EPTDreamHack Moscow: First players announced - Page 3
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
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Cinek357
Poland119 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote: And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics. It kinda does. Same as DH Bucharest helps to promote Romania and DH Valencia helps to promote Spain. These kind of tournaments show host country in a good light. It works the same as World Cup 2018 or Winter Olympics 2014 and this is exactly what Russian army or politics want. E-sports is just way smaller, so they probably don't even know about Dreamhack taking place in Russia, but it helps Russian politics the same way as other sport events do. | ||
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Xoronius
Germany6362 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:43 Cinek357 wrote: It kinda does. Same as DH Bucharest helps to promote Romania and DH Valencia helps to promote Spain. These kind of tournaments show host country in a good light. It works the same as World Cup 2018 or Winter Olympics 2014 and this is exactly what Russian army or politics want. E-sports is just way smaller, so they probably don't even know about Dreamhack taking place in Russia, but it helps Russian politics the same way as other sport events do. If this would be correct, the effect would be pretty neglectable due to the size of DH compared to olympics/world cup/whatever. However, I don't think, that it has quite the same effect. The will be no important personalities there, who could be beneficial for local buissness. There are no big TV productions, who give 15-min long introductions about the country and the town, the event is held in, before they cut to the actual event. There will be indoor esports, which is hardly distinguishable from other indoor esports, except for the fact, that the chants will be in russian and the cheerfulls might be in cyrillic. I don't think, that there is much of an impact. | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
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Xoronius
Germany6362 Posts
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TotalBiscuit
United Kingdom5437 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:39 Faust852 wrote: Looks like pros don't really want to go to Russia :} We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety. EDIT: Since this is now linked on Reddit and they probably won't read my followup post. I'm reposting that here. It's just a really sad state of affairs. I have quite a lot of Russian fans, so does the team, but the safety of the players has to come first. The political reasoning isn't even that important, almost every country does something objectionable. Should we not send players to the US because of the arguably illegal wars its waged in the past or the whole spying on its own citizens thing? You'd be short on tournaments to go to if you started doing that. The homophobic violence however is a very real thing and don't count on thugs to know the difference between gay people and typical Korean male social closeness. This homophobia, pushed by those in power, is deliberately divisive. Unite the country by persecuting a minority within it, differentiate yourselves from other countries that are more accepting, utilize the galvinisation against said minority as a banner to rally behind and in turn, rally against countries who the population now perceives as different and "the enemy". It's sad that this can still work in the internet age, though I think we are getting to the point where it is losing its effectiveness. It's hard to view other people in other countries as enemies when you interact with them every day online and see that they're just another human being like us. So the primary reason for not sending our players is the safety concern. If we had someone on the ground who spoke Russian that we could trust we would probably be more open to the idea, but we don't, so we'd rather not send our players into that environment. Not sending our players should not be considered a boycott of the event, we just want to risk our players well-being when there are other events they could attend that don't carry those risks. | ||
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sephiria
106 Posts
On August 07 2014 00:27 TotalBiscuit wrote: We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety. before I read that post I thought not going there for political reasons was idiotic. you completely changed my mind on that, I kind of forgot the whole homophobia issue due to the mindless russiabashing in the face of natural geopolitical behaviour. I am really glad you decide to not send players for the first reason though. I hope other teammanagers follow this line of argumentation and keep their players safe. depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it. | ||
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vult
United States9400 Posts
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Faefae
2202 Posts
depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it. Made me laugh^^ | ||
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Vo-one
Ukraine456 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote: And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics. This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go. "It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also. | ||
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TotalBiscuit
United Kingdom5437 Posts
On August 07 2014 00:37 sephiria wrote: before I read that post I thought not going there for political reasons was idiotic. you completely changed my mind on that, I kind of forgot the whole homophobia issue due to the mindless russiabashing in the face of natural geopolitical behaviour. I am really glad you decide to not send players for the first reason though. I hope other teammanagers follow this line of argumentation and keep their players safe. depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it. It's just a really sad state of affairs. I have quite a lot of Russian fans, so does the team, but the safety of the players has to come first. The political reasoning isn't even that important, almost every country does something objectionable. Should we not send players to the US because of the arguably illegal wars its waged in the past or the whole spying on its own citizens thing? You'd be short on tournaments to go to if you started doing that. The homophobic violence however is a very real thing and don't count on thugs to know the difference between gay people and typical Korean male social closeness. This homophobia, pushed by those in power, is deliberately divisive. Unite the country by persecuting a minority within it, differentiate yourselves from other countries that are more accepting, utilize the galvinisation against said minority as a banner to rally behind and in turn, rally against countries who the population now perceives as different and "the enemy". It's sad that this can still work in the internet age, though I think we are getting to the point where it is losing its effectiveness. It's hard to view other people in other countries as enemies when you interact with them every day online and see that they're just another human being like us. | ||
CosmicSpiral
United States15275 Posts
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Xoronius
Germany6362 Posts
On August 07 2014 00:58 Vo-one wrote: This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go. "It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also. But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned). TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here. | ||
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brickrd
United States4894 Posts
On August 07 2014 01:36 Xoronius wrote: But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned). TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here. handwaving political gestures in apolitical contexts as meaningless is actually exactly what enables political machines to remain untouched and unregulated by the public they're supposed to serve... if you dont take politics outside of itself then no one knows and no one cares and no one does anything about it you bring up a valid line of discussion but its ridiculously oversimplified to say that starcraft has nothing to do with politics and therefore any political action or protest is meaningless... we all share this world and are all affected by what goes on in it whether we are politicans or amateur gamers | ||
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Xoronius
Germany6362 Posts
On August 07 2014 02:30 brickrd wrote: handwaving political gestures in apolitical contexts as meaningless is actually exactly what enables political machines to remain untouched and unregulated by the public they're supposed to serve... if you dont take politics outside of itself then no one knows and no one cares and no one does anything about it you bring up a valid line of discussion but its ridiculously oversimplified to say that starcraft has nothing to do with politics and therefore any political action or protest is meaningless... we all share this world and are all affected by what goes on in it whether we are politicans or amateur gamers Simplified, maybe, but not oversimplified to the point, where I come to the wrong conclusion. I mean sure, the local hotels (and probably bars) will make a few thousand dollars, if people come to DH, which leads to a very small boost of the russian economy, that could be taken away. Will a single russian politician care in the slightest? No. Will a boycott hurt DH financially? Probably. Will it prevent a part of the starcraft community from getting the event, they finally deserve? Certainly. As I said in an earlier post, this is not about political gestures in general, this is about DH Moscow and this about having a realistic estimation of our size. The russian government cares about Fifa world cup 2018. The russian government cared about Sotchi 2014. The russian government does not give a fuck about DH Moscow. Ideologically there might be the slightest of differences in the economy generated by 3 days of hotel usage. Rationally, that can totally be neglected. Rationally a political boycott of DH will not change anything in politics. Rationally a political boycott would only hurt Dreamhack and thus Starcraft in general. | ||
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Greendotz
United Kingdom2053 Posts
I can't imagine a Ukrainian having a fun time at Russian passport control. | ||
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EvilNW
Russian Federation23 Posts
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Xoronius
Germany6362 Posts
On August 07 2014 02:57 EvilNW wrote: Hurrah! I'm on the list. glhf. Gl. If you train hard enough, you might become the russian scoobers. | ||
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Ctesias
4595 Posts
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Sejanus
Lithuania550 Posts
On August 06 2014 21:58 Serinox wrote: Yeah, this whole "political boycott" is bullshit. Every big nation does bad shit, but that wouldn't stop anyone, especially from eSports to go to the US or China. Yeah, wars and people dying is such a bullshit compared to really important matters like starcraft 2. | ||
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