Quantic Gaming, a North American eSports team with squads in League of Legends and StarCraft 2, appears to be breaking apart. The team's CEO went missing two weeks ago. Well before that, he'd stopped paying his players.
Simon Boudreault, Quantic’s 23-year-old Canadian owner, has not been in contact with Bernie Catalan, the team’s chief operating officer, since an instant message on Dec. 13. The last time he spoke to anyone in his company was a brief conversation with the team’s media manager on Dec. 17.
Prior to disappearing, Boudreault told friends and associates in the eSports industry that he was going to get a biopsy on a lump on his lung. A source close to Boudreault says he quoted doctors as saying there was a “double digit percentage that the found matter would be cancerous.” The Daily Dot was unable to independently confirm this. Repeated calls to Boudreault’s office at his family’s IT company, as well as his former employer, Sustema, were not returned.
And re: Hyun
Ko "HyuN" Seok Hyun, a Korean StarCraft 2 player on the Quantic roster, has not received his salary of about $1,300 per month for several months, according to several Quantic staffers. Although Hyun had been talking with Boudreault about recouping lost pay, the two have since lost contact.
I feel bad for HyuN, when MasSan came out and accused the new Quantic of scamming him, HyuN even defended the team and said it isn't bad at all. Well, now he probably lost a bunch of cash and needs to join Liquid (pls).
Hm, I just realised that there are so many players I'd like on Liquid: Feast, Sen, HyuN, viOLet, Bomber...
On January 01 2014 07:48 Hadronsbecrazy wrote: thought someone like HyuN would get much more salary than that. Flash and JD get like 6 digit salaries dont they?
6 digit over a year. 1300 a month is minimal wage where I live, but for a progamer that's pretty decent I guess.
On January 01 2014 07:48 Hadronsbecrazy wrote: thought someone like HyuN would get much more salary than that. Flash and JD get like 6 digit salaries dont they?
Probably not. I remember the salary of Stephano that was leaked once was about 9k a month, so I doubt that JD gets much more. Flash I don't know, but I don't think he gets anything close to his BW salary these days.
When the interest wanes - the sponsors drop - the money dries up quickly
It's phenomenally expensive to run a team - it's often done on passion and sheer enthusiasm rather than business acumen - a lot of these "CEOs" are just normal guys with little or no experience
Great when the game is highly popular - a sinking ship when the viewer numbers diminish
Competitive computer games are not like competitive sports in a business sense - football is here to stay, so is tennis, so is golf.. computer games? 100 come out a year.. the market is heavily saturated.. it's highly focused (LoL players watch LoL, SC players watch SC, counter-strike players watch counter-strike).. and so on and so on
SC2 is on the decline.. when the next expansion is released there will be a brief spike of interest, before it spirals down into grassroots only competition, few pro-players and so on
I've been there for the rise of some of the first E-sports games, even playing on teams at their peaks, then their slow deaths, and there for the next big FPS game, the peak.. rinse repeat.. the same with the companies.. seen dozens go down.. when the popularity drops, it's just a black hole for money
I love games, and I was hoping for SC2 to gain "critical mass" to form a chain-reaction of popularity across the globe - it almost almost did, but not quite. We've had the golden years. I still love it, enjoy it, but we all know what's happening.
There's still a couple of years left in SC2 and will continue to enjoy, even behemoths like LoL will have limited shelf life - but more people than ever are playing games, from iphones to full on PC's.. so if there's ever a Starcraft 3.. and it's free to play.. mmm
EPT
