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We as a community need to be more vocal about demanding a stop to practices like this. Is it any wonder that businesses look at e-sports with skepticism when the financial heart of the system is so clogged with decay and apathy about said decay? This is not the first story we have heard about players having difficulty claiming their winnings and it will likely not be the last.
So why should we be concerned? Legitimate businesses don't tolerate these practices from their clients or their partners and it would be no surprise if the pervasive lethargy regarding financial matters surrounding tournaments were reason enough for some companies to outright dismiss e-sports as a sponsorship opportunity. When businesses give their money to organizations, they want to give it to organizations that they can trust with money, which is clearly not the case for at least some of these tournament organizations. Would you trust your money to an organization which apparently has trouble meeting their financial obligations or would you be worried that they might vanish into the night and take your money with them?
It is one (deplorable) thing for a team to make promises of future benefits that they cannot uphold - players have the ability to research the team and negotiate a strongly worded contract with clauses to protect themselves, but it is quite another for tournament winnings to be withheld for 2(!!!!) years. Tournaments are the heart and soul of the e-sports community; only a small fraction of the best players get salaries that they can live off of; everyone else is fighting for these tournament prizes. At this point, the players should be getting interest on that money, and we all know that they probably need (and certainly deserve) it because there isn't that much money in e-sports, and tournaments that cannot handle their financial obligations are only deterring future investment.
Finally there is the - for lack of a better term - elephant in the room; what if one of these tournament organizers goes broke before paying out their promised winnings? What would that do to the financial reputation of e-sports in general, what would it do to the players counting on those winnings to pay for their cost of living and what unforeseen ripple effects might such an event have? The financial meltdown of 2008 was largely possible due to a lack of financial oversight permitting unchecked shenanigans to erode the pillars of the economy. E-sports is a much less stable and much less resilient economic entity than the United States government. If we continue to allow tournament organizers the leeway to do whatever it is that they are doing with the money that they have promised to their players, we may not be very happy with the results.
TL,DR: We should be very concerned that it has become a common and little complained about business practice to delay paying winnings for anywhere near 2 years.
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On October 31 2012 07:52 Quint wrote:
Goody's frustration should neither be surprising nor doubted.
GoOdy is a relative old player and he could not be in it just for fun like all the kids. I think he is at a point were he figures out if it is worth to stay as a pro gamer or not.
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On October 31 2012 07:20 GuTz wrote:
You cannot get blood from a stone. I think that the reason they do not pay out is because they do not have the money. It's not like E-Sports is really all that lucrative at the moment, they likely spent more money in their earlier stages then they could afford at the time in anticipation of the growth of E-Sports which never really happened. They then had to adjust back, and are paying out prize pools as fast as they can even though they are in the red for about 200k Euros according to an earlier post.
They had a debt of 2.8 Million in 2010 which was 500k lower than 2008 but only 100k lower than in 2009, according to a random guy in a stream chat that dept raised to 5 million by now, i didnt check it myself but it seems logical that they started to invest heavily starting in 2009 anticipating esports to grow with sc2 but it didnt grow as much as they expected.
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On October 31 2012 08:01 harlequin wrote:
Well, if you organize tournaments with prizes attached, you should be able to pay those prizes ASAP.
indeed if you are still trying to get out of debt at least be honest with the community and players and say the prize money will be late instead of just ignoring or saying "its coming"
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yap...
you offer price money... YOU PAY PRICE MONEY!
within a proper time.
On October 31 2012 08:03 Eralur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2012 07:20 GuTz wrote:
You cannot get blood from a stone. I think that the reason they do not pay out is because they do not have the money. It's not like E-Sports is really all that lucrative at the moment, they likely spent more money in their earlier stages then they could afford at the time in anticipation of the growth of E-Sports which never really happened. They then had to adjust back, and are paying out prize pools as fast as they can even though they are in the red for about 200k Euros according to an earlier post.
They had a debt of 2.8 Million in 2010 which was 500k lower than 2008 but only 100k lower than in 2009, according to a random guy in a stream chat that dept raised to 5 million by now, i didnt check it myself but it seems logical that they started to invest heavily starting in 2009 anticipating esports to grow with sc2 but it didnt grow as much as they expected.
in germany it is called Insolvenzverschleppung.
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On October 31 2012 07:29 eXigent. wrote:
If ESL has some serious debt, and major trouble paying out their event winners, why do they continue to host events? It would seem almost pointless to carry on if you cannot even give whats promised. It almost seems corrupt to make their money now on the events, and not have to pay any of it out for 1-2 years after. That almost sounds criminal.
Because hosting events is all they do? If they quit they have to declare bankruptcy and there wouldnt be an eps anybody could leave...
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On October 31 2012 06:43 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
He should really expand more on this with details, if he throws it out there.
More details would be good for the curious esport followers but i don't think goody has an obligation to do so. He didn't open this thread he just informed his followers on fb about his decision.
i am pretty sure all the prizemoney isn't a lot compared to the ~ 3mio they already are in debts. This seems like a poor way to safe interest.
I can totaly understand that it is very annoying to wait for the money for that amount of time. I wonder why nobody sued ESL for that already. I guess they just didn't publish that.
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We had this discussion one year ago. The point of this thread isnt to state that ESL isnt paying prize money in time. We all know that.
ESL statement from almost a year ago: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=282262
The average prize money delay differs between individual tournaments, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be. Obviously it should not happen. People at ESL are aware of it and are working to make sure everything gets paid and that the delay in prize money goes away.
One year has passed, the problem stayed the same. ESL assured the community that they are aware of the problem and that they take it very seriously one year ago. So why is it still the same issue/ became even worse? At least i cant see any improvement. What has actually been done in that time?
Most progamers seem very familiar with that type of excusing and delaying the issue. A lot of them seem to be reluctant to keep fighting, since they have been fighting for years.
Goody is the first one that actually draws his conclusions and quits EPS. Is that the right answer?
What is the future of ESL? Can they get away with being behind 1,5 - 3 years and is that acceptable as a permanent state of paying out prize money? The issue isnt temporary.
Im not sure what to do. Can you just hope that it will get better eventually? accept that its the way ESL operates? or quitting esl and moving on?
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On October 31 2012 07:35 UrsusRex wrote:
Well I'll just take your word for that Gutz I'm sure you fully comprehend how the German legal system works. I on the other hand don't think it would be such a bad thing for ESL to die. Its one less tournament over saturating the market and its demise might actually be a good thing. Another struggling tournament not paying SC2 players isn't something esports needs right now. We need to know what we have works, less garbage like the ESL will only improve the quality of SC2. Letting bad companies fail is a part of capitalism and as a viewer I'm ready to no longer watch and let ESL fail. Having watched it for over a year now there is nothing that comes to mind that makes me value this tournament group and want to keep it over any of the others. Not the casters not their tournaments.
For the ESL (read: Turtle Entertainment) the latest available data is their balance from 2010. They had large investments in 09/10 which were basically purely financed via loans. Obviously these loans need to be paid back first if they want to continue operations without getting killed by the interest. Because players seldom demand interest to be paid for late payments (and because of finely crafted contracts) TE saves money by paying late and thus can continue to operate. The way it looks right now (mind you, this is before SC2 went into full bloom) the company can run for a while longer but it's a pretty risky venture compared to the overall market. All ESL prize money was paid out eventually so far, something which other organisations couldn't say of themselves...if they still existed (hey CPL!).
TE has existed for longer than any other major e-sports company/league out there and there is a reason for that. They provide a league for basically ANY game on the market, a unique position which no other firm even had the courage to tackle. They have operated without fail for over a decade and you can't tell me they are not valuable to 99% of gaming communities. Their tournaments have premiere quality, regularly creating huge upsets and bringing out new players to shine because of a format which rewards qualifying over being famous and being invited. The guys who run TE are hardcore in the best sense of the word. Ex Quake World players who drove hours to hurl their 17' CRTs into huge halls and play for 100€ prize money and maybe a piece of hardware. Show some respect for your elders.
This is in contrast to what for example MLG (actually 90% of esports companies) are doing, who only run the profitable venue events and don't bother actually building communities. They also finance via huge angel/venture capital investments which to my knowledge (speculation) probably flow into paying out prizes as well. That is an option which TE is probably considering but not taking unless absolutely necessary. I'm pretty sure any investor would make them kill most of their amateur leagues.
Is it right to pay out very late? Surely not. But you can't just let the one organization actually running big events in the whole world (how many others do that? hint, it's easily expressable in binary) die. All communities outside of Korea and the USA would suffer greatly from that. No Feast to come out and challenge Koreans. No dark horse Darkforce. Maybe not even Stephano. Mind now?
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On October 31 2012 08:09 Timerly wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2012 07:35 UrsusRex wrote:
Well I'll just take your word for that Gutz I'm sure you fully comprehend how the German legal system works. I on the other hand don't think it would be such a bad thing for ESL to die. Its one less tournament over saturating the market and its demise might actually be a good thing. Another struggling tournament not paying SC2 players isn't something esports needs right now. We need to know what we have works, less garbage like the ESL will only improve the quality of SC2. Letting bad companies fail is a part of capitalism and as a viewer I'm ready to no longer watch and let ESL fail. Having watched it for over a year now there is nothing that comes to mind that makes me value this tournament group and want to keep it over any of the others. Not the casters not their tournaments. For the ESL (read: Turtle Entertainment) the latest available data is their balance from 2010. They had large investments in 09/10 which were basically purely financed via loans. Obviously these loans need to be paid back first if they want to continue operations without getting killed by the interest. Because players seldom demand interest to be paid for late payments (and because of finely crafted contracts) TE saves money by paying late and thus can continue to operate. The way it looks right now (mind you, this is before SC2 went into full bloom) the company can run for a while longer but it's a pretty risky venture compared to the overall market. All ESL prize money was paid out eventually so far, something which other organisations couldn't say of themselves...if they still existed (hey CPL!). TE has existed for longer than any other major e-sports company/league out there and there is a reason for that. They provide a league for basically ANY game on the market, a unique position which no other firm even had the courage to tackle. They have operated without fail for over a decade and you can't tell me they are not valuable to 99% of gaming communities. Their tournaments have premiere quality, regularly creating huge upsets and bringing out new players to shine because of a format which rewards qualifying over being famous and being invited. The guys who run TE are hardcore in the best sense of the word. Ex Quake World players who drove hours to hurl their 17' CRTs into huge halls and play for 100€ prize money and maybe a piece of hardware. Show some respect for your elders. This is in contrast to what for example MLG (actually 90% of esports companies) are doing, who only run the profitable venue events and don't bother actually building communities. They also finance via huge angel/venture capital investments which to my knowledge (speculation) probably flow into paying out prizes as well. That is an option which TE is probably considering but not taking unless absolutely necessary. I'm pretty sure any investor would make them kill most of their amateur leagues. Is it right to pay out very late? Surely not. But you can't just let the one organization actually running big events in the whole world (how many others do that? hint, it's easily expressable in binary) die. All communities outside of Korea and the USA would suffer greatly from that. No Feast to come out and challenge Koreans. No dark horse Darkforce. Maybe not even Stephano. Mind now?
The ESL is the reason why esports is not developing. I hope the ESL goes down in the future, to make place for a greater company who know to run a successfull business.
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On October 31 2012 08:18 SWayne wrote:
The ESL is the reason why esports is not developing.
Wat?
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Papua New Guinea1059 Posts
On October 31 2012 04:51 Kasaraki wrote:
Why is this in the tournament forum?
Because there's no drama forum for sc2 yet.
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"Their tournaments have premiere quality, regularly creating huge upsets and bringing out new players to shine because of a format which rewards qualifying over being famous and being invited. The guys who run TE are hardcore in the best sense of the word. Ex Quake World players who drove hours to hurl their 17' CRTs into huge halls and play for 100€ prize money and maybe a piece of hardware."
That's wonderful and I wish them growth and success in all those esports, but in SC2 their tournaments are some of the least important with some of the most uninspired casting and the inability or unwillingness to compensate players. There is no sequence of words that makes that acceptable.
"I'm pretty sure any investor would make them kill most of their amateur leagues."
For good reason, people don't pay to watch amateurs, Did you see the team liquid poll on who viewers want to watch? it was overwhelmingly the best players. ESL is not viable for helping SC2 become a sport. It lowers the quality of games and breeds mistrust and resentment within esports.
"Is it right to pay out very late? Surely not. But you can't just let the one organization actually running big events in the whole world (how many others do that? hint, it's easily expressable in binary) die."
All I want is them to stop casting SC2, They contribute nothing in SC2 and actually hurt it. We would lose nothing if they left. Players would still come out for dreamhack and assembly and we would lose the least prestigious tournament in SC2. I'm all on board for that.
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On October 31 2012 08:22 HornyHerring wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2012 04:51 Kasaraki wrote:
Why is this in the tournament forum? Because there's no drama forum for sc2 yet.
drama? serious issue maybe.
and it should be in sc2 generall.
edit: it is now in the right place. and it is no drama. destiny's dick pics are drama maybe but this surely not!
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
MOAR DRAMA
On topic:
If people haven't been payed in two years this decision seems fair enough.
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On October 31 2012 08:25 UrsusRex wrote:
That's wonderful and I wish them growth and success in all those esports, but in SC2 their tournaments are some of the least important with some of the most uninspired casting and the inability or unwillingness to compensate players.
Uninspired casting? They had day9/Tastetosis/Bitterdam ( and Rotterdam actually got into casting with his first caster job at esl )
On October 31 2012 08:25 UrsusRex wrote:
They contribute nothing in SC2 and actually hurt it.
How excatly is it possible in your mind for any event to "hurt" Starcraft2? What the fuck is wrong with you people...
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People need to stfu when it comes to saying esl is the reason esports isn't growing. That's the most nonsense thing i've heard. They are one of the biggest reasons why esports is around today.
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On October 31 2012 08:34 Eralur wrote:
How excatly is it possible in your mind for any event to "hurt" Starcraft2? What the fuck is wrong with you people...
If players choose to play in ESL over another tournament and end up suffering because of it, then I think it'd be fair to say that the SC2 esports scene was 'hurt' by that.
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How excatly is it possible in your mind for any event to "hurt" Starcraft2? What the fuck is wrong with you people...
It simply has to do with the environment their actions create. In this case mistrust from viewers and resentment from players who go unpaid. I view this as hurting SC2 and so do many people. Its a legitimate point. Where's yours?
Uninspired casting? They had day9/Tastetosis/Bitterdam ( and Rotterdam actually got into casting with his first caster job at esl )
Who they had at whatever point in the past for whatever brief period of time doesn't interest me and has no bearing on their quality of service now. Now they have casters like Khaelaris and ones who are even more uninteresting to the point I can't even remember their names even though I've seen them cast. I also don't enjoy artosis and his casting at the last IEM if I recall correctly was pretty boring, maybe because he didn't have tasteless but either way it didn't add to ESL's quality or value.
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EPT
