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As I'm sure plenty of you have noticed, Playhem has pretty much gone completely dark over the last couple of weeks, with only points tournaments (in considerably smaller numbers) and no more Dailies or Turbos as before. Coupled with the complete black-out on their Twitter (http://twitter.com/Playhem) and their Facebook page playing host to nothing but a Steam Greenlight advert since the end of the Dailies/Turbos, this is worrying to say the least. Probably the worst part of this whole thing, and what should be setting alarm bells off for anyone, is that you can no longer withdraw money from your winnings to your Paypal - luckily I only had the dregs from a previous withdrawal left in my account, but still I end up with this on attempting to get those small few dollars out:
With everyone on the site wondering what has happened to the cash tournaments (and the cash behind them) and no real news available, the question is... what's happened to Playhem and the people/money behind it? Where has it gone?
Update
MrBitter apparently spoke to the Playhem guys at IPL5:
On December 06 2012 02:47 MrBitter wrote: I talked to a few of the Playhem guys in Vegas, and they all had very forward-looking plans. Don't freak out yet, guys.
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I wonder the same thing. But I also always wondered how they were financing this for so long?
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I kind of expected this to be honest. Was only a matter of time. Playhems $75 dailies always seemed a bit "too good to be true".
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On December 01 2012 06:17 roym899 wrote: I wonder the same thing. But I also always wondered how they were financing this for so long?
That's what I always wondered. Not to surprised they are probably gone now.
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when I asked in the playhem channel a few days ago, they said the site was under construction or something /shrug
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I hope its not staying problem, I still have a lot of money there :<
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Playhem sponsors White-Ra... other than a boring white t-shirt with their logo, what does he get from them?
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I always wondered how they make money...
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On December 01 2012 06:34 DoNotDisturb wrote: Playhem sponsors White-Ra... other than a boring white t-shirt with their logo, what does he get from them? Money?
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This is exactly the problem that the starcraft 2 scene has. We had a shit load of 25/50$ tournament, one each day. Than the "investors" from playhem come along and put 100$ fucking dollars on the line. First craft cup is gone than some ESL cups are gone. And guess what ? They can't afford the fucking 100$.
I always thought that the problem sc2 scene had was guy like these ( IPL, NASAL included ) coming into the scene with investments, realizing after 1 year or so that they can't keep up the prize pool and they are losing money and in the process "bankrupting" reasonable guys like ESL or CraftCup that could have literally grown the scene for years, steadily and with brain not with investors.
Yet people talk about that "better prize, better quality, go watch them... it's called fucking competition"... well, guess what, it's actually called stupid investors.
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I'm really just hoping that this thread will hit a critical mass and we'll get some answers sooner or later. I haven't seen White-Ra at any LANs recently (not that he hasn't been attending, I'm sure, just haven't spotted him) and it would be interesting to know if he still has the playhem patch on his jacket/a t-shirt from them and if they're still sponsoring him. The fact that pro players as well as those of us from the lower leagues have money stuck with them should hopefully see this resolved quicker.
On December 01 2012 06:52 Aterons_toss wrote: This is exactly the problem that the starcraft 2 scene has. We had a shit load of 25/50$ tournament, one each day. Than the "investors" from playhem come along and put 100$ fucking dollars on the line. First craft cup is gone than some ESL cups are gone. And guess what ? They can't afford the fucking 100$.
I always thought that the problem sc2 scene had was guy like these ( IPL, NASAL included ) coming into the scene with investments, realizing after 1 year or so that they can't keep up the prize pool and they are losing money and in the process "bankrupting" reasonable guys like ESL or CraftCup that could have literally grown the scene for years, steadily and with brain not with investors.
Yet people talk about that "better prize, better quality, go watch them... it's called fucking competition"... well, guess what, it's actually called stupid investors.
This probably also comes from the fact that they weren't just holding $75/100(on weekends) tournaments daily, but the fact they held smaller ones for every other league from bronze up to plat - a single daily is hard enough to maintain without 3 of them (IIRC)
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This has already been discussed and pros have said they can't withdraw money either. I believe the end conclusion was that they have halted their money tournaments temporarily to help pay for the recent website redesign.
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On December 01 2012 06:52 Aterons_toss wrote: This is exactly the problem that the starcraft 2 scene has. We had a shit load of 25/50$ tournament, one each day. Than the "investors" from playhem come along and put 100$ fucking dollars on the line. First craft cup is gone than some ESL cups are gone. And guess what ? They can't afford the fucking 100$.
I always thought that the problem sc2 scene had was guy like these ( IPL, NASAL included ) coming into the scene with investments, realizing after 1 year or so that they can't keep up the prize pool and they are losing money and in the process "bankrupting" reasonable guys like ESL or CraftCup that could have literally grown the scene for years, steadily and with brain not with investors.
Yet people talk about that "better prize, better quality, go watch them... it's called fucking competition"... well, guess what, it's actually called stupid investors.
Why IPL and NASL included? They haven't dropped out yet. They're still sticking with their prize packages. I understand you're worry, but isn't it a little too early to be criticizing them if they haven't dropped out yet?
On December 01 2012 06:55 oGsTrueSmug wrote: I'm really just hoping that this thread will hit a critical mass and we'll get some answers sooner or later. I haven't seen White-Ra at any LANs recently (not that he hasn't been attending, I'm sure, just haven't spotted him) and it would be interesting to know if he still has the playhem patch on his jacket/a t-shirt from them and if they're still sponsoring him. The fact that pro players as well as those of us from the lower leagues have money stuck with them should hopefully see this resolved quicker.
Well I know they sponsored IPL 4, and I don't see them on the sponsor list for IPL 5. This doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't sponsoring because their broke, but it sure doesn't help the case.
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On December 01 2012 06:57 MrCash wrote: This has already been discussed and pros have said they can't withdraw money either. I believe the end conclusion was that they have halted their money tournaments temporarily to help pay for the recent website redesign. That would explain the complete lack of any official statement with regards to this on their Twitter or Facebook, right?
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On December 01 2012 06:58 Acronysis wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2012 06:52 Aterons_toss wrote: This is exactly the problem that the starcraft 2 scene has. We had a shit load of 25/50$ tournament, one each day. Than the "investors" from playhem come along and put 100$ fucking dollars on the line. First craft cup is gone than some ESL cups are gone. And guess what ? They can't afford the fucking 100$.
I always thought that the problem sc2 scene had was guy like these ( IPL, NASAL included ) coming into the scene with investments, realizing after 1 year or so that they can't keep up the prize pool and they are losing money and in the process "bankrupting" reasonable guys like ESL or CraftCup that could have literally grown the scene for years, steadily and with brain not with investors.
Yet people talk about that "better prize, better quality, go watch them... it's called fucking competition"... well, guess what, it's actually called stupid investors. Why IPL and NASL included? They haven't dropped out yet. They're still sticking with their prize packages. I understand you're worry, but isn't it a little too early to be criticizing them if they haven't dropped out yet?
You fell like their viewer are going up ? Generally when viewer count drops every other tournament or every 2-3 tournaments that's not a good sign.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
Investors realize there's a bubble -> stops investing -> bubble bursts.
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Wouldn't suprise me if they took a unannounced off-season or something, those dudes work so hard and do a great job.
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Just think about it, Playhem was secretly IPL the whole time, cause the caster lineup for IPL includes Kibbelz, SchAmToo, Robin, Frodan, and Jorosar. Also, TSL players are doing really well in IPL, IGN was behind Playhem the whole time! They just had to pull out and prepare for IPL5!
+ Show Spoiler +I'm kidding of course, hopefully they come out with an announcement soon
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On December 01 2012 06:57 MrCash wrote: This has already been discussed and pros have said they can't withdraw money either. I believe the end conclusion was that they have halted their money tournaments temporarily to help pay for the recent website redesign.
thats what i believe too. Since SC2 are their biggest tourneys and they redesign the website.. i guess they make some changes to the way tourneys work on their page which could take some time. It wouldnt make sense that this is the end when they are improving the website. Atleast i hope there will be a comeback.
I got a lot of withdraw errors too when the tourneys were still running. Took me like 2 weeks to get my money. I was a bit suspicious back then.
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Oh, no... Playhem, dead? Feels like they should have tried something like Netflix did, appealing more to the console market, by implementing a Playhem app. tied into XBox live's dashboard, PSN's OS, etc. Their marketing, AFAIK, has been geared mainly toward PC eSports. Hopefully they haven't failed completely. That would be sad.
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