA, PsyonicReaver, Colbi, etc were all recruited into EG before SC2 was even released. The foreign BW scene was incredibly small compared to the foreign sc2 scene, so to say that they were established before EG is a little bit of a stretch. IncontroL and IdrA have a bit more of a case but the rest of their original players weren't famous or anything and even inc and idra were limited to non-korean bw relevance which isn't that much, athough Geoff was on a little reality show thing for WCG.
EG had their players and went with it, they marketed the hell out of them and made them into personalities. The recruits since then are obviously a different case, I wasn't referring to HuK, ThorZaiN, etc. But originally they took players and made them what they are.
I don't need a history lesson man. I was there. ._. I stick by what I said. A lot of them were already personalities before EG even got a hold of them. It's part of their recruitment criteria which A.G. even posted.
Our community wasn't that small at all. It's only small when you compare it to what it is now in the international scene; however, when it comes to scouting talent. It was just as problematic back then. IdrA made himself relevant for always opening his mouth when he statistically didn't have much to back it up until that one year he broke out after training so long in Korea. Everyone else was part-time. He was full-time. Geoff always had it in him. He has been articulate ever since I can remember. So no. EG didn't brand him at all. They came along for the ride in seeing his value. Geoff had it in him since his 88) days. I don't always see eye-to-eye with the guy and he hasn't changed much since then. He's the same Geoff.
What A.G. did was buy a group of players who were friends and living together. They already had value and that's one of the reasons he picked them up.
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.
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.
Of course there are elements of chance, I don't want to deny that. And people need money in order to get players, results and personalities, which you need to get sponsors, which you need to get money, which you need to get players, results, and personalities. The difference between new start-up team X and CheckSix is that CheckSix BEGAN with a good pedigree, a good (i assume) amount of money and an experienced management team (again, I'm assuming here, but I think these are good guesses) and nothing happened. You got players like Sleep and didn't promote him. You got players like Suppy and ThisisJimmy (who went on great runs in 2010 and 2011 MLGs) who were never advertised as the new hip thing. You had celebrities like Painuser, HDstarcraft and Maximus Black who were never used as marketing tools. Your last written article on your site is from May. Your featured articles are ancient, from nearly a year ago. Now, I don't know everything behind the decision, but from what was said here I would have to say that the major fault of this team lay within the managements inability to create marketing opportunities from this incredible list of pros. Suppy was writing for the ESEA last season, why not get him to write stuff for your site? Why not get a few volunteers to do written content? Why not do showmatches with HD and Painuser to advertise? When you had major, why not work with Artosis to create regular 'Major in Korea' content? To your point, it takes more than good management decisions to get to the big leagues. There has not been a good example of a team coming from out of nowhere to make it to EG's level. Its Gosu and Infinity Seven are probably the best examples of teams getting to near that level, but nobody has ever truly made it there. There is no one reason that teams can't make it there, but coming from 7 years of experience in esports and already having sponsors means that CheckSix didn't come from nowhere. CheckSix had the resources to create the elements above and if more effort was put in on the marketing and production side it probably would have been a success. Instead The management decided to squat on what they had and not do anything with it.
This is a little harsh I think, but I think that the point has to sink in: getting to EGs level is not impossible, but people have to use the best cards they have. CheckSix had a great deck, but didn't use any of their cards.
Even smaller teams can heed this advice. Take advantage of what you have in every way possible. Not every NA team can be EG, but not every fast food joint can be McDonalds either. Even in that industry where McDs is the 800 lb gorilla, there are several who do well with what they have. Just have a solid plan of attack, business structure, and members willing to do whatever it takes to see it succeed. Failure is unavoidable and more teams will fail in the future but if out of say 12-15 new teams, if there's a chance of 2 or 3 to become established and survive then its worth the risk.
Otherwise, why would anyone attempt to start a business?
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.
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.
To your point, it takes more than good management decisions to get to the big leagues. There has not been a good example of a team coming from out of nowhere to make it to EG's level. Its Gosu and Infinity Seven are probably the best examples of teams getting to near that level, but nobody has ever truly made it there. There is no one reason that teams can't make it there, but coming from 7 years of experience in esports and already having sponsors means that CheckSix didn't come from nowhere. CheckSix had the resources to create the elements above and if more effort was put in on the marketing and production side it probably would have been a success. Instead The management decided to squat on what they had and not do anything with it.
This is a little harsh I think, but I think that the point has to sink in: getting to EGs level is not impossible, but people have to use the best cards they have. CheckSix had a great deck, but didn't use any of their cards.
It's not that your suggestions are not sound..it's that in our climate, they were not feasible. I want you to realize that just having things at your disposal does not mean you can call upon them to do the things you suggest. Once again, your suggestions are sound you are just not privy to the same information. If you want to know about a little more of that information, I will be happy to share some in private..but a public forum is not the place.
This is really sad. I have played against x6 for many years (used to always meet their squads when I played competitive Battlefield and Counter-Strike). Always quality guys.
I don't hold EG's size against them, but there is no doubt that the super teams that have emerged in NA make it difficult for mid level teams to thrive. And I'm talking multigaming organizations when I say that. Teams like ROOT etc... can spring up because they are largely player run and specific to one game.
I remember playing with xSix & EG back in the old days of cs 1.5-1.6 era... While I never quite got along with alot of their players, I will say that as a team trying to work their way up through CALi we did hold alot of respect for xSix and all they were able to accomplish as they found their way into the spotlight. Any pro gaming team to have been around for as long as you guys deserve alot of props, It's no easy feat. Perhaps you never reached the pinnacle of gaming/truly hit your end goal as a team; but there are alot of fans out there like myself who saw you guys over the years and hold alot of respect for what you guys stood for. As a community we're all in this together - we need to support great organizations like xSix if we want to one day legitimize ESports on a serious level.
I really love how KeyHunt said he would answer questions people had if they messaged him, and how he would help them out, etc. To me, that's alot of what made CheckSix a really great team was that they were really great with helping players develop, and helping each other out, I think that's really cool of them. GL in the future to them all =)
Sad day. We gotta keep supporting these "mid-tier" teams so more players in aggregate can have some level of support and stay in this industry.
Curt is a really great guy in this community/industry and given what he was working with, he made the most out of CheckSix. He's always been generous with his time and trustworthy. I really appreciate that about him and wish nothing but the best of luck in his next endeavors.
This unfortunately means less ways for amateur pro-gamers to rise through the ranks. Sad to see CheckSix go, but they unfortunately just didn't seem to get the results. Hopefully one or more other teams can rise from the ashes and provide a little more team diversity to the scene.
I wish some one would man up and admit he dropped the ball and this is all his fault, it's quite sickening...Things were good, but you are a cowardly failure and you know it...You killed CheckSix and you should just quit E-Sports and not sit here pretending you're so righteous. You always sugar coat the truth, it's your fault and it wasn't your life savings you wasted, so don't act like you're the victim, you're a disease. You know who you are,If only when you got kicked out for a few days last year it was a permanent decision...
R.I.P CheckSix, you deserved better...
With Love, Fujikura Former Creative Director and Sc2 Manager of Checksix Gaming.
On August 15 2012 15:57 Fujikura wrote: I wish some one would man up and admit he dropped the ball and this is all his fault, it's quite sickening...Things were good, but you are a cowardly failure and you know it...You killed CheckSix and you should just quit E-Sports and not sit here pretending you're so righteous. You always sugar coat the truth, it's your fault and it wasn't your life savings you wasted, so don't act like you're the victim, you're a disease. You know who you are,If only when you got kicked out for a few days last year it was a permanent decision...
R.I.P CheckSix, you deserved better...
With Love, Fujikura Former Creative Director and Sc2 Manager of Checksix Gaming.
On August 15 2012 15:57 Fujikura wrote: I wish some one would man up and admit he dropped the ball and this is all his fault, it's quite sickening...Things were good, but you are a cowardly failure and you know it...You killed CheckSix and you should just quit E-Sports and not sit here pretending you're so righteous. You always sugar coat the truth, it's your fault and it wasn't your life savings you wasted, so don't act like you're the victim, you're a disease. You know who you are,If only when you got kicked out for a few days last year it was a permanent decision...
R.I.P CheckSix, you deserved better...
With Love, Fujikura Former Creative Director and Sc2 Manager of Checksix Gaming.
On August 15 2012 15:57 Fujikura wrote: I wish some one would man up and admit he dropped the ball and this is all his fault, it's quite sickening...Things were good, but you are a cowardly failure and you know it...You killed CheckSix and you should just quit E-Sports and not sit here pretending you're so righteous. You always sugar coat the truth, it's your fault and it wasn't your life savings you wasted, so don't act like you're the victim, you're a disease. You know who you are,If only when you got kicked out for a few days last year it was a permanent decision...
R.I.P CheckSix, you deserved better...
With Love, Fujikura Former Creative Director and Sc2 Manager of Checksix Gaming.
o.O Guess all isn't well after all.
No it isn't he's just trying to save face and hide behind his veil...
On August 15 2012 15:57 Fujikura wrote: I wish some one would man up and admit he dropped the ball and this is all his fault, it's quite sickening...Things were good, but you are a cowardly failure and you know it...You killed CheckSix and you should just quit E-Sports and not sit here pretending you're so righteous. You always sugar coat the truth, it's your fault and it wasn't your life savings you wasted, so don't act like you're the victim, you're a disease. You know who you are,If only when you got kicked out for a few days last year it was a permanent decision...
R.I.P CheckSix, you deserved better...
With Love, Fujikura Former Creative Director and Sc2 Manager of Checksix Gaming.
o.O Guess all isn't well after all.
No it isn't he's just trying to save face and hide behind his veil...
Wonder who you're referring to. It almost sounds like you are talking to the subject of the post, which would be Keyhunt.
Really kind of made me sick reading that "fair-well / explanation" released by them. I find it super unprofessional even with this little tid bit "I would say we had some of our best months prior to Suppy's departure. Our future was really looking great. We had just signed a deal with RushOrderTees that allowed us direct support and also the ability to buy amazing shirts at a very low price for resale. Our first order of 50 completely sold out at MLG Anaheim and were receiving great sponsor reaction." Its like they try to say basically they aren't blaming any of the players or Suppy specifically but its such an sleight of hand comment. Basically saying oh well if suppy doesn't leave and we retain some of our players then we wouldn't of disbanded.
Umm.... how but just saying you guys royally screwed up your finances, and without having any kind of contracts expected your players to stay with you...... why? What about the money you guys won from tournaments the players didn't get a cut? Oh but no worries that 50 shirts you sold at MLG was evidence of a booming success.......... Really? Come on now whoever was in charge of finances and taking care of players expected that top notch players would be content with basically having to work a job to feed themselves, still compete at a high level at sc2, so they can be sent to an MLG for a weekend every now and then? ZzZzZz checksix imo got what they deserved if the rumors are true about how management handled this team.
i find this all very confusing supposedly checksix had their best months before suppy left. The only ones that left after suppy left becuase the team was talking about dismissing.
how can you go from having your best months every thing being roses to quiting with one player leaving? he wasn't even a player with that high of results couldn't you i don;t know sign another player and still been good? If not good than at least stable till you could find another star player?
Sad to see a long-standing organisation with a lot of promising talent fall apart due to bickering management. Hope Mystik/ThisIsJimmy etc go to good homes.
On August 15 2012 17:36 Ruscour wrote: Sad to see a long-standing organisation with a lot of promising talent fall apart due to bickering management. Hope Mystik/ThisIsJimmy etc go to good homes.
And Ver!
When I found out that he was the person who wrote God of War: Part I, I nearly died knowing someone with such an understanding towards the game exists.
On August 15 2012 17:36 Ruscour wrote: Sad to see a long-standing organisation with a lot of promising talent fall apart due to bickering management. Hope Mystik/ThisIsJimmy etc go to good homes.
And Ver!
When I found out that he was the person who wrote God of War: Part I, I nearly died knowing someone with such an understanding towards the game exists.
You mean God of the Battlefield, and where the hell is part 2? I've read it so many times, it's absolutely incredible, and I only just realised now that you mention it that it was Ver who wrote it...holy balls.
With so many players leaving and their remaining players being relative unknowns it's not surprising. I heard their management was a bit whack, dunno if that played a role in this or not.
On August 15 2012 17:28 magicallypuzzled wrote: i find this all very confusing supposedly checksix had their best months before suppy left. The only ones that left after suppy left becuase the team was talking about dismissing.
how can you go from having your best months every thing being roses to quiting with one player leaving? he wasn't even a player with that high of results couldn't you i don;t know sign another player and still been good? If not good than at least stable till you could find another star player?
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
How were huk and thorzain personalities before they joined. Huk was on TL. And being on TL just gets automatic marketing because we go on this website. As far as I knew he only trained at oGs house and didn't take part in any shows or activites outside of practicing. Huk was a famous player? Yes. Personality? Not really. Did you see Huk's latest Kingston commercial? I think EG is marketing huk... As for thorzain, I think EG is letting him focus on practicing and not marketing him too much. Although marketing Thorzain in the EU market would be nice but I don't know what EG wants to do with thorzain.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
How were huk and thorzain personalities before they joined. Huk was on TL. And being on TL just gets automatic marketing because we go on this website. As far as I knew he only trained at oGs house and didn't take part in any shows or activites outside of practicing. Huk was a famous player? Yes. Personality? Not really. Did you see Huk's latest Kingston commercial? I think EG is marketing huk... As for thorzain, I think EG is letting him focus on practicing and not marketing him too much. Although marketing Thorzain in the EU market would be nice but I don't know what EG wants to do with thorzain.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
On August 15 2012 04:56 ichnaschekot wrote: Well, another unimportant team gone. Next?
User was warned for this post
Every team is important, as teams from every level help improve the standard of play as promote the legitimacy of eSports. Nobody cares if you care about, or think that a local basketball team is important, but that "unimportant" team has an influence on a certain amount of people in the sport that you care about, so whether you like it or know it or not, they have importance.
Not check six! Where will the professional diamond league players go now?!
In all seriousness I can't say I'm surprised. No one on their team really produced results and they just didn't have any players that were a big draw that sponsors would like. Their biggest name was painuser, but he's associated more with IPL than x6.
On August 16 2012 03:43 shinyA wrote: They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
Your're totally right in saying that you need top tournament results to get anywhere. As the teams of talented foreigners shrinks breaking in becomes harder than ever.
In terms of BW, there was a HUGE discrepancy between foreign and Korean teams. Ret and Idra were the only players around 2010 that could take on lower level pro Koreans on their own turf. I was an avid watcher of BW events in 2009 and don't remember a single foreign tournament that invited top level Korean pro's. In terms of raw talent, EG wasn't the level, of say, ToT, but they weren't bad, either.
Sorry you seem to dislike Lz and Machine so much, but they were talented on a smaller scale during BW. Both of them had very good showings for at least one US championship (Lz had several). They earned their spots and were fortunate to be part of a team that dove head-first into SC2.
On August 16 2012 03:43 shinyA wrote: They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
Your're totally right in saying that you need top tournament results to get anywhere. As the teams of talented foreigners shrinks breaking in becomes harder than ever.
In terms of BW, there was a HUGE discrepancy between foreign and Korean teams. Ret and Idra were the only players around 2010 that could take on lower level pro Koreans on their own turf. I was an avid watcher of BW events in 2009 and don't remember a single foreign tournament that invited top level Korean pro's. In terms of raw talent, EG wasn't the level, of say, ToT, but they weren't bad, either.
Sorry you seem to dislike Lz and Machine so much, but they were talented on a smaller scale during BW. Both of them had very good showings for at least one US championship (Lz had several). They earned their spots and were fortunate to be part of a team that dove head-first into SC2.
I don't dislike them, but they were like above average BW players; B+ tops. The way the USA scene was like really highschoolish. There were cliques and groups and they were lucky to be in the one that EG recruited. I'm not saying they are undeserving or that they are awful or anything like that, I'm just saying that EG could have picked anyone and had the same success. EG knows how to market their players, no matter who they are.
People that are saying dumb comments like " professional diamond players" and "Well, another unimportant team gone. Next?" need to have a fucking history lesson... x6 or checksix has been around for a very long time in games... sc2 is game.. there was A LOT of games before sc2, and they had some great teams in all of them...learn some shit before you talk. So if CheckSix fails ... the whole esports shit should be hurting from it... because that shows if you are NOT a top player or already in the system as a Mr. popularity then you are fucked... so you should be a little more sad then that.
The best foreign team didn't withstand the Korean might. So sad :'(( Probably one of the most talented players out there, they had such sickest pick-ups in the past :/
On August 16 2012 10:54 ZenithM wrote: The best foreign team didn't withstand the Korean might. So sad :'(( Probably one of the most talented players out there, they had such sickest pick-ups in the past :/
I know this an sc2 site.. but there are other games where xSix and EG were both the highest level US teams. They may have not made as big a mark on sc2, but they surely have over the years in other titles.
Sad to see Check Six go under again .. its true though, very hard to run a team without investing a lot of your own money and gambling to keep you a float until you can secure those big sponsorships
This is very unfortunate, I really liked their Team. Though I'm really glad Suppy managed to join a more "established" team such as EG, really happy for him. As for sleep, I really care for him aswell, we'll have to wait for the best for all these players.
Sad news, they have produced good players over the last couple years and seemed to have a good business model. These are the teams that need to start making it if e-Sports is really going to grow much larger.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
You're repeating the same thing as you said before. I'm not even going to bother with explaining the merits of your scale because we're talking about personas and personalities here and this goes way back when.
If you couldn't get a good read on their personalities well before SC2 even came out then that's on you man. No one else but yourself. I've been around not only this community but all the other BW communities and Incontrol and IdrA posted a ton. Heck, BOTH of them joined teamliquid.net very frigging late. Like I said, the only thing EG did was highlight them more. What does EG do? They amplify them more through all the shows and their sponsors plugs and ads. It's a good thing for them and it's sad to see so few teams be able to replicate what they do.
I'm not arguing the fact EG is helping their push because they are. I'm saying these guys would have found success without EG because they put themselves out there all the time. They have the personality to do it whether you like them or not. They're going to chime in.
Before Geoff joined this place you should have seen how much he posted on the other websites. He posts a ton. Just like Greg. They like banter.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
You're repeating the same thing as you said before. I'm not even going to bother with explaining the merits of your scale because we're talking about personas and personalities here and this goes way back when.
If you couldn't get a good read on their personalities well before SC2 even came out then that's on you man. No one else but yourself. I've been around not only this community but all the other BW communities and Incontrol and IdrA posted a ton. Heck, BOTH of them joined teamliquid.net very frigging late. Like I said, the only thing EG did was highlight them more. What does EG do? They amplify them more through all the shows and their sponsors plugs and ads. It's a good thing for them and it's sad to see so few teams be able to replicate what they do.
I'm not arguing the fact EG is helping their push because they are. I'm saying these guys would have found success without EG because they put themselves out there all the time. They have the personality to do it whether you like them or not. They're going to chime in.
Before Geoff joined this place you should have seen how much he posted on the other websites. He posts a ton. Just like Greg. They like banter.
Good ol' WGTour. How I miss thee.
You speak about the BW days as if you were there for them, do you have an alternate account? This one is from 2010
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
You're repeating the same thing as you said before. I'm not even going to bother with explaining the merits of your scale because we're talking about personas and personalities here and this goes way back when.
If you couldn't get a good read on their personalities well before SC2 even came out then that's on you man. No one else but yourself. I've been around not only this community but all the other BW communities and Incontrol and IdrA posted a ton. Heck, BOTH of them joined teamliquid.net very frigging late. Like I said, the only thing EG did was highlight them more. What does EG do? They amplify them more through all the shows and their sponsors plugs and ads. It's a good thing for them and it's sad to see so few teams be able to replicate what they do.
I'm not arguing the fact EG is helping their push because they are. I'm saying these guys would have found success without EG because they put themselves out there all the time. They have the personality to do it whether you like them or not. They're going to chime in.
Before Geoff joined this place you should have seen how much he posted on the other websites. He posts a ton. Just like Greg. They like banter.
Good ol' WGTour. How I miss thee.
You post like mentioning WGT is some kinda street cred, lol. iNcontroL has been a part of TL for a long fucking time,lol.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
You're repeating the same thing as you said before. I'm not even going to bother with explaining the merits of your scale because we're talking about personas and personalities here and this goes way back when.
If you couldn't get a good read on their personalities well before SC2 even came out then that's on you man. No one else but yourself. I've been around not only this community but all the other BW communities and Incontrol and IdrA posted a ton. Heck, BOTH of them joined teamliquid.net very frigging late. Like I said, the only thing EG did was highlight them more. What does EG do? They amplify them more through all the shows and their sponsors plugs and ads. It's a good thing for them and it's sad to see so few teams be able to replicate what they do.
I'm not arguing the fact EG is helping their push because they are. I'm saying these guys would have found success without EG because they put themselves out there all the time. They have the personality to do it whether you like them or not. They're going to chime in.
Before Geoff joined this place you should have seen how much he posted on the other websites. He posts a ton. Just like Greg. They like banter.
Good ol' WGTour. How I miss thee.
You speak about the BW days as if you were there for them, do you have an alternate account? This one is from 2010
According to a pm he sent me a while ago, he managed some people like Day 9 or Tasteless back in the day.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Oh really? I might know him then Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
You're repeating the same thing as you said before. I'm not even going to bother with explaining the merits of your scale because we're talking about personas and personalities here and this goes way back when.
If you couldn't get a good read on their personalities well before SC2 even came out then that's on you man. No one else but yourself. I've been around not only this community but all the other BW communities and Incontrol and IdrA posted a ton. Heck, BOTH of them joined teamliquid.net very frigging late. Like I said, the only thing EG did was highlight them more. What does EG do? They amplify them more through all the shows and their sponsors plugs and ads. It's a good thing for them and it's sad to see so few teams be able to replicate what they do.
I'm not arguing the fact EG is helping their push because they are. I'm saying these guys would have found success without EG because they put themselves out there all the time. They have the personality to do it whether you like them or not. They're going to chime in.
Before Geoff joined this place you should have seen how much he posted on the other websites. He posts a ton. Just like Greg. They like banter.
Good ol' WGTour. How I miss thee.
You speak about the BW days as if you were there for them, do you have an alternate account? This one is from 2010
According to a pm he sent me a while ago, he managed some people like Day 9 or Tasteless back in the day.
A sad day indeed. xSix had a special spot in my heart. Hope all members of the now disbanded team find another place in the scene that fits them. Good luck guys.
On August 15 2012 07:19 shinyA wrote: 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.
Well, Huk, Thorzain were personalities before. In fact, they rather lost appeal since they joined.
This is unfortunately how I view EG as well, particularly in regards to Huk. Since he left TL and joined EG, I feel like his personality and his results have been shuttered somewhat. That isn't to say that the latest Kingston commercial wasn't a great success.
That being said, Incontrol and Idra certainly became personalities after they had the skill, as it should be
Incontrol and IdrA had strong personalities well before EG even picked them up. If you around the BW scene you would know.
Key phrases: USA B WAR MACHINE, CLAN 88), IdrA always sounding off on the forums and being all that.
Sorry if you weren't following BW or SC2 beforehand but these guys are known by everyone who played BW on a competitive level. Go to any BW website. People know them. They've always spoken out loud on anything and they don't back down.
-_-
On a related note guys like Lz, Machine, etc. were streaming a lot when people didn't really stream. The live stream feeds started on TL dating way back to the first TSL and you could always find these guys streaming and living together. Perfect match for A.G. wanted.
There are valid reasons as to why these guys got picked up as a group.
They weren't that big, the community was tiny. It didn't matter if they were good at sc2 though, EG marketted the hell out of them to where it wouldn't matter how good they were. EG made damn sure that they were going to make money from them, they could have picked any players and done the same to be honest. They were picked before SC2 even came out based on their BW days. No offense to them but Machine and LzGameR weren't that good or known at BW, USA in general wasn't that good, you can say you knew them but I mean it was you and like a thousand other people, max; compare that to now.
EG picked up the 'clique' of USA players and knew they were going to everything they could to make money off of them whether they succeeded in the game or not. Proof would be that Machine and Lz haven't had any impressive results, in like forever. It doesn't matter, though. They're more than players and they make money for EG because of it. Skill has very little to do with making money in SC2 right now, and that's why it's so unrealistic to try to make a career out of SC2. If you weren't playing in the beta and marketing yourself then the ship has sailed. Without top tournament results, you're not going to get anywhere really.
You're repeating the same thing as you said before. I'm not even going to bother with explaining the merits of your scale because we're talking about personas and personalities here and this goes way back when.
If you couldn't get a good read on their personalities well before SC2 even came out then that's on you man. No one else but yourself. I've been around not only this community but all the other BW communities and Incontrol and IdrA posted a ton. Heck, BOTH of them joined teamliquid.net very frigging late. Like I said, the only thing EG did was highlight them more. What does EG do? They amplify them more through all the shows and their sponsors plugs and ads. It's a good thing for them and it's sad to see so few teams be able to replicate what they do.
I'm not arguing the fact EG is helping their push because they are. I'm saying these guys would have found success without EG because they put themselves out there all the time. They have the personality to do it whether you like them or not. They're going to chime in.
Before Geoff joined this place you should have seen how much he posted on the other websites. He posts a ton. Just like Greg. They like banter.
Good ol' WGTour. How I miss thee.
You speak about the BW days as if you were there for them, do you have an alternate account? This one is from 2010
-_-
A few of them. You guys have to stop referring to that crap, team, post count, etc. I've been here since the beginning man and I do recognize you from posts past, which makes it a little more cringeworthy when you try to pull that card.
On August 19 2012 02:28 iNcontroL wrote: I joined TL late? This is my 2nd account and I believe it's from 2004 o-O the other one (banned) was from 1-2 years before that.
I almost forgot you got banned. I'm talking about the time you came and went on that huge went on that long posting spree for months on end. I remember that, I don't remember the other shit, but I could take a wild guess.
In either case, guys like you and Greg push yourselves and what you do on your own. Not to say a team like EG or their sponsors don't help because they do.
Before that you most certainly posted a ton on places like WGTour, GG.net, etc. I really don't remember you posting a whole lot prior to that. Probably to defend your [Media] cronies. o;
EPT
"touche" good sir a good one...
