Saudi Arabia investment into StarCraft 2 esport

On April 21 2024 03:36 argonautdice wrote:

Brood War not fun enough for the princes.

Like legit if someone with the money or connection weren't interested in SC2 I doubt it would've been included with the given prize pool on its own merit in terms of return/popularity.

On April 21 2024 07:17 Luolis wrote:
I don't like it and will not watch the EWC personally. Admittedly SC2 would be in dire straits without it but i prefer atleast pretending to have morals over sportswashing.

On April 21 2024 07:46 Mizenhauer wrote:


We all compromise our morals for the sake of entertainment and personal satisfaction. If it wasn't Saudis in SC2, it's the sweatshops that make your clothes or the chick fil a that you eat. I'd rather have some money go to the dudes playing StarCraft than some other nefarious purpose.

On April 21 2024 07:46 Mizenhauer wrote:


We all compromise our morals for the sake of entertainment and personal satisfaction. If it wasn't Saudis in SC2, it's the sweatshops that make your clothes or the chick fil a that you eat. I'd rather have some money go to the dudes playing StarCraft than some other nefarious purpose.

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.

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.

On April 21 2024 18:57 ejozl wrote:

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.

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!

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.

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?

On April 24 2024 04:20 WombaT wrote:
Now, ‘not barred’ and ‘actually welcome’ are two different things here. As per the Qatar World Cup, same-sex couples could go, provided they didn’t openly indicate they were same-sex couples. I wouldn’t consider that being welcome if one has to subsume a core part of their identity. No matter how welcoming this particular event may be, I’m not under any illusions that being in Saudi Arabia at all would be remotely safe for some folks either.
.

On April 24 2024 02:53 Athenau wrote:
I said this the last time this topic came up, but take the money and run.

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.

On April 25 2024 10:57 sidasf wrote:
People acting like it was Saddam Hussein himself funding the tournament. They're scary brown people from the middle east, is that it? Just because they're a certain ethnicity? From a certain country?That's the problem? SC2 saudi sponsor has as much to do with their government's rights abuses, as much as average Joe from the US has to do with their police force slaughtering black people.

And you guys know the literal US military, the USAF sponsors ESL right? The same military that bombed the shit out of innocent brown people and ruined the lives of millions in the middle east? So much hypocrisy.

Saudi's investment in SC2 is the best thing we could possibly have asked for. Without it, SC2 as an esport doesn't exist. I'm thankful to them and hope they continue it for years to come.

On April 26 2024 00:08 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote:
Look, do you even understand the problem of data collection as a thing, in what way? Software Engineering? Social? Intel Gathering? Information processing? In what scenario, in what way?

Fuck man, CCP is not the problem, CCTV is not the problem, in some distant or near future, we are very likely going to want to have "AI", meaning some form of non-human VISION capability to monitor our whole fucking life, because is actually useful, and the Chinese have showed you they enjoy it, and are proud of it, for fuck sake, is not the CCP spy telling you this, is the peon, and peasant who lives there tells you this, not me!

And is wechat bad?, WECHAT IS FKING GREAT, in what way? It's a onestop shop for everything you can imagine in China that you need. Is wildly advanced in a way, people outside of China has problem understand how it works, and has issue getting access to the SAME USER EXPERIENCE, because you and I are "OUTSIDERS" we are not Chinese CITIZEN, so we are a problem for the CHINESE(CHINA MAINLAND) financial system, they want to do business with us, very much, so is every person on the street of CHINA, and they want OUR USD, they want to SELL product, and just fucking live together. China and USA is literally the biggest enemy and friend in the past 40 year, is like going through a marriage we had fun sleeping and fucking with each other, now here comes the daily life, who gets the say on what we eat and wear. Oops. Who complained when Kungfu Panda was a thing? Who complained when WOW released mist of pandarea, yeah, I guess so.

You know "Software Engineer" just got in the game with data collection and processing, a little earlier before the rest of the world. The term "DATA SCIENCE, BIG DATA, ML, AI" is also very fucking overloaded right now. For fuck sake.

You think the engineers have fun collecting every piece of information that we know that can be collected and have fun looking at them? FUCK NO, WE HATE IT. It is an Engineering problem, but we ALSO FUCKING LOVE it. Because we really care about "DATA", because that's how we keep the FUCKING SYSTEM RUNNING, why do you think we have 24/7 on call rotation at Microsoft on my team, every other 8 weeks or so, everyone of us has to do one, some sister team was so under staffed they had to be on it every other 4 weeks.

You konw my reason I didn't want to be a doctor? Because as a fucking kid at age of 10, I saw this thing called Pager doctors carried around, so they are "ON-CALL" for emergency operation to keep us monkeys alive. I FUCKING SAID NO TO THAT. The reason I became a "Computer Science Student" in 2008? Because I somehow made into college as a fking High School Drop Out mind you? And I wasn't particularly interested going to school, I only went because I had nothing better to do, and the fucking SAT I took when I was in 10th grade before I dropped out of high school, it just passed the freaking lowest line that can apply for University of Kentucky mind you? That was the year we had the fanancial crisis right? I was in the cohort of student that had the lowest number of student enrolled in the department because no one wanted to be a SOFTWARE ENGINEER because jobs were going offshore. So why did pick that ? Both my parents are freaking Chemist, one of them got CHEMIST PHD in Germany mind you, and a professor in that freaking thing. Why did I go into Computer Science? Because I wanted to learn how to build video game? Understand how computer work? No, the reason was a freaking fluke, I picked the only degree that didn't require me to take any Chemistry classes because I slept through all my Chemistry classes without giving a F, that the teacher would only call out my name and ask me to stand up as he goes through something he think is interesting or important, and he was a DOTA2 gamer. I got full credit including extra credit in every freaking Chemistry EXAM, I never did any homework and labs. My teacher had to beg me to make up a lab after final exam so he can give me a D. I don't remember jack shit what was being taught about Chemistry. Should my parents disown me now? And the very Manager who fired me from Microsoft was a Chemistry major -> Combat Deployed Intel Officer specialized in Arabic -> Manage this asshole on his team, who was the actual bottle neck of my team. Fuck man. We all knew what was going on, you think they enjoy giving me an F grade? NO, did I enjoy getting an F? NO. We all did the best we can at all time, I was given 3 chances(PIP, meaning performance improvement) People would think I am insane, and my team and Microsoft was on some sort of stupid crack for doing this. Because the general understanding of PIP is issued and used as a nice way to tell you, go find a job right now, we don't want you. We were fucking stupid people that hated each other and we lived together for 4.5 years? In a timespan I lived way more than anyone else on this planet. Fuck no. At any given moment I could've framed the case as "Microsoft is a CLICK of group of employee running the SHOW", which Microsoft got to know by the public as in many BOOK, and pointing gun at each other, Because everyone "AGREED" that was the Microsoft Identity. I was a "Paycheck stealer" and my team and org was STUPID keep me on the payroll. That never would and was the FULL STORY. And is not even true at any given moment. The truth is, giving out an F is the last fucking ditch effort and thing anyone on this planet wants to hand out to anyone. "HATE" is not "REJECTION" is not even dislike. Dude, was I really F grade at Microsoft? In a standardized scale, ABSOLUTELY YES. Am I a RISKY hire for my future employer ? FUCKING YES, because I can't even trust myself at all time. Well, should I quit trying now? Especially I have gave out too much information. Or did I ? Or was all of this on purpose? Because every fucking experience on this planet matters for something. We just don't know. No one knows. We just somehow fumble ourselves anything or human on this planet and develops a narrative story of our own version. Fuck man. We can't even agree what does "GAY" really meaning. Come on! You know what's even more crazy? The guy on my team that by standardized test or performance was S+ teammate, literally said to us over lunch with whole team. "I think I hacked my career" -> processed to describe why he think he hacked it and he think people are crazy to even give him a chance to being IMPORTANT. Do you even know what does it means to be imposter?
And what happens next will even F your mind even more, I was the one to tell him why he did no hack his career, and why he was actually important. Because he was PRESENT, he carefully listened in meetings, he really cared, as much as I cared. I cared about every meeting too. But fuck man, when I am on these ON-CALL rotation, I am forced to not take my bi-polar medication for a whole week. Then, by time the next one rolls around, I barely am able to fix my sleep. Sometime I can pull my shit together and does something magical for a short period of time, then I goes into shit hole again. And you know what I loved doing as a way to contribute to my team? TAKE ON MORE On-CALL especially the one that was popped up as someone on my team needed to go do something as their turn came up, so I would cover their ass. I mindfully did this knowing what it entails. And what's the risk and benefit for me to do it. Because IT WAS FREE, it was an easy excuse to not do my main job. And I make the trade off of having to risk my health going to shit, because it was already shit and going to shit, so it didn't matter that much to me at those times. So I can have more FREE"DOOM" to better finish my MAIN job and CONTRIBUTE to the team. At any given moment I could've also made a case against MICROSOFT for labor abuse, HEALTH abuse, WTF you want to frame and put it in. Did I ? Did I ever think they were abusing me? Should my teammate appreciate me covering their ass? Or should they be mad not care about my health and running it down MID SOLO? Fuck man, is not black and white. Neither is right or wrong. That's just the problem and condition(CONSTRAINS) as a team collectively we had to work with. Did you think these ONCALL are really FREE? Wait for the time that call actually happens during 1AM, the next time 4AM, and you have PTSD about phone ringing anytime of the day, then later at my last 3 months at Microsoft I can only sleep 1 fucking hour each day no matter what I tried, my doctor tried to even add/switch medication, the worst, strongest kind of sleeping aid you can fucking think of. This was the same time I had the guts to tell my manager with a doctor note that I am excused from ONCALL. The option was on the table the whole fucking time, my doctor told me straight up the job is not even good for me. But what's "GOOD" for me? I loved it! It was really fun, I got paid a lot, I missed out on the last 2 year of Stock refresh. and..... other things.


Now something even more F your mind is going to come next.

Giving this particular date, when we talk about tech company, a lot of people will have a better feeling about Microsoft as a Cooperation, or "CLAN TAG" more than "Amazon", especially the "Software Industry People" at large will tell you Amazon was the shit place to be. And you know what was it like for me? Every time I went to pike place, someone with an Amazon badge passes by was like a fucking thing passed by me and I dream about being at Amazon, a lot of the shit I took action and stand by was from freaking Amazon's Culture you can find online. And I failed so many Amazon interview to this date I can't even count, always on the same stupid Algorithm question, that the Amazon interviewer, HR if given time to dig into my profile, they will be stunned and actually baffled, and left with head scratching like WTF. I am not kidding, what is the algorithm? Back Track, is simple as HELL, but I cannot do that one on a white board , because I am not interested enough to fucking MEMORIZE THAT SHIT in my head. If you ask anyone from Amazon, they will tell you the hardest part of their interview process is not the coding, it is the culture fit question. Then look at my profile again? See the irony here?

Look, I am giving out bunch of seemingly unrelated thing in this thread. My point still the same. Can we make sense of the real problem at hand before try to give a way to solve or how to take action on it first. Thank you my fellow keyboard warriors.

On April 25 2024 18:34 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote:
Okay, it's a easier question to answer when the question is not as vague, and it is more specific. I will give an example from my religious belief, that a lot of westerner on this forum should be far more familiar than I am that comes from the bible. You guys are using term about middle east, brown people, gulf. That's fine, nothing wrong. we are here talking about something trying to make sense.

A little background about myself. I am Chinese, I look like Asian, I have yellow skin, black eye, I was born in China, I am a Christian, I am a neutralized alien in the US. I am currently a US citizen. I celebrated 911 in Chengdu, China(The CITY YOU JUST HAD ONE OF THE BIGGEST IEM CS2 event in past month) On that day, no one organized anyone to go, but there was like a bunch of Chinese celebrating 911 happened. I got to watch 911 happen on live television on Phoenix TV station from Hong Kong at that time. I donated money, quite a bit to President Trump, I am an Ex Microsoft Software Engineer. I shit talked Chinese government to a point that I am afraid to go back to China. I have uninstalled wechat, reinstalled wechat, uninstalled again. ( This is also my only communication tool with my extended family and many friends including StarCraft Community in China, even people that are outside of China) Many people I have met over time are still on my contact list, they are used for me to be disappearing. So some irony here, XiaoSe, the Chinese version of Artosis has a nick name "Poison Milk", he is beyond famous from the gaming community. To a point that DIOR, the luxury brand for women purse, and cosmetic items made a freaking lip stick that had name with a meme referring to this freaking thing. XiaoSe is sort of forced into the position by some god damn dumb luck being cursed.

Okay that's a lot of shit right? JINX, that's the western term the caster use, or the "caster curse", XiaoSe was way ahead of the freaking game with that curse, well, guess what people in China do? Before they go take a really important exam, they actually goes on XiaoSe's Channel like a god damn temple, and make a huge donation, asking him to wish them fail their exam in order to reverse engineer the exam grade. When you ask most Chinese their religious belief, they will say with confidence they are atheist they believe science and math.

I had the chance to know XiaoSe personally and have his wechat from long time ago, and he knows damn well who I am. To a point, I am afraid of XiaoSe for a very different reason, I say XiaoSe is scary or poison not because of these meme or Jinx power. Because of myself, there was this one time, I have not spoken to XiaoSe in forever, during his live broadcast with F91, the guy was trying to hype up the broadcast room about Olivera(ID TIME at the time), This was sometime in 2018, I don't recall when exactly, this was the same time I was having a god damned MANIC episode from my bi-polar. So what does this mean? Well, basically my brain is on short circuit, the logic is fucked, I thought I was Jesus, not because I had some super natural power, because my brain was on malfunction mode. And I literally thought it was a funny thing to tell him that POKER FACE means ..... um... let me think for a second how to do this translation here. So let me actually give some context again, so in order to hype up the audience for Olivera, and making Olivera a big deal to the viewer, he kept talking about this word (牌面), without any context, this can be taken in a few different direction. Anyhow, in the specific scenario it was meant to be used for being BIG DEAL, that was the message he was trying to convey. Then I decided to mess with him on wechat while he was broadcasting live, telling him that 牌面 is POKER FACE in English, he instantly used my message from private chat and started running away with it. Then as I was actually mentally ill, I started messing with him talking about how Microsoft was working on a project about AI in gaming and bla bla bla. This was all made up nonsense because I should've been in a mental hospital at that time, but I was not! So the real reason I have decided to delete him on my wechat contact is because he is a freaking safety concern for me. Is he really as poisonous as people say? For most people actually HELL NO, for me ? ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY UNSAFE! I can go on about that story for my manic episode being bi-polar, can you imagine you have been hospitalized twice 10 years ago, you never thought this would ever happen again. And you noticed signs that your brain is starting to malfunction, especially you've had an incident you like literally CANNO SLEEP meaning YOU CANNOT SHUT YOUR EYE AT ALL, you are so TIRED, but yet unable to sleep, your brain still has some logic, it is hyper active. AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE SLOWLY losing your logic, the world you had been familiar is starting to become blur, it is slowly fading away. You know if this doesn't get fixed, you will be so scared, because you have done things that was scary, it was dangerous, and the police took you away, you were locked up in a mental hospital because the system at large was functioning very well. But at first, it was the first time in my life, that I have lost freedom. In what sense? I have lost the freedom to go beyond a certain area on this planet. But in reality we are literally stuck in the same prison called EARTH! What's the difference ? What is free? What even constitute a boarder or a WALL, what are you defending against? Okay, this looks like a rabbit hole, and where am I leading with all of this build up? Okay long story short, my manager at Microsoft was confused at the time, but he know what was going on, he kept telling me my health is more important than anything else, was more important than the job I had at Microsoft, was way more important than the company.

Well, did I get help this time? I guess in someway I did, my cousin picked me up and took me to a nearby Emergency room. The doctor gave me some medication, but this was like a Saturday night, so the pharmacy couldn't fill my medication until Monday. So AHHHHHH! What do I do at this time? I am dying, like actually emergency, but ....... the doctor just like get me a prescription and makes me get the med. Okay? What next? I did get some help, my mom literally out of no where had to find some old medication I had 10 years ago in our cabinet from my old room fly 4~5 hours half way across the country ASAP, the first flight she could get a hold of, this includes lay over, so the total travel time was like maybe 8~10 hours. Just to get me some medication, I can finally sleep at this time. But was I getting better? NOOOOO, I went back to the emergency room like 2~3 more times, I don't remember, both time my mom drove me there. Both time I was having anxiety attack, in a sense I know I am right before starting to have a panic attack, in a more specific way that I almost is in a third person view of myself, I know I am alive, I can move my leg and arm, but I cannot feel my body like I unusually do, from a nerve perspective, something is wrong between my legs and arms. This physical state is a crazy state, is a disability? is it ? Depends on how we categorize things, even bi-polar, in a medical and social setting, I am disabled person. But this problem or quirk I have, is also sort of my super power. Is kind of crazy I can say that out loud in public with confidence right now at this moment, but you know how long did this take? I don't have a Facebook/meta account, I once had it, I deliberately deleted it, I was even cautious having a LinkedIn account, because I know at any given moment something goes wrong, I will ruin my life involuntarily.

I am speaking about these things in public with my real name and real identity of real history and story. If I am told by the US government or whoever has my balls in their hand right now, and I am forced to go on a suicide mission regardless I like it or not, at the moment I don't have a choice? Who do I go on that mission with? Given my background you might think I am going to go with bunch of Christian from Church? HALLELUJAH!? RIGHT? FUCK NO! I don't go on that kind of mission with people I only see once in a while depending on how "CLOSE" I am with GOD on a surface level, meaning how holy I feel, I am so moved that I will show up in the church, I will go to the bible study, I will go do all of the things that a TRADITIONAL Christian would do on a routinely bases.

If I can pick anyone in the world to go with me, who would I pick? Bill Gates? Elon Musk? Trump? FUCK NO, I only know these people because they ARE "POWERFUL, RICH, IMPORTANT", important because they have a lot of things people wish to have. Yet no one really know them, NO, frankly, sometime I think they themselves would be confused too about who they are, but of course they know themselves better than we know ourselves than we do. Why? Because they are more successful? In what ways? What's the rubric?

Well, then how would I make the pick? Okay, I have not stated the mission objective either right? You guessed it by now, I actually don't know either, because I don't have a clear mission objective, I can't make the pick. I could tell you how I would make the pick on the other hand. I would pick someone who has a really good specialty skill, that one thing the guy/girl does is super magical no one else can. And I know his/her worst problem. I just needs to know how do I enable his magic, and what absolutely cannot be around this person if I want to use him/her.

Okay, let's use 2 world famous story as example with all the junk background about myself I have posted here that I claim to be true, which is. I am not going to make any names public here, but if you are any decently skilled hacker, someone who knows me a little bit can go verify these things.

1. Last supper from Christian Bible → Jesus was the leader, he had literally the power to pick anyone, and he knew that Judas was going to betray him, in a sense Judas’s life’s calling or mission on EARTH was to betray Jesus. And in Bible, there are some “strange” description about Jesus\GOD, which says something along the line before you are born, God already knows who you are. So are the villain always a bad thing? Are the villain the worst of humanity? HELL NO, because, he was here to proof something for Jesus perhaps? How are our deeds going to be judged by GOD? If we believe in eternal life, and how do we know we will be in “HAVEN?” Shit dude, everyone of the disciple was crucial for the mission, there were witnesses got to write the story to tell, JUDAS was on a SUCIDE mission to …save humanity in a weird way? But of course as human, we don’t want to be JUDAS! Everyone wants to be some of the other 11 disciple, some even wants to be JESUS. But they only want the magic power of JESUS as it was described, they didn’t see JESUS as a leader was the first charged into the battle and died first……. So that’s my analysis of Jesus’s choice of a suicide mission.

2. OG’s back to back miracle DOTA2 TI RUN, depending on how you frame the run, if we are talking about the chance of them winning TI even once, let along twice in a row back to back, it is called MIRACLE, basically….. pretty much not a single person including themself thought it was possible. It was a GIANT FLUKE, but it FLUKED twice! Now some of us are like worshiping them are some kind of GOD. Okay, that really depends on how you frame the run and what they are, they are just really human here, doing human thing, and proving a point to the world we are very capable, we have not unlocked our collective full potential at all! At the same time, we are all messy human just like anyone, you think people respected OG in DOTA professional community? Some people hate them with a passion, because they are “cheesy” or ……don’t play fair or by the rule…. because they didn’t play a standard game by their definition of dota. I know this, because I spoke to some dota pro on a personal level from Europe. Because they were my coach at certain time to help me improve on the game. So how did n0tail pick people? You will have to watch the documentary and understand better, I don’t want to go into detail here. He just literally scraped bunch of people together as last ditch effort. Like he actually had bunch of ways to select teammate, tried bunch of things, KuroKy was doing samething, so was the Chinese Team, maybe sometime I should like do cross cultural background story of how players teams are like and the scene are like for both Chinese and Western audience. I think these people story is what really interesting. It isn’t the game, it isn’t the winning, I mean yes it’s very nice to be n0tail and Ceb to have millions at their age for playing video game.

So again, remember said I would pick the suicide mission team to make highest success chance? DUDE, suicide just a word that means low chance of success. So my whole life has been on some sort of stupid suicide mission. Because…… the list is too long, like I just dropped out of high school gambled and bet on my future being SCBW pro where there wasn’t even money involved. Can you even imagine being a Chinese kid, who’s COUSIN, freaking working at Microsoft in 2007 in Seattle, he never attended US University, he was a freak of his own kind, he was born in a small town in China, he freaking wrote his first computer program on paper because China opened up to the world at the time, so we had Computer Magazines, he was a hacker, gamer. His father, my uncle was a radio nerd for his time, basically tried to listen to radio station in China that was underground. BRO, not long before that China was so locked up that if you expressed anything that against the government you were JAILED, beaten up, even killed. My grandfather was in the PLA during the Chinese CIVIL WAR. He fought some of the deadliest war, his whole Unit of 1500 or so solider got sent in to attack and put the flag on a major Chinese City in North West somewhere. Only 50 people survived, my grand father literally did this thing where ever the artillery shell bombed, right after that, he would jump into these fresh bomb holes, and wait for the next shell to come, then jump to that one, there were literally people who just got bombed still had breath, but was on their last breath, begging my grandfather to save them, these were his friends…..and…… FUCK MAN. And guess how my grand father ended up? He got CANCELED, CANCELED, CANCELED during the great culture revolution in China, because MAO, the GOD of China at the time, wanted to stay in power. So he pulled this thing to make the mob to hate each other. Because my grandfather went to school at a time when it was unusual to even know how to write or read, he said something cheeky to bad mouth the government, basically was joking about how the “Cafeteria” served the rice soup, like depending on how many people, the rice was the same, they just added more water. Because in my hometown, ChengDu, Sichuan, PEOPLE WERE STARVED TO DEATH ON THE STREET RANDOMLY!!!! We didn’t have enough food. FUCK MAN, And it was remembered in most Chinese’s mind as the great 3 year natural disaster, it was a fucking LIE. That was on my mom’s side. And on my dad’s side, my great grand father had 2 whole district of real estate that was owned by our family, just got take a way by the Chinese Government. And now, my cousin’s father, the eldest son of the family literally sings and praises the government, the same freaking THIEF literally took everything from US.

And depending on who you ask, FREEDOM is a very very broadly used term, even the term FREE has to be determined before we can have a meaningful conversation. Because sometime I don’t think we human understand what is a thing of VALUE. And very few people understand this. That’s why only a few people are rich, because they did very meaningful work. Most of the time, meaningful and valuable work are not actually paid upfront. Remember the wright brothers? Ah yeah, World Famous DAYTON, OHIO. To this day, US Air Force still have a super big base over there. Who still remember the “Blizzard of aero dynamic experts and the rich kid at that time?” FK NO, we just remembered these 2 dudes who were freaking bike shop owners. Hello? So what is really value? Can you give me a definition of value first. What really matters to you, not the stupid Saudi/Chinese money thing. Because I think we(AS IN GAMER COMMUNITY) fucking deserves this only. You guys laughed at Riot being 50%+ controlled by TENCENT, you guys laugh at League of Legend NA Tournament sponsor FTX, and TSM is being sponsored by FTX. and CSGO tournament basically being sponsored by bunch of betting organization. And you are here to whine and complain about we are not being treated fairly? WELL SHIT, we are the problem collectively, when was the last time you paid a fee to see something related to streaming/twtich/gaming. And you whine about there are whales in games. You want it to be fair, so you can grind it with your “TIME”. Well here’s the problem, our value is not solely based on TIME/MONEY, it is a very complex set of attribute depending on the situation. How much you donated to your cause, whatever it is, is not how much money on a number basis. For example, it is not a clear cut of say $100, $200. So you see these $ dollar sign here? In this post, given all the things listed above, you would auto equal that to US dollar, right? Because I am “AMERICAN!” for fuck sake, an AMERICAN WHO CELEBERATED 911 happened, should I be cancelled now? AM I THE hypocrite you guys been hunting for? HELLO, I am holding my red scarlet, I am the witch, now have fun stone me to death as mobs.

You wanna know something even more funny? In my experience, 80%~90% of the mental hospital where I got hospitalized (JAILED, FORCED) , I’ve been to 2 of these mental hospital myself as a patient, one in midwest, one in Seattle. Wanna know something even more ironic? Well, fuck a high number of people are talking about Revelation , the last chapter from BIBLE. And some Chinese friend of mine, a lot of them tells me that religion is the tool used to keep poor people happy. WELL FK NO, it lasted over years, it lasted over change of Government, it have been the cause of the war, it made CRUSADE a thing. Isn’t it a really funny thing, that even in BIBLE, it says people who reading KURAN will have more people, more popular. THESE ARE THE BROWN PEOPLE WE are discussing here. I have not had the chance to read KURAN or speak Arabic, I would love to. Is it against my religion? FUCK NO, I believe in my religion because I am trying to be a human, and trying to make sense of my monkey brain. And this is the only book that tells me the truth, nothing but the truth, and I can’t stand it sometime. And frankly it drive a lot of people crazy, some are locked up in Mental hospital, some are running a clown show in top of our government. And then, you will say, I support TRUMP because of this ? FUCK NO! I support trump is a complicated matter, is not a clear cut reason, because I fear what we as Chinese American had been through of said true family stroy above happens again. DUDE, I have no where else to run to on this FUCKING PLANET CALLED EARTH! FUCK, help me please. Now, should I hate MIKE PENCE, because in many Christian’s eye, he is a traitor, he is live clown show JUDAS, and many people are on this holy grail of making the new speaker Johnson a freaking GOD of some saint sort……. Fuck, stop, we are all here trying to be HUMAN, and trying to co-exist. Before we start talking about all these “COMPLICATED WORLD AFFAIR” Can we take care of our own community first? Should I hate Biden, the left, the woke, the DEI movement, the Microsoft the cooperation? Fuck No, we are just bunch of monkey who has a chance to hack the system. Everyone of us. Fucking stop please.

Now here’s something even more that happened to me that is going to F your mind in some way. I am a Christian, I am a Gay Christian, I freaking Believe in Jesus.

Take this sentence above at face value. is this some sort of April 1st Fool’s joke? Maybe?

Am I serious? I am god damn serious, with every word I used.

What do I mean?

Find yourself a old webster dictionary oxford version say from pre 2000 perhaps you’ll understand, these may not exist easily somewhere. Okay, you don’t have to go that far. Once upon a time, GAY’s literal meaning was happy for fuck sake.

So when I first came to the US, I was a Chinese boy who wanted to make friend as an ALIEN in a place called USA, I didn’t spoke English. But I had this portable electronic dictionary. It was preloaded with some old version of English/Chinese dictionary. So actually every fucking word I put here is freaking true. Because I am a happy Christian. And I was actually being asked if I was gay by the American boys, 2 white kids in middle school at age of 14. This was a repeated question that lasted over and over again for about a month.

Here’s the loop:

American boys: “Are you gay?”
Me:”Yes“ Smiling with a happy face with excitement

American boys:”So you like boys?”
Me:”No.” With a very confident look.

Then I proceeds to try to put my arm around the two as if they were my best friend. That was how dude hang out with dudes in middle school in China in 2002 for fuck sake.

So I am very much against “LEFT”(meaning policing our word usage), “DEI” in a form that we need to be aware of the use of our word. I mean DEI is actually fucking great step forward, but look, we are just policing the wrong thing here. God damn it.

Because over time word meaning changes, it gets blurred. Even the term free is a fucking useless overloaded term that needs to be digested. So imagine that you are a fucking US intel officer that’s tasked to track down the terrorist in the middle east, during the gulf war, Iraq, Afghanistan. You don’t speak their language, because language on a surface level, you maybe sufficient with Arabic on a basic, even highly skilled. But the intrinsic meaning and use of word, you don’t know, because the real bad actor is probably trying to hide information from you. And they are actively using the MOB(Civilian) as a layer of defense against you, they get to become ghost from StarCraft, they have cloak, they can go “invisible”. You can only shoot them when they shoot at you. Fuck, that is hard.

And guess what? Back in 2014 or so, I went to Dayton Ohio to attend a hack event. Basically US Air Force Base in Dayton, the US Air Force Research Lab(AFRL) and the US Special Operations Command(SOCOM) held a joint hack event, anyone can get to it could’ve entered. They didn’t require back ground check. I was still a Chinese citizen at that time. I went to that because I was going to any Hack event or start up event trying to learn English and how to build a good product. I had the weirdest skillset in almost any of the given event I went to. I was “jack of all trade, expert of none” I know just little bit enough to make sense of things, but I can’t do anything of real implementation of anything.

So, you had a big bunch of people from ……..well, students, Air Force cadets that were enlisted with freaking Uniform showed up, Air Force Lab PM. You had fucking US MILITARY personnel that literally told me in the face how they were able to get the combat airport, forward airport runway back up running, in case of someone bombed their fucking fuel tank on site. With in hours. And he literally told me the secrete sauce it was like a free cake. Fuck man. So I know how that works. And he told me how Israeli company that has a way to catch credit card fraud.

And I lead a team, that was formed on free will interests basis. We had some really big personality clashes at times, that I had to use something out of the ordinary to put off the fire, just something I literally read in a book a few days before. And the AirForce personnel noticed it afterward as we did some recap of the event on a personal level. It was a 2 day event, what did I get out of it, 2 days of free food, a T-shirt that has “AF & SOCOM” and a airplane on top of that. To most people this meant dogshit nothing. But here’s the coincidence and irony of my life?

What was the project then? We had choice to pick from working on how to help drone operator effectively control and manage 2~4 drone at the same time remotely. How to multitask better, this was really interesting! But I had no idea how to solve this one both technically even on a high level. So I passed.

What did I end up working on ? This “project/mission/task” basically boils down to this scenario, you have bunch of dudes taking photos from combat zone in front line, trying to catch the bad guy, you had some human expert translator in forward post or base. How can you return the translation result the fastest? Well I presented a solution proposal use the off the shelve market solution with some IBM API for translation ( shit they were the sponsor at a previous event I went to, so I had chance to mess with their cloud at that time) How many people even still remembers IBM for fuck sake. Let along know they have a cloud business. So basically I presented a solution proposal, and I demoed it was possible to do the “crucial” part. The other parts of the solution was already proven, but it was used to solve other problem for something we all uses everyday, part of the solution was even using an old tactic that polices uses when computer wasn’t even a thing. Fuck man, I got a backpack from Google, because they were also sponsor for that event. Then, we got first place from that, okay, we got invited back to the Air Force Base to talk to the expert from AFAL&SOCOM, see my name on this forum, the SF I got when I was a teenager ? It was my dream to become a special force sniper sort of thing. Yet I am scared to go see these people? Why? Because I was a CHINESE, CHINESE CITIZEN, it felt weird enough already helping US military improving the combat and intel capability of a country I am categorized as ALIEN, dude, ALIEN, hello? It was even more weird now I might know too much, and too connected to some people, now that both side has something they want from me, I would be sandwiched between my 2 favorite place, US and China. Fuck, if there was ever a war happen between this two place, where the fuck do I go? What do I even do? It’s like asking me to fight for my family and friends, at that point, both were my family and friends. Fuck man. It’s like Russian fighting Ukraine, you can have “FREE ELO” on the “MORAL RANKING” of your own definition, you are not put in question, the real question, a real test, to show your true color. So please stop. This whole thing is non-sense, this whole war is non-sense, maybe some can even argue that whole human race existence is non-sense. Depending on the constrain and frame of the question, everything is true. At the same time, if you flip a few switch and the opposite is also fucking true. Do you know where the switches are?

You know what’s in the “RUSSIAN” dudes head right now? You see a shallow label on this forum that tells you he is from Russia. Some other dude is Chinese, some dude is American, Some dude is Polish. What does this even mean?

You never worked hard enough, or put enough sacrifice(the true value), because you enjoy free thing, including myself from time to time. To even think about what matters. So why does yours or my opinion even matter?

Bro, twitter is a problem? NO, it’s fucking great, but it is at the same time problem. Is TikTok the real problem? You think it’s going to make this country called USA any better? Short term depends on who you ask, everyone will feel a bit of victory, minus the few people has their whole living livelihood build on it. What’s the real problem. America is land of FREE, FREEDOM, UNITED STATE. okay, that’s famous. land of FREE, we are long gone from the slavery days right? FUCK no, we are maybe some can argue the worst time in term of freedom dude. WE ARE THE SALVE OF OUR LAZINESS, we are only subject to our VALUE. what is true VALUE? I am writing bunch of nonsense, if you made this far, you are reading BULLSHIT from a HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUT. A BIPOLAR, a MANIC person from Mental Hospital. I have a PHD, called permanent head damage. I am very good at make sense out of non-sense, because my brain can go out of control against my will. I am LAZY(FREE) ass who is 36, divorced, living at my parent’s house, because is FREE, I was fired from Microsoft 2 years ago by my favorite manager, who I had some of the most utter respect for. Guess what’s the irony? HE IS A FUCKING RETIRED COMBAT DEPOLYED US INTEL OFFICER who specialized in Arabic language, had been in the trenches of these area you guys giving name of BROWN people and GULF. You know what his reaction about UKRAINE RUSSIA WAR? I spoke to him on our first one on one since the war had broke out, I had a list of question I wanted to ask him about the war, he addressed me the first thing, any war will be Humanitarian CRISIS, PEOPLE ARE DYING， HOME ARE BOMBED. PEOPLE ARE DYING!!!!! You think these people just bomb places for fun? Guess what? Some of my friend proudly put some kind of fucking sticker with some kind of “WOMEN” with “Javelin” on their social profile and other things, and were talking about it like cool thing. The same people who is happy to marry a Chinese girl, use Chinese stuff, and then speak very badly about Chinese government and work condition at same time. Okay this last sentence isn’t very clear, I am only using this in context to show you how stupid and monkey brain we are. And I love both my manager and this friend of mine who was the latter. They are my favorite people!

Because my manager showed me what is like to be building a system. You know what my team at Microsoft did? We sort of is the last bottle neck before you guys/kids/gals/girl/people uses Microsoft Office, we make it possible for you guys to use it, and make it possible so that the world can get their hands on the product. I had RUSSIAN teammate who was genius, I had Jewish American TEAMMATE who is great, I had ASIAN teammate who is amazing, I had Black teammate who is very very smart! I had Indians, which a lot of Chinese people will have a low respect for, for no reason(mainly because we are closer to them geographically, and so we kind of have a “beef” with them for nonsense reason) Is like Harvard vs MIT kind of stupid competition. You get my idea. I didn’t feel any issue with that sort of diversity people talk about. The real diversity issue I had was I was so far right on political and some of the thing “LABELED, and CATEGORIZED by the MASS MEDIA standard” I was really upset to a point I was questioning myself am I destroying freedom in my own hand working at Microsoft, which led my manager to question my motivation on the job, which ended up the firing. WHICH he as an INTEL officer, can’t have full picture, he will draw conclusion based on his best knowledge and information he has. Fuck man. Do you even understand what are all the dynamics involved in a single situation. What is even the game we are playing here?

Look, by all these things i have told you so far. I have managed to drop out of high school, I have managed to get a divorce, I have managed to get fired by Microsoft. I don’t FIT anywhere for fuck sake, should I type GG NO RE, and disconnect from EARTH now? Maybe I should try to hitch hike a Starship to Mars? Because this place doesn’t make sense to me? Hello? Help me? Help yourself?

The answer is simple, this place is way too interesting for me to “LEAVE THE GAME”, I am in the game, is fun as hell. But at the same time, in real life, you can’t do save and load, you can’t cheat, you can’t get “FREE” units we all whine about , remember “Swarm Host”? Remember Infested Terran SPAM? Remember The Zerg fucking thing that shots free units from Sky?

When was last time you made a meaningful decision in your life? When was the last time you had to be presented a test, do or die? Fuck man. Don’t even try to wish for it. It’s fucking STUPID! Because we are all STUPID, we are just HUMAN, STUPID Monkey. You know why MONKEY is kind of good? MONKEY BUSINESS! OG WON, GG! Okay, that was a really long shit ass rant. I hope you enjoyed the ride, It might be a little long, but anything worth read is probably long, because you have to really dig deep into the matters we are talking about.

So I don’t think China is the problem, I don’t think CCP is the problem. I don’t think Chinese is a problem. I think China is a really fucking large untapped Market with a great potential, I think you cannot get rid of Google( because I cannot get away from not paying youtube ) for my own purpose. I don’t think Biden nor Trump is the problem, Nor Christian, Gay People, Brown People, Arabs, Saudis. WE ARE COLLECTIVE THE PROBLEM! NOW GO F yourselves, for F sake.

Because we collectively got F on this problem.

F it man. Do it in the most Facebook fashion, fail fast, move fast. Go fix this stupid thing, so we can get back to Gaming, I want to rekt some more noobs in video games.

On April 27 2024 00:41 Nakajin wrote:
Still haven't decided if I'll watch or not though, which was part of my initial goal if I'm honest.

On April 28 2024 16:21 Branch.AUT wrote:
With tourism and events coming to the country, so will new opinions and ideas. This could lead to an opening of rigid public structures and shownanpath to equality.

Manahel al-Otaibi, who promoted female empowerment on social media, was arrested under anti-terror laws [and sentenced to 11 years in prison for ‘support’ of women’s rights.]

Her case follows a slew of similar cases in which Saudi women, in particular, have been subjected to draconian sentences for using social media accounts to express themselves. They include women such as Salma al-Shehab, sentenced to 27 years, Fatima al-Shawarbi, sentenced to 30 years, Sukaynah al-Aithan, sentenced to 40 years, and Nourah al-Qahtani, sentenced to 45 years.

On May 22 2024 03:53 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote:
Sorry for a late reply, I meant to drop right after my time out by my mod.

My one sentence stance about the OP topic that is being voted originally.

I don't give a shit who provides money to ESPORT, I am here for the GAME STARCRAFT FOR LIFE. I was born to play STARCRAFT and DIE TRYING to play STARCRAFT.

I already acted out (HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUT GRADE 10 or 11, US high school in 2007). To play STARCRAFT FULL TIME.

I hide myself under a bridge from my old apartment when I was 14, just to make sure my parents went to work, "GOT IN CAR, DRIVE AWAY" I go right back to my apartment back then, OPEN THE ONLY LAPTOP belongs to my DAD, "HIDDEN by me first thing I woke up or didn't sleep doesn't matter in the morning" TO KEEP playing STARCRAFT.

And first week I arrived USA, in WKU in Western Kentucky of USA, LMAO

I SNEAKED OUT walked 2 hour without knowing a SINGLE "ENGLISH WORD" I got to even learn when my family moved from CHINA > USA, 1st fucking week. I solo walked after 11:30pm or so when the whole HOUSE went to sleep,my bed was in a walk out basement, so I PRETEND I WENT TO SLEEP WHENEVER I got cut off from my dad's laptop. I carried my CHINESE EDITION REAL BLIZZARD EDITION StarCraft CD to WKU public library that was meant to open for students that were going through college there. LMAO

I went in there like it was free NET CAFE on a random joint in CHINA since 1998 was a thing.

1 way walk distance 2 hour. I went every night, and walk back every night 2 hour. POLICE GIVE me odd look due to my age solo walking in dark on street oF KENTUCKY! 2002 the year was then. LOL I was 14, my dudes.

Do you really think I give a shit about "MORALITY" when it comes to playing or watching STARCRAFT?

干死黄旭东

XiaoSe knows me personally for a god damn reason, LOL.

I had met TASTELESS 2007, he DON"T REMEMBER me, but he was at WCT 2007 WOLRD FINAL SEATTLE back stage for w/e TV STATION , I was the "PJ - WCG 2007 WOLRD #2 after STOCK #! " 's Chinese/English translator.

I got stupid RUSSIAN TV station shot at me in THE NEWS ROOM for PJ's interview. I decided Russian dialect "ENGLISH" is the "HARDEST" to understand for me. not INDIAN ENLGISH by most Chinese speaker.

okay, long story short, I already done ESPORT in front of the COLLECTIVE 2007 WCG Seattle crowd on the stage with a press badge represented "SINA.com", I managed to hack my hand on after arriving at the door DAY1 as a first round regional LOSER WCG USA in somewhere MID-WEST. my first round opponent in 2007 was FUCKING REKRUL[PG]. That is my god damn tournament "LUCK" defined "CONSTANT" any time I play "ESPORT", "DESTINY, FATE"

1st rounder loser chronical enjoyer. ADDICTED.

That's how much ESPORT matters to me, and the rest of the BS I listed out by detail in my previous responses.

Sorry guys.


Many of you only heard Boxer/Yellow plays pro poker. But I know every single PRO that went into that POKER shit, and I know these people personally, if I want to meet up with BOXER yellow, I just need to ask my friend Lin, lmao. I know where to meet BOXER /YELLOW 24/7, and I can get a personal time with BOXER 100%.

"I don't care" -> true answer stands true, and vote was fucking perfect. I just hijacked the thread for a moment.

I am back to close the loop i throw everyone for. Thank you for your time.

By the way I am Chinese, 36, currently LEGALIZED ALIEN of USA.

I also donated a stupid design "ALGORITHM, STRAT" for free to SOCOM(GOOGLE SOCOM USA). LOL.
How to "SCOUT bad actor"

Secret recipe in 2015 at DAYTON OHIO AIR FORCE BASE.

SO I literally am a virtual SPECIAL FORCE SNIPER that truly did work for US Special Force.

My service was free, time of service done, NATIONALITY: PRC CHINA.

You guys think I give a shit WHO shoots who matters?

CCP ? FREEDOM?

GO F yourself guys. I am hallucinating everything into your mind. SO IDRA rage quit was a PASTENCE REALITY HUK.

HUK HUK HUK USA USA USA USA CCP CCP CCP.

ONE WORLD ONE PIECE, I don't give a shit. thank you for listening to my life's true STORY.

Bye.


PS: LinkedIn Users -> PurE)Rabbit-SF redirected to this page: HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHHAHAA, now pay me a 1b $.

I accept all possible transferable $ including bitcoin, and shit coin.

On May 22 2024 04:37 Balnazza wrote:
Ignoring the troll, dude on drugs and/or badly written bot (I really can't decide what is the most fitting here):

There is currently an interesting debate in the Handball-world, since Saudi-Arabia apparently decided to "nope" out of it. Saudis don't want to host the World Cup and they gave up the Club World Cup (isn't it funny that no matter the sport, all these "Club World Cups" always seem to be in SA, Qatar or China? Weird...)

So some people are upset about that, thinking it is a bad sign for Handball as a sport, that it is not globally appealing enough for the Saudis to sink money in. Which is extra-bad considering that the Handball World Cup actually allows mercenaries (you are not barred to play for other nations like in Football, you just need to wait out some time...I think two or three years?).
On the other hand, for example the President of the German Handball Association, isn't really fazed by it, pointing out the hypocracy that some people constantly blame Saudi-Arabia, but still hunt their money like crazy.

Considering how "small" Handball is and globally not-attractive compared to other sports, I think it is an interesting comparison to SC2.

On May 22 2024 05:05 WombaT wrote:

As far as I gather handball is vaguely comparable to snooker, it’s quite big in a few countries, but it’s not really a global sport.

Snooker now has its Riyadh Masters, with some murmurings of the World Championship ending up in Saudi Arabia, its historic home’s contract being up for renewal and the venue needing some work etc.

Players are a bit split, but this pays their bills after all.

Fans? It just makes very little sense to hold the World Championship there. It’s only a relatively mainstream sport in the UK and Ireland, with some interest in mainland Europe, the odd Canadian or Australian pro and has quite a decent presence in China which is its only real growth market.

If there was a Saudi interest in growing the sport, they’d fund the sport itself and not Saudi-based events specifically. Aside from ethical concerns, this is also a big basis of my criticism for these forays into SC2. They’re actually not that structurally beneficial to the overall scene and a vanity project as much as anything else. I also don’t feel SC2 will actually last long as a showpiece event on this Saudi circuit either.

I’m unsure about the handball example, had they arranged to hold these events and pulled out subsequently or what? Interested to hear a bit more!

On May 22 2024 06:06 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote:
Thank you everyone, I got physically timed out by 911, since 4/30 Boston EST, IN and out of a MENTAL HOSPITAL, just today, 5/21/2024. Thank you everyone for listening to my rant.


Thank you.

My vote "I don'care"

I have nothing to say anymore.

Thank you everyone, for everyone, MOD + SMURF ALL LIKE, thank you all. See you guys another day when I am "more normal"

But I was here on my join date for the game, so Really, trust me, I don't care.

On May 22 2024 05:05 WombaT wrote:

As far as I gather handball is vaguely comparable to snooker, it’s quite big in a few countries, but it’s not really a global sport.

Snooker now has its Riyadh Masters, with some murmurings of the World Championship ending up in Saudi Arabia, its historic home’s contract being up for renewal and the venue needing some work etc.

Players are a bit split, but this pays their bills after all.

Fans? It just makes very little sense to hold the World Championship there. It’s only a relatively mainstream sport in the UK and Ireland, with some interest in mainland Europe, the odd Canadian or Australian pro and has quite a decent presence in China which is its only real growth market.

If there was a Saudi interest in growing the sport, they’d fund the sport itself and not Saudi-based events specifically. Aside from ethical concerns, this is also a big basis of my criticism for these forays into SC2. They’re actually not that structurally beneficial to the overall scene and a vanity project as much as anything else. I also don’t feel SC2 will actually last long as a showpiece event on this Saudi circuit either.

I’m unsure about the handball example, had they arranged to hold these events and pulled out subsequently or what? Interested to hear a bit more!

On May 22 2024 17:27 WombaT wrote:

That just sounds bloody awful. Is the World Cup vaguely equivalent in Handball to the football one?

On May 22 2024 17:27 WombaT wrote:

That just sounds bloody awful. Is the World Cup vaguely equivalent in Handball to the football one?

On May 22 2024 14:11 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Hardly any money is needed to have fun competition. EA NHL '94 and Super Tecmo Bowl have fun competitive scenes with evolving metagames for more than 30 years. In EA NHL '94 there are AI programmers working on the game. If the AI is ever revamped it really won't be an EA game.

There is no "need" for big money. In fact, I'd say money wrecks the fun spirit and makes things too serious.

This doesn't just apply to Starcraft eSports. big money Top level pro hockey now sucks. big money Top level baseball is garbage. The huge amount of money behind those sports makes them have zero resemblance to the games played as a child and teenager. In baseball, every player weighs 225+ lbs and they are all 6'4" and up. The pitchers all throw at 99 MPH and are 6'6" tall. They get arm operations every 2 years because they are throwing pitchers that wreck their arms. In big money baseball... arm operations are a big part of the game. The sheer size of the pitchers has thrown off the balance of the primary interaction between hitter and pitcher. The pitchers are so tall and throw so hard and so steeply downhill that it forces every at bat into either a walk, or a strike out or a home run. its boring. In hockey the players are so big using $300 hockey sticks no longer made of wood that there is no room on the ice to do anything. Hockey is dying in Canada... and deservedly so. Its being strangled by the emphasis on money.

Top level, amateur hockey and baseball are still great fun. The games still resemble what they were 30,40,50+ years ago.

Wardi's events are more fun than these big money SC2 events. And, I'll bet you they are also more fair.

I've read various posts over the years where people want to boycott Saudi Arabia. I suggest do better than that. Give money to Wardi or other small local organizers who put on cool events.

On May 25 2024 15:11 Kitai wrote:


Yeah you're right, I didn't realize it was still ongoing, edited my first post.

On May 25 2024 10:38 sidasf wrote:


Good lord you cannot be serious.

Serral, Clem, Reynor, Hero, Byun, Maru, Dark, Cure, Solar, and more-90% of these players would disappear off the face of the earth if SC2 funding was depleted.

Money does not "wreck the spirit". This is an absurd notion. Money draws in players, it pushes players to hone their skills, to play SC2 full time, to spend time on it, to be able to earn a living. Dreamhack drew in over 60k viewers on Twitch only months ago-tournaments inspire people to play SC2, to join it, and don't forget-they allow people to fly in from all over the world to celebrate their love for SC2 and have a good time. People who make a living off SC2 content such as Pig, or pro players, or even thousands of casual fans.

There are still hundreds of players that play SC2 because of the money. On top of the aforementioned, say goodbye to players like Elazer, Showtime, Oliveira, Bunny, SHIN, Scarlett, Astrea, and more.

And say goodbye to wonderful content creators like Pig, Steadfast and Wardii who earn their living by casting high end tournaments.

If you think losing out on saudi funding won't destroy a massive portion of the community and lifeblood you are in for a terrible surprise.



Ah yes, "whataboutism", the classic non-argument people use when they get called out on their hypocrisy. Nobody is trying to "justify the Saudi's human rights record", that's an argument you completely spun up yourself.



Like hell it doesn't. You're joking, right? You don't get to pick which human rights abuse matters and which doesn't. You can't pretend to care about human rights where you are supporting tournaments that are funded by the US which has comitted endless human rights violations.

Where are your protests for every single other ESL tournament that is explicitly funded and sponsored by the US military? Are you aware what the US military has done?

They have very recently bombed, murdered, and tortured innocent human beings in the middle east. CHILDREN lost their parents. They lost their houses. They were brutally murdered. Almost four hundred THOUSAND innocent Iraqi civilians killed by the same US military sponsoring tournaments.The US government not too long ago sprayed agent orange all over innocent people in Vietnam after invading the country-go spend a few minutes on google to see the horrifying terrifying disfigurements the US military caused in innocent Vietnamese children. What entitles you to think you can wave away these horrific crimes?

Guantanamo bay where the US tortured and sexually humiliated people. Endless cruelty. MKULTRA where the US government literally kidnapped and drugged US citizens. US cops continue to relentlessly butcher black men and women. US government imprisons women for trying to get abortions in countless states and territories.

You completely ignore all these heinous crimes, and you're happy to support the bloodthirsty US government. But when people want money in SC2 from Saudi Arabia, you lose your mind. Tier A hypocrite without an ounce of awareness. Born bathed and raised in the bathwater of George Bush and Donald Trump. America, fuck yeah!



Yes, their government butchers and tortures people, and commits many other horrific abuses, just like the US government does, just like most of the EU do, but people like you seem to think it's okay when it's white countries doing all the butchery.



Wait until you learn what the Olympics is. The US wrote the book on sports washing and are experts in destabilizing entire swathes of countries to protect their own interests, destroying the lives of millions living there in the process.


Oh and don't even get me started on how the US government is now literally aiding in the genocide of untold thousands of innocent CHILDREN in Palestine.

Same with Armenia!



Are you going to be making this same ruckus when we go to Dallas in 2 weeks? If not, then you are virtue signaling and are a tier 1 hypocrite.

If you really cared about human rights, you'd stop supporting genocidal dicatatorships like Azerbaijan as they invade Armenia proper to commit ethnic cleansing and even more heinous things I cannot describe her. Who are you kidding, I'm sure you're happy to buy a bunch of nice things for yourself that are from Azerbaijan (and the wonderful genocide denying Turkey, too).

Boycott all that petroleum your US government buys from SA? How about all the products made in blood, plastic, steel products, and more. Naw, you're happy to keep filling your gas guzzler with gas from SA. But oh no, they're spending money on SC2, god forbid.

If you're allowed to support the US government and military, then by every single means, people are allowed to support the Saudi government spending money in SC2.

EWC has as much to do with the butcher of Saudi women as US sponsored SC2 tournaments have to do with dead children in Afghanistan killed by the US military. You just don't like the fact that human beings who are ethnically SA are doing this.

And you know what? People are supporting them. Last time we had pillars of the community go to Gamers8-Pig, Rotterdam, Lowko, Artosis, Tasteless, Wardii, ZombieGrub, and more. At the end of the day, the people who matter are able to set aside their prejucides and keep SC2 a lively, fun game. As for some other people, forever a stick in the sand of racism.

On May 25 2024 10:38 sidasf wrote:


Good lord you cannot be serious.

Serral, Clem, Reynor, Hero, Byun, Maru, Dark, Cure, Solar, and more-90% of these players would disappear off the face of the earth if SC2 funding was depleted.

Money does not "wreck the spirit". This is an absurd notion. Money draws in players, it pushes players to hone their skills, to play SC2 full time, to spend time on it, to be able to earn a living. Dreamhack drew in over 60k viewers on Twitch only months ago-tournaments inspire people to play SC2, to join it, and don't forget-they allow people to fly in from all over the world to celebrate their love for SC2 and have a good time. People who make a living off SC2 content such as Pig, or pro players, or even thousands of casual fans.

There are still hundreds of players that play SC2 because of the money. On top of the aforementioned, say goodbye to players like Elazer, Showtime, Oliveira, Bunny, SHIN, Scarlett, Astrea, and more.

And say goodbye to wonderful content creators like Pig, Steadfast and Wardii who earn their living by casting high end tournaments.

If you think losing out on saudi funding won't destroy a massive portion of the community and lifeblood you are in for a terrible surprise.



Ah yes, "whataboutism", the classic non-argument people use when they get called out on their hypocrisy. Nobody is trying to "justify the Saudi's human rights record", that's an argument you completely spun up yourself.



Like hell it doesn't. You're joking, right? You don't get to pick which human rights abuse matters and which doesn't. You can't pretend to care about human rights where you are supporting tournaments that are funded by the US which has comitted endless human rights violations.

Where are your protests for every single other ESL tournament that is explicitly funded and sponsored by the US military? Are you aware what the US military has done?

They have very recently bombed, murdered, and tortured innocent human beings in the middle east. CHILDREN lost their parents. They lost their houses. They were brutally murdered. Almost four hundred THOUSAND innocent Iraqi civilians killed by the same US military sponsoring tournaments.The US government not too long ago sprayed agent orange all over innocent people in Vietnam after invading the country-go spend a few minutes on google to see the horrifying terrifying disfigurements the US military caused in innocent Vietnamese children. What entitles you to think you can wave away these horrific crimes?

Guantanamo bay where the US tortured and sexually humiliated people. Endless cruelty. MKULTRA where the US government literally kidnapped and drugged US citizens. US cops continue to relentlessly butcher black men and women. US government imprisons women for trying to get abortions in countless states and territories.

You completely ignore all these heinous crimes, and you're happy to support the bloodthirsty US government. But when people want money in SC2 from Saudi Arabia, you lose your mind. Tier A hypocrite without an ounce of awareness. Born bathed and raised in the bathwater of George Bush and Donald Trump. America, fuck yeah!



Yes, their government butchers and tortures people, and commits many other horrific abuses, just like the US government does, just like most of the EU do, but people like you seem to think it's okay when it's white countries doing all the butchery.



Wait until you learn what the Olympics is. The US wrote the book on sports washing and are experts in destabilizing entire swathes of countries to protect their own interests, destroying the lives of millions living there in the process.


Oh and don't even get me started on how the US government is now literally aiding in the genocide of untold thousands of innocent CHILDREN in Palestine.

Same with Armenia!



Are you going to be making this same ruckus when we go to Dallas in 2 weeks? If not, then you are virtue signaling and are a tier 1 hypocrite.

If you really cared about human rights, you'd stop supporting genocidal dicatatorships like Azerbaijan as they invade Armenia proper to commit ethnic cleansing and even more heinous things I cannot describe her. Who are you kidding, I'm sure you're happy to buy a bunch of nice things for yourself that are from Azerbaijan (and the wonderful genocide denying Turkey, too).

Boycott all that petroleum your US government buys from SA? How about all the products made in blood, plastic, steel products, and more. Naw, you're happy to keep filling your gas guzzler with gas from SA. But oh no, they're spending money on SC2, god forbid.

If you're allowed to support the US government and military, then by every single means, people are allowed to support the Saudi government spending money in SC2.

EWC has as much to do with the butcher of Saudi women as US sponsored SC2 tournaments have to do with dead children in Afghanistan killed by the US military. You just don't like the fact that human beings who are ethnically SA are doing this.

And you know what? People are supporting them. Last time we had pillars of the community go to Gamers8-Pig, Rotterdam, Lowko, Artosis, Tasteless, Wardii, ZombieGrub, and more. At the end of the day, the people who matter are able to set aside their prejucides and keep SC2 a lively, fun game. As for some other people, forever a stick in the sand of racism.

On May 28 2024 06:48 Cyro wrote:


“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”