It's my pleasure to announce Axiom eSports newest major sponsor, GOG.com
We've tried as a team to be very selective about the organisations we take sponsorships from. We want to legitimately support what they're doing. We got involved in /r/bitcoin because we believe it's a currency with a real future. We use WASDKeyboards because we believe they're the best mechanical keyboards on offer and now we get to partner with a company for whom I personally have a great deal of respect, GOG.com
I did not expect this but this is definitely a good thing for the team. Love GoG and definitely respect Axiom so this is good news. I will call Axiom Team Witcher now I guess.
I just bought Planescape Torment from them for frickin' $5!!! Highly recommend people use that site to play all the classic games they've missed or haven't gotten around to.
GOG always seemed like a really good organization, I have saved a lot of money from their twitter account and website. Glad to see they have grown lately, along with humblebundle store. Congrats to Axiom, seems like a really good fit.
So as part of sponsor promotion Axiom players will be trying-out games from GOG catalog? Makes sense for some RTS titles but I can't see it working for anything else.
On August 02 2014 04:31 pmp10 wrote: So as part of sponsor promotion Axiom players will be trying-out games from GOG catalog? Makes sense for some RTS titles but I can't see it working for anything else.
I think it could be funny actually, looking forward to seeing this. I wouldn't mind watching them play some sort of FPS or smt
yeah that website is pretty great. Without them I would have never had the chance to playthrough crusader: no regret in its entirety. Even after all these years it was still a pretty fun experience. Gog is like an online museum for classic videogames that you can also buy and play, it fills quite an important niche role!
I called this when TB was talking about the Axiom sponsorship deck on Unfiltered and mentioned he had a sponsorship on the way soon. GREAT company to be sponsored by, and an equally great company to represent. I LOVE this deal. Congratulations to Axiom and Good Old Games, for what I hope will be a long-lasting and thriving sponsorship.
I'll always be grateful to GOG.com for allowing me to play Planescape Torment, and I'm very glad to see them getting a bit of involvement into e-sports. Good luck !
On August 02 2014 04:28 Incognoto wrote: Totalbiscuit is a total baller when it comes to getting sponsors involved. Sandisk, gog.com, /r/bitcoin. That guy is amazing.
We should have him go talk to Ferrari and Aston Martin and have them start sponsoring StarCraft events. XD
This makes me very happy, both for GOG and Axiom, super nice company to represent. Also very happy to see them reach out and sponsora Starcraft2 team, good work TB congratulations!
On August 02 2014 05:27 Code wrote: Never used GOG before but omg I want Theme Hospital!
Cool sponsor.
This is actually the only game I ever bought from GOG, unfortunately it was buggy. The game hanged whenever I alt-tabbed, if I remember correctly. Wouldn't recommend it, but maybe others have better luck. I don't regret giving them those few bucks though, CD Projekt is an ethical company (no drm? wtf??), and is 100% Polish (yay, nationalism).
Our partnership with GOG will be accompanied by a series of videos showcasing classic titles in the GOG library. Axiom eSports will present a series of videos where our StarCraft pro-gamers try to apply their knowledge and mechanics to classic RTS, competing against each other to see who comes out on top. If you've ever wondered just how well StarCraft skills transfer to other strategy games, you will have the opportunity to find out.
This is the most brilliant part. Total Annihilation? Heroes of Might and Magic? Empire Earth? Alpha Centauri? I love me some good old classic gaming, especially played by Korean progamers.
Our partnership with GOG will be accompanied by a series of videos showcasing classic titles in the GOG library. Axiom eSports will present a series of videos where our StarCraft pro-gamers try to apply their knowledge and mechanics to classic RTS, competing against each other to see who comes out on top. If you've ever wondered just how well StarCraft skills transfer to other strategy games, you will have the opportunity to find out.
This is the most brilliant part. Total Annihilation? Heroes of Might and Magic? Empire Earth? Alpha Centauri? I love me some good old classic gaming, especially played by Korean progamers.
I wish they would play Earth 2140, and get super frustrated by the lack of attack-move :D
A great sponsorship. I have quite a catalog from GoG and have never had a problem with them. Their stance on DRM and great prices are good reasons to check them out is you haven't before.
On August 02 2014 05:27 Code wrote: Never used GOG before but omg I want Theme Hospital!
Cool sponsor.
This is actually the only game I ever bought from GOG, unfortunately it was buggy. The game hanged whenever I alt-tabbed, if I remember correctly. Wouldn't recommend it, but maybe others have better luck. I don't regret giving them those few bucks though, CD Projekt is an ethical company (no drm? wtf??), and is 100% Polish (yay, nationalism).
I had Theme Hospital on the original disk and it always was somewhat quirky. I also had re-purchased it through GoG due to them usually being good about patching older games to work on Win7 and it still is a little buggy, but fun enough to work through the minor issues I had with it.
Our partnership with GOG will be accompanied by a series of videos showcasing classic titles in the GOG library. Axiom eSports will present a series of videos where our StarCraft pro-gamers try to apply their knowledge and mechanics to classic RTS, competing against each other to see who comes out on top. If you've ever wondered just how well StarCraft skills transfer to other strategy games, you will have the opportunity to find out.
This is the most brilliant part. Total Annihilation? Heroes of Might and Magic? Empire Earth? Alpha Centauri? I love me some good old classic gaming, especially played by Korean progamers.
So cool! I hope they chose Total Annihilation first. Ryung vs. Crank in TA? Hype!
This is seriously a cool partnership though, GoG is a great source of old classics. I never expected them to enter the Esports Arena, but I'm very excited now that they are.
Found myself compelled to download Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Complete from GOG because it is worth the 10$ to not have to locate the discs and patches I have... somewhere.
Now staring at the screen after a quick random game, once again BLOWN AWAY by how much I love it.
Pretty interesting sponsor. The crossover and conversion rate should be immense. I wonder if Axiom has enough sponsor cash to be sustainable on its own now, or if they are still hemorrhaging cash from TB's personal account.
Great deal, albeit one I wouldn't have expected, might actually prove to be a good breath of fresh air for Axiom too considering the recent results seem to be weighing them down a little, might be good to just have a few days of fun playing some old games before hitting back at SC2 with a refreshed mind.
On August 02 2014 07:49 creamyturtle wrote: Pretty interesting sponsor. The crossover and conversion rate should be immense. I wonder if Axiom has enough sponsor cash to be sustainable on its own now, or if they are still hemorrhaging cash from TB's personal account.
Not even close. We made the mistake of trying to pay players fair wages instead of just providing a house and expecting them to work for free, so we still have along way to go. If I can get 2 more sponsors the size of GoG, then we'd break even I reckon.
On August 02 2014 07:49 creamyturtle wrote: Pretty interesting sponsor. The crossover and conversion rate should be immense. I wonder if Axiom has enough sponsor cash to be sustainable on its own now, or if they are still hemorrhaging cash from TB's personal account.
Not even close. We made the mistake of trying to pay players fair wages instead of just providing a house and expecting them to work for free, so we still have along way to go. If I can get 2 more sponsors the size of GoG, then we'd break even I reckon.
So you're saying for a mid size team you're better off providing a house than not having a house but having livable (able to live on ones own) wages? That's actually really interesting.
On August 02 2014 08:12 EJK wrote: so this website...sells old games that are DRM (so free) for monies?
Wut. Not having any DRM doesn't mean the game is free, it just means it doesn't have crap like Uplay or always-online requirements.
So you're saying for a mid size team you're better off providing a house than not having a house but having livable (able to live on ones own) wages? That's actually really interesting.
At least in your experience of course.
The majority of Korean players are not paid a salary. Most of those that are happen to be on foreign teams. The top KeSPA koreans are paid salary, those considered B-teamers are not. What remains of the ex-eSF teams are for the most part also not paying salaries. Most teams are also not providing many flights for players due to the expense, some Koreans have paid for their own flights to go to events. I don't know whether or not teams are also taking prize money, I'd imagine not but it's not something I've been able to get anyone to talk about. I do know that some foreign teams take a small percentage of prize money.
For the last couple of years we've taken no prize money from players, paid for the house and all the expenses that come with that, catering, flights and player salaries. This has resulted in the team being hugely expensive to run. The experiment was to see whether it was possible to make that work. I still think it is but as with any startup, the money sunk into it to bring it into the black has been significant and we're not in the black right now, we're still running deep in the red.
I'd say with the sponsorship we have now. If we paid no salary and took a small cut of prizemoney, we could sustain a team of 8 players, pay for the house and all related expenses (since that's the capacity of the house without getting uncomfortable) and fly 1-2 players to an international event every month. We didn't want to be like that. Unfortunately the scene shrank since we started rather than grew so the challenge of breaking even while still treating our players in the way we feel they should be treated is now much more difficult.
Hopefully that should give you some idea of the reality of this whole thing.
So you're saying for a mid size team you're better off providing a house than not having a house but having livable (able to live on ones own) wages? That's actually really interesting.
At least in your experience of course.
The majority of Korean players are not paid a salary. Most of those that are happen to be on foreign teams. The top KeSPA koreans are paid salary, those considered B-teamers are not. What remains of the ex-eSF teams are for the most part also not paying salaries. Most teams are also not providing many flights for players due to the expense, some Koreans have paid for their own flights to go to events. I don't know whether or not teams are also taking prize money, I'd imagine not but it's not something I've been able to get anyone to talk about. I do know that some foreign teams take a small percentage of prize money.
For the last couple of years we've taken no prize money from players, paid for the house and all the expenses that come with that, catering, flights and player salaries. This has resulted in the team being hugely expensive to run. The experiment was to see whether it was possible to make that work. I still think it is but as with any startup, the money sunk into it to bring it into the black has been significant and we're not in the black right now, we're still running deep in the red.
I'd say with the sponsorship we have now. If we paid no salary and took a small cut of prizemoney, we could sustain a team of 8 players, pay for the house and all related expenses (since that's the capacity of the house without getting uncomfortable) and fly 1-2 players to an international event every month. We didn't want to be like that. Unfortunately the scene shrank since we started rather than grew so the challenge of breaking even while still treating our players in the way we feel they should be treated is now much more difficult.
Hopefully that should give you some idea of the reality of this whole thing.
Thanks for the info, always a pleasure learning more about the scene
Wow, nice! Gog is fucking awesome, hell I even think they are better than Steam for older PC games because they usually have instructions and tweaks so you can run it on modern systems easier.
So you're saying for a mid size team you're better off providing a house than not having a house but having livable (able to live on ones own) wages? That's actually really interesting.
At least in your experience of course.
The majority of Korean players are not paid a salary. Most of those that are happen to be on foreign teams. The top KeSPA koreans are paid salary, those considered B-teamers are not. What remains of the ex-eSF teams are for the most part also not paying salaries. Most teams are also not providing many flights for players due to the expense, some Koreans have paid for their own flights to go to events. I don't know whether or not teams are also taking prize money, I'd imagine not but it's not something I've been able to get anyone to talk about. I do know that some foreign teams take a small percentage of prize money.
For the last couple of years we've taken no prize money from players, paid for the house and all the expenses that come with that, catering, flights and player salaries. This has resulted in the team being hugely expensive to run. The experiment was to see whether it was possible to make that work. I still think it is but as with any startup, the money sunk into it to bring it into the black has been significant and we're not in the black right now, we're still running deep in the red.
I'd say with the sponsorship we have now. If we paid no salary and took a small cut of prizemoney, we could sustain a team of 8 players, pay for the house and all related expenses (since that's the capacity of the house without getting uncomfortable) and fly 1-2 players to an international event every month. We didn't want to be like that. Unfortunately the scene shrank since we started rather than grew so the challenge of breaking even while still treating our players in the way we feel they should be treated is now much more difficult.
Hopefully that should give you some idea of the reality of this whole thing.
I hope your recovery is going well!!! You are the best!
On August 03 2014 12:13 deth2munkies wrote: Love me some GoG, love me some Axiom, glad to see it.
Btw, buy Alpha Centauri, it's worth it.
Is it? Asking if this is nostalgia or if it's still good. We should get some sort of recommend old games thread going to better support this. Btw I love the civilization series, would alpha still be good or is it outdated compared to civ 5 etc
On August 03 2014 12:13 deth2munkies wrote: Love me some GoG, love me some Axiom, glad to see it.
Btw, buy Alpha Centauri, it's worth it.
Is it? Asking if this is nostalgia or if it's still good. We should get some sort of recommend old games thread going to better support this. Btw I love the civilization series, would alpha still be good or is it outdated compared to civ 5 etc
The interface is outdated and takes some getting used to, the game is still legit though.
On August 03 2014 12:13 deth2munkies wrote: Love me some GoG, love me some Axiom, glad to see it.
Btw, buy Alpha Centauri, it's worth it.
Is it? Asking if this is nostalgia or if it's still good. We should get some sort of recommend old games thread going to better support this. Btw I love the civilization series, would alpha still be good or is it outdated compared to civ 5 etc
Its a spin-off of civ 2. It is lacking some cool features of later games (culture, complex espionage, corporations, etc), but has a lot of great elements that make up for it including a really interesting narrative (that's right, its a Civ game that tells a story).
It has cool features like 100% customizible units, great wonder movies (I SORELY miss this in the more modern civ games), an innovative terraforming system including rainfall patterns, reactive ecology (although global warming is a bit too easy to trigger IMO) and such.
Its my favorite civ game outside of Call to Power (that I can't get to run anymore, ), and once you get used to the outdated and semi-clunky UI its loads of fun.
Oh and while the graphics aren't at Civ 4 levels, it doesn't look so awful you can't stand it, its a very well-made game.
On August 03 2014 20:17 Advocado wrote: Is it me or is this a HUGE sponsor? Gog.com is has pretty much outrun steam in the old games department!
I imagine market of new games is bigger than market for old games. Seems nice of course. Would be nice if GOG started organizing tournaments in these older games.
So you're saying for a mid size team you're better off providing a house than not having a house but having livable (able to live on ones own) wages? That's actually really interesting.
At least in your experience of course.
The majority of Korean players are not paid a salary. Most of those that are happen to be on foreign teams. The top KeSPA koreans are paid salary, those considered B-teamers are not. What remains of the ex-eSF teams are for the most part also not paying salaries. Most teams are also not providing many flights for players due to the expense, some Koreans have paid for their own flights to go to events. I don't know whether or not teams are also taking prize money, I'd imagine not but it's not something I've been able to get anyone to talk about. I do know that some foreign teams take a small percentage of prize money.
For the last couple of years we've taken no prize money from players, paid for the house and all the expenses that come with that, catering, flights and player salaries. This has resulted in the team being hugely expensive to run. The experiment was to see whether it was possible to make that work. I still think it is but as with any startup, the money sunk into it to bring it into the black has been significant and we're not in the black right now, we're still running deep in the red.
I'd say with the sponsorship we have now. If we paid no salary and took a small cut of prizemoney, we could sustain a team of 8 players, pay for the house and all related expenses (since that's the capacity of the house without getting uncomfortable) and fly 1-2 players to an international event every month. We didn't want to be like that. Unfortunately the scene shrank since we started rather than grew so the challenge of breaking even while still treating our players in the way we feel they should be treated is now much more difficult.
Hopefully that should give you some idea of the reality of this whole thing.
Keep fighting TB! Always cheer for you, your team and events!
Axiom eSports will present a series of videos where our StarCraft pro-gamers try to apply their knowledge and mechanics to classic RTS, competing against each other to see who comes out on top.
On August 02 2014 04:37 KrOmander wrote: Gratz, Love GOG. Been there quite a few times recently so I could replay some old Black Isle and Bullfrog classics.
I got the same titles from GOG. That plus Lord of the Realm 2.
That is such an amazing sposor. Glad buying games from them contributes to SC2!!
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nDWGbuo.png)
.
I have quite a catalog from GoG and have never had a problem with them. Their stance on DRM and great prices are good reasons to check them out is you haven't before.
), and once you get used to the outdated and semi-clunky UI its loads of fun.
