tbh 1800$ is not even that much, Destiny deserves and should get way more money than only 1800.
and lastly, VERY POOR decision for Kespa to not let their players. Destiny's tournament had WAY more people watching than any day on Proleague (except the final which peaked at 33k or so, a tiny bit more than Destiny's final) so it's actually safe to assume that Destiny + Casters + Players invited fan base is actually already larger than Proleague. Some Proleague days it's as low as 5k, when it's "good" it's barely above 10k. So fuck yeah! Congrats to Destiny for pulling such good numbers and I hope the next one will have even more
It's too bad the casting was on at odd times for me (pacific time zone) and the only time I ever tuned in was when there was no games being played, just a camera of Desinty + guest trying desperately to fill up time with meaningless banter.
On August 12 2014 03:29 Krugessin wrote: The Destiny paycheck of 1800$ seems fine to me for all the work leading up to it and many sleep deprived times during the event
Yay for transparency too, If Destiny starts overcharging "us" someone else can step up and try make a better tournament for cheaper or we can just be minus an event.
As for KESPA, I too would think they could at least let a few B-teamers participate without any negative effects, so they must mostly be concerned/paranoid about helping someone else grow a brand they have no investment in or influence over?
I wish they could add up that
1) The big majority of the moneys goes to the players 2) This sort of thing should in general be good for the scene 3) If KESPA B-teamers add a lot of value to Destiny II tournament and makes it an even bigger success, KESPA will have SOME influence over Destiny III etc.
But maybe I am missing 4) 5) and 6) that somehow subtracts a lot.
I imagine Kespa went through a worst case scenario.
Destiny isn't a major organisation he has never run a tournament before. If this tournament is a joke with bad presentation and organisational mishaps e.g. bad maps, weird game times etc. then it makes the Kespa players look bad and effects the Kespa brand.
Also I don't know how much research they did on Destiny or what they knew about him beforehand but not everything is positive. inflammatory language, sometimes apparently appears unprofessional etc. Perhaps they talked to the wrong people. Maybe they worry about him bad mouthing the players or saying something really inappropiate, do they want the Kespa brand attached to him in that scenario? I don't know what went down but I can imagine this being a real concern
Now as a westerner who watches a lot of destiny and followed the tournament planning progress it was obvious to me that this worst case scenario would not occur and the tournament was a huge success. In hindsight Kespa probably wishes they had sent players but it was an understandable decision not to
The kespa email was kind of condescending, but still shouldn't prevent you from asking them to participate in the future. I see nothing wrong with Kespa wanting to see how your very first tournament would run before agreeing to participate in future tourneys based on the results of the first one. You may not see it as emotion over business, but you most definitely are using emotion over business in this case.
A lot of businesses want to work with established brands first with a proven track record before agreeing to work with them. Just think of it like sponsors. Can joe blow run a tournament and then expect coke/intel or someone big to sponsor their very first tourney? Of course not because joe blow has no past track record to speak of, so coke/intel would be very leery to sponsor it. If joe blow then eventually built up his brand to be respectable and now coke/intel want to sponsor his events, is he going to say, yo dawg you didn't sponsor me my very first tourney where I took 100% of the risk, so I'm not going to let you sponsor me now that I've established my brand. Of course, he could turn down their sponsorship, but then that would be over emotion and not business, just like in your case.
Including kespa -> more good games. Besides, denying them for the next run would be a bit hypocritical, or at least vengeful, which definitely wont help anyone.
The thing with Kespa is that as much as it's a business, it's also something that looks out for its players.
How should I put this. Kespa works as a way to protect its teams and the players on those teams. I read this somewhere else in the thread and I feel it didn't get enough attention. All the big teams in Korea have a main sponsor, e.g. SKT, KT, Jinair, Samsung, etc. The reason Korean e-sports can exist is because those big companies pay money to have their brand associated with these pro-gaming teams. Kespa works as an entity that protects the teams from being associated with bad things, such as match-fixing, betting or something. Kespa is the entity that reassures the big companies that their brand won't be associated to bad things. For this reason, Kespa has its say on where the players and the teams can play.
Now, I'm not saying that Kespa associating itself with Destiny I would have been a bad thing, however from their point of view (Kespa's), there's little reason to associate themselves with a relatively unknown in an online tournament with a small prize-pool. Destiny, unlike TB, is not as well-known and from Kespa's point of view, there's no reason to risk associating their teams with something potentially scandalous. It could be something like having their players lose due to stream cheat, or maybe betting will take place on Destiny I. Most people on TL.net and in the SC community know Destiny and we were all pretty sure that his intentions were sincere (which is the case). Kespa can't be 100% sure of that, so there's little reason to risk it. We did have the "god hates niggers" after all. While most of us scoff at it, since we're Internet warriors, perhaps it wouldn't please Jinair's CEO to tune in to watch Maru play in Destiny I, just to see "god hates niggers" in the chat. A silly example, but you get the idea.
I think that this could be a possible reason that weighed Kespa from not associating itself to Destiny for the production of Destiny I. Obviously, Kespa is reserved about sending out its players. Wasn't there a big LAN recently in which Kespa players did not participate? Korean qualifiers something something.
Now that Kespa can clearly see that Destiny's brand is legit and it's good, Kespa might come back on its decision and participate in Destiny II. I think it would be a mistake not to give another chance to Kespa to participate. Sure, Kespa didn't want to make the very small, almost token, investment in participating in Destiny I. I don't think that that means it shouldn't make Destiny II even better than Destiny I.
I had quite a few laughs with your casting and am looking forward to seeing you cast more. Maybe next time you could also collaborate with Harstem, Ret and others who have dabbled in casting while being pro players so that they can help a lot with analysis just like ToD did to a certain extent, or would have done with Protoss-centric games.
I agree with the rest that KeSPA players should still be given the chance to apply next time. Maybe you should prioritize KeSPA players that don't have as much chances to participate in Proleague or teams that have been knocked out in playoffs in the offchance that you're given the opportunity to do so. Proleague offseason should mean that anyone can sign up though just to be fair.
Oh, and you should definitely play more ads in break periods so that you can earn money while resting your vocal chords and preparing your mind for commentary on games.
Good luck on the next iteration. I'll at least be watching the next tournament too.
Ah yes, it makes sense that KESPA would fear being associated with a fiasco of a tournament where a shady organizer makes off with moneys or just royally f00ks up.
Well let's hope they saw the Destiny I then and liked it, and that Destiny isn't too offended to let them in next time
This was a great recap of a grassroots success story until the entitled part about KeSPA.
The guy's point was valid, if you are trying to sell international exposure to KeSPA players you'd need some reference that it would be worthwhile. It's not a charity and they wouldn't have a reason to send players to your event if their players were be the keystone of your viewership. There are already established and successful venues for people to watch KeSPA players.
Think of it from their perspective. Their organization has longevity, has demonstrated sustainability, and is the face of Korean e-sports. Stuff you had no hand in building. A guy with a promising, even good, but not proven, or regular, or very big, event, comes up to YOU unprompted and asks if you would send any players? And their behavior is selfish? because he said they might be open in the future for a project that you brought to them unsolicited?
Not everybody has to work together, you know. You showed you can have a successful tournament independent of them with players such as you have, it's not necessary to make a big deal out of whether you do business together with KeSPA. You could have just left it at differences of opinion instead of flaming them, which just seems like a setup for you to snub them in the future from an event you never really sold them on to begin with.
On August 12 2014 03:38 meshfusion wrote: tbh 1800$ is not even that much, Destiny deserves and should get way more money than only 1800.
and lastly, VERY POOR decision for Kespa to not let their players. Destiny's tournament had WAY more people watching than any day on Proleague (except the final which peaked at 33k or so, a tiny bit more than Destiny's final) so it's actually safe to assume that Destiny + Casters + Players invited fan base is actually already larger than Proleague. Some Proleague days it's as low as 5k, when it's "good" it's barely above 10k. So fuck yeah! Congrats to Destiny for pulling such good numbers and I hope the next one will have even more
That's international viewers and GOMTV pretty much have the Korean market cornered in that regard.
I think the fans of Destiny and Steven themselves were going to have a tough time convincing KeSPA to send any players, especially considering the finals of Proleague, which is the biggest KR e-sports event of the year.
Nonetheless, I voted against having KeSPA players in Destiny II because the last thing we need is even tougher KR competition clogging up the NA scene.
I'm really impressed by how you've matured into a business man Destiny. I was a pretty big anti-fan of you back in your player days, but this new you is definitely someone I want in the scene. You've done something incredible and deserve praise for it for sure. I'm most impressed by how you've dealt with the set backs with KeSPA, you handled that the exact way you should have. Thank you for the transparency.
On August 12 2014 00:15 Grettin wrote: Just out of curiosity and i hope you don't mind me asking, but did the co-caster(s) earn something for their work? Sadly, i wasn't able to watch any of the tournament, reading through the post, I assume Incontrol was one of the co-casters atleast?
Regardless, i do like the transparency and want to wish you good luck for the next tournament!
He outlined before the tournament how every cent of the $5000 would be spent. $4000 was prize money, every caster got $100 for a day of casting, he also paid the admin and somebody who made the tournament site and overlay afaik.
What? Didn't TB cast this?
If TB makes 100 USD on day of casting, he is grossly underpaid. That makes no sense to me.
On August 12 2014 00:15 Grettin wrote: Just out of curiosity and i hope you don't mind me asking, but did the co-caster(s) earn something for their work? Sadly, i wasn't able to watch any of the tournament, reading through the post, I assume Incontrol was one of the co-casters atleast?
Regardless, i do like the transparency and want to wish you good luck for the next tournament!
He outlined before the tournament how every cent of the $5000 would be spent. $4000 was prize money, every caster got $100 for a day of casting, he also paid the admin and somebody who made the tournament site and overlay afaik.
What? Didn't TB cast this?
If TB makes 100 USD on day of casting, he is grossly underpaid. That makes no sense to me.
FYI:
On August 12 2014 02:47 TotalBiscuit wrote: For those suggesting he give some of the overflow money to people like me, no. That's silly. He offered me what he offered me and I had the choice to accept it or not. I don't deserve anymore than what I agreed to in the first place. Him making a profit from this was one of his goals and a reason to do it again, so kudos to him. I have also made a profit from some of my tournaments thanks to the remonetization of my VoDs on Youtube. Sandisk was maybe the first event where I actually made enough money to justify the time investment. It's important that happens more often to make sure tournament organisers can continue to work sustainably.
On August 12 2014 00:15 Grettin wrote: Just out of curiosity and i hope you don't mind me asking, but did the co-caster(s) earn something for their work? Sadly, i wasn't able to watch any of the tournament, reading through the post, I assume Incontrol was one of the co-casters atleast?
Regardless, i do like the transparency and want to wish you good luck for the next tournament!
He outlined before the tournament how every cent of the $5000 would be spent. $4000 was prize money, every caster got $100 for a day of casting, he also paid the admin and somebody who made the tournament site and overlay afaik.
What? Didn't TB cast this?
If TB makes 100 USD on day of casting, he is grossly underpaid. That makes no sense to me.
TB was paid 100 USD for his day of casting. He was very generous with his time in order to help the SC2 scene improve. He was extra generous by helping destiny stream that day as there were technical difficulties with the stream.
TotalBiscuit is by far one of the best people in the SC2 scene currently and we owe him a lot of thanks. Destiny II will be great and I can't wait for it.
On August 12 2014 00:15 Grettin wrote: Just out of curiosity and i hope you don't mind me asking, but did the co-caster(s) earn something for their work? Sadly, i wasn't able to watch any of the tournament, reading through the post, I assume Incontrol was one of the co-casters atleast?
Regardless, i do like the transparency and want to wish you good luck for the next tournament!
He outlined before the tournament how every cent of the $5000 would be spent. $4000 was prize money, every caster got $100 for a day of casting, he also paid the admin and somebody who made the tournament site and overlay afaik.
What? Didn't TB cast this?
If TB makes 100 USD on day of casting, he is grossly underpaid. That makes no sense to me.
On August 12 2014 02:47 TotalBiscuit wrote: For those suggesting he give some of the overflow money to people like me, no. That's silly. He offered me what he offered me and I had the choice to accept it or not. I don't deserve anymore than what I agreed to in the first place. Him making a profit from this was one of his goals and a reason to do it again, so kudos to him. I have also made a profit from some of my tournaments thanks to the remonetization of my VoDs on Youtube. Sandisk was maybe the first event where I actually made enough money to justify the time investment. It's important that happens more often to make sure tournament organisers can continue to work sustainably.
I wasn't having a go at Destiny for not forwarding part of the money to TB, I just figured someone as prominent and simply good as TB would make a killing casting tournaments. Though I never believed the 10k/weekend Artosis is supposed to make, the amount just seemed so low.
was the best tournie of all the weekend considering what you were up against, the dragon invit, proleague, redbull and some other highly watched streams and weeklys. Was great Destiny, id be more than happy to donate a couple hundred dollars for the next one and i expect absolutely nothing back . .except for the tournie itself and a rotterdam/destiny casting final
TotalBiscuit is by far one of the best people in the SC2 scene currently and we owe him a lot of thanks. Destiny II will be great and I can't wait for it.
Destiny, it won't mean much, but I'm really proud and impressed with your commitment to competitive gaming lately. Really good work on this past tournament and I hope your future endeavors turn out well too.
On August 12 2014 02:19 woopr wrote: Destiny is nothing compared to what KeSPA is so he should stop acting like he's an equal to them. him/his tournament's value is nowhere close to KeSPA's value so locking them out of his next tournament is pretty dumb.
I love everything save the caster pay. I could stand for that to go up quite a bit, 2-300 ish? I wouldn't mind seeing Destiny walk away with more than 1,800, I think 3k would be more fitting for his workload. But then, any higher salaries would require a bigger investment into the community.
I'm really glad that you seem to have got a decent piece ofo the pie from this event, since that will motivate you to organize more. I totally loved your tournament, it was superbly managed.
EPT
