EPTI make similar easy choices when I don't watch certain soccer tournaments and the Olympic Games, or when I stop buying certain products.
Saudi Arabia investment into StarCraft 2 esport - Page 2
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Crocolisk Dundee
870 Posts
I make similar easy choices when I don't watch certain soccer tournaments and the Olympic Games, or when I stop buying certain products. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3383 Posts
On April 21 2024 08:35 Luolis wrote: Yeah i get that and ofc its impossible to be 100% moral in our current society. I still prefer trying to live according to certain moral things and boycotting the most egregious offenders of those is atleast in my brain better for nothing. It's also why i wont be watching the Olympics this year (Russian athletes participating). Imo its a bit of a joke that the Starcraft World Championship is belittled and made little more than a propaganda event for some of the biggest human rights abusers in the world. How is a Starcraft 2 event propaganda? Why should Russians be boycotted for being Russian? For answering the poll, I don't think SC2 needs the money, passion is what drives the scene and not money. SC2 could start all over again if it collapsed, by players getting good at the game and then thereafter viewers wanting to watch their games. But if you somehow think that BECAUSE of the money, it makes it all justified, then that does show deficiency in your moral character. That said, I don't know why it is so bad, this "sportswashing" as it is being called. | ||
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HolydaKing
21254 Posts
On April 21 2024 15:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Poll options might not be optimal, I feel there's overlap between options. For example, to me it's wrong but it's also good, and thus I partly also don't care. Probably better if it was just something like "Very uncomfortable", "uncomfortable", "indifferent", "satisfied", "very satisfied" or something. YEP, I voted I don't care because if that. Nowadays many things come from placed I'd rather not buy stuff from but it can't be helped. At the same time, I'm thinking its good that the money goes to SC2 rather than to other shady things. | ||
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Luolis
Finland7104 Posts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing Why should Russians be boycotted for being Russian? Because the Russian athletes are part of the Russian propaganda machine, and as long as Russia keeps performing a genocidal invasion into Ukraine you cant with good conscience have them participate while Ukrainian athletes are literally dying and thus cannot participate. For answering the poll, I don't think SC2 needs the money, passion is what drives the scene and not money. SC2 could start all over again if it collapsed, by players getting good at the game and then thereafter viewers wanting to watch their games. But if you somehow think that BECAUSE of the money, it makes it all justified, then that does show deficiency in your moral character. That said, I don't know why it is so bad, this "sportswashing" as it is being called. The sportswashing is bad because this event is straight up hosted by the Saudi royalty to be like "hey look at us, were just chill people hosting some Starcraft for you, were definitely not killing LGBTQ+ people and women have all the rights in the world here haha". It's hard for me to support an event directly hosted by a state where technically one of the most beloved sc2 professionals would technically be liable to capital punishment. I'm not telling others to boycott it though, but i cannot watch this tournament in good conscience and as an added plus, it taking the "world championship" title from historic tournaments like IEM Katowice is to me incredibly disrespectful to the whole scene. | ||
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RogerChillingworth
2865 Posts
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WGT-Baal
France3368 Posts
On April 21 2024 12:45 Blargh wrote: Who thinks SC2 could survive without it? All of ESL is Saudi money! What is even left after they're gone? Have you seen Korean SC2 leagues lately?? I don't really mind consuming content backed / paid for by Saudi money, but I'm always going to shit on them. I think it's a much harder question if you're a pro-gamer / pro SC2 player (all 24 of them), and are pretty damn dependent on their money to sustain yourself. I think it's not unreasonable to publicly shit on SA, while also taking their money. I'd be concerned about going to their events in SA though! You conflate the game/scene with the top 4-5 pros. One off big events don't do anything this far in the game cycle (14years) for the scene. People who are still here will still play. Recurring tournaments like DH and IEM, weekend cups or GSL are better in that regard. Yes it s nice for the top pros, but they game would be fine without them making a one off chance at 300k too. That's only a few players making that money anyway and if BW pros are any indication, the future of funding themselves is streaming. Look at BW or AoE2. Sc2 is heading there, and it s ok. So university leagues or other equivalent, local(ish) tournaments for every day people, discord servers, etc are what keeps a game alive. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20285 Posts
That's not something that's worth building a scene around, even if it were the difference between life or death of the game. It's a very low bar that i refuse to compromise on, and i don't have a lot of respect for those who do. | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3368 Posts
On April 21 2024 21:46 Cyro wrote: Where the money comes from is an issue, but less of an issue than where it's given out. Mandatory in-person attendance to Saudi Arabia is not even physically safe for all competitors or fans - some face unacceptably high risk of inprisonment, torture or murder for merely existing. That's not something that's worth building a scene around, even if it were the difference between life or death of the game. It's a very low bar that i refuse to compromise on, and i don't have a lot of respect for those who do. This is also a very good point. Sponsoring is inherently shady (late stage capitalism yay~) but in person in those places is yet another big step down the hole | ||
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argonautdice
Canada2719 Posts
On April 21 2024 21:46 Cyro wrote: Where the money comes from is an issue, but less of an issue than where it's given out. Mandatory in-person attendance to Saudi Arabia is not even physically safe for all competitors or fans - some face unacceptably high risk of inprisonment, torture or murder for merely existing. That's not something that's worth building a scene around, even if it were the difference between life or death of the game. It's a very low bar that i refuse to compromise on, and i don't have a lot of respect for those who do. There is one player I'm kind of concerned about physically attending, but I'm pretty sure the whole point of sportswashing is to show off Saudi Arabia as a "modernized" country, so I don't think they want to invite scandals by imprisoning/torturing/murdering their attendees. I mean I don't think another Jamal Khashoggi is going as an esports player. | ||
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tskarzyn
United States516 Posts
On April 21 2024 21:46 Cyro wrote: Where the money comes from is an issue, but less of an issue than where it's given out. Mandatory in-person attendance to Saudi Arabia is not even physically safe for all competitors or fans - some face unacceptably high risk of inprisonment, torture or murder for merely existing. That's not something that's worth building a scene around, even if it were the difference between life or death of the game. It's a very low bar that i refuse to compromise on, and i don't have a lot of respect for those who do. Yikes. How many competitors or fans has Saudi Arabia imprisoned, tortured, or murdered? User was warned for this post | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25331 Posts
On April 21 2024 12:05 luxon wrote: this is the hundredth post on saudi money in sc2, but honestly the only thing worse than all the things the saudi government has done, are the virtue signalers who rear their ugly heads every time the crown prince wants to save the sport. you can overlook it for your iphone and uber and soccer matches, but you cant overlook it for sc2. so just say "i dont care about sc2" and move on, no need to virtue signal every month  (not calling anyone out in particular)Right because you don't care about sc2 that much. Which is a fine position to have, but if you applied this to anything else, it's an enormous sacrifice nobody would make. No football fan ever would boycott the superbowl, no football fan would ever boycott champions league finals or world cup, no nba fan would boycott the finals esp when their team is in these championships, as is the case with Gamers8. I don't disagree with Wax on much but this is something that I always have to push back on, not the boycotting part but the intellectual honesty of it. I don't agree with Miz much, (any goat list that doesn't include Life is just unserious), but I agree with his take on this one. If they wanted to save the sport, things like GSL would get a boost rather than one big showpiece tournament. I’ve got less of an issue with mere investment, the Saudis, or others don’t have controlling stakes in these entities that frequently get invoked. And they’re in it to make money. To attempt to boycott anything with a shareholder one doesn’t like is to descend into madness. By contrast just dropping a sporting event is absolute small fry Quite another when it’s their baby, and actually in my experience it’s those who care most about their hobby that often are the ones to take the hit and just not watch it. Because when your sport is a piece to be moved around as a propoganda tool it’ll eventually go to somewhere you don’t like. The state of Qatar’s propaganda project has effectively ruined the competitive balance of French top flight football for the foreseeable. Great we’ve got two World Cups in Qatar and Saudi Arabia in a close span, with a whole world of fun World Cup fan excursions to pick from we’re going to two deserts. Yay! If they continue investment for another season, if one big tournament is sacrificed is anyone taking bets that it’s not Katowice? If the ideal is a benefactor who loves your hobby and has no big ethical baggage, Saudi Arabia is going 0/2 Call it virtue signalling if you want, for my money a useful phrase grotesquely overused to encompass literally doing anything ever for ostensible moral reasons. I think there’s plenty of legitimate reasons to have issues here | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25331 Posts
On April 21 2024 22:18 argonautdice wrote: There is one player I'm kind of concerned about physically attending, but I'm pretty sure the whole point of sportswashing is to show off Saudi Arabia as a "modernized" country, so I don't think they want to invite scandals by imprisoning/torturing/murdering their attendees. I mean I don't think another Jamal Khashoggi is going as an esports player. If they actually did modernise, hey that’s a positive development. And yes there have been small baby steps But, if anything this makes it more gross. We’ll tolerate you Westerners doing things, or indeed existing for a few days, but we’ll imprison our native population for doing the same. I’ve long felt this is a particularly gross element of how Gulf States do things. Friends I had who went out to various places also felt this pretty keenly, hey they enjoyed their pay packets for a while but it burned most of them out living with the social realities and they popped back relatively quickly It’s like a game being showed off with a completely unrepresentative vertical slice | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1178 Posts
So we all complained, we thought about boycott (and considering Germanys "success" I really wished I did...). I personally thought it would be great, the entire world would get to see sportswashing at its finest and would never forget the Qatari atrocities and...yeah, fuck that. Apparently most people, even in Europe, were totally fine with a tournament that was so hilariously bad propaganda and didn't care. And even with all that, I'm still pissed about it. With SC2, it is a different matter: If you want to "boycott ESL" (since it is Saudi-owned) you basically can only watch LoL, since ESL, Faceit or the Saudis directly (like in DotA2) have their hands in anything else. And I will freely admit: I love Esports, so I will jump into the hypocrasy and continue to watch it. But it will never make me believe that the Saudis are somehow "the good guys". I won't thank them for it. In fact, in the longterm they might even destroy Esports as we know it, should they ever decide "nah, not worth it" and pull their money out, half the industry could collaps. So yes, I will watch the Esports World Cup, because it is a great event (atleast on paper). It reminds me of the great tournaments of old, before every game got its own thing. I love the cross-competition between organisations, something like that has never really been done before. But while I watch it, I will handle it the same way I do when I read some right-winged propaganda pamphletes or when I read a newspaper that clearly has a bias in one direction or the other: It informs me, but I always have in mind that it is in fact propaganda (or a bias). | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
Like Wax said, pick your battles | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25331 Posts
On April 22 2024 16:30 Harris1st wrote: I didn't watch the last football WC in Katar and I think in the grand scheme of things I earned some leeway to watch EWC in Saudi now. Like Wax said, pick your battles You’ve done it once :p Nah, I feel it’s not said enough but consuming entertainment with the sportswashing intent doesn’t mean one is necessarily feeding it either. It really depends how strongly one feels about a particular instance. If the intent is to burnish a reputation, and you consume media and still think they’re a bit shit, whatever it is, well it’s not really doing its job. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20285 Posts
On April 22 2024 18:53 WombaT wrote: You’ve done it once :p Nah, I feel it’s not said enough but consuming entertainment with the sportswashing intent doesn’t mean one is necessarily feeding it either. It really depends how strongly one feels about a particular instance. If the intent is to burnish a reputation, and you consume media and still think they’re a bit shit, whatever it is, well it’s not really doing its job. And what of those who can't compete or attend because of discrimination and persecution? Shall they just sit quietly on the sidelines or remove themselves from the scene? Do you agree with the guy with the biggest stack of money dictating those terms, or with people stepping over those community members to go along with it? | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
On April 23 2024 12:47 Cyro wrote: And what of those who can't compete or attend because of discrimination and persecution? Shall they just sit quietly on the sidelines or remove themselves from the scene? Do you agree with the guy with the biggest stack of money dictating those terms, or with people stepping over those community members to go along with it? You seem to be talking about a very specific case/ person. Could you elaborate on that? | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20285 Posts
On April 23 2024 18:31 Harris1st wrote: You seem to be talking about a very specific case/ person. Could you elaborate on that? It's unfortunately not very specific with countries like Saudi Arabia. If that's a genuine question you can throw "Saudi Arabia" + "discrimination" or "persecution" into any search engine to get a long and detailed list. "Human rights record" if you want something a bit more neutral. | ||
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Captain Peabody
United States3110 Posts
On the other hand, I can't say I have any strong qualms myself about watching this tournament. I do try to think about how I live my life and spend my money in terms of moral and economic outcomes and justice, and I am significantly poorer as a result. But being one person watching a stream of a tournament paid for/taking place in a country whose government does immoral things seems pretty remote cooperation with evil, certainly much less than other things I do and feel bad about. Taking someone's money gotten in bad ways and putting it to good (or at least better) use has been a struggle for many historical religious and philanthropic and idealistic groups; and while it can have bad effects inasmuch as it's used to legitimize it's often fully justified and even at worst is still quite different from directly giving someone money they will do bad things with. My knowledge of and opinions on Saudi Arabia are fairly extensive, nor am I likely to travel there as a tourist, nor will my view of their regime in any way be impacted by the tournament. In many ways, I actually feel better about this random insertion of Saudi cash than I did about the old KESPA system, where the Korean mega-corporations not only paid for everything, but also dictated the basic structure of the scene in often rather exploitative and abusive ways. I certainly feel better about it than the cases where I've directly given money to evil corporations and/or governments. That being said, I do think it's good that this conversation is happening; at the very least, it helps work against the legitimizing goals of the Saudis, making the fans are aware where the money's coming from and helping prevent bad results from that. | ||
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Athenau
569 Posts
To my knowledge, SA isn't requiring endorsements from players, coaches, or team owners. Any benefit to them derives solely from whatever hypothetical good-will they're generating from shoveling money at the scene, but no one who cares about their atrocious human rights record is going to be swayed on that front, so the end result will be more money for Starcraft and less money (nominally) for them. Sounds like a win-win in my book. | ||
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