On May 11 2013 04:26 hagrin wrote: I read all 172 pages and easily the highlight was when we went on a 4 page tangent on EG signing Tara Babcock. Only on an Idra thread could that happen. Good show mates.
You read all 172 pages of this thread?
Why would you sandpaper your own corneas like that?
On May 11 2013 02:16 IPA wrote: In professional life, you can't act like a spoiled, raging child and expect your employers to deal with it. I applaud EG for treating their business like a business and not like a day care center.
IdrA -- you can be relevent without being immature (I hope). Find your path bud. Your lack of respect for the community, other players, and yourself has become painful to see. Good luck.
You are probably right about his behavior and his professionalism - this is also the reason why I'm not a fan of him.
But the first thought in my mind after reading this news was that EG took the opportunity to get rid of Idra. This is of course pure speculation from myself but he got probably as much salary as their hole Korean Proleauge-Linup with exception of JD and Idra's level and his popularity and therefore his worth for EG slowly faded away through the last year. (just look at tournament results and stream numbers) I'm pretty sure if he would still be on top of his career EG would never released him for this stuff.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation, but I think it's highly improbable.
EG doesn't have a business model that is strictly related to skill-base - they also invest in strong personalities that get exposure (i.e Geoff. "Incontrol" Robinson). Idra, though quite the opposite of Incontrol with regards to his professionalism and personality, still was able to be marketed as a "tough" guy / "badass nerd".
That image of Idra, however, is severely damaged when he openly taunted and insulted his entire viewership and customer-base. To think that Idra's viewership only consisted of die-hard fans or trolls is ridiculous - it was mostly a casual audience that wasn't heavily invested in Idra, but had disposable income and enjoyed being part of the e-sports scene. He literally told those people, who have nothing to do with any drama or anything, really, that they were all "fucks" and "sheep".
When you say something like that to your customers, it's unrecoverable. I'll reiterate that it's like owning a bakery, and every time a customer walks in you say: "You're a fat fuck, can't believe you actually buy my pastries HAHA". . . regardless of who the customer is.
Except that people are fans of comedians who do nothing but insult them. I just think there has to be more going on that we don't know about for them to release IdrA. For all the "HE WAS MEAN TO HIS FANS!!!" going on in this thread people sure ate it up for several years. There's something else going on here that...really I don't care about. I just hope IdrA can remake his image into something marketable and get picked up again or find another career. Being unemployed sucks balls.
Lol really? You're equating Idra's behavior to a comedy routine - a form of entertainment where someone makes a joke that sometimes involves the audience? Comedian's of all people know how fickle a crowd can be - it takes some serious skill to get away with insulting the audience even as a joke, much less being absolutely serious as Idra was.
You're forgetting that Idra didn't just call his entire audience "a bunch of fucks", he went a step further and actually stated that EG endorses his attacks and that he is making money every time he exhibits abusive behavior towards anyone, including innocent bystanders.
Trust me man, if someone is being told they are a stupid, fat "fuck" and a "sheep" after entering a bakery to buy a pastry, do you really think they are going to continue patronizing that business? Anyone who thinks that they can retain customers this way is out of touch with reality and the target audience of companies like EG.
Honestly, if someone told me that when I walked into their bakery, I'd find it pretty humorous and buy my pastries anyway. Surprising character to find in a bakery, ya know? Spices things up.
Also, we aren't really sure if Idra was 100% serious or just making a sarcastic remark with some truth in it.
I think you're out of touch. Most people wouldn't find it funny and wouldn't continue to buy products. Idra knew how serious his post was - someone as tactically affluent as he could not possibly have been ignorant of the consequences. He knew what he was saying and he stood by his statement by not making any attempt to clarify it.
Obviously most people wouldn't react that way.......
But why would he clarify it? He really didn't seem to care that much in the first place, haha. He probably would have been in a much better position if he did, but that clearly was not a huge concern to him.
Alex already clarified it for him. He DOESN't get paid to do it, lol.
Funny, cause he actually did get paid to do it for 3 years. His only mistake was explaining it to the audience who were too dumb to get it.
The community itself created this monster, by choosing what type of players to watch. HyuN can stream with sub 500 viewers while destiny and dragon have 5000, playing the same game. IdrA gave people what they wanted, even though they didn't understand it themselves.
On May 11 2013 04:26 hagrin wrote: I read all 172 pages and easily the highlight was when we went on a 4 page tangent on EG signing Tara Babcock. Only on an Idra thread could that happen. Good show mates.
You read all 172 pages of this thread?
Why would you sandpaper your own corneas like that?
I did too to pass the time work , was rather quiet day work and nothing much else to do.
There is no way he'll stay teamless if he still wants to play, but I can't see a major organization or a team wanting to be a major organization pick him up - EG showed us even they have their limits with their reputation to dollars made ratio.
I'm positive there are some teams out there that would happily take Idra for the attention he'd bring to the team and the money he could earn them - but a team like that would never achieve significant results.
The bigger question to me is will Idra stay in starcraft. He already hated the game and seemingly the community around it too. Now if he wants to continue a career in video games he'll have to put up with the same BS in much less comfortable conditions. Personally I'll be shocked if he doesn't retire.
On May 11 2013 02:16 IPA wrote: In professional life, you can't act like a spoiled, raging child and expect your employers to deal with it. I applaud EG for treating their business like a business and not like a day care center.
IdrA -- you can be relevent without being immature (I hope). Find your path bud. Your lack of respect for the community, other players, and yourself has become painful to see. Good luck.
You are probably right about his behavior and his professionalism - this is also the reason why I'm not a fan of him.
But the first thought in my mind after reading this news was that EG took the opportunity to get rid of Idra. This is of course pure speculation from myself but he got probably as much salary as their hole Korean Proleauge-Linup with exception of JD and Idra's level and his popularity and therefore his worth for EG slowly faded away through the last year. (just look at tournament results and stream numbers) I'm pretty sure if he would still be on top of his career EG would never released him for this stuff.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation, but I think it's highly improbable.
EG doesn't have a business model that is strictly related to skill-base - they also invest in strong personalities that get exposure (i.e Geoff. "Incontrol" Robinson). Idra, though quite the opposite of Incontrol with regards to his professionalism and personality, still was able to be marketed as a "tough" guy / "badass nerd".
That image of Idra, however, is severely damaged when he openly taunted and insulted his entire viewership and customer-base. To think that Idra's viewership only consisted of die-hard fans or trolls is ridiculous - it was mostly a casual audience that wasn't heavily invested in Idra, but had disposable income and enjoyed being part of the e-sports scene. He literally told those people, who have nothing to do with any drama or anything, really, that they were all "fucks" and "sheep".
When you say something like that to your customers, it's unrecoverable. I'll reiterate that it's like owning a bakery, and every time a customer walks in you say: "You're a fat fuck, can't believe you actually buy my pastries HAHA". . . regardless of who the customer is.
Well, in one regard Idra imo isn't totally wrong. This community sometimes has a lot of "sheep". Just imagine Idra would have dominated his wcs-group as he was able to 2 years ago - he would have been the story of the week and most people wouldn't have cared about his post. But this is not entirely my point - I believe EG sees his players as most company’s would do as a sort of profit-center and I'm pretty sure, they think they can get better return of their money with other investments so they took the opportunity given and released Idra over this.
If you think Idra wasn't going to still be a valuable asset to EG, regardless of whether he won in WCS or not, I'd have to say you are out of touch. I don't think there's any way they would have released Idra if he hadn't made that statement on a public forum.
And from the press release, Alex Garfield made that point - that Idra crossed the line with the worst transgression to date. I don't think there's a conspiracy here. It's Idra's fault that he's in this position. Idra, and no one else.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Idra is a poor victim, I'm just saying I think this is as much of a business decision as it is a moral one because of his statement. And I don't think Idra is as much of an valuable asset to EG as he was - he has probably a pretty good salary, therefore he was a pretty expensive asset to EG.
On May 11 2013 04:53 nGBeast wrote: Did he release a statement yet?
People looking forward to a statement should prepare themselves for the eventuality that Idra may never release one. His opinion of the entire audience/community is so low and his ego so large that I personally doubt he would feel inclined to say anything. And it will probably be yet another unfortunate PR mistake for him.
On May 11 2013 04:18 CamoPillbox wrote: suprise suprise but i dont know if this is not only start of EG kicking old players( in my opinion they all time know what idra can do ) Puma , Lzgamer now Idra who is next ??? If they force out or kick another player in next few months we know from where wind come .
lol, LZgamer left ages ago and everyone was pretty much in agreement that it was time given he hadn't posted any results since 2010 and was more a 'personality figure' anyway (could be wrong but I think he was one of the first people to actually stream?). According to the statement released EG actually wanted to retain Puma, but on a re-negotiated contract. Puma wasn't happy with the new terms/thought he could do better and both sides parted ways. And finally we come to idra, which quite frankly has been a long time coming.
So who's left, Machine, okay, his future does look a little shaky when you consider his results/presence, but he’s lasted this long, even outlasted Idra. Huk, DeMuslim, Thorzain and Stephano will not be released (yes, Huk does still have great value as a player). If they do leave in the next year I wager it'll be the choice of the player rather than EG. Their Korean squad is almost totally new so that's not going anywhere either. JYP's future did look shaky for a while but he's turned out to be a pretty decent asset in Proleague so I reckon he's safe. Incontrol.. lol there’s just no way. I wouldn’t be surprised if Incontrol eventually inherited EG (in a manner of speaking).
I'd hardly predict EG is going through or gearing up for a mass exodus of players.
*EDIT* To be honest the only EG release that ever caught me off guard was one you didn't mention, Axslav, was surprised to see him go as his results actually weren't that bad, but he's done quite well for himself anyways.
Apart from a show match Machine hasn't posted any results since 2010 either:
holy wow . . it was on page 5 when i left for work . . 174 . .geez after thinking about this i think this is a stupid move on EG's part, yes idra has been goin mad on the BM but its why he rakes at least 5k viewers per stream. I think it will be in any teams best interest now to pick him up on a 1 year deal and just see if he can shift the sponsors like everyone claims he can. i mean i really like root, they are quite independent lets see if he can bring catz and crew the dollar they need maybe.
I can't agree more. After Tiger woods incident he lost some sponsors but nike remained.
Dude.. tiger, Tyson, kobe, vick have all accomplished a lot in their respective sports. but, idra, in sc2 (don't know about bw) has done that well... and when you embarrass your company like that you will get fired. kudos to EG.
IdrA is the most accomplished foreigner.
thats like saying park ji sung is the most accomplished korean footballer...so lets put him in the same spot as messi?
This money comes from the foreign scene. The sponsors are foreign. The team is foreign. IdrA is foreign. And I'm not saying the best of this nation, I'm saying the best apart from this nation. What he did was very, very unique.
but clearly not the best in this sport as a whole. being the best of a minority league/area does not mean he can be compared to the actual people dominating the scene as tiger woods once did. i'm saying tiger woods to idra is a horrible example.
I'm sorry, this isn't soccer, and quite frankly our community has proven it again and again, we don't give a .. about skill, so it's a poor analogy.
EG was built on IdrA and the other way around. That's why so many people can't imagine them being apart. Also it's not a "minority area", wtf T_T it's everywhere EXCEPT from Korea, OH and did you forget GSL? I guess that's a minority league too. IdrA is definitely no skill. And well, in soccer we don't really talk about folk from spain vs everyone else like we do in sc2 with folk from korea vs FOREIGNERS. It's a thing, and he is the most accomplished of those foreigners.
Oh and he is also, probably, the most valuable player.
He is definitely accomplished in what he did. I don't know how you can even think he is not.
That said, it's also one of the reasons why skill doesn't get you out of bm in sc, and why EG doesn't release players based on their performance, or why IdrA's skill isn't mentioned at all in the OP.
how long do you think kobe, tiger, vick gonna be out of a job? a few seconds? lets see when idra get picked up by a team.
Vick was out of a job for a long time, because he was in jail.
But I think you're right, regardless of what you think about his skill or accomplishments he is incredibly marketable.
I wouldn't be surprised if a small team stretches it's finances to the limit to the sign him, because any team he is on is instantly going to get a lot of exposure.
I hope he signs with Axiom though, would probably be a good fit. I also think his BM will greatly improve, and his play. He is probably going to be motivated. I can't wait to see his games in the challenger league. I pity his opponents.
On May 11 2013 04:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 11 2013 03:57 Magic_Mike wrote:
On May 11 2013 03:53 SCST wrote:
On May 11 2013 03:45 Myt wrote:
On May 11 2013 02:16 IPA wrote: In professional life, you can't act like a spoiled, raging child and expect your employers to deal with it. I applaud EG for treating their business like a business and not like a day care center.
IdrA -- you can be relevent without being immature (I hope). Find your path bud. Your lack of respect for the community, other players, and yourself has become painful to see. Good luck.
You are probably right about his behavior and his professionalism - this is also the reason why I'm not a fan of him.
But the first thought in my mind after reading this news was that EG took the opportunity to get rid of Idra. This is of course pure speculation from myself but he got probably as much salary as their hole Korean Proleauge-Linup with exception of JD and Idra's level and his popularity and therefore his worth for EG slowly faded away through the last year. (just look at tournament results and stream numbers) I'm pretty sure if he would still be on top of his career EG would never released him for this stuff.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation, but I think it's highly improbable.
EG doesn't have a business model that is strictly related to skill-base - they also invest in strong personalities that get exposure (i.e Geoff. "Incontrol" Robinson). Idra, though quite the opposite of Incontrol with regards to his professionalism and personality, still was able to be marketed as a "tough" guy / "badass nerd".
That image of Idra, however, is severely damaged when he openly taunted and insulted his entire viewership and customer-base. To think that Idra's viewership only consisted of die-hard fans or trolls is ridiculous - it was mostly a casual audience that wasn't heavily invested in Idra, but had disposable income and enjoyed being part of the e-sports scene. He literally told those people, who have nothing to do with any drama or anything, really, that they were all "fucks" and "sheep".
When you say something like that to your customers, it's unrecoverable. I'll reiterate that it's like owning a bakery, and every time a customer walks in you say: "You're a fat fuck, can't believe you actually buy my pastries HAHA". . . regardless of who the customer is.
Works for Chef Ramsey.
chef ramsay doesn't ragequit when something doesn't go his way either.
That is a ragequit bro.
don't know what ur point about vick's jail term. maybe they have sc2 in prison...
The point was that Vick was only out of a job due to his jail term so he wasn't a good example.
Marketable people will get a job easily. IdrA is incredibly marketable.
On May 11 2013 02:16 IPA wrote: In professional life, you can't act like a spoiled, raging child and expect your employers to deal with it. I applaud EG for treating their business like a business and not like a day care center.
IdrA -- you can be relevent without being immature (I hope). Find your path bud. Your lack of respect for the community, other players, and yourself has become painful to see. Good luck.
You are probably right about his behavior and his professionalism - this is also the reason why I'm not a fan of him.
But the first thought in my mind after reading this news was that EG took the opportunity to get rid of Idra. This is of course pure speculation from myself but he got probably as much salary as their hole Korean Proleauge-Linup with exception of JD and Idra's level and his popularity and therefore his worth for EG slowly faded away through the last year. (just look at tournament results and stream numbers) I'm pretty sure if he would still be on top of his career EG would never released him for this stuff.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation, but I think it's highly improbable.
EG doesn't have a business model that is strictly related to skill-base - they also invest in strong personalities that get exposure (i.e Geoff. "Incontrol" Robinson). Idra, though quite the opposite of Incontrol with regards to his professionalism and personality, still was able to be marketed as a "tough" guy / "badass nerd".
That image of Idra, however, is severely damaged when he openly taunted and insulted his entire viewership and customer-base. To think that Idra's viewership only consisted of die-hard fans or trolls is ridiculous - it was mostly a casual audience that wasn't heavily invested in Idra, but had disposable income and enjoyed being part of the e-sports scene. He literally told those people, who have nothing to do with any drama or anything, really, that they were all "fucks" and "sheep".
When you say something like that to your customers, it's unrecoverable. I'll reiterate that it's like owning a bakery, and every time a customer walks in you say: "You're a fat fuck, can't believe you actually buy my pastries HAHA". . . regardless of who the customer is.
Well, in one regard Idra imo isn't totally wrong. This community sometimes has a lot of "sheep". Just imagine Idra would have dominated his wcs-group as he was able to 2 years ago - he would have been the story of the week and most people wouldn't have cared about his post. But this is not entirely my point - I believe EG sees his players as most company’s would do as a sort of profit-center and I'm pretty sure, they think they can get better return of their money with other investments so they took the opportunity given and released Idra over this.
If you think Idra wasn't going to still be a valuable asset to EG, regardless of whether he won in WCS or not, I'd have to say you are out of touch. I don't think there's any way they would have released Idra if he hadn't made that statement on a public forum.
And from the press release, Alex Garfield made that point - that Idra crossed the line with the worst transgression to date. I don't think there's a conspiracy here. It's Idra's fault that he's in this position. Idra, and no one else.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Idra is a poor victim, I'm just saying I think this is as much of a business decision as it is a moral one because of his statement. And I don't think Idra is as much of an valuable asset to EG as he was - he has probably a pretty good salary, therefore he was a pretty expensive asset to EG.
Yes I can agree with these points. It probably was easier for them to justify letting him go than say, a year ago. But I think, as a business, they have to let him go whether it was yesteryear or today after a statement like that.
I just don't know how, in EG's shoes, you can justify to your sponsors one of your players calling their customers "fucks' and "sheep". That's not how Monster Energy, Razor etc etc want to be branded. And they are higher on the food chain than EG.
On May 11 2013 04:41 quirinus wrote: The gap back then was WAY WAY WAY higher. Any dish-washing B teamer or even just a lowly practice partner of any pro team (they aren't even on the team) would stomp 99.9% of ANY foreigner back then (Nony got close to beating some in Courage, at his prime). Compared to that, Idra took games off Stork and did good in the inside team tournaments. Which is ridiculous considering the language barrier.
Nony came within the final game of WINNING Courage, and even then only lost 2-1 in the final match. Idra never got that far.
He also beat Idra to win the TSL2.
I remember a video interview with someone (was it Hwanni?) before SC2 came out where Artosis asked him if he thought Idra was the best foreign Starcraft player, and he said no, he thought Nony was a more creative and overall better player. I thought that was interesting.
Nony obviously wasn't as successful as Idra at SC2, but that was only because he got hit with crippling depression. Even so, Nony still has a better attitude towards the game than Idra to this day.
On May 11 2013 02:16 IPA wrote: In professional life, you can't act like a spoiled, raging child and expect your employers to deal with it. I applaud EG for treating their business like a business and not like a day care center.
IdrA -- you can be relevent without being immature (I hope). Find your path bud. Your lack of respect for the community, other players, and yourself has become painful to see. Good luck.
You are probably right about his behavior and his professionalism - this is also the reason why I'm not a fan of him.
But the first thought in my mind after reading this news was that EG took the opportunity to get rid of Idra. This is of course pure speculation from myself but he got probably as much salary as their hole Korean Proleauge-Linup with exception of JD and Idra's level and his popularity and therefore his worth for EG slowly faded away through the last year. (just look at tournament results and stream numbers) I'm pretty sure if he would still be on top of his career EG would never released him for this stuff.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation, but I think it's highly improbable.
EG doesn't have a business model that is strictly related to skill-base - they also invest in strong personalities that get exposure (i.e Geoff. "Incontrol" Robinson). Idra, though quite the opposite of Incontrol with regards to his professionalism and personality, still was able to be marketed as a "tough" guy / "badass nerd".
That image of Idra, however, is severely damaged when he openly taunted and insulted his entire viewership and customer-base. To think that Idra's viewership only consisted of die-hard fans or trolls is ridiculous - it was mostly a casual audience that wasn't heavily invested in Idra, but had disposable income and enjoyed being part of the e-sports scene. He literally told those people, who have nothing to do with any drama or anything, really, that they were all "fucks" and "sheep".
When you say something like that to your customers, it's unrecoverable. I'll reiterate that it's like owning a bakery, and every time a customer walks in you say: "You're a fat fuck, can't believe you actually buy my pastries HAHA". . . regardless of who the customer is.
Except that people are fans of comedians who do nothing but insult them. I just think there has to be more going on that we don't know about for them to release IdrA. For all the "HE WAS MEAN TO HIS FANS!!!" going on in this thread people sure ate it up for several years. There's something else going on here that...really I don't care about. I just hope IdrA can remake his image into something marketable and get picked up again or find another career. Being unemployed sucks balls.
Lol really? You're equating Idra's behavior to a comedy routine - a form of entertainment where someone makes a joke that sometimes involves the audience? Comedian's of all people know how fickle a crowd can be - it takes some serious skill to get away with insulting the audience even as a joke, much less being absolutely serious as Idra was.
You're forgetting that Idra didn't just call his entire audience "a bunch of fucks", he went a step further and actually stated that EG endorses his attacks and that he is making money every time he exhibits abusive behavior towards anyone, including innocent bystanders.
Trust me man, if someone is being told they are a stupid, fat "fuck" and a "sheep" after entering a bakery to buy a pastry, do you really think they are going to continue patronizing that business? Anyone who thinks that they can retain customers this way is out of touch with reality and the target audience of companies like EG.
Honestly, if someone told me that when I walked into their bakery, I'd find it pretty humorous and buy my pastries anyway. Surprising character to find in a bakery, ya know? Spices things up.
Also, we aren't really sure if Idra was 100% serious or just making a sarcastic remark with some truth in it.
I think you're out of touch. Most people wouldn't find it funny and wouldn't continue to buy products. Idra knew how serious his post was - someone as tactically affluent as he could not possibly have been ignorant of the consequences. He knew what he was saying and he stood by his statement by not making any attempt to clarify it.
Obviously most people wouldn't react that way.......
But why would he clarify it? He really didn't seem to care that much in the first place, haha. He probably would have been in a much better position if he did, but that clearly was not a huge concern to him.
Alex already clarified it for him. He DOESN't get paid to do it, lol.
Funny, cause he actually did get paid to do it for 3 years. His only mistake was explaining it to the audience who were too dumb to get it.
The community itself created this monster, by choosing what type of players to watch. HyuN can stream with sub 500 viewers while destiny and dragon have 5000, playing the same game. IdrA gave people what they wanted, even though they didn't understand it themselves.
DeMusliM isn't a dick, yet he gets the highest viewer count. White-ra, should I go on? People need to think more and talk less like sheep.
Also, you think people are more stupid than they are. Thanks.
On May 11 2013 04:41 quirinus wrote: The gap back then was WAY WAY WAY higher. Any dish-washing B teamer or even just a lowly practice partner of any pro team (they aren't even on the team) would stomp 99.9% of ANY foreigner back then (Nony got close to beating some in Courage, at his prime). Compared to that, Idra took games off Stork and did good in the inside team tournaments. Which is ridiculous considering the language barrier.
Nony came within the final game of WINNING Courage, and even then only lost 2-1 in the final match. Idra never got that far.
He also beat Idra to win the TSL2.
I remember a video interview with someone (was it Hwanni?) before SC2 came out where Artosis asked him if he thought Idra was the best foreign Starcraft player, and he said no, he thought Nony was a more creative and overall better player. I thought that was interesting.
Nony obviously wasn't as successful as Idra at SC2, but that was only because he got hit with crippling depression. Even so, Nony still has a better attitude towards the game than Idra to this day.
Yes, he almost won a courage, and lost to the only one of the two (if I remember correctly) practice partners that were there. So my statement is correct. Not to mention the previous courages he lost.
Idra was stronger than Nony. Being on the B team of CJ is a lot harder than being on Estro... not to mention all the tournament wins. So Idra lost one time to Nony, big deal, he was still stronger than him. 2 of the wins were retarded anyway, I'm pretty sure if they had a few matches Idra would come on top.
I agree Nony is good and had a lot of potential, I really like the guy and I'm sad he didn't achieve it, but because of that we can't know if he'd be a match for Idra, and so Idra is the uncontested number one.
Funny, cause he actually did get paid to do it for 3 years. His only mistake was explaining it to the audience who were too dumb to get it.
The community itself created this monster, by choosing what type of players to watch. HyuN can stream with sub 500 viewers while destiny and dragon have 5000, playing the same game. IdrA gave people what they wanted, even though they didn't understand it themselves.
That's because a lot of SC2 is about entertainment. There is like 2-5% in these master leagues that can actually reap something from watching top SC2 play (and hopefully commentate). This kind of knowledge is useless to all the other people, so they'd rather go for something else.
For example: I watched enough MKP to learn that marines are the counter to banelings. Guess what happened when I tried to apply that kind of knowledge to my ladder games
It is not necessary to have Code-S level skill to be an interesting streamer. This applies to Idra. He did not perform that well in tournaments etc, still he played way better than 99.99% of people who watched his stream. And that is more than enough to make the stream skill-wise interesting.
Than there is the fun factor that IdrA brought to his games, with all the rage, commentary, background etc. It worked pretty well together until IdrA went a bridge too far.
On May 11 2013 02:16 IPA wrote: In professional life, you can't act like a spoiled, raging child and expect your employers to deal with it. I applaud EG for treating their business like a business and not like a day care center.
IdrA -- you can be relevent without being immature (I hope). Find your path bud. Your lack of respect for the community, other players, and yourself has become painful to see. Good luck.
You are probably right about his behavior and his professionalism - this is also the reason why I'm not a fan of him.
But the first thought in my mind after reading this news was that EG took the opportunity to get rid of Idra. This is of course pure speculation from myself but he got probably as much salary as their hole Korean Proleauge-Linup with exception of JD and Idra's level and his popularity and therefore his worth for EG slowly faded away through the last year. (just look at tournament results and stream numbers) I'm pretty sure if he would still be on top of his career EG would never released him for this stuff.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation, but I think it's highly improbable.
EG doesn't have a business model that is strictly related to skill-base - they also invest in strong personalities that get exposure (i.e Geoff. "Incontrol" Robinson). Idra, though quite the opposite of Incontrol with regards to his professionalism and personality, still was able to be marketed as a "tough" guy / "badass nerd".
That image of Idra, however, is severely damaged when he openly taunted and insulted his entire viewership and customer-base. To think that Idra's viewership only consisted of die-hard fans or trolls is ridiculous - it was mostly a casual audience that wasn't heavily invested in Idra, but had disposable income and enjoyed being part of the e-sports scene. He literally told those people, who have nothing to do with any drama or anything, really, that they were all "fucks" and "sheep".
When you say something like that to your customers, it's unrecoverable. I'll reiterate that it's like owning a bakery, and every time a customer walks in you say: "You're a fat fuck, can't believe you actually buy my pastries HAHA". . . regardless of who the customer is.
Well, in one regard Idra imo isn't totally wrong. This community sometimes has a lot of "sheep". Just imagine Idra would have dominated his wcs-group as he was able to 2 years ago - he would have been the story of the week and most people wouldn't have cared about his post. But this is not entirely my point - I believe EG sees his players as most company’s would do as a sort of profit-center and I'm pretty sure, they think they can get better return of their money with other investments so they took the opportunity given and released Idra over this.
If you think Idra wasn't going to still be a valuable asset to EG, regardless of whether he won in WCS or not, I'd have to say you are out of touch. I don't think there's any way they would have released Idra if he hadn't made that statement on a public forum.
And from the press release, Alex Garfield made that point - that Idra crossed the line with the worst transgression to date. I don't think there's a conspiracy here. It's Idra's fault that he's in this position. Idra, and no one else.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Idra is a poor victim, I'm just saying I think this is as much of a business decision as it is a moral one because of his statement. And I don't think Idra is as much of an valuable asset to EG as he was - he has probably a pretty good salary, therefore he was a pretty expensive asset to EG.
Yes I can agree with these points. It probably was easier for them to justify letting him go than say, a year ago. But I think, as a business, they have to let him go whether it was yesteryear or today after a statement like that.
I just don't know how, in EG's shoes, you can justify to your sponsors one of your players calling their customers "fucks' and "sheep". That's not how Monster Energy, Razor etc etc want to be branded. And they are higher on the food chain than EG.
I disagree. I don't think for a second that they would have fired him a year or two ago for something like this. It's like people somehow have gotten amnesia of all the stupid things he's said and done before. In so many words he's called his fans, players and community members similar things many times. This must have been something that's been building up for quite some time and this was the thing that pushed it over the top.
I think this is unfair to Greg. I think this industry is suited well for the "bad boys" of sc. If EG hired him to be a player, they Should release him based on that, not an attitude issue. I agree that he was too vocal bout his opinions of fans/the game but I really dislike the idea that eg is setting/solidifying an already existing norm for esports organizations are both responsible for their players opinions/behavior and have to manage them. Basketball players like Kobe can rape women and still play for the same franchise for years, and as a community we just ignore it or develop stronger feelings of team rivalrly against the lakers. I have the mental power to understand that what idra says is not only separate from egs opinions, but also enough to understand that someone who has dedicated their life to this sport up until now is likely filled with pressure, emotional connection to the game and needs to be given respect. The people acting on this decision are not respecting the level of dedication Greg has to this game or what he as done to bridge the gap between NA and KR. EGs players still have my full support but I am tremendously disappointed in this company's inability to recognize Greg's consistent practice ad performance, instead deciding to focus on moments of meteoric emotions which are completely understandable from anyone who has played a game professionally. Period.
EPT
