Apocalypse eSports is built off the love for eSports. We plan on being big contributors to the scene, starting with our passion for StarCraft 2. Expect to see all of our guys in future teamleagues and tournaments. Our goal is to accommodate our players to LAN events to compete for championships and fame.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen! My name is Jared "Daezen" Jahnke, and I am the President and CEO of Apocalypse eSports. As you are all now aware, Apocalypse eSports was founded by myself, and a number of talented individuals with a history in this sport. Our mission, is to succeed hands down. We currently have a 2 year plan, in which time we will build our marketability, and make the organization self sustaining. With the help of our management, and the skill of our players, I have no doubts in my mind that we will do just that. The structure of our staff is one that gives each one of us our passion, and drive to do what we love. We are currently looking forward to a few upcoming events, at which point we can truely debut the talent of this amazing organization."
CEO: Jared "Daezen" Jahnke Director of eSports: Dillon "Hathrow" Palimaka Director of PR: Monty "MediKing" Kelm Talent Scout: AJ "DizZ" Shaw Starcraft 2 Division Manager: Andrew "Zailyn" Martin Starcraft 2 Assistant Manager: David "Warbattle" Seda
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
I was a volunteer SC2 manager for No Dice Gaming for some time, to gain my first real experiences in the scene. I helped out with the NDG Invitationals. My role was to make posts on TL, and to find foreign pro players to participate. I personally am unaware of any matchfixing? Shortly after the invitationals began, I actually left the team for my focus towards school. Still being good contacts with some of No Dice Gaming, I helped them find contacts for foreign pros and helped with liquipedia and TL because I like to do those things. If any matchfixing was happening, I was fully unaware and would be ashamed to hear of it.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
I would actually love to clarify this if I may.
No Dice Gaming did not give power over finances to the CEO. That alone was held by the owners of the organization. The players in the organization did not have contracts signed by the CEO, but by the owners.
In regards to the korean tournaments, I wont deny it was shady, but that, in and of itself, along with being a puppet with a title, is why my tag, and monty's will never say NDG again. As far as rigging, I was unaware of any of it, and offer my apologies to any players involved if it affected you in any way. It was not a choice made by myself or monty to run them, or to continue running them.
If anyone has legit questions, myself or monty would love to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
I would actually love to clarify this if I may.
No Dice Gaming did not give power over finances to the CEO. That alone was held by the owners of the organization. The players in the organization did not have contracts signed by the CEO, but by the owners.
In regards to the korean tournaments, I wont deny it was shady, but that, in and of itself, along with being a puppet with a title, is why my tag, and monty's will never say NDG again. As far as rigging, I was unaware of any of it, and offer my apologies to any players involved if it affected you in any way. It was not a choice made by myself or monty to run them, or to continue running them.
If anyone has legit questions, myself or monty would love to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
Several questions.
1 - I really don't get how someone can be given the job title CEO and then state that they had no control. CEOs aren't call centre managers. Their role is to be the largest single voice in the day-to-day running of an organisation. Who are you claiming had all of this executive power? "The owners" is a very vague term - If I were less charitable I might even suspect that "The owners" are a purposefully vague bogeyman, to shift blame onto.
2 - The fact you organised your 2 year plan in a month fills me with dread and worry. Good business plans don't come together that easily or quickly. What details of this plan are you prepared to share?
3 - Before you were relabelled "CEO" your job title was eSports Manager, and you replaced someone else who used the name "Blue" - Who was this person and what sort of responsibilities did you inherit then. How did those responsibilities change when your job title was changed to CEO?
4 - Your announcement states you will make the team self-sustaining. At present that seems to say that the team isn't self sustaining. What sort of capital are you intending to run your organisation on while you make this a reality? Venture capital is historically unrealiable, and even organisations as large as MLG have failed to return on VC investments. That, coupled with a shrinking SC2 scene, that has already alienated many sponsors in the past thanks to community idiocy like "Call the sponsors" becoming a trend, does not inspire me with confidence that your org will ever become self sustaining.
5 - All of the existing teams in the Starcraft scene have other squads and have massively pared back their SC2 investments in recent years. EG and Liquid both have tiny squads compared to their peaks, and have expanded into other games. To me that says the space is not profitable, but that existing investments are worthwhile for those organisations. What kind of numbers have you crunched in order to determine your potential spend on players and promotion, and in comparison, what kind of numbers do you expect to pull in from sponsorship or other sources of revenue?
6 - Have you done the background checking necessary to ensure those numbers are achievable? Your roster contains only one prominent streamer, and his reputation is already poor, meaning his capacity for stream growth is limited. Your two big names aside from him have virtually no public visibility and retain fanbases based on their longterm involvement in the scene, so their potential for growth is also limited. The rest of your squad are unknowns in an extremely stagnant space - they are extremely unlikely to suddenly explode into the scene and win tournaments, and if they don't do that then your growth will be effectively zero.
You have a good squad, but as a sponsor I would see very little potential value in the exposure your squad can bring to my product, compared to say, Destiny, who, idiocy aside, is quite capable of introducing my products to people that have never seen them.
7 - Why do you have so many staff when your organisation hasn't played a single match? What kind of workload can you possibly be giving out to that number of people at this stage?
It's all well and good saying everyone in your org has their role, but efficient small businesses require people to wear many hats and work long hours. Lots of people organised around a small amount of actual work to do will only make sure your org falls flat on it's face.
In fact, it may well be prudent to put this question to you - It's been mentioned that all your staff are paid. Lets say that tomorrow you have the choice of firing MediKing and taking on his workload yourself, or to continue paying him when you know that will lessen your workload, but will put your organisation at financial risk, but you might be able to pull through if growth figures are strong enough to cover the wage.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
I would actually love to clarify this if I may.
No Dice Gaming did not give power over finances to the CEO. That alone was held by the owners of the organization. The players in the organization did not have contracts signed by the CEO, but by the owners.
In regards to the korean tournaments, I wont deny it was shady, but that, in and of itself, along with being a puppet with a title, is why my tag, and monty's will never say NDG again. As far as rigging, I was unaware of any of it, and offer my apologies to any players involved if it affected you in any way. It was not a choice made by myself or monty to run them, or to continue running them.
If anyone has legit questions, myself or monty would love to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
Several questions.
1 - I really don't get how someone can be given the job title CEO and then state that they had no control. CEOs aren't call centre managers. Their role is to be the largest single voice in the day-to-day running of an organisation. Who are you claiming had all of this executive power? "The owners" is a very vague term - If I were less charitable I might even suspect that "The owners" are a purposefully vague bogeyman, to shift blame onto.
2 - The fact you organised your 2 year plan in a month fills me with dread and worry. Good business plans don't come together that easily or quickly. What details of this plan are you prepared to share?
3 - Before you were relabelled "CEO" your job title was eSports Manager, and you replaced someone else who used the name "Blue" - Who was this person and what sort of responsibilities did you inherit then. How did those responsibilities change when your job title was changed to CEO?
4 - Your announcement states you will make the team self-sustaining. At present that seems to say that the team isn't self sustaining. What sort of capital are you intending to run your organisation on while you make this a reality? Venture capital is historically unrealiable, and even organisations as large as MLG have failed to return on VC investments. That, coupled with a shrinking SC2 scene, that has already alienated many sponsors in the past thanks to community idiocy like "Call the sponsors" becoming a trend, does not inspire me with confidence that your org will ever become self sustaining.
5 - All of the existing teams in the Starcraft scene have other squads and have massively pared back their SC2 investments in recent years. EG and Liquid both have tiny squads compared to their peaks, and have expanded into other games. To me that says the space is not profitable, but that existing investments are worthwhile for those organisations. What kind of numbers have you crunched in order to determine your potential spend on players and promotion, and in comparison, what kind of numbers do you expect to pull in from sponsorship or other sources of revenue?
6 - Have you done the background checking necessary to ensure those numbers are achievable? Your roster contains only one prominent streamer, and his reputation is already poor, meaning his capacity for stream growth is limited. Your two big names aside from him have virtually no public visibility and retain fanbases based on their longterm involvement in the scene, so their potential for growth is also limited. The rest of your squad are unknowns in an extremely stagnant space - they are extremely unlikely to suddenly explode into the scene and win tournaments, and if they don't do that then your growth will be effectively zero.
You have a good squad, but as a sponsor I would see very little potential value in the exposure your squad can bring to my product, compared to say, Destiny, who, idiocy aside, is quite capable of introducing my products to people that have never seen them.
7 - Why do you have so many staff when your organisation hasn't played a single match? What kind of workload can you possibly be giving out to that number of people at this stage?
It's all well and good saying everyone in your org has their role, but efficient small businesses require people to wear many hats and work long hours. Lots of people organised around a small amount of actual work to do will only make sure your org falls flat on it's face.
In fact, it may well be prudent to put this question to you - It's been mentioned that all your staff are paid. Lets say that tomorrow you have the choice of firing MediKing and taking on his workload yourself, or to continue paying him when you know that will lessen your workload, but will put your organisation at financial risk, but you might be able to pull through if growth figures are strong enough to cover the wage.
Which option do you take?
First answer: I am not one to bash an org to make myself look better so ill answer this plainly: Owners means the original 3 founders of ndg, one of which was Ravix. The other two had minimal opinions on the matter so i prefer to leave them out if you dont mind.
Second answer: It doesnt take long to do average budgetting. The way it is set up currently, we have 2 team budgets with a max cap, as well as staff salary budgets and travel budgets. I wont disclose the exact numbers of each, but with the caps set on each that all staff are aware of, we can last 2 years without picking up a single sponsor.
Third answer: I actually never took blues position, i went from dealing with mmos to general manager of ndg (overseeing everything not related to finances). As far as what changed when I became CEO, nothing. It was a title given to fall on when ndg dropped out of esports.
Fourth Answer: This is simple. The private investor is me. Out of my own pocket I haveset aside the funds for our 2 year plan. And as long as the money is not coming from anywhere but me, you are correct, the org is not self sustaining. Self sustaining implies there is enough revenue to run the org with nothing out of pocket. If after 2 years, we have failed to do our jobs well enough to make that happen, then we have failed in our goals.
Fifth answer: Obviously our org will not just be sc2 in the future, but it is the cheapest to get into and establish a fanbase. Our plan is to expand into other games as well once we have established a decent foothold in sc2, one step at a time.
Sixth answer: We never expected to land major sponsors as soon as we started. Our fanbase will start in sc2 with the help of our players, and build as we do. eSports has never been a thing you could jump right into and expect return in a month. You have to be consistamt, and work hard to get what you want. Sc2 will always be my passion, but as you wisely said, in and of itself, it cant pay for itself indefinately.
Lastly: Our staff are knowledgeable in many games, and therefore will allow us to grow into them while keeping the same people from the beginning. Yes they are paid. And as to your final question, I would pick option C. I would take on the workload myself and lay him off until it was evident we could sustain the added salary again. But as I have stated above, we are already prepared. I wouldnt be so blind as to budget every last cent into those 2 years. We do have a backup fund in case of unexpected expenses.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
I would actually love to clarify this if I may.
No Dice Gaming did not give power over finances to the CEO. That alone was held by the owners of the organization. The players in the organization did not have contracts signed by the CEO, but by the owners.
In regards to the korean tournaments, I wont deny it was shady, but that, in and of itself, along with being a puppet with a title, is why my tag, and monty's will never say NDG again. As far as rigging, I was unaware of any of it, and offer my apologies to any players involved if it affected you in any way. It was not a choice made by myself or monty to run them, or to continue running them.
If anyone has legit questions, myself or monty would love to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
Several questions.
1 - I really don't get how someone can be given the job title CEO and then state that they had no control. CEOs aren't call centre managers. Their role is to be the largest single voice in the day-to-day running of an organisation. Who are you claiming had all of this executive power? "The owners" is a very vague term - If I were less charitable I might even suspect that "The owners" are a purposefully vague bogeyman, to shift blame onto.
2 - The fact you organised your 2 year plan in a month fills me with dread and worry. Good business plans don't come together that easily or quickly. What details of this plan are you prepared to share?
3 - Before you were relabelled "CEO" your job title was eSports Manager, and you replaced someone else who used the name "Blue" - Who was this person and what sort of responsibilities did you inherit then. How did those responsibilities change when your job title was changed to CEO?
4 - Your announcement states you will make the team self-sustaining. At present that seems to say that the team isn't self sustaining. What sort of capital are you intending to run your organisation on while you make this a reality? Venture capital is historically unrealiable, and even organisations as large as MLG have failed to return on VC investments. That, coupled with a shrinking SC2 scene, that has already alienated many sponsors in the past thanks to community idiocy like "Call the sponsors" becoming a trend, does not inspire me with confidence that your org will ever become self sustaining.
5 - All of the existing teams in the Starcraft scene have other squads and have massively pared back their SC2 investments in recent years. EG and Liquid both have tiny squads compared to their peaks, and have expanded into other games. To me that says the space is not profitable, but that existing investments are worthwhile for those organisations. What kind of numbers have you crunched in order to determine your potential spend on players and promotion, and in comparison, what kind of numbers do you expect to pull in from sponsorship or other sources of revenue?
6 - Have you done the background checking necessary to ensure those numbers are achievable? Your roster contains only one prominent streamer, and his reputation is already poor, meaning his capacity for stream growth is limited. Your two big names aside from him have virtually no public visibility and retain fanbases based on their longterm involvement in the scene, so their potential for growth is also limited. The rest of your squad are unknowns in an extremely stagnant space - they are extremely unlikely to suddenly explode into the scene and win tournaments, and if they don't do that then your growth will be effectively zero.
You have a good squad, but as a sponsor I would see very little potential value in the exposure your squad can bring to my product, compared to say, Destiny, who, idiocy aside, is quite capable of introducing my products to people that have never seen them.
7 - Why do you have so many staff when your organisation hasn't played a single match? What kind of workload can you possibly be giving out to that number of people at this stage?
It's all well and good saying everyone in your org has their role, but efficient small businesses require people to wear many hats and work long hours. Lots of people organised around a small amount of actual work to do will only make sure your org falls flat on it's face.
In fact, it may well be prudent to put this question to you - It's been mentioned that all your staff are paid. Lets say that tomorrow you have the choice of firing MediKing and taking on his workload yourself, or to continue paying him when you know that will lessen your workload, but will put your organisation at financial risk, but you might be able to pull through if growth figures are strong enough to cover the wage.
Which option do you take?
First answer: I am not one to bash an org to make myself look better so ill answer this plainly: Owners means the original 3 founders of ndg, one of which was Ravix. The other two had minimal opinions on the matter so i prefer to leave them out if you dont mind.
Second answer: It doesnt take long to do average budgetting. The way it is set up currently, we have 2 team budgets with a max cap, as well as staff salary budgets and travel budgets. I wont disclose the exact numbers of each, but with the caps set on each that all staff are aware of, we can last 2 years without picking up a single sponsor.
Third answer: I actually never took blues position, i went from dealing with mmos to general manager of ndg (overseeing everything not related to finances). As far as what changed when I became CEO, nothing. It was a title given to fall on when ndg dropped out of esports.
Fourth Answer: This is simple. The private investor is me. Out of my own pocket I haveset aside the funds for our 2 year plan. And as long as the money is not coming from anywhere but me, you are correct, the org is not self sustaining. Self sustaining implies there is enough revenue to run the org with nothing out of pocket. If after 2 years, we have failed to do our jobs well enough to make that happen, then we have failed in our goals.
Fifth answer: Obviously our org will not just be sc2 in the future, but it is the cheapest to get into and establish a fanbase. Our plan is to expand into other games as well once we have established a decent foothold in sc2, one step at a time.
Sixth answer: We never expected to land major sponsors as soon as we started. Our fanbase will start in sc2 with the help of our players, and build as we do. eSports has never been a thing you could jump right into and expect return in a month. You have to be consistamt, and work hard to get what you want. Sc2 will always be my passion, but as you wisely said, in and of itself, it cant pay for itself indefinately.
Lastly: Our staff are knowledgeable in many games, and therefore will allow us to grow into them while keeping the same people from the beginning. Yes they are paid. And as to your final question, I would pick option C. I would take on the workload myself and lay him off until it was evident we could sustain the added salary again. But as I have stated above, we are already prepared. I wouldnt be so blind as to budget every last cent into those 2 years. We do have a backup fund in case of unexpected expenses.
I also forgot to include the additional growth budgets i have set aside for 3 additional teams, making a total of 5 teams, including travel.
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
I would actually love to clarify this if I may.
No Dice Gaming did not give power over finances to the CEO. That alone was held by the owners of the organization. The players in the organization did not have contracts signed by the CEO, but by the owners.
In regards to the korean tournaments, I wont deny it was shady, but that, in and of itself, along with being a puppet with a title, is why my tag, and monty's will never say NDG again. As far as rigging, I was unaware of any of it, and offer my apologies to any players involved if it affected you in any way. It was not a choice made by myself or monty to run them, or to continue running them.
If anyone has legit questions, myself or monty would love to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
Several questions.
1 - I really don't get how someone can be given the job title CEO and then state that they had no control. CEOs aren't call centre managers. Their role is to be the largest single voice in the day-to-day running of an organisation. Who are you claiming had all of this executive power? "The owners" is a very vague term - If I were less charitable I might even suspect that "The owners" are a purposefully vague bogeyman, to shift blame onto.
2 - The fact you organised your 2 year plan in a month fills me with dread and worry. Good business plans don't come together that easily or quickly. What details of this plan are you prepared to share?
3 - Before you were relabelled "CEO" your job title was eSports Manager, and you replaced someone else who used the name "Blue" - Who was this person and what sort of responsibilities did you inherit then. How did those responsibilities change when your job title was changed to CEO?
4 - Your announcement states you will make the team self-sustaining. At present that seems to say that the team isn't self sustaining. What sort of capital are you intending to run your organisation on while you make this a reality? Venture capital is historically unrealiable, and even organisations as large as MLG have failed to return on VC investments. That, coupled with a shrinking SC2 scene, that has already alienated many sponsors in the past thanks to community idiocy like "Call the sponsors" becoming a trend, does not inspire me with confidence that your org will ever become self sustaining.
5 - All of the existing teams in the Starcraft scene have other squads and have massively pared back their SC2 investments in recent years. EG and Liquid both have tiny squads compared to their peaks, and have expanded into other games. To me that says the space is not profitable, but that existing investments are worthwhile for those organisations. What kind of numbers have you crunched in order to determine your potential spend on players and promotion, and in comparison, what kind of numbers do you expect to pull in from sponsorship or other sources of revenue?
6 - Have you done the background checking necessary to ensure those numbers are achievable? Your roster contains only one prominent streamer, and his reputation is already poor, meaning his capacity for stream growth is limited. Your two big names aside from him have virtually no public visibility and retain fanbases based on their longterm involvement in the scene, so their potential for growth is also limited. The rest of your squad are unknowns in an extremely stagnant space - they are extremely unlikely to suddenly explode into the scene and win tournaments, and if they don't do that then your growth will be effectively zero.
You have a good squad, but as a sponsor I would see very little potential value in the exposure your squad can bring to my product, compared to say, Destiny, who, idiocy aside, is quite capable of introducing my products to people that have never seen them.
7 - Why do you have so many staff when your organisation hasn't played a single match? What kind of workload can you possibly be giving out to that number of people at this stage?
It's all well and good saying everyone in your org has their role, but efficient small businesses require people to wear many hats and work long hours. Lots of people organised around a small amount of actual work to do will only make sure your org falls flat on it's face.
In fact, it may well be prudent to put this question to you - It's been mentioned that all your staff are paid. Lets say that tomorrow you have the choice of firing MediKing and taking on his workload yourself, or to continue paying him when you know that will lessen your workload, but will put your organisation at financial risk, but you might be able to pull through if growth figures are strong enough to cover the wage.
Which option do you take?
First answer: I am not one to bash an org to make myself look better so ill answer this plainly: Owners means the original 3 founders of ndg, one of which was Ravix. The other two had minimal opinions on the matter so i prefer to leave them out if you dont mind.
Second answer: It doesnt take long to do average budgetting. The way it is set up currently, we have 2 team budgets with a max cap, as well as staff salary budgets and travel budgets. I wont disclose the exact numbers of each, but with the caps set on each that all staff are aware of, we can last 2 years without picking up a single sponsor.
Third answer: I actually never took blues position, i went from dealing with mmos to general manager of ndg (overseeing everything not related to finances). As far as what changed when I became CEO, nothing. It was a title given to fall on when ndg dropped out of esports.
Fourth Answer: This is simple. The private investor is me. Out of my own pocket I haveset aside the funds for our 2 year plan. And as long as the money is not coming from anywhere but me, you are correct, the org is not self sustaining. Self sustaining implies there is enough revenue to run the org with nothing out of pocket. If after 2 years, we have failed to do our jobs well enough to make that happen, then we have failed in our goals.
Fifth answer: Obviously our org will not just be sc2 in the future, but it is the cheapest to get into and establish a fanbase. Our plan is to expand into other games as well once we have established a decent foothold in sc2, one step at a time.
Sixth answer: We never expected to land major sponsors as soon as we started. Our fanbase will start in sc2 with the help of our players, and build as we do. eSports has never been a thing you could jump right into and expect return in a month. You have to be consistamt, and work hard to get what you want. Sc2 will always be my passion, but as you wisely said, in and of itself, it cant pay for itself indefinately.
Lastly: Our staff are knowledgeable in many games, and therefore will allow us to grow into them while keeping the same people from the beginning. Yes they are paid. And as to your final question, I would pick option C. I would take on the workload myself and lay him off until it was evident we could sustain the added salary again. But as I have stated above, we are already prepared. I wouldnt be so blind as to budget every last cent into those 2 years. We do have a backup fund in case of unexpected expenses.
1) Whole structure of this is something I really don't understand. CEO = Chief Executive Officer. CEO answers to the board where the owners may be involved. If the CEO behaves maliciously then responsibility is also equally on the owners(In this case most likely).
2) Sounds illogical to run this out of your pocket for 2 years. Do you really consider this an investment? As in something you expect to get a return of. Or is this just an expensive hobby that theoretically could turn into something?
4) Just out of curiosity, what is your background(career/educational)? Where does the money originate from?
Thanks for taking the time and answering these questions. The whole concept of creating a massive roster with a lot of staff, it's like skipping the start-up phase altogether based on some hypomanic vision of greatness. Just kind of feel the foundation isn't really here. Hopefully you'll prove me wrong
On January 16 2016 08:00 BasetradeTV wrote: Mediking was the guy involved with NoDiceGaming, and more importantly, the *alleged match fixing* / Korean betting tournaments, sponsored by "Dragon's sponsor" and required 10 minutes of delay to cast.
I'm not accusing him or this new team of anything, but just making sure everybody remembers these things. Strange that the players would get involved with somebody that has such a shady history.
Well at least it's not Aldaris...
No, it's just the same CEO as NDG that didn't pay his players, fueled the team with a Korean gambler, fixed most of his games, and went so far as to have a map hacker impersonate a Korean pro only to leave said player confused as to why people were congratulating him for winning a tournament he never signed up for.
I would actually love to clarify this if I may.
No Dice Gaming did not give power over finances to the CEO. That alone was held by the owners of the organization. The players in the organization did not have contracts signed by the CEO, but by the owners.
In regards to the korean tournaments, I wont deny it was shady, but that, in and of itself, along with being a puppet with a title, is why my tag, and monty's will never say NDG again. As far as rigging, I was unaware of any of it, and offer my apologies to any players involved if it affected you in any way. It was not a choice made by myself or monty to run them, or to continue running them.
If anyone has legit questions, myself or monty would love to answer them to the best of our knowledge.
Several questions.
1 - I really don't get how someone can be given the job title CEO and then state that they had no control. CEOs aren't call centre managers. Their role is to be the largest single voice in the day-to-day running of an organisation. Who are you claiming had all of this executive power? "The owners" is a very vague term - If I were less charitable I might even suspect that "The owners" are a purposefully vague bogeyman, to shift blame onto.
2 - The fact you organised your 2 year plan in a month fills me with dread and worry. Good business plans don't come together that easily or quickly. What details of this plan are you prepared to share?
3 - Before you were relabelled "CEO" your job title was eSports Manager, and you replaced someone else who used the name "Blue" - Who was this person and what sort of responsibilities did you inherit then. How did those responsibilities change when your job title was changed to CEO?
4 - Your announcement states you will make the team self-sustaining. At present that seems to say that the team isn't self sustaining. What sort of capital are you intending to run your organisation on while you make this a reality? Venture capital is historically unrealiable, and even organisations as large as MLG have failed to return on VC investments. That, coupled with a shrinking SC2 scene, that has already alienated many sponsors in the past thanks to community idiocy like "Call the sponsors" becoming a trend, does not inspire me with confidence that your org will ever become self sustaining.
5 - All of the existing teams in the Starcraft scene have other squads and have massively pared back their SC2 investments in recent years. EG and Liquid both have tiny squads compared to their peaks, and have expanded into other games. To me that says the space is not profitable, but that existing investments are worthwhile for those organisations. What kind of numbers have you crunched in order to determine your potential spend on players and promotion, and in comparison, what kind of numbers do you expect to pull in from sponsorship or other sources of revenue?
6 - Have you done the background checking necessary to ensure those numbers are achievable? Your roster contains only one prominent streamer, and his reputation is already poor, meaning his capacity for stream growth is limited. Your two big names aside from him have virtually no public visibility and retain fanbases based on their longterm involvement in the scene, so their potential for growth is also limited. The rest of your squad are unknowns in an extremely stagnant space - they are extremely unlikely to suddenly explode into the scene and win tournaments, and if they don't do that then your growth will be effectively zero.
You have a good squad, but as a sponsor I would see very little potential value in the exposure your squad can bring to my product, compared to say, Destiny, who, idiocy aside, is quite capable of introducing my products to people that have never seen them.
7 - Why do you have so many staff when your organisation hasn't played a single match? What kind of workload can you possibly be giving out to that number of people at this stage?
It's all well and good saying everyone in your org has their role, but efficient small businesses require people to wear many hats and work long hours. Lots of people organised around a small amount of actual work to do will only make sure your org falls flat on it's face.
In fact, it may well be prudent to put this question to you - It's been mentioned that all your staff are paid. Lets say that tomorrow you have the choice of firing MediKing and taking on his workload yourself, or to continue paying him when you know that will lessen your workload, but will put your organisation at financial risk, but you might be able to pull through if growth figures are strong enough to cover the wage.
Which option do you take?
First answer: I am not one to bash an org to make myself look better so ill answer this plainly: Owners means the original 3 founders of ndg, one of which was Ravix. The other two had minimal opinions on the matter so i prefer to leave them out if you dont mind.
Second answer: It doesnt take long to do average budgetting. The way it is set up currently, we have 2 team budgets with a max cap, as well as staff salary budgets and travel budgets. I wont disclose the exact numbers of each, but with the caps set on each that all staff are aware of, we can last 2 years without picking up a single sponsor.
Third answer: I actually never took blues position, i went from dealing with mmos to general manager of ndg (overseeing everything not related to finances). As far as what changed when I became CEO, nothing. It was a title given to fall on when ndg dropped out of esports.
Fourth Answer: This is simple. The private investor is me. Out of my own pocket I haveset aside the funds for our 2 year plan. And as long as the money is not coming from anywhere but me, you are correct, the org is not self sustaining. Self sustaining implies there is enough revenue to run the org with nothing out of pocket. If after 2 years, we have failed to do our jobs well enough to make that happen, then we have failed in our goals.
Fifth answer: Obviously our org will not just be sc2 in the future, but it is the cheapest to get into and establish a fanbase. Our plan is to expand into other games as well once we have established a decent foothold in sc2, one step at a time.
Sixth answer: We never expected to land major sponsors as soon as we started. Our fanbase will start in sc2 with the help of our players, and build as we do. eSports has never been a thing you could jump right into and expect return in a month. You have to be consistamt, and work hard to get what you want. Sc2 will always be my passion, but as you wisely said, in and of itself, it cant pay for itself indefinately.
Lastly: Our staff are knowledgeable in many games, and therefore will allow us to grow into them while keeping the same people from the beginning. Yes they are paid. And as to your final question, I would pick option C. I would take on the workload myself and lay him off until it was evident we could sustain the added salary again. But as I have stated above, we are already prepared. I wouldnt be so blind as to budget every last cent into those 2 years. We do have a backup fund in case of unexpected expenses.
1) Whole structure of this is something I really don't understand. CEO = Chief Executive Officer. CEO answers to the board where the owners may be involved. If the CEO behaves maliciously then responsibility is also equally on the owners(In this case most likely).
2) Sounds illogical to run this out of your pocket for 2 years. Do you really consider this an investment? As in something you expect to get a return of. Or is this just an expensive hobby that theoretically could turn into something?
4) Just out of curiosity, what is your background(career/educational)? Where does the money originate from?
Thanks for taking the time and answering these questions. The whole concept of creating a massive roster with a lot of staff, it's like skipping the start-up phase altogether based on some hypomanic vision of greatness. Just kind of feel the foundation isn't really here. Hopefully you'll prove me wrong
Best wishes,
My apologies for the delayed response, didnt see this post until now.
1. You have finally seen my exact issue with the way that org was ran As I said before, I wont bash them for my benefit so I will leave it at that. My only added comment is this: Anyone else notice that all the eSport teams vanished amazingly very soon after they announced the introduction of their first and only CEO? I can honestly say i didnt see it coming, and personally wish I could take back being in that position other than the friends I made while I was there.
2. Honestly? I dont expect to get much of a return on it, as my plan is to take all profits after we hit that point and reinvest back into the org to continue to grow. So you could say its a hobby to be blunt, but I prefer to see this as my passion for esports, and my own personal contribution to the sc2 community.
3. Dont wanna disclose everything about me But the main portion of my income comes from investing in real estate, and either fixing and selling for profit, or renting them out depending on a few factors. Im currently finishing up dual degrees in Business Management and Accounting.
You are very welcome with the questions. Skipping the start up phase wasnt exactly planned, but is a great benefit for us!
Thank you for putting money in the scene at least. There are so many people acting suspicious, but this kind of behavior and turning away new teams just kills the scene. Best of luck to your team, however long it may last!
On January 17 2016 02:31 Coypirus wrote: Thank you for putting money in the scene at least. There are so many people acting suspicious, but this kind of behavior and turning away new teams just kills the scene. Best of luck to your team, however long it may last!
Suspicion with teams starting like this is understandable, and we will do our best to answer all questions people may have. Thank you for the words of encouragement!
On January 17 2016 02:31 Coypirus wrote: Thank you for putting money in the scene at least. There are so many people acting suspicious, but this kind of behavior and turning away new teams just kills the scene. Best of luck to your team, however long it may last!
Well, one could argue that lack of transparency from organizations is causing suspicions in the first place. I don't know if this applies here, but if something is too good to be true, then it usually isn't.
Also if someone is announcing something on forums they better be prepared to answer questions. Depending on the answers and the output given I take my stance as an eSports fan. I am still skeptic but I feel DAEZ or whatever is genuine and a decent guy.
On January 17 2016 02:31 Coypirus wrote: Thank you for putting money in the scene at least. There are so many people acting suspicious, but this kind of behavior and turning away new teams just kills the scene. Best of luck to your team, however long it may last!
Well, one could argue that lack of transparency from organizations is causing suspicions in the first place. I don't know if this applies here, but if something is too good to be true, then it usually isn't.
Also if someone is announcing something on forums they better be prepared to answer questions. Depending on the answers and the output given I take my stance as an eSports fan. I am still skeptic but I feel DAEZ or whatever is genuine and a decent guy.
We certainly feel skepticism is well warranted and we don't want to put false information out there or make false promises we cannot make. We certainly appreciate the support and definitely look to be around for awhile and dispel any of the doubt in us by providing good, consistent content for the community for a long time to come.
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