As we all know, Life has been banned from Starcraft II for a long time now. Caught for Match fixing around 2015-2016, it was a huge moment in Starcraft II for many reasons. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with a large fine as well. He has been permanently banned from competing in Starcraft II professionally.
Kespa has its notoriety for many reasons among the community, mainly its strict adherence to code and rules. The other seedier, dirtier aspects of Kespa, and the greater betting community around Starcraft II & Brood War, lent itself to sketchy situations.
It was a common practice, kept extremely hush hush and secret within the community. The fact that "Life" has been drilled down by everyone as just some "Match Fixer" is the most egregious offense to this excellently skilled player. Who deep deep down we all love, cherish and miss thoroughly. He was downright Majestic, insane micro, insane awareness, toppling Tyrants regularly, securing multiple trophies at the highest level, Blizzcon no less.
PRIME was a team that had been relegated to match fixing status, why was PRIME, a once venerated team, known for its dominant, though often cheesy Terrans. Every single Terran that came out of that camp in those early days are all now legends, absolute Titans. MKP, Maru, Polt, Byun.
That kind of coaching talent doesn't just disappear, through the years, yes PRIME would lose favor just flat out, MKP started being less competitive and the like, sure. But PRIME would literally lose almost every game, making any win they pulled off, a quick cheap betting buck, the odds simply were stacked this way unfortunately.
Yoda, a sick Terran, pretty soon after he beat First 4-0 in a massive pro tournament IEM, he joined PRIME. All he did in pro league was lose, lose, lose. game after game, quite clearly something was going on.
My argument is this. Are you sincerely going to banish Life after all these years? When Kespa, Blizzard, have all left Starcraft II in the dust and don't give a crap anymore about it. So why are we still allowing these people to tell us that certain players are never allowed to play the game again?
When can Life finally come back huh? I'm not talking crazy, all you guillotine cart pullers just back off your high horses for just a minute this time. Allow Life to play again, if he wishes to play, he should be able to stream, do anything anyone else does. Why does this community's support outright banishment of him in light of all of this?
This is the communities game now, and I vote to allow Life the option to come back if he chooses. Who's with me?
I am not an expert on this topic, but from what I understand most Korean Progamers would simple not play vs him, because they blame him for the (acceleration of the) downfall of proleague.
Many big corporations pulled back their sponsorships after the scandal, so many of the current pros lost their Teams (partly) because of him.
They would simply not play in competitions where he would sign up.
On November 06 2023 21:52 dbRic1203 wrote: I am not an expert on this topic, but from what I understand most Korean Progamers would simple not play vs him, because they blame him for the (acceleration of the) downfall of proleague.
Many big corporations pulled back their sponsorships after the scandal, so many of the current pros lost their Teams (partly) because of him.
They would simply not play in competitions where he would sign up.
Yes, I understand, they abandoned him, they don't care. They'd rather keep playing making their meager checks instead of stirring any controversy within this situation. The few sponsors that are left, they cling. Shame, really. Why would they want someone so good coming back too I suppose, jealousy, envy, blame, why invite more competition?
On November 06 2023 21:52 dbRic1203 wrote: I am not an expert on this topic, but from what I understand most Korean Progamers would simple not play vs him, because they blame him for the (acceleration of the) downfall of proleague.
Many big corporations pulled back their sponsorships after the scandal, so many of the current pros lost their Teams (partly) because of him.
They would simply not play in competitions where he would sign up.
Yes, I understand, they abandoned him, they don't care. They'd rather keep playing making their meager checks instead of stirring any controversy within this situation. The few sponsors that are left, they cling. Shame, really. Why would they want someone so good coming back too I suppose, jealousy, envy, blame, why invite more competition?
You are asking people who's lives as progamers were made worse by Life, to risk what little money is left in Korean SC2 for, erm, what exactly?
I am genuinely curious what is the motivation here for Korean SC2 pros to "stir up controversy"?
On November 06 2023 21:52 dbRic1203 wrote: I am not an expert on this topic, but from what I understand most Korean Progamers would simple not play vs him, because they blame him for the (acceleration of the) downfall of proleague.
Many big corporations pulled back their sponsorships after the scandal, so many of the current pros lost their Teams (partly) because of him.
They would simply not play in competitions where he would sign up.
Yes, I understand, they abandoned him, they don't care. They'd rather keep playing making their meager checks instead of stirring any controversy within this situation. The few sponsors that are left, they cling. Shame, really. Why would they want someone so good coming back too I suppose, jealousy, envy, blame, why invite more competition?
You are asking people who's lives as progamers were made worse by Life, to risk what little money is left in Korean SC2 for, erm, what exactly?
I am genuinely curious what is the motivation here for Korean SC2 pros to "stir up controversy"?
When does basing your moral and ethical decisions about a "Once Upon A Time" good friend who was a huge inspiration to the entire community for years, t'ill this day, around the almighty dollar a good idea. Life was just a damn kid man, 19 at the time when he got caught. Its because he's their friend that they should embrace him, give him enough respect, honor him. Give him a chance to at least apologize and to redeem himself. How excited would old school Sc2 players feel if he came back? It would be awesome.
On November 06 2023 21:52 dbRic1203 wrote: I am not an expert on this topic, but from what I understand most Korean Progamers would simple not play vs him, because they blame him for the (acceleration of the) downfall of proleague.
Many big corporations pulled back their sponsorships after the scandal, so many of the current pros lost their Teams (partly) because of him.
They would simply not play in competitions where he would sign up.
Yes, I understand, they abandoned him, they don't care. They'd rather keep playing making their meager checks instead of stirring any controversy within this situation. The few sponsors that are left, they cling. Shame, really. Why would they want someone so good coming back too I suppose, jealousy, envy, blame, why invite more competition?
How do you know he would be any good now? Just look how all the returnees from the military struggle to get back to their old level. Sometimes for years. And they most likely played some SC2 in their abscence.
Meanwhile Life probably never toughed the game again and simply moved on, living a normal life somewhere as far away from esport as possible
I honestly doubt, he d come back even if ESL and GSL would announce tomorrow his ban would be lifted
First of all: Not one single day in my Life have I ever "missed" Life. I don't care that much for GSL/SSL, in the two WCS Finals he was in I was rooting for his opponents (MMA and sOs) and in Proleague I didn't care for StarTale or KT at all. So why the heck would I miss a guy who was stupid and greedy enough to matchfix?
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure all these years Life would have been allowed to stream, though he might have to do it on Twitch, dunno if Afreeca banned him aswell. He was only banned from competitive Starcraft, doesn't mean he couldn't touch the game at all. He never did, should tell you something. As far as I know, Savior for example occassionally streams Broodwar for fun or atleast did so in the past. It is also really doubtful how much impact he still would have. Every korean that came back from the military struggled, only a few ever reached their former level - why would Life be able to come back after eight, coming up to nine years? He would probably crash out in the next GSL qualifier 0-4 and never try again. And that is saying that there will be a GSL next year... I also doubt any WTL-team would sign him, not that he is even good enough to be in one.
Lastly, as far as I remember, Prime wasn't banned from the league, they simply went bankrupt.That tends to happen when your headcoach and like half your of thin lineup is matchfixing. Sponsors don't really like to be associated with that...
I don't know what Life is doing right now, but Liquipedia tells me he is 26, so I hope he managed to get a degree and/or good job and is living his life (no pun intended) away from Starcraft. I don't know the korean society that well, but I imagine there is still a lot of judgement against him, atleast from those that in any capacity care about SC2, but I truely hope he got passed that. And if he really wants to compete again...he should give Stormgate a chance. Not because I think it is the better game, but because there he would have an actual chance to come back. I personally would still judge him though. Oh and sorry, but I doubt that all korean progamers are "friends"...you shouldn't assume that my man.
Why would anyone still in this circle, from all the pros that left, to the many that retired in the years after the scandal, care about the person that put a firm foot on the neck of the thing they make a living on?
People can hate him, but he's a free man, he served his prison sentence and should be able to do whatever he wants. Though were it to the 'community' he would never be allowed back or even to play another game, they'd want something which is worse than life sentence(in terms of time), essentially. You can't even mention Avilo many places and he was never sentenced or anything, people are just daft on the internet.
On November 07 2023 00:10 ejozl wrote: People can hate him, but he's a free man, he served his prison sentence and should be able to do whatever he wants. Though were it to the 'community' he would never be allowed back or even to play another game, they'd want something which is worse than life sentence(in terms of time), essentially. You can't even mention Avilo many places and he was never sentenced or anything, people are just daft on the internet.
1)Life never went to prison. His prison sentence was suspended for three years. 2)If you think people reactions to avilo is "daft"...yeah, no.
The only reason I'd like to see Life back is because I love the idea of redemption. At the end of the day it's not like he killed someone or anything like that.
He was an Amazon player that I have no doubt would have won plenty of other tournaments. Also, he might have had a couple of friends so I imagine he kept some of those.
As for why he didn't stream or anything after, I guess it was shame and fear of being shunned, but there are rumours that he played in some online chinese tournaments.
As wether or not he'd be good now, I'm not sure, but certainly at his peak he was better than Serral, rogue and reynor.
Personally I wouldn't mind seeing him back. In fact I'm very curious about him and other retired pros. But I don't think tournament organizers and players would want the controversy attached to letting him play.
It would be so cool if someone could get information about him or other pros. Like what is Mvp doing? I heard he was from a poor family and he used to send money from his winnings to them. How is nestea? I heard he got married. What did Life do with his life?
On November 07 2023 00:10 ejozl wrote: People can hate him, but he's a free man, he served his prison sentence and should be able to do whatever he wants. Though were it to the 'community' he would never be allowed back or even to play another game, they'd want something which is worse than life sentence(in terms of time), essentially. You can't even mention Avilo many places and he was never sentenced or anything, people are just daft on the internet.
He can play SC2 as much as he wants, he just can't enter competitions to make money out of it. Which is more than fair, if I defraud a company for tens of thousands of dollar. I don't expect them to hire me again once my sentence is done.
Also, pretty sure he never served a day of prison.
We have League of Legends players who have scandals that are arguably worse than match fixing but they are still allowed to compete globally. I see no reason why Life doesn't deserve a second chance. I don't buy the whole "players doesn't want to play with Life" argument one bit. Him coming back won't save the scene but to still ban him is absurd.
well, op, i think accusing the entire prime team of match fixing with zero evidence doesn't really make a strong argument for allowing a known match fixer to compete for money again.
On November 07 2023 00:10 ejozl wrote: You can't even mention Avilo many places and he was never sentenced or anything, people are just daft on the internet.
mentioning avilo in the same breath as life, truly incredible. i dont think we need to worry about an avilo match fixing scandal.
On November 07 2023 02:54 geokilla wrote: We have League of Legends players who have scandals that are arguably worse than match fixing but they are still allowed to compete globally. I see no reason why Life doesn't deserve a second chance. I don't buy the whole "players doesn't want to play with Life" argument one bit. Him coming back won't save the scene but to still ban him is absurd.
Then maybe Life should start League of Legends and hope that Riot treats him otherwise, but the rules are pretty clear. If you are 19-years old (at the time), the highest earning player at the moment and a world-champion, you should have the mental capacity to not do one of the two things in the game that earns you your lifehood that are so distained it will get you banned for life... Nothing about that is 'absurd'.
There is no unilateral organization in SC2 that could welcome Life back even if he wanted to come back and we have zero real indication that he does. Remember that Blizzard doesn't have full control over everything that happens in SC2 anymore, they have outsourced all of that.
SC2's pro scene is a loose collection of other organizations that only kind of cooperate with each other. All of them would have to reach out to Life to welcome him back.
There just isn't any desire for that to happen. I loved watching Life back during his peak, but even I've moved on to just having apathy towards him. I wouldn't care if he came back and if players or organizations wanted to keep him banned for whatever reason I wouldn't challenge it.
loved him (and savior) but not missing him. i miss savior, though.
it is interesting that people are saying life's scandal ruined sc2, sponsors went etc. savior did same (if not worse) thing and BW survived. i am saying, if game was struggling, what life did or not wouldn't matter. doesn't matter.
Bypassing any personal moral judgment, it's untenable because of how the Korean SC scene would treat it.
Savior almost found a home on AfreecaTV briefly in the early 2010's, but eventually AfreecaTV caved to public pressure and disallowed proven match-fixers on their platform. Also, as a reminder, we're presently in a world where Flash, the greatest BW player of all time, won't stream because of his non-criminal involvement in a potential crypto scandal. This stuff is just treated extremely severely in Korea, and it's an absolute non-starter for any KR tournament entity to entertain the idea of having match-fixers back in the fold.
Even for the big international orgs, there's just too little benefit in inviting match-fixers back. Maybe you get an interest boost out of having Life at an event, but you ruin your reputation (especially since there's a high chance that a major esports org is, or will inevitably be, dealing with the South Korean scene).
Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.
On November 06 2023 22:03 Poopi wrote: Life was overrated, he is like a worse version of Reynor
Respectfully, this is the dumbest comment I've read on this site. No one has ever been as dominant as he was, maybe except 2017(?) Serral. Except Life was 15 or something.
Edit: everyone all up and arms about matchfixing yet we still let Macsed play (yes he's terrible so he never makes it deep but I know Gabe won't play against him because of that). And his was more egregious than any of the others, at least Life lost to a pro. Macsed lost to a diamond leaguer and we decided to let it slide.
On November 07 2023 07:14 Waxangel wrote: Bypassing any personal moral judgment, it's untenable because of how the Korean SC scene would treat it.
Savior almost found a home on AfreecaTV briefly in the early 2010's, but eventually AfreecaTV caved to public pressure and disallowed proven match-fixers on their platform. Also, as a reminder, we're presently in a world where Flash, the greatest BW player of all time, won't stream because of his non-criminal involvement in a potential crypto scandal. This stuff is just treated extremely severely in Korea, and it's an absolute non-starter for any KR tournament entity to entertain the idea of having match-fixers back in the fold.
Even for the big international orgs, there's just too little benefit in inviting match-fixers back. Maybe you get an interest boost out of having Life at an event, but you ruin your reputation (especially since there's a high chance that a major esports org is, or will inevitably be, dealing with the South Korean scene).
Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.
But what would be your personal opinion?? Do you think it would be interesting? Boring? Do you think he deserves a second chance?
Do you think his skill would hold up if he practiced?
On November 06 2023 22:03 Poopi wrote: Life was overrated, he is like a worse version of Reynor
Respectfully, this is the dumbest comment I've read on this site. No one has ever been as dominant as he was, maybe except 2017(?) Serral. Except Life was 15 or something.
Edit: everyone all up and arms about matchfixing yet we still let Macsed play (yes he's terrible so he never makes it deep but I know Gabe won't play against him because of that). And his was more egregious than any of the others, at least Life lost to a pro. Macsed lost to a diamond leaguer and we decided to let it slide.
It’s plain truth though, Life’s play style is very similar to Reynor and he was slightly worse at it. Domination wise, he only won 1 WC whereas sOs won two. People acting like he was that good when in reality he was a top player among others.
I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.
I guess China is pretty generous towards the matchfixing. At least in Korea, matchfixing is treated severely and because it's most likely related to illegal betting ran by organized crime. Which were the case for both BW and SC2 matchfixing scandal. Korea is the country which doesn't allow its people to bet or gamble big money even in foreign Casinos. In that sense most of the Poker community in Korea is mostly organized under small amount of money, which is less than $100 (If you visit legal holdem pubs and general Poker area in Korea you'll see how it's managed strictly).
Korea has a lot of scarred history towards organized crime and one of the main profit is actually from illegal betting. And they expanded from Pro sports league like Soccer and Baseball, and of course, into eSports as well. Even in Sports there were a lot of incidents and massive scandals from Pro Soccer (K-League) and Pro Baseball (KBO League) for matchfixing, no wonder people are very aggressive towards it. Because it is a serious matter which threatens the clarity of the league, many sports fans abhor the matchfixing more than usual. Even in sports those "matchfixers" are strictly punished and banned from their respective pro league for life.
On November 06 2023 22:03 Poopi wrote: Life was overrated, he is like a worse version of Reynor
Respectfully, this is the dumbest comment I've read on this site. No one has ever been as dominant as he was, maybe except 2017(?) Serral. Except Life was 15 or something.
Edit: everyone all up and arms about matchfixing yet we still let Macsed play (yes he's terrible so he never makes it deep but I know Gabe won't play against him because of that). And his was more egregious than any of the others, at least Life lost to a pro. Macsed lost to a diamond leaguer and we decided to let it slide.
It’s plain truth though, Life’s play style is very similar to Reynor and he was slightly worse at it. Domination wise, he only won 1 WC whereas sOs won two. People acting like he was that good when in reality he was a top player among others.
Life also used to play in a lot more foreign event than the average Kespa pro, which help him a lot. He only has a single Korean trophy in the Kespa era (2 is you want to stretch it to Blizz cup in 2012, but Kespa had not quite finish the transition IMO). I don't think is close to beeing the most dominant player.
On November 07 2023 07:14 Waxangel wrote: Bypassing any personal moral judgment, it's untenable because of how the Korean SC scene would treat it.
Savior almost found a home on AfreecaTV briefly in the early 2010's, but eventually AfreecaTV caved to public pressure and disallowed proven match-fixers on their platform. Also, as a reminder, we're presently in a world where Flash, the greatest BW player of all time, won't stream because of his non-criminal involvement in a potential crypto scandal. This stuff is just treated extremely severely in Korea, and it's an absolute non-starter for any KR tournament entity to entertain the idea of having match-fixers back in the fold.
Even for the big international orgs, there's just too little benefit in inviting match-fixers back. Maybe you get an interest boost out of having Life at an event, but you ruin your reputation (especially since there's a high chance that a major esports org is, or will inevitably be, dealing with the South Korean scene).
Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.
I believe the official Korean progamer stance is "Fuck that guy."
On November 06 2023 22:03 Poopi wrote: Life was overrated, he is like a worse version of Reynor
Respectfully, this is the dumbest comment I've read on this site. No one has ever been as dominant as he was, maybe except 2017(?) Serral. Except Life was 15 or something.
Edit: everyone all up and arms about matchfixing yet we still let Macsed play (yes he's terrible so he never makes it deep but I know Gabe won't play against him because of that). And his was more egregious than any of the others, at least Life lost to a pro. Macsed lost to a diamond leaguer and we decided to let it slide.
It’s plain truth though, Life’s play style is very similar to Reynor and he was slightly worse at it. Domination wise, he only won 1 WC whereas sOs won two. People acting like he was that good when in reality he was a top player among others.
Life also used to play in a lot more foreign event than the average Kespa pro, which help him a lot. He only has a single Korean trophy in the Kespa era (2 is you want to stretch it to Blizz cup in 2012, but Kespa had not quite finish the transition IMO). I don't think is close to beeing the most dominant player.
I personally disdain Life, but i do care for being correct. 2012 Code S Season 4 had multiple kespa pros in it (it was the first attempt at integration) so technically Life does have 2 Code S titles and a WC (and a WC final) over a three year period that included KeSPA pros
On November 07 2023 21:40 Poopi wrote: It was played on WoL afaik, in the most imbalanced era of sc2 so the 4-3 victory is telling us more about mvp prowess than Life’s.
ByuN had his best wins in an era with 60% TvZ winrate but for some reason I have a gut feeling you won't dismiss his wins quite as easily
Before LotV Life was far and beyond the GOAT. With an achievement list similar to MVP. But with a weaker race, between two installments with significant changes to the game. He had more success in more varied kinds of tournaments and under more pressure. He did it during the hardest period with all of the pros (kespa,wc3 and old pros). And he did it at a younger age. For MVP at the start of GSL it was also very hard to get thrown out of Code S, once you were in, so you didn't need to re-qualify. And he benefitted a lot from being the best TvT player in a time where Terran was OP. Now with this said, neither Life or MVP were hardcore favourites in any of the tournaments they won, the game wasn't like this back then. It was always competitive and there were always new players on the horizon. Real domination came for the first time with Rogue in LotV and continued with Serral and Maru.
I don't think this has anything to do with the subject matter though.
On November 07 2023 21:40 Poopi wrote: It was played on WoL afaik, in the most imbalanced era of sc2 so the 4-3 victory is telling us more about mvp prowess than Life’s.
ByuN had his best wins in an era with 60% TvZ winrate but for some reason I have a gut feeling you won't dismiss his wins quite as easily
Where do you get this winrate from? In 2016 (best year for ByuN), zerg won more money than terran Winnings/2016 ; the balance was bad but in a clown fiesta way. Zerg had invincible ultralisks but terran had strong reapers and tankivacs, that sort of stuff. Whereas 2012 had literal no names like johnnyrecco or miniraser having results
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
On November 07 2023 21:40 Poopi wrote: It was played on WoL afaik, in the most imbalanced era of sc2 so the 4-3 victory is telling us more about mvp prowess than Life’s.
ByuN had his best wins in an era with 60% TvZ winrate but for some reason I have a gut feeling you won't dismiss his wins quite as easily
Where do you get this winrate from? In 2016 (best year for ByuN), zerg won more money than terran Winnings/2016 ; the balance was bad but in a clown fiesta way. Zerg had invincible ultralisks but terran had strong reapers and tankivacs, that sort of stuff. Whereas 2012 had literal no names like johnnyrecco or miniraser having results
In 2016, TooDMinG won more money than INno, :x
That's because inno played more lol than sc2 in 2016 and toodming had events like this (which were region locked) to collect money.
Just to be clear, Toodming made 35k in 2016. That's not a small amount of money and it isn't an indictment on inno. The only thing to really construe from this is that the system at the time awarded way too much money to players who played in small regions that got their own region locked qualifiers
On November 07 2023 07:14 Waxangel wrote: Bypassing any personal moral judgment, it's untenable because of how the Korean SC scene would treat it.
Savior almost found a home on AfreecaTV briefly in the early 2010's, but eventually AfreecaTV caved to public pressure and disallowed proven match-fixers on their platform. Also, as a reminder, we're presently in a world where Flash, the greatest BW player of all time, won't stream because of his non-criminal involvement in a potential crypto scandal. This stuff is just treated extremely severely in Korea, and it's an absolute non-starter for any KR tournament entity to entertain the idea of having match-fixers back in the fold.
Even for the big international orgs, there's just too little benefit in inviting match-fixers back. Maybe you get an interest boost out of having Life at an event, but you ruin your reputation (especially since there's a high chance that a major esports org is, or will inevitably be, dealing with the South Korean scene).
Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.
In the end you're right, that's quite terrible for the one who would have been the goat of sc2 He was so much superior to maru or any zerg it wasn't even funny
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
On November 07 2023 07:14 Waxangel wrote: Bypassing any personal moral judgment, it's untenable because of how the Korean SC scene would treat it.
Savior almost found a home on AfreecaTV briefly in the early 2010's, but eventually AfreecaTV caved to public pressure and disallowed proven match-fixers on their platform. Also, as a reminder, we're presently in a world where Flash, the greatest BW player of all time, won't stream because of his non-criminal involvement in a potential crypto scandal. This stuff is just treated extremely severely in Korea, and it's an absolute non-starter for any KR tournament entity to entertain the idea of having match-fixers back in the fold.
Even for the big international orgs, there's just too little benefit in inviting match-fixers back. Maybe you get an interest boost out of having Life at an event, but you ruin your reputation (especially since there's a high chance that a major esports org is, or will inevitably be, dealing with the South Korean scene).
Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.
In the end you're right, that's quite terrible for the one who would have been the goat of sc2 He was so much superior to maru or any zerg it wasn't even funny
Did you ever watch Serral play? Even if Life kept playing he wouldn't reach the level of perfection with zerg that Serral reached As for Maru, it's a different race, hard to compare.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
The Korean Sc2 scene doesn't even exist anymore. You all live within a very tight bubble in your mind of rationality with no leniency, humanity, or sanity. The scenes are way way bigger outside of Korea by orders of magnitude, silly stuff I swear. Almost every response is so luke warm its crazy, no one is putting any thought or support into their arguments that stretch past anything that makes any sense to me anymore. Off in left field giving creedance to people you shouldnt, sponsors you shouldnt, companies you shouldn't, serving ideologies you shouldn't. You all side with the legit racketeers, you literally never address them at all, no one is, what in the world is going on? Who's paying you? You will literally go after Life tooth and nail, put him on this pedestal and denounce him, and ignore, the years and years of illegal rackeetering, preceding him and continues till this day. Some Holier Than Thou' bull, legit, Whos kidding who eh? Scapegoat.
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
Funny...first we should all forgive Gerrad (Headcoach of Prime), now you accuse him of grooming...so basically "forgive Life and the rest, but if we need to through all of them for Life under the bus, lets do that"?
Furthermore: Every single star-player on the planet in any commercially succesful sport is being "groomed". I live in a country that is highly dominated by Football/Soccer and let me tell you, for a long time football clubs in Europe did a terrible job keeping their players ego in check. It is how you say it is: Everyone pats you on the back, everyone tells you that YOU are the center of the universe...and yet, when they break the law, when they violate the rules or when they dope, no one in their right mind says "nah, forgive them, they are kids". They are fucking millionaires, this is a JOB. Act like it you fuckwit.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
True, I can't understand how the korean scene works from the inside. But I will assure you, I get the general concept. You are probably not familiar with the name "Robert Hoyzer". He was a german referee in the german Football-Bundesliga. At the start of the millenium, he matchfixed some games for a laughable amount of money, one rather high profile one. This was one the biggest scandals in german football history and right before the World Cup in Germany aswell. The damage could have been catastrophic. One coach lost his job because his team lost one of those fixed games and basically never got up again. So while I do not get Korea, I really get the concept - so believe me, I'm as pissed at Life as anyone should be for the damages he caused.
The Korean Sc2 scene doesn't even exist anymore. You all live within a very tight bubble in your mind of rationality with no leniency, humanity, or sanity. The scenes are way way bigger outside of Korea by orders of magnitude, silly stuff I swear. Almost every response is so luke warm its crazy, no one is putting any thought or support into their arguments that stretch past anything that makes any sense to me anymore. Off in left field giving creedance to people you shouldnt, sponsors you shouldnt, companies you shouldn't, serving ideologies you shouldn't. You all side with the legit racketeers, you literally never address them at all, no one is, what in the world is going on? Who's paying you? You will literally go after Life tooth and nail, put him on this pedestal and denounce him, and ignore, the years and years of illegal rackeetering, preceding him and continues till this day. Some Holier Than Thou' bull, legit, Whos kidding who eh? Scapegoat.
The only one giving "lukewarm answers" is you. You just ramble on, while everyone else gives you clear facts and arguments. You are basically sitting there like "yeah but...Life back plx?"
The Korean Sc2 scene doesn't even exist anymore. You all live within a very tight bubble in your mind of rationality with no leniency, humanity, or sanity. The scenes are way way bigger outside of Korea by orders of magnitude, silly stuff I swear. Almost every response is so luke warm its crazy, no one is putting any thought or support into their arguments that stretch past anything that makes any sense to me anymore. Off in left field giving creedance to people you shouldnt, sponsors you shouldnt, companies you shouldn't, serving ideologies you shouldn't. You all side with the legit racketeers, you literally never address them at all, no one is, what in the world is going on? Who's paying you? You will literally go after Life tooth and nail, put him on this pedestal and denounce him, and ignore, the years and years of illegal rackeetering, preceding him and continues till this day. Some Holier Than Thou' bull, legit, Whos kidding who eh? Scapegoat.
Lmao. This shit just now came into another level. If KR scene doesn't exist, how come ESL Pro Tour has still "Korea" region to Katowice, and still have THE MOST SPOT from all region? Yes, we have dwindled, and yes, we're dying. But there are still majority of players in WTL, 2 Korean Teams still exists, and hell, GSL is still alive and kickin'. Jokes on you. Now you're insulting players who still competes with passion on this game. We survived from the haters from Day one of this game, and we'll also survive from you as well.
The Korean Sc2 scene doesn't even exist anymore. You all live within a very tight bubble in your mind of rationality with no leniency, humanity, or sanity. The scenes are way way bigger outside of Korea by orders of magnitude, silly stuff I swear. Almost every response is so luke warm its crazy, no one is putting any thought or support into their arguments that stretch past anything that makes any sense to me anymore. Off in left field giving creedance to people you shouldnt, sponsors you shouldnt, companies you shouldn't, serving ideologies you shouldn't. You all side with the legit racketeers, you literally never address them at all, no one is, what in the world is going on? Who's paying you? You will literally go after Life tooth and nail, put him on this pedestal and denounce him, and ignore, the years and years of illegal rackeetering, preceding him and continues till this day. Some Holier Than Thou' bull, legit, Whos kidding who eh? Scapegoat.
Lmao. This shit just now came into another level. If KR scene doesn't exist, how come ESL Pro Tour has still "Korea" region to Katowice, and still have THE MOST SPOT from all region? Yes, we have dwindled, and yes, we're dying. But there are still majority of players in WTL, 2 Korean Teams still exists, and hell, GSL is still alive and kickin'. Jokes on you. Now you're insulting players who still competes with passion on this game. We survived from the haters from Day one of this game, and we'll also survive from you as well.
Now go back to wherever you came from.
I don't know what world you are actually living in. Blizzcon is gone, Kespa/Proleague is gone, Sc2, GSL? In Korea? it's on Life support. You know why? Foreigners tune in, to the measure of a couple K viewership. Extract enough AD revenue and they barely spend any money on production, there is a small but communal effor to keep it alive, make no mistake. Excuse me, they are few, we are many. Korea does not rule Sc2, it never will, remove the monolith of their power of decision making in the Sc2 community. We have been abandoned good sir, explain to me in detail how we are not? It IS, the communities game now, and it's about high time we claim that right at this point.
I don't know what world you are actually living in. Blizzcon is gone, Kespa/Proleague is gone, Sc2, GSL? In Korea? it's on Life support. You know why? Foreigners tune in, to the measure of a couple K viewership. Extract enough AD revenue and they barely spend any money on production, there is a small but communal effor to keep it alive, make no mistake. Excuse me, they are few, we are many. Korea does not rule Sc2, it never will, remove the monolith of their power of decision making in the Sc2 community. We have been abandoned good sir, explain to me in detail how we are not? It IS, the communities game now, and it's about high time we claim that right at this point.
Please enlighten me how come freeing Life is related to "claiming the right". Isn't he Korean? What, is he suddenly now NOT KR player? You now saying KR scene is dead, more reason not to be back even if he's allowed to. How do you expect him to be back when there is no scene? You're rambling shit that doesn't even add up and trying to justify your claim. Typical BS as usual. All you're doing is insult, not just players but also the fans who has endured that tough times, and guys like you are the ones who tries to undermine that.
I don't know what world you are actually living in. Blizzcon is gone, Kespa/Proleague is gone, Sc2, GSL? In Korea? it's on Life support. You know why? Foreigners tune in, to the measure of a couple K viewership. Extract enough AD revenue and they barely spend any money on production, there is a small but communal effor to keep it alive, make no mistake. Excuse me, they are few, we are many. Korea does not rule Sc2, it never will, remove the monolith of their power of decision making in the Sc2 community. We have been abandoned good sir, explain to me in detail how we are not? It IS, the communities game now, and it's about high time we claim that right at this point.
Please enlighten me how come freeing Life is related to "claiming the right". Isn't he Korean? What, is he suddenly now NOT KR player? You now saying KR scene is dead, more reason not to be back even if he's allowed to. How do you expect him to be back when there is no scene? You're rambling shit that doesn't even add up and trying to justify your claim. Typical BS as usual. All you're doing is insult, not just players but also the fans who has endured that tough times, and guys like you are the ones who tries to undermine that.
You are way out of it, no offense. "Claiming The Right" is me signalling to the ENTIRE COMMUNITY, not on this topic alone, that this is now the communities game. Life can go where he pleases, play on ANY REGION HE PLEASES, and if he wants to compete in an EU or NA tournament? Then I say F U to any Korean influence on that decision. Ya heard? Now, this is also a plea, to every single Pro and Semi-pro that has an opinion on the matter. Their influence is what i am most concerned about, embrace his potential return, if he desires it even in the first place. Why wouldn't you want to Spar with an increasingly inform Life? Don't you want to be challenged? Pushed to your utmost potential? Wouldn't Serral, in his heart of hearts, want to play against a perfectly in-form "Life"? Makes no sense to me at all. The savage in Serral & Reynor, would salivate at the chance, they should at the very least. I think it would be the dream of any pro come to think of it. He is that respected, he is that revered, he is that feared. He inspires terror, because you just never know, when those lings will come. And boy, I assure you, they always do, when you least expect it.
You are way out of it, no offense. "Claiming The Right" is me signalling to the ENTIRE COMMUNITY, not on this topic alone, that this is now the communities game. Life can go where he pleases, play on ANY REGION HE PLEASES, and if he wants to compete in an EU or NA tournament? Then I say F U to any Korean influence on that decision. Ya heard?
Well, Good luck with that. But I can surely tell you no Korean gamers or fans would support or even care.
He could have played everywhere he wanted as long as it was not a WCS/Blizzard/ESL sponsored/partnered event (or korean ofc). You throw around a lot of big ideas, but completly fail to understand the basic of his ban. That all of this does "not make sense" to you tells more about you than his ban tbh...
And why the F are you talking about his "potential return"? Guy has literally vanished for 8-9 years.
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
This is true. Looking back at the SC2 team houses and they look like a sweat shop. I never realized they were that bad. Always thought it was similar to what I saw the team houses for CS:GO and LoL.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
You say he undermined the Korean SC2 scene due to match fixing. Then why is Korean League of Legends player, Clid, who committed sexual harassment, only banned from competitive gaming for a year? Aiming competed at World's this year and he committed sexual assault in 2019. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is arguably way worse than match fixing in my opinion.
Also if we're talking about morals, why not talk about NBA players committing felonies. Players committing sexual assault, Ja Morant and his guns, NBA partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel, the list goes on. SC2 and what these players do is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the exposure NBA has in USA and around the world, including Korea.
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
This is true. Looking back at the SC2 team houses and they look like a sweat shop. I never realized they were that bad. Always thought it was similar to what I saw the team houses for CS:GO and LoL.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
You say he undermined the Korean SC2 scene due to match fixing. Then why is Korean League of Legends player, Clid, who committed sexual harassment, only banned from competitive gaming for a year? Aiming competed at World's this year and he committed sexual assault in 2019. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is arguably way worse than match fixing in my opinion.
Also if we're talking about morals, why not talk about NBA players committing felonies. Players committing sexual assault, Ja Morant and his guns, NBA partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel, the list goes on. SC2 and what these players do is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the exposure NBA has in USA and around the world, including Korea.
Because these are just singular player actions that don't shake the system. Life (and everyone else involved in that scandal) however did exactly that - they hit the system at its core, increasing distrust and scaring sponsors away. You could compare it with those athletes that doped in Cycling. It crashed the entire sport and they had to painfully crawl back up. And even now every winner of the Tour de France atleast has a questionmark behind their victories.
As for Clid: Riot did a ruling there on which you can agree or not agree, but for now, he is banned for basically one and a half year (one year for Riot events, six months more for koreans, so basically he is banned). It is questionable if and how he will come back and if he will do it in Korea. But again, those two cases have not much in common anyway, so it is just not practical to compare them
Btw, as for Aiming: He apparently was never punished by the law and technically he did not commit "sexual harassement". He was in a relationship with a fan who was a minor (him 19, her 15)...which in Germany for example wouldn't even be a crime as far as I know, though the "star-fan" relationship might change that. Though ofc no idea how the laws are there in Korea. But, as mentioned, he wasn't convicted for anything, so it is really bad manners from you to not only bring it up, but just casually flagging it as "sexual harassement".
Life's mechanics were actually kind of poor. He never hotkeyed eggs, didn't use camera keys, didn't hotkey individual hatches as other Koreans commonly did then. Instead he did the Idra style individual queens which works, but in HotS players were beginning to inject with Fkeys and he was still playing with his standard hotkeys. His primary strength was his boxing of units, which was elite, but his other mechanics were poor. He sure did catch a lot of players off guard with his ling micro, but I do not see him ever winning those 30+ minute games that Maru plays against zergs
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
This is true. Looking back at the SC2 team houses and they look like a sweat shop. I never realized they were that bad. Always thought it was similar to what I saw the team houses for CS:GO and LoL.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
You say he undermined the Korean SC2 scene due to match fixing. Then why is Korean League of Legends player, Clid, who committed sexual harassment, only banned from competitive gaming for a year? Aiming competed at World's this year and he committed sexual assault in 2019. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is arguably way worse than match fixing in my opinion.
Also if we're talking about morals, why not talk about NBA players committing felonies. Players committing sexual assault, Ja Morant and his guns, NBA partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel, the list goes on. SC2 and what these players do is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the exposure NBA has in USA and around the world, including Korea.
Because these are just singular player actions that don't shake the system. Life (and everyone else involved in that scandal) however did exactly that - they hit the system at its core, increasing distrust and scaring sponsors away. You could compare it with those athletes that doped in Cycling. It crashed the entire sport and they had to painfully crawl back up. And even now every winner of the Tour de France atleast has a questionmark behind their victories.
As for Clid: Riot did a ruling there on which you can agree or not agree, but for now, he is banned for basically one and a half year (one year for Riot events, six months more for koreans, so basically he is banned). It is questionable if and how he will come back and if he will do it in Korea. But again, those two cases have not much in common anyway, so it is just not practical to compare them
Btw, as for Aiming: He apparently was never punished by the law and technically he did not commit "sexual harassement". He was in a relationship with a fan who was a minor (him 19, her 15)...which in Germany for example wouldn't even be a crime as far as I know, though the "star-fan" relationship might change that. Though ofc no idea how the laws are there in Korea. But, as mentioned, he wasn't convicted for anything, so it is really bad manners from you to not only bring it up, but just casually flagging it as "sexual harassement".
Ok so if we take out singular examples I provided, then what about my NBA example? The league was, and is still involved in indirect match fixing and gambling. It's no secret refs bet on the games and they have enough influence to affect the outcome of the game, and to make the spread. Teams blatantly tank in order to try and achieve a better draft pick. I brought this up years ago and this forum shut it down saying something like "Well if the NBA is that dirty of a sport, then eventually it'll fail." Not only is the sport thriving, it is expanding at a rapid pace and worth way more than ever. Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to sign a 5 year max worth $334m. Teams are worth billions of dollars.
Also, Korea's age of consent is 20 years old according to Google.
On November 08 2023 06:39 Mutaller wrote: Life's mechanics were actually kind of poor. He never hotkeyed eggs, didn't use camera keys, didn't hotkey individual hatches as other Koreans commonly did then. Instead he did the Idra style individual queens which works, but in HotS players were beginning to inject with Fkeys and he was still playing with his standard hotkeys. His primary strength was his boxing of units, which was elite, but his other mechanics were poor. He sure did catch a lot of players off guard with his ling micro, but I do not see him ever winning those 30+ minute games that Maru plays against zergs
Some people have the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia regarding Life’s level, players have vastly improved since then. And given what he did, there is no point in wanting to see him back in StarCraft, ever. But even if you would want to watch him, you would be disappointed, because better players arose
On November 08 2023 06:39 Mutaller wrote: Life's mechanics were actually kind of poor. He never hotkeyed eggs, didn't use camera keys, didn't hotkey individual hatches as other Koreans commonly did then. Instead he did the Idra style individual queens which works, but in HotS players were beginning to inject with Fkeys and he was still playing with his standard hotkeys. His primary strength was his boxing of units, which was elite, but his other mechanics were poor. He sure did catch a lot of players off guard with his ling micro, but I do not see him ever winning those 30+ minute games that Maru plays against zergs
his mechanics were very good. He just used a suboptimal inject method which to be fair to him, it didn't really become mainstream till lotv for all zergs to use the same optimized inject style, although soulkey was doing it already the moment he swapped to sc2 end of 2012.
it's kind of a small thing he could have easily changed, and weird to say his mechanics were poor because of how he injected. It's even more impressive he was able to be the top zerg player during a time where zerg really wasn't having a good time (Hots), when he didn't even reach his final form yet of playing clean. Life would've been an absolute monster in Lotv, but because of a dumb mistake he took that away from himself and from us, the fans.
On topic, if Life wanted to play sc2 at this point I feel like he should be allowed, but I think it's irrelevant as he most likely doesn't want to. I don't think a lifetime ban is warranted in a case like this, the guy made a dumb mistake when he was so young. a 3-5 year ban would be more than enough. He ruined his carreer which most certainly he was on the trajectory to be one of the all time top earners of the game, so he lost a lot of money.
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
This is true. Looking back at the SC2 team houses and they look like a sweat shop. I never realized they were that bad. Always thought it was similar to what I saw the team houses for CS:GO and LoL.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
You say he undermined the Korean SC2 scene due to match fixing. Then why is Korean League of Legends player, Clid, who committed sexual harassment, only banned from competitive gaming for a year? Aiming competed at World's this year and he committed sexual assault in 2019. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is arguably way worse than match fixing in my opinion.
Also if we're talking about morals, why not talk about NBA players committing felonies. Players committing sexual assault, Ja Morant and his guns, NBA partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel, the list goes on. SC2 and what these players do is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the exposure NBA has in USA and around the world, including Korea.
Because these are just singular player actions that don't shake the system. Life (and everyone else involved in that scandal) however did exactly that - they hit the system at its core, increasing distrust and scaring sponsors away. You could compare it with those athletes that doped in Cycling. It crashed the entire sport and they had to painfully crawl back up. And even now every winner of the Tour de France atleast has a questionmark behind their victories.
As for Clid: Riot did a ruling there on which you can agree or not agree, but for now, he is banned for basically one and a half year (one year for Riot events, six months more for koreans, so basically he is banned). It is questionable if and how he will come back and if he will do it in Korea. But again, those two cases have not much in common anyway, so it is just not practical to compare them
Btw, as for Aiming: He apparently was never punished by the law and technically he did not commit "sexual harassement". He was in a relationship with a fan who was a minor (him 19, her 15)...which in Germany for example wouldn't even be a crime as far as I know, though the "star-fan" relationship might change that. Though ofc no idea how the laws are there in Korea. But, as mentioned, he wasn't convicted for anything, so it is really bad manners from you to not only bring it up, but just casually flagging it as "sexual harassement".
Ok so if we take out singular examples I provided, then what about my NBA example? The league was, and is still involved in indirect match fixing and gambling. It's no secret refs bet on the games and they have enough influence to affect the outcome of the game, and to make the spread. Teams blatantly tank in order to try and achieve a better draft pick. I brought this up years ago and this forum shut it down saying something like "Well if the NBA is that dirty of a sport, then eventually it'll fail." Not only is the sport thriving, it is expanding at a rapid pace and worth way more than ever. Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to sign a 5 year max worth $334m. Teams are worth billions of dollars.
Also, Korea's age of consent is 20 years old according to Google.
I feel like we already had that discussion... How about you take your complaints to a basketball forum? Because the reality is, that there is a strong case to be made that Lifes actions affected sponsorships in Korea. And since Esports is mostly based on sponsorship money, unlike the NBA where ticket sales, merchandise and TV rights make a big part of the money (plus all the teams are owned by billionaires who don't really care anyway), this is a big deal. This is about SC2, specifically SC2 in Korea. Don't make it about anything else because there is literally no point.
A quick search gives some confusing infos about the age of consent in Korea, but one news article claims that it was 13 before 2020, so Aiming would probably be okay-ish. Which also tells you the fact that he admitted it was a sexual relationship, so if it was that troublesome by law, he would have been convicted - which he wasn't. So here again: Drop it, it has nothing to do with anything
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
This is true. Looking back at the SC2 team houses and they look like a sweat shop. I never realized they were that bad. Always thought it was similar to what I saw the team houses for CS:GO and LoL.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
You say he undermined the Korean SC2 scene due to match fixing. Then why is Korean League of Legends player, Clid, who committed sexual harassment, only banned from competitive gaming for a year? Aiming competed at World's this year and he committed sexual assault in 2019. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is arguably way worse than match fixing in my opinion.
Also if we're talking about morals, why not talk about NBA players committing felonies. Players committing sexual assault, Ja Morant and his guns, NBA partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel, the list goes on. SC2 and what these players do is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the exposure NBA has in USA and around the world, including Korea.
Because these are just singular player actions that don't shake the system. Life (and everyone else involved in that scandal) however did exactly that - they hit the system at its core, increasing distrust and scaring sponsors away. You could compare it with those athletes that doped in Cycling. It crashed the entire sport and they had to painfully crawl back up. And even now every winner of the Tour de France atleast has a questionmark behind their victories.
As for Clid: Riot did a ruling there on which you can agree or not agree, but for now, he is banned for basically one and a half year (one year for Riot events, six months more for koreans, so basically he is banned). It is questionable if and how he will come back and if he will do it in Korea. But again, those two cases have not much in common anyway, so it is just not practical to compare them
Btw, as for Aiming: He apparently was never punished by the law and technically he did not commit "sexual harassement". He was in a relationship with a fan who was a minor (him 19, her 15)...which in Germany for example wouldn't even be a crime as far as I know, though the "star-fan" relationship might change that. Though ofc no idea how the laws are there in Korea. But, as mentioned, he wasn't convicted for anything, so it is really bad manners from you to not only bring it up, but just casually flagging it as "sexual harassement".
Ok so if we take out singular examples I provided, then what about my NBA example? The league was, and is still involved in indirect match fixing and gambling. It's no secret refs bet on the games and they have enough influence to affect the outcome of the game, and to make the spread. Teams blatantly tank in order to try and achieve a better draft pick. I brought this up years ago and this forum shut it down saying something like "Well if the NBA is that dirty of a sport, then eventually it'll fail." Not only is the sport thriving, it is expanding at a rapid pace and worth way more than ever. Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to sign a 5 year max worth $334m. Teams are worth billions of dollars.
Also, Korea's age of consent is 20 years old according to Google.
I feel like we already had that discussion... How about you take your complaints to a basketball forum? Because the reality is, that there is a strong case to be made that Lifes actions affected sponsorships in Korea. And since Esports is mostly based on sponsorship money, unlike the NBA where ticket sales, merchandise and TV rights make a big part of the money (plus all the teams are owned by billionaires who don't really care anyway), this is a big deal. This is about SC2, specifically SC2 in Korea. Don't make it about anything else because there is literally no point.
A quick search gives some confusing infos about the age of consent in Korea, but one news article claims that it was 13 before 2020, so Aiming would probably be okay-ish. Which also tells you the fact that he admitted it was a sexual relationship, so if it was that troublesome by law, he would have been convicted - which he wasn't. So here again: Drop it, it has nothing to do with anything
I disagree with your take on the NBA and where the valuation and revenue comes from. TV rights, merchandise, and ticket sales are all related to the integrity of the NBA. The NBA is an entertainment and for profit business first, basketball game second. Also let's not forget the FBI was literally involved in the NBA betting scandal but David Stern somehow got ahead of the FBI and the FBI's case was blown up. You don't think the scandal affected the NBA? Same with Malice at the Palace? It casted a significant shadow on the league.
Esports in general can recover from scandals. We see it in real sports, politicians, large corporations, everything. It's just a matter of whether we want to or not.
On November 08 2023 02:33 ChuChuRocket wrote: You are way out of it, no offense. "Claiming The Right" is me signalling to the ENTIRE COMMUNITY, not on this topic alone, that this is now the communities game. Life can go where he pleases, play on ANY REGION HE PLEASES, and if he wants to compete in an EU or NA tournament? Then I say F U to any Korean influence on that decision. Ya heard?
Okay, well this thread here is the foreign community also telling you Life is not wanted.
EDIT: I personally don't have a huge say in the matter, following SC2 less than BW and possibly sympathetic to the arguments about Life's young age at the time he did those things.
I am just calling out the nonsense that is you acting like this is some Korea-specific thing. All those who participate in, or follow, proscenes in competitive games dislike caught cheaters, all around the world. Look at M:tG for example. There's a small number of people who cape for the confirmed cheaters and a whole ton of derision from everyone else.
On November 07 2023 18:38 SupremeMaddox wrote: I don't get why it just comes back up. It's so fucking exhausting every time I see this.
First of all, the reason why 'Life" is hated as a matchfixer is because he was "THAT TALENTED". He could've been another Zerg bonjwa and made another history. It's totally his own fault who blew it, and not only that the shock got an extra kick because of the symbolic position he was as one of the Star Players. This is the main reason why people hate and don't want to even mention it. They're hurt as much as they loved him. He didn't even had an sincere apology to the fans. EVER. Fans were much more hurt because they had one notorious precedence in Brood War, (who was also coincidentally playing Zerg) and they had to relive all the horror and nightmare again this time. Yes, time flew and it's been over 7 years after that happened but hey, you know what?
WE'RE STILL BANNING SAVIOR in ASL. How crazy is that for you, huh?
Speaking of PRIME, yeah it's a fact that there were many great Terrans came out of it, but that same coach was the one who served as a broker for matchfixing. He even stole players' salary for use of his own. YoDa? also a match fixer. so as Bbyong, BBoongBBoong. Why don't we just forgive and forget every single one of them to come back and see how that pans out, huh? Why he should be the only exception? I still believe that there are good in people and I try to believe it, but sometimes, some people just don't change. Especially for those who committed actual crime. And I also don't want to see another case of "I told you so".
I hope I don't want to mention this ever again.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
This is true. Looking back at the SC2 team houses and they look like a sweat shop. I never realized they were that bad. Always thought it was similar to what I saw the team houses for CS:GO and LoL.
Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?
It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.
Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.
SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?
As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?
Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line. And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you, he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.
THIS. Westerners really tend not to get this. Life wasn't just a matchfixer. He was a thief who stole money from players and undermined the entire Korean sc2 scene. He broke laws and irreversibly damaged StarCraft II in Korea. Westerners can insert their own opinions, but they are almost always out of touch with the Korean perspective. (also there are a lot of stories about life gambling overseas and exhibiting behavior that would not be acceptable in Korea). Talk to Crank, soO, whoever, Life fucked them all over and should not have the ability to play again. His served his sentence and should be able to live what ever life he wants, but it should not involve progaming. The bridge is burnt.
You say he undermined the Korean SC2 scene due to match fixing. Then why is Korean League of Legends player, Clid, who committed sexual harassment, only banned from competitive gaming for a year? Aiming competed at World's this year and he committed sexual assault in 2019. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is arguably way worse than match fixing in my opinion.
Also if we're talking about morals, why not talk about NBA players committing felonies. Players committing sexual assault, Ja Morant and his guns, NBA partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel, the list goes on. SC2 and what these players do is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the exposure NBA has in USA and around the world, including Korea.
Because these are just singular player actions that don't shake the system. Life (and everyone else involved in that scandal) however did exactly that - they hit the system at its core, increasing distrust and scaring sponsors away. You could compare it with those athletes that doped in Cycling. It crashed the entire sport and they had to painfully crawl back up. And even now every winner of the Tour de France atleast has a questionmark behind their victories.
As for Clid: Riot did a ruling there on which you can agree or not agree, but for now, he is banned for basically one and a half year (one year for Riot events, six months more for koreans, so basically he is banned). It is questionable if and how he will come back and if he will do it in Korea. But again, those two cases have not much in common anyway, so it is just not practical to compare them
Btw, as for Aiming: He apparently was never punished by the law and technically he did not commit "sexual harassement". He was in a relationship with a fan who was a minor (him 19, her 15)...which in Germany for example wouldn't even be a crime as far as I know, though the "star-fan" relationship might change that. Though ofc no idea how the laws are there in Korea. But, as mentioned, he wasn't convicted for anything, so it is really bad manners from you to not only bring it up, but just casually flagging it as "sexual harassement".
Ok so if we take out singular examples I provided, then what about my NBA example? The league was, and is still involved in indirect match fixing and gambling. It's no secret refs bet on the games and they have enough influence to affect the outcome of the game, and to make the spread. Teams blatantly tank in order to try and achieve a better draft pick. I brought this up years ago and this forum shut it down saying something like "Well if the NBA is that dirty of a sport, then eventually it'll fail." Not only is the sport thriving, it is expanding at a rapid pace and worth way more than ever. Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to sign a 5 year max worth $334m. Teams are worth billions of dollars.
Also, Korea's age of consent is 20 years old according to Google.
I feel like we already had that discussion... How about you take your complaints to a basketball forum? Because the reality is, that there is a strong case to be made that Lifes actions affected sponsorships in Korea. And since Esports is mostly based on sponsorship money, unlike the NBA where ticket sales, merchandise and TV rights make a big part of the money (plus all the teams are owned by billionaires who don't really care anyway), this is a big deal. This is about SC2, specifically SC2 in Korea. Don't make it about anything else because there is literally no point.
A quick search gives some confusing infos about the age of consent in Korea, but one news article claims that it was 13 before 2020, so Aiming would probably be okay-ish. Which also tells you the fact that he admitted it was a sexual relationship, so if it was that troublesome by law, he would have been convicted - which he wasn't. So here again: Drop it, it has nothing to do with anything
I disagree with your take on the NBA and where the valuation and revenue comes from. TV rights, merchandise, and ticket sales are all related to the integrity of the NBA. The NBA is an entertainment and for profit business first, basketball game second. Also let's not forget the FBI was literally involved in the NBA betting scandal but David Stern somehow got ahead of the FBI and the FBI's case was blown up. You don't think the scandal affected the NBA? Same with Malice at the Palace? It casted a significant shadow on the league.
Esports in general can recover from scandals. We see it in real sports, politicians, large corporations, everything. It's just a matter of whether we want to or not.
Dude...the NBA has money, after Life, the Proleague basically did not. That is a fact. Has nothing to do with "what we want", sponsors decided "nope, we are the fuck outta here" and that is what happened. That happens all the time, sometimes the sponsored subject fails, sometimes it does not. In this case, it did kinda fail or atleast diminish heavily. So you can bring up the NBA another thousand times, won't bring Proleague and atleast eight sponsored teams with teamhouses back either.
Life is banned for, well, life, within the rules he agreed to play under. That is a fact that also perfectly functions without bringing up the NBA or other players from other games. The only question at all would be if Afreeca and/or ESL should unban him, since almost ten years have passed. That passing of time is literally the only argument you could make for him, nothing else. But since Life is apparently completly and 100% gone from the game/gaming community, this isn't even a real question. It is just a non-issue.
The only way the SC2 community could delegitimize its esports scene more than Blizzard already has is by allowing one of the most prominent cheaters in esports history to compete again. Even if tournament organizers wanted to do something so idiotic, it wouldn’t be lawful, not even for the kind of show matches Wax mentioned. Don’t forget that technically you still need licensing rights from Activision Blizzard to organize and broadcast tournaments and events. While they may generally give out those licenses freely or even fail to crack down on unlicensed community events, you better believe there would be an enforcement action if anyone even attempted to seriously consider something as scandalous as this.
EPT
Winnings/2016
