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To say that GOM should've asked the players if they wanted to play or not is ridiculous. Why should GOM need to ask? Its a mutual agreement in the sense that if you go in the booth, you have agreed to play? If you don't want to play then dont go in and tell the official that you dont want to play.
"In another comparison, Slasher shows how other major sports handle less significant exhibition matches where teams will bench their major players essentially showing that they are not concerned with winning." Does those bench players that goes out and play still try the best of their ability? The answer is yes, although they are not as great, they are still trying their best. The problem here is that it was not a team league, its an individual league. What he did was very disrespectful to fans and the event holder. Your argument of "what if he actually won" is quite bad. Nobody from the GSL will win with that rush, lets be real. And if you do a strategy with 0% chance of winning, is that not throwing a game away? (unless you wholeheartedly believe that Naniwa had a chance of winning...)
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On December 15 2011 05:40 robopork wrote: Finals this week, haven't been watching, so thanks for being the one thread in the sea on this issue that actually takes the time to explain what happened.
Naniwa's actions were disrespectful to the fans to be sure. But gom was treating him like a circus animal- "here kid, that starcraft stuff you do makes for a great party trick- entertain our fans so we can sell premium tickets, even though this match is of no fucking consequence."
Naniwa was rude at worst, but it's really on gom's shoulder's for not having clear standards. If gom wants players to play meaningless matches and the players know that going in because of clearly defined and promulgated rules, that is 100% gom's prerogative. Although honestly, I don't even know how you word that. Play hard even though we're insulting your intelligence?
I think Idra nailed it, if the match doesn't matter, the player shouldn't have to care. Furthermore, as a fan of both Naniwa and Nestea, I'll be honest, I don't really care either. The narrative matters at least as much as the quality games, if not more. If all I want is starcraft for starcraft's sake, I'll go ladder or watch replays.
I'm not even sure it's fair to say that Naniwa should have "played to win." In the big picture sense that every player is thinking in, namely winning a title, it was already out of the question, thanks to gom's ridiculous structure.
tl;dr I think there's a point at which starcraft is not about victories in individual games but about winning in a bigger sense. If a tournament can't offer an opportunity for the latter to a player, how on earth can they expect them to take it seriously? Throw some charity dollars at it if you want a good game, don't just use players to pad your own pockets and then act like you're the victim.
I completely agree and to further expand I would like to know how GOM can bend a very vague rule about proffesionalism to enforce it on a probe rush in a game that doesnt matter at all. It's funny to me the people that don't think GOM is at fault here, with their horrible tournament format and bending of the rules to punish something they didn't like. I really hope the MLG seed contract negates this and nani gets into code s.
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my objection to the OP, which is overall excellent, is that it doesn't seem to include anything about the rules used to disqualify naniwa. many of us who have been commenting on other threads feel that, apart from the issue of naniwa doing something right or wrong, gom does not seem to have a rule that disqualifies this in a clear way. the rules it does have are incredibly vague, about as vague as statements like "we wanted a progamer, not just some guy who's good at sc2." there's a reason you don't want vague rules - they're very open to arbitrary application by whoever has power. think about when you were a kid. did your parents have a rule that you weren't allowed to be "disrespectful". this rule was probably initially vague. it started to seem more clear after they punished you over and over for it, and you started to sense what you could do and what you couldn't, but that doesn't make those initial punishments fair. just as you didn't have any reason to know that their interpretation of the vague word "disrespectful" contained certain things, there's no reason naniwa should have known that this action was "unfit for a gamer," "offensive," "abusive," or any of the other things that are actually in the rules.
i feel that it merits noting that many of us also feel that this points up a persistent problem with the esports scene, which emerged quite clearly in mr. chae's comments. it's simply not good to have an organization that intentionally devalues people who are motivated by money. that leads to a lot of abuse of the players and the employees. there's already enough twelve-hour days for little pay in korean esports. here a good analogy is to college athletics - it's a scandal when a star quarterback gets some sort of kickback from his school or a donor, but it's no scandal when a linebacker gets five concussions and can then neither play football nor graduate college due to the injuries. while using language that suggests that he's looking for adults, mr. chae's words actually express a desire for gamers who don't protect themselves in an adult way by looking out for their own interests. a good esports scene requires that progamers *must* be aware of what they're giving up to play and *must* be intent on protecting their own interests, monetary or otherwise.
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I think Doa actually made a really good point about why that game may have been played. The Blizzard cup is a tournament, sure, but it's mostly wrapped around a celebration of the past year of Starcraft. What with the awards going out at the finals, with a lot of major tournament winners being invited. It's all for the fans, and a Naniwa vs Nestea rematch is something a lot of people want to see. For Naniwa no matter how badly he doesn't want to play that game at worst he gets a game of practice against the best zerg in the world, but he decided to take his ball and go home
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Read what Doa has to say about it. I thought gives a pretty good idea on the details for both sides.
Doa's blog
It reminds me of a thread we had a while back that was discussing if we thought Blizzcup was a regular season or a special event. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=293352 Majority agreed that this was indeed a special event, and I thought so too. Keep that in mind when you think about if a game in a special event match is meaningless.
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How is GOM at fault? GOM made a tournament, put out the format. If you think the format is stupid then by all means, dont join the tournament. When you agree to join a tournament, you need to abide by their rules even if it means playing "meaningless" game.
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On December 15 2011 05:40 robopork wrote: Finals this week, haven't been watching, so thanks for being the one thread in the sea on this issue that actually takes the time to explain what happened.
Naniwa's actions were disrespectful to the fans to be sure. But gom was treating him like a circus animal- "here kid, that starcraft stuff you do makes for a great party trick- entertain our fans so we can sell premium tickets, even though this match is of no fucking consequence."
Naniwa was rude at worst, but it's really on gom's shoulder's for not having clear standards. If gom wants players to play meaningless matches and the players know that going in because of clearly defined and promulgated rules, that is 100% gom's prerogative. Although honestly, I don't even know how you word that. Play hard even though we're insulting your intelligence?
I think Idra nailed it, if the match doesn't matter, the player shouldn't have to care. Furthermore, as a fan of both Naniwa and Nestea, I'll be honest, I don't really care either. The narrative matters at least as much as the quality games, if not more. If all I want is starcraft for starcraft's sake, I'll go ladder or watch replays.
I'm not even sure it's fair to say that Naniwa should have "played to win." In the big picture sense that every player is thinking in, namely winning a title, it was already out of the question, thanks to gom's ridiculous structure.
tl;dr I think there's a point at which starcraft is not about victories in individual games but about winning in a bigger sense. If a tournament can't offer an opportunity for the latter to a player, how on earth can they expect them to take it seriously? Throw some charity dollars at it if you want a good game, don't just use players to pad your own pockets and then act like you're the victim.
sir there are clear rules in korea
its called the korean civil code
it says that you have to fulfill your contractual obligation in good faith.
naniwa and gom were in a contractual obligation when they agreed that gom agreed that naniwa was allowed to play in the gsl and get prizemoney if he gets far and naniwa agreed that he will do his best in his matches knowing that broadcasting the games and pleasing fans and sponsors alike is the financial ground of the business of gom.
what naniwa did was a breach of this contract and normally in such case gom is entitled to terminate the contractual relationship and claim damages.
they did not terminate the contractual relationshps entirely but only partly and did not claim any damages.
why is there a need to have clear rules when the applicable law already has a solution to this ?
Also I dont agree that idras argument makes sense.
the tournament format was known before naniwa participated. he surely had the option to let other players (like marineking or jjakji for example) participate instead of him if he did not agree to the format
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On December 15 2011 05:40 robopork wrote: Finals this week, haven't been watching, so thanks for being the one thread in the sea on this issue that actually takes the time to explain what happened.
Naniwa's actions were disrespectful to the fans to be sure. But gom was treating him like a circus animal- "here kid, that starcraft stuff you do makes for a great party trick- entertain our fans so we can sell premium tickets, even though this match is of no fucking consequence."
Naniwa was rude at worst, but it's really on gom's shoulder's for not having clear standards. If gom wants players to play meaningless matches and the players know that going in because of clearly defined and promulgated rules, that is 100% gom's prerogative. Although honestly, I don't even know how you word that. Play hard even though we're insulting your intelligence?
I think Idra nailed it, if the match doesn't matter, the player shouldn't have to care. Furthermore, as a fan of both Naniwa and Nestea, I'll be honest, I don't really care either. The narrative matters at least as much as the quality games, if not more. If all I want is starcraft for starcraft's sake, I'll go ladder or watch replays.
I'm not even sure it's fair to say that Naniwa should have "played to win." In the big picture sense that every player is thinking in, namely winning a title, it was already out of the question, thanks to gom's ridiculous structure.
tl;dr I think there's a point at which starcraft is not about victories in individual games but about winning in a bigger sense. If a tournament can't offer an opportunity for the latter to a player, how on earth can they expect them to take it seriously? Throw some charity dollars at it if you want a good game, don't just use players to pad your own pockets and then act like you're the victim. I don't agree with the circus animal point.
Let's say that I offer A and B $500 each to play a 1 game show-match with each other. Suppose that both players agree. Now suppose that A simply attack-moves in his 7 probes in this show-match game. Has A disrespected me?
I would argue that yes, Player A has disrespected me in this instance by not playing out the game.
This show-match example is, in many ways, very similar to a tournament where all players receive a prize, and where there is a round-robin tournament where all games are played. In such a tournament, it is always possible that some games may not affect the outcome of the tournament. However, these players are still being paid (the minimum prize) in order to compete in this round-robin tournament.
The game may not "matter" in terms of cash compensation or future tournament matches, but that does not mean players should simply be allowed to throw the game without consequence, just as I would not want player A in my hypothetical above to simply probe rush in the show-match I took time, effort, and money to organize.
I think there may just be cultural differences here, as some people believe the purpose of this tournament is solely to crown a winner, and anything outside that purpose is meaningless, whereas others believe that playing the scheduled games themselves are the value to the tournament, not just determining the winner.
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On December 15 2011 05:55 thatsundowner wrote: I think Doa actually made a really good point about why that game may have been played. The Blizzard cup is a tournament, sure, but it's mostly wrapped around a celebration of the past year of Starcraft. What with the awards going out at the finals, with a lot of major tournament winners being invited. It's all for the fans, and a Naniwa vs Nestea rematch is something a lot of people want to see. For Naniwa no matter how badly he doesn't want to play that game at worst he gets a game of practice against the best zerg in the world, but he decided to take his ball and go home
If the naniwa vs nestea game was that big and such a crowd draw, then they shouldn't have held it at such an awkward time in the tournament. The blizzard cup may be a "celebration of esports" but it is still a tournament with a prize pool and a set of rules. Nobody is saying what naniwa did is good which is what alot of posters are misunderstanding. We all think nani is an idiot for doing it, but we also think GOM is completely wrong for bending their very vague ruleset to punish a player who had no clue it was even against the rules.
Not even considering that the mlg/gom partnership is a legal contract and gom likely doesnt even have the right to take away the seed.
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On December 15 2011 05:55 thatsundowner wrote: I think Doa actually made a really good point about why that game may have been played. The Blizzard cup is a tournament, sure, but it's mostly wrapped around a celebration of the past year of Starcraft. What with the awards going out at the finals, with a lot of major tournament winners being invited. It's all for the fans, and a Naniwa vs Nestea rematch is something a lot of people want to see. For Naniwa no matter how badly he doesn't want to play that game at worst he gets a game of practice against the best zerg in the world, but he decided to take his ball and go home
Exactly this. I stayed up all night to catch Naniwa vs Nestea rematch given their history together. What I got was a professional being on tilt (due to previous games) then ultimately being unprofessional doing a probe rush that has 0% of winning.
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Although Naniwa didn't break any rules, he should really work on his professionalism. He is a progamer, not some amateur. He plays on the big stage live in front of thousands of fans and the least he can do is provide some showmanship. I know the game is meaningless, but at least do some wacky build cheese or something. Cannon rush? Proxy gates? Swtich race to Random? (is that even allowed?)
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On December 15 2011 06:07 ilikeredheads wrote: Although Naniwa didn't break any rules, he should really work on his professionalism. He is a progamer, not some amateur. He plays on the big stage live in front of thousands of fans and the least he can do is provide some showmanship. I know the game is meaningless, but at least do some wacky build cheese or something. Cannon rush? Proxy gates? Swtich race to Random? (is that even allowed?)
We don't know that he didn't break any rules. The Blizzard Cup isn't a regular GSL, I don't think the regular rules apply word for word. There's probably a lot more that we don't necessarily know about when it comes to ruleset. It could be likely due to the nature of the event that "all games will be played" was in there
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On December 15 2011 06:25 thatsundowner wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2011 06:07 ilikeredheads wrote: Although Naniwa didn't break any rules, he should really work on his professionalism. He is a progamer, not some amateur. He plays on the big stage live in front of thousands of fans and the least he can do is provide some showmanship. I know the game is meaningless, but at least do some wacky build cheese or something. Cannon rush? Proxy gates? Swtich race to Random? (is that even allowed?)
We don't know that he didn't break any rules. The Blizzard Cup isn't a regular GSL, I don't think the regular rules apply word for word. There's probably a lot more that we don't necessarily know about when it comes to ruleset. It could be likely due to the nature of the event that "all games will be played" was in there
I think this was more of an "exhibition tournament" than anything else.
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Nani should have just done some 4-gate allin, or rather a strat that isn't so obviously throwing the game, so silly of him.
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I think we should all create a blog just to give our opinions separately. There's only something like 4 threads on this.
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i feel like i agree with naniwas standpoint but it seems the real problem lies in the system of communication and organisation in these tournaments and relates to what artosis was talking in a recent state of the game
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