On September 20 2016 10:46 pzlama333 wrote: I heard some different story. It says once TCM and Axiom cooperate an online tournament (maybe shoutcraft?), and TCM sent soulkey as mercenary, and soulkey agreed it. The game's information is notified to soulkey two days before the first game, but when the game's time was up, soulkey is absent, and that match is automatically lose. They finally managed to find soulkey at the ace match, but he had been crushed easily that looked like he never prepared and played that map at all. In another match, same thing happened. He arrived just one minute before time out then had been crushed again for not knowing the map at all. Because of these, Axiom stopped cooperation with TCM.
I heard this story from a Chinese forum discuss this matter. I do not know whether it is true or a lie, but at least two people say the same thing over there.
yes this did happen, Axiom stopped ther partnership with TCM and partnered with Roccat (Hyun) instead because Soulkey wasn't taking the league seriously, but that doesnt have anything to do with the current discussion.
The player is not responsible for tcm's actions, however, the player IS responsible for allowing it to continue to happen. If at any point someone reneges on a deal, go public and trash them. Trash them so hard they crumble. If the don't crumble online, then you go in person. This approach has worked time and time again for me in various scenarios when people thought they could pull a fast one. Once you permit someone to take advantage of you, they will continue to do so because they don't have respect for you. Something about a manager working for free for two years is pathetic. Learn to operate ONLY in your best interest and you'll be much richer.
why do players sign contracts like that? Seriously, find a few hundred bucks, hire a lawyer who would read the contract and see if it's fair. No protection against unpaid wages? Transfer fees?
On September 20 2016 15:12 Noonius wrote: why do players sign contracts like that? Seriously, find a few hundred bucks, hire a lawyer who would read the contract and see if it's fair. No protection against unpaid wages? Transfer fees?
You act like a lawyer is cheap and that these players have hundreds of dollars just lying around, waiting for opportunities like this to be used. Most likely, Korean players looking for foreign teams would need to hire not only a lawyer, if they went about the way you're suggesting, but also a translator because I highly doubt there are Korean lawyers who speak English or German or another language just lying around as well.
Plus, it's not like it's going to take an hour to deal with all the minutia of a contract. You have to hash out compromises and whatnot, which may take days, if not longer. Again, these players don't have the luxury of hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars lying around for them to use.
Esports is the wild west. I don't see it getting heavily regulated and have oversight on it for a long time.
On a side note: Hope Soulkey doesn't completely quit SC2 and just pulls a Byun. Would love to see some of the "older" Zergs back in the scene (SK, Life (rip), DRG (rip?))
On September 20 2016 15:12 Noonius wrote: why do players sign contracts like that? Seriously, find a few hundred bucks, hire a lawyer who would read the contract and see if it's fair. No protection against unpaid wages? Transfer fees?
you would hire a lawyer? I wouldn't do even if I earn 1500€ monthly. Lawyer costs always shocked me hard (in Germany).
On September 20 2016 15:12 Noonius wrote: why do players sign contracts like that? Seriously, find a few hundred bucks, hire a lawyer who would read the contract and see if it's fair. No protection against unpaid wages? Transfer fees?
You act like a lawyer is cheap and that these players have hundreds of dollars just lying around, waiting for opportunities like this to be used. Most likely, Korean players looking for foreign teams would need to hire not only a lawyer, if they went about the way you're suggesting, but also a translator because I highly doubt there are Korean lawyers who speak English or German or another language just lying around as well.
Plus, it's not like it's going to take an hour to deal with all the minutia of a contract. You have to hash out compromises and whatnot, which may take days, if not longer. Again, these players don't have the luxury of hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars lying around for them to use.
Esports is the wild west. I don't see it getting heavily regulated and have oversight on it for a long time.
On a side note: Hope Soulkey doesn't completely quit SC2 and just pulls a Byun. Would love to see some of the "older" Zergs back in the scene (SK, Life (rip), DRG (rip?))
You don't hire a lawyer to engage in contract negotiations. You hire one to read and explain the contract offer presented by the team. If the team is not happy with that, then there's a high chance that the contract they offered was not fair to you in the first place. And you can find a bilingual lawyer. Or just a translator for the lawyer. Jesus Christ, you people are pretending that pro players are all some sort of infants or something.
On September 20 2016 15:12 Noonius wrote: why do players sign contracts like that? Seriously, find a few hundred bucks, hire a lawyer who would read the contract and see if it's fair. No protection against unpaid wages? Transfer fees?
you would hire a lawyer? I wouldn't do even if I earn 1500€ monthly. Lawyer costs always shocked me hard (in Germany).
You don't put a lawyer on a retainer. Even a fucking paralegal can tell if the contract is up and up or not
Yea, players are insanely unprotected and it's a miracle we have the teams we have in Starcraft but even then it's not sunshine and rainbows. Some sort of player's protection is needed besides personal defense i.e. player's union. However, there probably needs to be regulation for the teams
On September 20 2016 13:51 ReachTheSky wrote: The player is not responsible for tcm's actions, however, the player IS responsible for allowing it to continue to happen. .
To me this is vastly more important than any other point. I agree with plenty of other things being said: for example it would've made sense to have a lawyer check out the contract, and that a players union would be a good thing. But the fact of the matter is if you have a job where you are supposed to get paid, you do not receive your paycheck several paychecks in a row and you just keep working for them allowing it to happen for months that is absurd. You are just allowing them to take advantage of you. Nobody would allow this to happen in a regular job, not even some 17 year old working part time at mcdonalds for the first time.
I certainly condemn TCM for not living up to their obligations, but I just can't feel sympathy for soulkey or feel any respect for him. TCM is responsible for the fact that what they did was wrong. But Soulkey is responsible for allowing it to continue.
I understand that by prohibiting Korean players to play in foreign tournament is to develop "growth" for more competitions among foreign players. However, in hindsight, this hasn't worked slightly as well as it should in reality, versus on paper. The scene isn't healthy or competitive when you take out the best players... if the NBA removed Michael Jordan or Kobe in their prime or when they're out performing everyone else it'd be absurd.
"Hello, it's Poohsik, former-staff of tcm and currently private manager of Soulkey and Myungsik. (Can I change the nick name (TCM_Poohsik)? I don't even wanna see the letter, TCM.) It is true that about 4 months' salary is owed. The team deffered paying since the January with excuses such as finding sponsors, and later they even closed the homepage. To prevent possible claiming their rights on the player, we tried to talk to them even when they didn't respond for over 2 months, and notified the revocation of the contract at last for that they failed to fulfill it, and we both are free agents since the second season. (We are keeping the conversation record for possible conflicts) The bright side is that at least the prize money is all received.
To talk about the transfer fee mentioned there, at first TCM required around 18m won (16000 USD) as it hasn't been long since they made their contract back then. But with condition with myself working for them without payment around 2 years, they lowered it to the amount(4m), but thing didn't go so smoothly because when we agreed to lower the fee to that amount, it was already the last day the other team gave us.
After WCS 2016's regional lock was announced, I was looking for Soulkey and Myounsik's return to Korean teams for their better environment after lots of discussion, we didn't even manage that TCM would be liek that. Back then they increased the support to their CoD team, and at least then the payment for us were never overdue. I think situations like this happen because almost all of foreign teams don't have Korean branch, and rarely have Korean staffs like myself, so that it's hard to have conversation with them.
And at last, please don't make fun of Myungsik. He is so professional, and a good brother of us. Even we used to tease him saying "Maybe some bad things will happen because you left us!". However, really this happened to us, and seeing him feeling upset for us, made me sorry.
I'm sorry we brought you bad news as well as last year. I don't know if it will happen, but if there's any good news, I'll tell you guys first. And I'll do do my best for it. "
I can't help but wonder how financially healthy many of those progamer teams are. The vast majority seems to rely on short-term sponsorship contracts as their main or even only source of income. Doesn't sound like a very good middle- to long term business plan to me.
I am not on anyone's side but I think there should be business style trust on Sc2 finance, I work for a team that pays foreign(to China) players, it's just oral agreement but everyone keeps their words, I feel lucky and thanks all that supported my team.
EPT
