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On July 12 2025 09:05 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 05:48 ZombieGrub wrote:On July 12 2025 05:35 WombaT wrote:On July 12 2025 05:03 RogerChillingworth wrote:
People who still want to support SC2 with their money is their business, and I would never expect anyone to cast or organize something for free. But this patreon shit does seem manipulative to me, and has gotten totally out of control. The rhetoric of “saving a game” does a good job of tenderizing people for their cash.
Tasteless does the same thing in StarCraft 1. His slogan is “keep the memory of Brood War alive”. More like keep the career of Tasteless alive. Alive and soaring.
The ASL patreon makes 11K per month in the off-season. I switched to Korean commentary years ago and haven't looked back.
I think Tasteless should prove he cares enough about something to do it for a lot less money. Or do something else. He just comes across as a guy in a suit with metal eyes, instead of the funny dufus he was like 15 years ago. The last thing you want is that slimy feeling with someone you once thought was cool. Who knows though, maybe Tasteless was always a secret asshole. Probably.
There's my wild accusation of the day. Call it a hunch.
To anyone who does support these patreons: see if Tasteless, Artosis, State—whoever else—will still cast with a smaller budget first. If they refuse to cast a game on a much smaller budget, or refuse to give a larger chunk of the money to the prize pool they're casting, it should tell you something about their character and whether you should maybe pull back on the funding. You've probably earned your money and should spend it more intelligently.
I hope I get banned. He went out there to Korea on a wing and prayer and fudged a pathway via passion but I think people forget that Tasteless has been a salaried caster for 15 years now. Just because his interests at one point aligned with mine, doesn’t mean he’s been doing it purely for the love in the past. I don’t think he lacked interest necessarily, but I think this framing of Tasteless is way off base. It’s holding him to a past standard that he never really actually embodied himself. Personally I just prefer Stateless to other options, but I haven’t chosen to dig into the Patreon myself. I still think some of the criticism is fucking ridiculous at a time where EWC has shit on the wider SC2 scene from a great height ] "I still think some of the criticism is fucking ridiculous at a time where EWC has shit on the wider SC2 scene from a great height" what do you mean? he thinks it's ethically gross, like many other fans—but you prolly knew this already  Both of you can stop derailing the thread (feel free to bump the old ones tho  )
No, that is not why I asked. Why would he phrase it that way to then talk about its ethical issues? I thought he, like some others, may have the notion that EWC has impacted the creation of tournaments because of their delay in announcing the tournament. I didn't want to assume that was why he was bringing it up, so I asked. I also think it is pertinent to the discussion since we are talking about tournament creation and perhaps RSL's impact on it as well.
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the fault lies with the people giving them money.
don’t support charity when the organization running the charity claims extremely high overhead costs and most of your money doesn’t go towards what you want.
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This is clearly a cashgrab. Anyone that doesn't see that or raises their pitchforks to defend against that statement is either a Tasteless fanboy, someone who doesn't know how to do proper math, or people who don't have common sense.
I've been lurking, watching since this whole thing started and was waiting to see if others would see the clear discrepancy and the lack of transparency in how this tournament series operates.
At the time of writing the Patreon stats are: RSL
| Let's bring back StarCraft II |
1,914 members | 22 posts | $12,430/month
This is the current tier that Patreon is on:
Goal 2: Enhanced Online Seasons ($11,000/month)
Event Scope: Three online seasons of your Starcraft 2 tournament.
All features from Goal 1 <-- Remember this, as it's very important.
Launch a regular Patreon-only podcast hosted by Gemini and Ziggy to discuss events, have guest pros and community figures on for interviews.
Increased marketing and promotion efforts.
Potentially bring in guest commentators or analysts for certain matches.
Community engagement initiatives (e.g., player spotlights, fan contests).
If you read the perks of Goal 1:
Goal 1: Base level - we will be operating at this level for 2025 regardless of what level we hit
Event Scope: Two online seasons of your StarCraft 2 tournament.
Prize Pool: 5 million KRW per season (10 million KRW total).
Hosted from a new studio space in Seoul, casters would be offline and together for the broadcast
Features:
Professional broadcast production. 2 broadcasts a week during the season with professional commentators in person and together (State, Gemini, Tasteless, and more!)
-----
The features of Goal 1 and Goal 2 are pretty much the same, other than an extra online season with an assumed prizepool of 5m won or $3625 USD.
It was said that they will operate two online events with a guaranteed prizepool of 10m won or $7,250 USD total between the two. It was stated that this was going to happen regardless of how much is raised.
So, this first tier was pretty much guaranteed already going into this. Studio must've been paid. Sponsorship deals must've been agreed to beforehand to cover the prizepools, because it's highly unlikely they would use funds out of their own pockets to cover these two events. It's high risk without guaranteed returns.
And since they specifically stated that Goal 1: Base level - we will be operating at this level for 2025 regardless of what level we hit
the Patreon could've raised any amount, ranging for several hundred to a couple thousand a month and they still would've been covered for the first tier.
Have you noticed that the Tier 1 is the only tier where they don't give a figure or goal they are trying to reach? I wonder why that is? Could it perhaps be because it was all fully paid for to begin with? Or perhaps because they didn't want to correlate a specific amount to the number of tournaments ran. Because as we can see, moving from Goal 1 to Goal 2, which starts at a whopping $11,000 a month, and for what, really?
The only thing that people are getting for funding that amount are these perks:
Launch a regular Patreon-only podcast hosted by Gemini and Ziggy to discuss events, have guest pros and community figures on for interviews.
Increased marketing and promotion efforts.
Potentially bring in guest commentators or analysts for certain matches.
Community engagement initiatives (e.g., player spotlights, fan contests).
Oh, I forgot, also another online tournament spaced out in the year, with a $3,625 prizepool.
If you can't see how insane that is, let me help you do the math...
$11,000 (current patreon amount) x 12 (months in a year) = $132,000
Let's assume that everything in Goal 1 (since there was no set starting amount) was already paid for before this tournament series was shared with the sc2 community.
So their studio costs, their $7,250 prizepool, and whatever else Goal 1 needed was covered.
The only thing that people are getting for supporting the Goal 2 is an extra online tournament, and some perks that have nothing to do with helping the playerbase and scene thrive.
So that's $132,000 - $3,625 = $128,375 that doesn't go to the talent. Unless of course the casters consider themselves to be the talent, and the players are just there so they have something to talk about.
I estimate that the other 3 are getting paid $2k a month, while Tasteless is probably making $4k a month from the Patreon, plus whatever else from the ads.
Now having said all that, I also believe that people should spend their money on whatever they want to support. If they want to support Tasteless and Co. while getting some good sc2 games, feel free to continue supporting the Patreon.
But if the reason people are supporting this is because they want to help keep the scene alive and support the players, then I would ask for some more transparency, and also accountability instead of silence when people mention these things.
I, too, like Wax was super amused to see another "Documentary" included in the final tier's perks. Alas, some things just never change.
My two cents
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South Africa975 Posts
A classic SC2 and SC1 Problem - Perspective!
The sums that are being discussed here a not for "getting rich" off some poor peoples naiveté.
I'm pretty sure that all people participating in the fundraiser are working people - we are a more and more becoming an old scene, lets face it. So before I go into a patreon nowadays I made my calculations if I can afford it.
Many of "us" are middle aged men and women with some brains, so I m not really all for the "people are getting fooled or scammed" approach.
Also important: not everybody likes Tasteless in his Caster Persona, as we can see in this thread. How he is privatly? Not a lot of us know! So people dislike him and conclude, that he is acting in bad faith and trying to do whatever.
Again - perspective: not trying to defend him, just saying most of us in normal day life jobs know, that earning lets say 50 - 60 000 Dollars a year will give you in most countries a decent living condition, and not being super rich or anything.
Third - and for me the most valid question, like stated above: how is the money distributed? Not because I think Tasteless (and the others) are getting rich.
I decided not to chip in, because I follow the argument above: I feel that most of my money should go to the players, because they are giving me what I want: committed athletes trying to play their best and most entertaining games!
So called "overhead" or background costs should be covered by sponsoring and ad revenue.
For that, I would argue, more transparency would be helpful. In SC1, BSL Organizer is trying that as good as he can by showing the stats and money splits, production costs and so on.
I truly believe that such tranparancy would be helpful. I experienced it many times in other contexts, that it helps people get that: perspective. More connection, less suspicion.
Lets see how that journey goes...
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Just for some perspective, players who participate in the FIFA world cup collect less than 10% of the total revenue, granted that most of these players making a tons more money from their club anyway so nobody crying about it.
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I think people massively underestimate the costs of putting on productions like these. Even for a hybrid event like this one, the prize pool will generally be a small cost compared to the execution costs. They kitted out and are running from a professional studio, which will not be cheap at all. They also plan to reinvest some of the money into improving and growing the event - e.g. extra seasons, and hopefully going offline eventually.
Sure, the people involved are drawing a salary, because of course they aren't working for free, but I highly doubt they are seeing amazing day rates at this point in time.
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I wouldn't necessarily assume it's malicious rather than just something that was planned backwards so-to-say. I think it's pretty clear they started with the goal of making a tournament to potentially replace GSL, they would have already been planning when it was unclear if there would be GSL this year at all. But because that's a big goal, they started out big, so RSL probably has very high costs (studio, production, etc.) for something that, in its current form, could be organized and produced at home.
I think they overextended trying to make RSL appealing quickly to the audience in hopes of being able to do at least offline finals soon, but whatever is left of SC2's audience would have been perfectly happy with the tournament being run from Tasteless' apartment for a while and having better payouts for the players.
Also I don't think they're getting nearly enough money from the Patreon for this to be a viable cash grab scheme while actually putting on the tournament they promised.
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On July 12 2025 19:10 Elentos wrote:
they started out big, so RSL probably has very high costs (studio, production, etc.) for something that, in its current form, could be organized and produced at home.
yes. exactly. if you asked me "do you want this online tournament to be casted from a studio, or casted from home and the players get an extra $80,000 a year in prizepool", i would have said prizepool. I think studio is only really necessary if you are going to play offline. i dont see the point otherwise. It looks more professional sure, i guess, but how much of a difference does that really make when other online tournaments like pigsty get the same viewership. I would have liked to see it all online then if you reach whatever crowdfunding benchmark to play matches offline THEN you get the studio and production team etc.
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Northern Ireland25126 Posts
On July 12 2025 09:59 ZombieGrub wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 09:05 Waxangel wrote:On July 12 2025 05:48 ZombieGrub wrote:On July 12 2025 05:35 WombaT wrote:On July 12 2025 05:03 RogerChillingworth wrote:
People who still want to support SC2 with their money is their business, and I would never expect anyone to cast or organize something for free. But this patreon shit does seem manipulative to me, and has gotten totally out of control. The rhetoric of “saving a game” does a good job of tenderizing people for their cash.
Tasteless does the same thing in StarCraft 1. His slogan is “keep the memory of Brood War alive”. More like keep the career of Tasteless alive. Alive and soaring.
The ASL patreon makes 11K per month in the off-season. I switched to Korean commentary years ago and haven't looked back.
I think Tasteless should prove he cares enough about something to do it for a lot less money. Or do something else. He just comes across as a guy in a suit with metal eyes, instead of the funny dufus he was like 15 years ago. The last thing you want is that slimy feeling with someone you once thought was cool. Who knows though, maybe Tasteless was always a secret asshole. Probably.
There's my wild accusation of the day. Call it a hunch.
To anyone who does support these patreons: see if Tasteless, Artosis, State—whoever else—will still cast with a smaller budget first. If they refuse to cast a game on a much smaller budget, or refuse to give a larger chunk of the money to the prize pool they're casting, it should tell you something about their character and whether you should maybe pull back on the funding. You've probably earned your money and should spend it more intelligently.
I hope I get banned. He went out there to Korea on a wing and prayer and fudged a pathway via passion but I think people forget that Tasteless has been a salaried caster for 15 years now. Just because his interests at one point aligned with mine, doesn’t mean he’s been doing it purely for the love in the past. I don’t think he lacked interest necessarily, but I think this framing of Tasteless is way off base. It’s holding him to a past standard that he never really actually embodied himself. Personally I just prefer Stateless to other options, but I haven’t chosen to dig into the Patreon myself. I still think some of the criticism is fucking ridiculous at a time where EWC has shit on the wider SC2 scene from a great height ] "I still think some of the criticism is fucking ridiculous at a time where EWC has shit on the wider SC2 scene from a great height" what do you mean? he thinks it's ethically gross, like many other fans—but you prolly knew this already Both of you can stop derailing the thread (feel free to bump the old ones tho ) No, that is not why I asked. Why would he phrase it that way to then talk about its ethical issues? I thought he, like some others, may have the notion that EWC has impacted the creation of tournaments because of their delay in announcing the tournament. I didn't want to assume that was why he was bringing it up, so I asked. I also think it is pertinent to the discussion since we are talking about tournament creation and perhaps RSL's impact on it as well.
You assumed correctly, and OK my phrasing was a bit hyperbolic. But at almost every juncture, to me EWC makes calls that aren’t beneficial to the wider SC2 scene’s health.
Is having a set of show matches between washed-up legends at Gamers 8 cool? Sure. Is it worth putting more prize money into than a GSL or something in terms of wider sustainability? Probably not.
In some quarters I feel they get given a pass via a ‘please sir can we have some more?’ or a ‘well it’s all we got’ rationale.
Which, by itself I have no issue with especially. I’ve also no issue with the microscope being put on Tasteless et al either, I just find the combination of one but not the other somewhat aggravating.
In the interests of not derailing, I think they intersect here, but I’m reading between many lines and don’t have insider information.
The RSL screams to me something that was initially planned to fill a GSL-sized hole eventually. Similar format, featuring the Korean-based casters etc, offline stretch goals.
Basically what Elentos said.
Then EWC gets announced and GSL returns and you’re left with all this groundwork you did in a period of uncertainty, and what to do with it.
In a nutshell I feel the Revival boys and gals are getting criticism for trying to deliver something they wouldn’t have cooked up in the first place but for the genuinely preposterous delays on EWC confirmation.
Again, to reiterate I don’t think it makes them immune to criticism, but I don’t think some people are doing it through that particular lens, or factoring in that aspect of it.
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On July 11 2025 22:03 Toshinou-Kyouko wrote:
Show proof that Tasteless is actually pocketing the money for the prizepool
Can you direct me to where they've publicly posted their accounting journal or at least the business's (I'm assuming they incorporated rather than are running this as a non-profit) balance sheet and statement of cash flows?
I'd be particularly interested in seeing entries related to Tasteless paying the corporation to advertise his merchandise and how those payments compare to the other advertising on the event.
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I don't think it's a scam and don't really see why someone like Serral would accept and then decline due to this because they made everything clear from the beginning. It was very simple math from the moment the patreon was announced to determine that <10% of the money was prize pool. I do personally disagree with the prize/production split and chose not to donate for that reason despite regularly donating to other events that give more to the players.
I am disappointed in the scene itself for the amount of money going to this though. I'm pretty sure it's near equal to if not higher than the peak GSL patreon which was for an offline event and gave all patreon money to players (last year). I love Tastosis but between this and ASL the hold they have on the scenes money is kind of crazy. $25k/month between those two things with barely a fraction going to players. Imagine if the GSL patreon had hit $25k/month. We likely would have had at least some type of small GSL indefinitely.
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The situation is quite simple.
I will begin with an assumption: Tasteless does not have a reliable full time career besides casting at the moment. If I'm wrong about this, then everything that follows is kinda moot, so forgive me if that is the case and please let me know. I did some cursory searches online and have found nothing indicating that he is reliably employed in some other field, though.
Anyway, Tasteless has dedicated decades of his life to a career which is now in its twilight phase. He had risen to the top of the niche he occupied (StarCraft). At this juncture, pivoting to a different game and repeating the feat would be more attainable for him than most, but still a mountain to climb (yes, he has casted other games, but I will bravely assume that he did not hold the same position on the metaphorical totem pole, so to speak).
He is 40 years old. While his successful generational peers have spent the past 20 years building careers in finance, science, politics, etc., he has spent them on a video game that is in its inevitable decline and has no new installments on the horizon. While his peers have gone to graduate school, attained certifications, and developed sought-after skills which allowed them to climb their respective career ladders, he has been investing himself into this game. He cannot compete with them in their fields, just as they cannot compete with him in his. However, while StarCraft as a whole is in a decline, industries like banking, software, engineering, etc. will likely be around for generations to come.
In short, he followed his passion and is now faced with a choice:
A. Cold pivot to another industry and start practically from scratch while competing with fresh college graduates*, or
B. Pivot to a different game/scene as a caster/organizer and hope that his accolades and experience will allow him to eventually bring him to the same level of income and job stability he enjoyed in StarCraft's heyday, or
C. Milk this dying cow for every drop it has left while (hopefully) considering/pursuing A or B. I think we can all agree that unless something significant changes - such as the well-funded and well-received release of StarCraft 3 - that Tasteless will not be able to continue doing this for the next 27 years and be able to retire comfortably by casting/organizing hybrid StarCraft tournaments.
I think the choice is obvious.
So, yes, I think everyone donating to this should be doing so with the knowledge that Tasteless & co. are likely positioning themselves to be as much the talent and beneficiaries as the players are. If you don't think they deserve the "salary" they will be getting for what they are promising to do, then don't donate. If you think they deserve more, donate more. Simple as.
For example, the English-speaking BW scene - or at least hundreds of donors within it - believe(s) that Tastosis deserve $12k/month year-round to release weeks-delayed English broadcasts of ASL games. From my perspective, that is ludicrous, but it's not my money to give, and it's certainly not my place to tell donors how to spend their money. It's clear in this case that Tasteless + Artosis ARE the talent/service which is being donated to; for RSL, it can be viewed as a tournament series + that. Again, simple.
Perhaps another way of looking at it is that the community is rewarding Tasteless for his dedication to the community and the work he has done over the past 20 years, much like how our taxes are used to fund veterans' pensions. Except, in this case, it is purely optional.
Would more transparency be welcome? Of course, always. But no matter what that final $ amount going into Tasteless' pocket is, it was voluntarily placed there by the community, and I wouldn't say it's entirely undeserved.
To close out on a more personal note, I had the opportunity to hang out with Tasteless and several other prominent StarCraft people for a bit in what I think was IdrA's hotel room in a relaxed setting (not a "meet and greet" or whatever) many years ago, and he seemed like a swell guy. It's always plausible that over the course of several years and when put into a tough financial disposition, a person can pull a 180 and become a profit-driven asshole, using the good will they've built up to take advantage of the community that helped them build a career in the first place. Tasteless didn't strike me as that kind of guy, nor does this tournament seem to be a manifestation of those kinds of motivations, though.
* ETA: I guess there is also the possibility that he might get a foot in the door in some soft skill position through the connections he made in the scene, but let's just consider this a subset of this broader point.
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Regarding Serral, he said on his discord he forfeited because he wanted to focus on EWC.
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On July 13 2025 00:45 JJH777 wrote:
I don't think it's a scam and don't really see why someone like Serral would accept and then decline due to this because they made everything clear from the beginning. It was very simple math from the moment the patreon was announced to determine that <10% of the money was prize pool. I do personally disagree with the prize/production split and chose not to donate for that reason despite regularly donating to other events that give more to the players.
I am disappointed in the scene itself for the amount of money going to this though. I'm pretty sure it's near equal to if not higher than the peak GSL patreon which was for an offline event and gave all patreon money to players (last year). I love Tastosis but between this and ASL the hold they have on the scenes money is kind of crazy. $25k/month between those two things with barely a fraction going to players. Imagine if the GSL patreon had hit $25k/month. We likely would have had at least some type of small GSL indefinitely.
There is a pretty easy reason for this though: Tastosis (or just Tasteless in this case) make it pretty clear that they couldn't do it without the support and they deliver.
GSL (or Afreeca in general) from the very beginning basically said "fuck the foreign viewers, we don't need or want them". Even when the Patreon was on, they didn't care at all about the non-korean viewers, they half-assed the entire thing. Ffs they couldn't even care enough to turn the Patreon off during the EWC-induced downtime.
They really went "please finance our entire tournament and don't expect anything for it, we rather want the sixty people in Korea who watch this than the thousands globally" and you are surprised people went "nah, fuck that"?
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I genuinely don't know which is true, whether people (casters, organizers, players) generally believe the scene to be in its final moments and are OK with any money that comes their way, or if they are still very passionate about the scene and want it to be healthy and grow back even stronger over a long period of time. Depending on how you feel, you'll likely want and expect very different shit. As in, maybe you thought all hope was lost so some RSL prize money is alright with you, even if it's a bad deal and production is taking most of it. Or maybe you want SC2 to be really healthy and awesome and you think this is all a big load of crap.
If it's the latter, and I were a SC2 pro in this situation, I would form a coalition with other players that stimulates a tournament circuit that's in everyone's best interest. I wouldn't wait around for someone else to do it. I certainly wouldn't want the cookie monster of esports money to do it. Drive a truck through the thing and take the scene into your own hands. Appoint someone to lead the charge—Scarlett? Showtime? Astrea? Solar?—and hire some passionate commentators who are cool taking a more appropriate cut.
Organizing the whole shebang, renting studio space, and figuring out all the logistics is probably not second nature to most players, and might make me feel uncomfortable if all I did was play. But honestly, probably good shit to learn how to do well. You can cut the bloat and have clear, transparent finances. No more clowns at the birthday party.
But I would assume, deep down, that everyone does want a new modern Blizz-style RTS, or perhaps a diff game altogether. But the baton hasn't been passed yet, so it's awkward. It's a weird situation. Almost comical, actually. But also very sad indeed.
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As a patron I just want more transparency, that's all.
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I wonder if RSL has written permission from Blizzard to operate outside of the rules listed in the Blizzard Community Competition License.
Crowdfunding:
You must use all of the proceeds of the crowdfunding campaign for the development and promotion of the event, and you may not retain any portion of the crowdfunding proceeds as profit.
If RSL is owned by Tasteless, paying the other casters probably does not run afoul of this, but paying himself almost certainly does. If it is a shared ownership, then I can't see how they can pay themselves.
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Reading through the thread leaves me with a weird feeling. Hard to put in words:
We only have the little patreon page details to go on, and everything else is speculation, isn't it? So we don't really know what's what. What if, just hypothetically, they’re acting in good faith and genuinely trying to do something positive for the SC2 scene? If that’s the case, then some of the post here might be pretty harsh. Idk. It's not like they are unkown people in the scene that nobody here has the possibility to simply ask. Maybe that’s what we should do: ask them for a bit more transparency and see how they respond, before jumping to conclusions or heavy criticism. And maybe giving them the benefit of the doubt for now -- after all, they've been part of this community for over a decade, haven’t they?
2 posts i appreciate:
On July 13 2025 01:59 MrBrown wrote:
Regarding Serral, he said on his discord he forfeited because he wanted to focus on EWC.
On July 13 2025 05:31 Ransgor wrote:
As a patron I just want more transparency, that's all.
1 post I like to anwser to, derayling from this thread (sry & edit):
On July 12 2025 17:52 tigera6 wrote:
Just for some perspective, players who participate in the FIFA world cup collect less than 10% of the total revenue, granted that most of these players making a tons more money from their club anyway so nobody crying about it.
First of all, even though RSL and FIFA WC are both sport tournaments, is there any merrit at all to compare those two in this context?
Second, of course people don't cry out if some poor professional football player only gets 1 mio dollars instead of 10. I wonder why...
Third, why would you, in this context, name FIFA and RSL producers in one sentence? By fact FIFA is a bunch of corrupt male dudes giving zero fucks about human rights or even lifes. One could even sensibly argue they don't give a fuck about the sport they are supposed to represent...
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On July 13 2025 01:10 Jealous wrote:
The situation is quite simple.
I will begin with an assumption: Tasteless does not have a reliable full time career besides casting at the moment. If I'm wrong about this, then everything that follows is kinda moot, so forgive me if that is the case and please let me know. I did some cursory searches online and have found nothing indicating that he is reliably employed in some other field, though.
Anyway, Tasteless has dedicated decades of his life to a career which is now in its twilight phase. He had risen to the top of the niche he occupied (StarCraft). At this juncture, pivoting to a different game and repeating the feat would be more attainable for him than most, but still a mountain to climb (yes, he has casted other games, but I will bravely assume that he did not hold the same position on the metaphorical totem pole, so to speak).
He is 40 years old. While his successful generational peers have spent the past 20 years building careers in finance, science, politics, etc., he has spent them on a video game that is in its inevitable decline and has no new installments on the horizon. While his peers have gone to graduate school, attained certifications, and developed sought-after skills which allowed them to climb their respective career ladders, he has been investing himself into this game. He cannot compete with them in their fields, just as they cannot compete with him in his. However, while StarCraft as a whole is in a decline, industries like banking, software, engineering, etc. will likely be around for generations to come.
In short, he followed his passion and is now faced with a choice:
A. Cold pivot to another industry and start practically from scratch while competing with fresh college graduates*, or
B. Pivot to a different game/scene as a caster/organizer and hope that his accolades and experience will allow him to eventually bring him to the same level of income and job stability he enjoyed in StarCraft's heyday, or
C. Milk this dying cow for every drop it has left while (hopefully) considering/pursuing A or B. I think we can all agree that unless something significant changes - such as the well-funded and well-received release of StarCraft 3 - that Tasteless will not be able to continue doing this for the next 27 years and be able to retire comfortably by casting/organizing hybrid StarCraft tournaments.
I think the choice is obvious.
So, yes, I think everyone donating to this should be doing so with the knowledge that Tasteless & co. are likely positioning themselves to be as much the talent and beneficiaries as the players are. If you don't think they deserve the "salary" they will be getting for what they are promising to do, then don't donate. If you think they deserve more, donate more. Simple as.
For example, the English-speaking BW scene - or at least hundreds of donors within it - believe(s) that Tastosis deserve $12k/month year-round to release weeks-delayed English broadcasts of ASL games. From my perspective, that is ludicrous, but it's not my money to give, and it's certainly not my place to tell donors how to spend their money. It's clear in this case that Tasteless + Artosis ARE the talent/service which is being donated to; for RSL, it can be viewed as a tournament series + that. Again, simple.
Perhaps another way of looking at it is that the community is rewarding Tasteless for his dedication to the community and the work he has done over the past 20 years, much like how our taxes are used to fund veterans' pensions. Except, in this case, it is purely optional.
Would more transparency be welcome? Of course, always. But no matter what that final $ amount going into Tasteless' pocket is, it was voluntarily placed there by the community, and I wouldn't say it's entirely undeserved.
To close out on a more personal note, I had the opportunity to hang out with Tasteless and several other prominent StarCraft people for a bit in what I think was IdrA's hotel room in a relaxed setting (not a "meet and greet" or whatever) many years ago, and he seemed like a swell guy. It's always plausible that over the course of several years and when put into a tough financial disposition, a person can pull a 180 and become a profit-driven asshole, using the good will they've built up to take advantage of the community that helped them build a career in the first place. Tasteless didn't strike me as that kind of guy, nor does this tournament seem to be a manifestation of those kinds of motivations, though.
* ETA: I guess there is also the possibility that he might get a foot in the door in some soft skill position through the connections he made in the scene, but let's just consider this a subset of this broader point.
Well said I appreciate your post
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Getting a new event is awesome... if the prize pool split is like someone said <10% that would be outrageous. I hope this is not true. If so - I wish people would not donate to this one. This could be a blow to the whole scene if true.
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EPT
