HyuN owed $23,000 in back pay and prize money by Quantic -…

On January 03 2014 22:20 Serinox wrote:

He made a bit over 7k
http://twtkr.olleh.com/view.php?long_id=L1g75u

On January 04 2014 00:58 Ctone23 wrote:
Is this standard operating procedure for teams to disperse tournament winnings through the CEO to players? Does Team Liquid follow this same procedure? Seems to me that Hyun being 25 years old qualifies him to receive his own checks from Tournament organizers. If the team gets a cut out of Tournament winnings, couldn't the organizer of the event cut different checks?

It sounds like Simon had all of that money and thought he could expand the Quantic brand maybe, and failed at his investment hard and just took off, complete speculation, but that sort of thing happens a lot with investment bankers who lose peoples money.

On January 04 2014 21:21 Zealously wrote:


The players can choose to take the money directly, I think, but they'd be subject to (more) taxes if they did.

1. He did recive some salary (like 5months out of 12).
2.So you would rather have 1/4 of your original salary but this is save? Sry but that doesnt make sense to me. And he did recive money.

Hyun's recollection in the OP
The money I should have received was 80,000 SEK from DreamHack winnings (about $12,500) and $26,400 (2,200 x 12) in salary, but I only received $2,200 x5, and after that $950 x5, leaving $10,650 I have not received. In total it's about $23,000 I have not received.

On January 07 2014 04:35 Wuster wrote:
Taking Hyun at his word this is the breakdown:



So actually it is just a single tournament, with a not-straightfoward payment structure as discussed above. And really, the dirt on Simon only started coming out recently in terms of not paying people.

Prior he's been a bit flakey and messed up somethings like with the LoL visas, but managed to avoid serious problems (the visa situation even worked itself out as his team dropped out early).

I do agree with you that getting involved with Quantic after he took over would take a leap of faith as he has no real history runnign a major team, but looking further he had run a minor team for half a year prior to the deal for the Quantic brand, so maybe I'm being too harsh on that front.

On January 02 2014 08:09 ZodaSoda wrote:


I'm a Starcraft 2 Elitist if anything lol, run along manchild.

Through an inheritance, Boudreault had come into a lot of money and had decided to invest it in the thing he cared about most; eSports. Even working at his successful family business, which manufactures classy office furniture, he had sought to launch a gaming desk design specifically for pro-gamers.

He had owned a minor team called 4Not, which had merged with some other teams and with Quantic, a bigger brand that was failing. It was owned by some guys, including senior Google employees, whose passion for competitive gaming had cooled. Boudreault bought up a majority share and started spending. The well-known StarCraft player HyuN was signed and the StarCraft 2 team did okay, winning here and there, mostly on the back of HyuN's skill.

But Boudreault's main interest was in League of Legends. Colleagues say that he spent long hours playing the game, and most of his professional energy went into his brand-saving scheme to get Quantic into the LCS. He announced the new team in September, telling GameSpot that it would be "a major game changer to the North American Challenger and LCS scene." It was headed up by the respected player Yoonsup "Locodoco" Choi.

Dcq1ur2

"All of the money was going into that," said Clark. "Legal fees, travel, visas, thousands of dollars. But nothing was happening. Simon was never available. He just wouldn't respond to requests for information."

The Koreans, young men in their late teens and early twenties, were housed with Bernie Catalan and his girlfriend, at their home in Southern California. One of the players went home after a few weeks, unhappy with the situation. Catalan and his partner struggled with the responsibility of looking after the team, who were in their home from September through to the tournament in December.

"They were young so they were kinda untidy and my girlfriend complained about them not cleaning up," he told Polygon. "She really likes a clean house. She wasn't really thrilled about having five guys who mostly didn't speak English in the house." Various attempts by Polygon to contact former team members for interview have been unsuccessful.

To keep the team entertained, Catalan took them on days out to Six Flags, and other diversions. "They wanted to go out to eat a lot. We went to batting cages and laser tag and go-carting."

Boudreault had promised $2,500 a month in living expenses as well as help with utility bills, according to Catalan. But his household only received $2,000 a month. He said it was not unusual to have to pick up expenses tabs, and then try, often in vain, to be compensated later.

Catalan said that the money problems affected the team. "They might have been a lot less stressed out without that problem," he said. "They would say, let's go to Trader Joes to get some food and I'd say, well, Simon hasn't sent the money yet."

On January 13 2014 03:41 Sufinsil wrote:
Nice article on Simon and Quantic Gaming:

The bitter end to a desperate eSports gamble
http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/10/5293696/the-sad-end-to-a-desperate-esports-gamble