Update: 2023/01/18 - If there is any anger to direct in this blog, it is strictly towards tumba specifically because of the way he verbally manipulates people. If you go to missingmoney.com and search his real name, then you see 4 reports from enterprises that list his name I won't comment on more than that.
Forenote: I'm not angry about this (now long-gone) stage of my life. There is an element of trust required with this blog. You have to trust that the redacted information that I present to you all here is reliable - you also have to trust that the things said off the record, without screenshots, and without records, are accurate. If your name pops up in this blog, I've been more than generous with the amount of time I've been silent - anywhere from 6 to 9 years depending on how you see it.
Forenote Edit: There's way too much to write here that was going on when I was in Korea. There were other things that took place at the time that I didn't mention like getting in touch with the other bigger casters at the time and asking how to get in touch with the relevant people in Korea, the fact that I was working for ESL at the time, and a few other things (like I actually worked at Thermaltake (a company that sponsored Tasteosis and IdrA at one point) less than a year after they stopped sponsoring PRIME team).
TL;DR - You could say the agent of Tastetosis, Brendan Valdez, Tastetosis, and Tumba, conspired to steal my job while I was too chicken shit to do anything to stop them. But it's more complicated than that and it turned into a free-for-all in a manner of speaking. Now I work as a contractor/freelancer in big data. I'm not angry about it any more (though I was absolutely furious at the time this was all happening and for years that followed), this thread is meant to serve as a warning to anyone trying to do similar work that might be naive or gullible enough to fall for this kind of stuff and bring closure to myself and answers to anyone who might be curious.
Where do we begin? This is going to be a long long long story, but I'll do my best to condense it.
Part One: getting screwed my attempt at becoming a caster in Korea
If you guys remember some dude who was casting SC2 from his family's garage in America, that was me. I ran the twitch channels Enders116, ESLTaiwan, and later my own partnered channel "BreakerSC2" (now renamed to "BingeHD") It happened because I was somewhat unwilling to
In 2012 I studied abroad in Taiwan and became starry-eyed with everything starcraft and Taiwan at the time. Beforehand I knew there had to be an esports scene because I saw their best starcraft player kicking NA, EU, and KR asses at NASL season 1 and NASL season 2 over a decade ago. Being a foreigner, and studying Chinese language like it was a religion for 2 years, I sold myself the idea of going to Taiwan.
I studied abroad and got hooked on the prospect of becoming a gaming / streaming personality and shout caster since I couldn't go the pro gamer route. To that extent, I've seen some success. I became a twitch partnered streamer in 2014, but haven't streamed since 2020 now.
I built a following in 2012, but it was nothing compared to whoever was casting GSL, NASL, IEM, Dreamhack, etc. back in those days. I remember I sent an email to a "reputable" agency that saw a spike in my twitch channel viewership from 2012.
There was a lot of anger pent up in me as I developed - if it's one thing I should have learned to do better, it was definitely youtube. However, streaming on two different twitch channels also screwed up the ability for people to remember my name / who I was or at least a face people could identify in SC2.
Timeline of Events 2012 - networking, streaming, trying to build my name. 2013 - See above with much more moving around. I applied to study abroad in Daegu Korea for my final semester of university. Got screwed once. 2014 - Taiwan Open 2014 - Got screwed a second time. I ended up casting World of Tanks and Starcraft II at Taiwan Esports League's final season though. See the photo dump I have attached below. 2015 - Wrapping up casting Starcraft II and World of Tanks leagues that began in 2014. Sadly coming to the realization that there was no casting work left, which was difficult to accept. 2016 until present - developing the skills I needed to get the jobs I have now.
rebuffing on 2013 - the buildup to the biggest let-down anyone trying to make a living in Starcraft II could have:
Take-aways:
I was told to cast only Chinese-speaking players. I did this.
Artosis knew I would be in Korea.
In 2014 at my first offline event, he could have helped me. He did nothing.
Screenshots / Convos to corroborate everything that happened before, during, and after I got screwed in Korea. + Show Spoiler +
I also saw Wolf and Khaldor face to face in Korea. I only had time to go to one GSTL event because I studied in the south end of the country. In one of the calls that I had with Tumba, he mentioned that Khaldor wouldn't be at the following GSTL or GSL season. Since Khaldor was probably my favorite caster, I had to tell him this after the show, and he didn't believe what I had to say.
I also asked Wolf if he could put me in touch with the people who hire the casters. He basically coughed up a bull shit excuse about not being able to because this is not how people do things in Korean culture, and gave the job to Brendan Valdez.
So I left Korea and went back to America, and ended up casting starcraft in my family's garage. I got my own Twitch-partnered channel back then, so that was something new I could look forward to pushing later and I had some success.
Part 2 will be continued in the first comment I put here.
Part 2: The after-effect, and how I got screwed a second time by Tasteosis and Tumba.
"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"
Taiwan Open 2014: My big, fat, dream event.
There is a considerable possibility that a significant portion of all of this was delusions of grandeur. Before I left Taiwan in 2012, I told people, "I would love to be a Starcraft II caster here in Taiwan." and a few people said to me, "We have a big event later this summer, we can help you ask!". This would've been realistic because at that time, blizzard didn't have the "invasive" WCS system that they had built in 2013. However, my student visa would have expired and I would have had to leave the country, so I couldn't stay any longer.
Leading up to this event, I was still riled up internally by what had happened to me in Korea. I had one nightmare in particular where Wolf and Tasteless were chasing me with guns in my sleep. This made me think that no matter how much preparation I had done, I was done for.
If I was personally in charge of hiring broadcast talent for Taiwan Open 2014, it would have been like this: BreAKer, Khaldor, Kane, and QXC. Khaldor would've been paired with QXC and I would've had Kane and myself casting the other 50% of the matches. QXC and Kane were in Taiwan at the time, and Khaldor would've had to be flown in from Korea. Any remaining budget would've been dedicated to setting up a "clean-source" stream that shows the observer feed and then allowed 7 other language streams to cast the tournament in various languages like Portuguese, French, Polish, German, Russian, and so on.
Instead, not knowing any better, and not wanting to do anything but "deliver what they think is the best." for blizzard, the tournament organizers, TESL, just over-paid for Tasteless and Artosis. Artosis definitely knew I wanted this event. Something that shocked me was TESL was definitely overpaying because at that point in time, Has had already knocked Jaedong out of WCS NA premier league, and he didn't know that Has was the only Taiwanese protoss at TWOP 2014. I basically said to him, "there's 7 taiwanese zergs and 1 taiwanese protoss." He responded saying, "Who's the P, Ian?" The event in question where Has KO'd Jaedong had taken place in WCS Premier League Season 1 of 2014 (basically in winter 2014), and here we were in Late July / Early August talking about this.
Jaedong vs. Has WCS 2014 Season 1 match in question (match 3): + Show Spoiler +
So, what exactly happened? When asked if I could cast Taiwan Open 2014 with Tasteless and/or Artosis on a 3-man rotation (that is to say, 2 of the 3 casters present at the time, one resting off-stage), Tumba told TESL that it would be "Bad for their brand name". I'm sorry, Tumba, what? Doesn't filling a young-man's head with dream-teasers about becoming a shoutcaster and then getting exposed for it worse for their brand name? Come on. At that point in time, I wanted to bite my lip in the hopes that there would be a Taiwan Open 2015, and that it would have been better than in 2014.
What I could have done, and I certainly contemplated, but didn't do: At the time, TESL (Taiwan Esports League) was running a significantly large world of tanks league that was sponsored directly by the developer itself, Wargaming - and it was supposed to last another 5 months. I could have threatened TESL and said, "If you guys don't let me cast this event, because neither of the casters know anything about 50% of the players (the taiwanese players) in this tournament, I will leave TESL." This might have worked, but I was too dumb, too naive, or too scared to do anything about it.
My outburst on the final episode of the "Unfiltered" podcast. I had no idea Tasteless and Artosis were going to leave GEM until about 30 days after Taiwan Open 2014 had ended. This was because I got stuck casting the League of Legends tournament for the same event where they casted the same Starcraft II event in Hong Kong in 2014.
A friend (now deceased due to cancer, RIP Michael) who worked the HKESPORTS 2014 event told me what had happened - basically he was trying to reach Tumba / GEM and get them to get tasteless and artosis arranged accomodations and flights, but they were unresponsive for whatever reason. I simply forwarded Artosis' skype information to this friend, and he got everything squared away.
The result: Tastetosis left Tumba / GEM. The best part: He got zero compensation for doing what he did to me, especially after using words to tease me into having a chance at my dream job(s). If I had to guess, if he was collecting 15%, then at the time it is possible GEM / Tumba lost north of 1000 USD.
Taiwan Open 2014 was both the best day of my life and the worst day of my life. My favorite players, Ian, Sen, and Has, all managed to kick ass and battle their way through 8 Code S Koreans. On day 2, It was just Hyun, Has, Sen, and Ian. When it ended, and Sen took the championship, I stepped off the stage and finished translating from Chinese to English, and stood there in awe of the fact that my first offline event was won by my favorite player of all time. I was dating a girl at the time, and I lifted my left hand to wipe a tear sliding off my cheek and she slapped it and said, "Really?! You're crying over this?!" while I had to explain to her that it was the first time a Non-Korean had ever won a major Starcraft II tournament since the release of Heart of The Swarm in 2013, over a year prior. That wasn't the only reason why though: I couldn't be certain that Taiwan Open would or would not have happened in 2015 - spoiler alert: Blizzard ceased collaboration with TESL and there was no Taiwan Open 2015.
All of this has been long. Thanks for staying with me this far. If you've had a similar experience with Tumba, please let us know. I know of someone who did something in the hearthstone scene but he didn't tell me much information, and he is out of esports as well now. Last I checked tumba was shilling NFTs. If I were you, or if you represent a large brand, I would stay away from the following enterprises: Foundry IV and Collor Collab and head for the hills if he tries to talk to you.
Overall after-effect: I became increasingly paranoid after what happened to me in Korea. I became even more paranoid and less-trusting of others in general. There was an EU-based caster that could have helped me get in touch with people in Korea to become the pro league caster.
What I didn't know while all of this was happening: Tasteless and Artosis gave the casting job to Brendan Valdez. There was no interview process, there was no job board I could have searched,and there was no authentically professional method to apply to become a shoutcaster. You only have connections. That's it. I found out that Tasteosis just "gave" Brendan the job about 1 week after the 2014 Hong Kong Esports tournament when a coworker at TESL told me he had been out drinking with them all night long and found out about this. But the ability for someone to move in and set up shop on your own "territory" is absolutely disturbing. At the time Taiwan Open 2014 had taken place, I was working for TESL for 5 months already.
So you moved to Korea to study and assumed that you would just be given main seats on the caster desk of premiere events despite having nearly 0 credibility beforehand and think you were screwed over?
On December 22 2022 12:40 Gemini_19 wrote: So you moved to Korea to study and assumed that you would just be given main seats on the caster desk of premiere events despite having nearly 0 credibility beforehand and think you were screwed over?
Keep telling yourself that lol
At the time you could argue and say I had more credibility than Brendan Valdez. I was in master's league when I arrived in Korea, was running the ESLTaiwan channel, had joined Flash Wolves, and had over 300 VODs on my channel - and those were mostly only replay casts that I had found from /r/castit and the front page of drop.sc. As I said before, I should have learned earlier how to leverage youtube.
Do you know what brendan valdez did? He entered a contest where to watch League of Legends in person in Korea and had his name drawn out of a hat by a company that was laundering money (Azubu). He didn't go there to be a caster, made zero preparation, and his experience at the time was minimal if non-existent.
I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
On December 22 2022 13:14 Turbovolver wrote: Sorry, but, yep. Sure seems that way.
To be fair, if you keep going with something and you are right even once the payoff can be big.
On December 22 2022 13:19 BreAKerTV wrote: I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
Nobody can make substantial comments because you haven't clearly explained anything in your exposé. You leave out all the important details and just tell us to trust that it's all down to malice when the "worst" you show and highlight with a big red box us is Tumba telling you "you own China" and then you not getting a specific casting job because you lost it to Tasteosis. Did I miss it, or did you not even explain how Tumba could help that not happen?
Really looks to me like you aggressively befriended some names in the scene and then blamed them when they couldn't make it all work out for you.
On December 22 2022 13:19 BreAKerTV wrote: I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
Nobody can make substantial comments because you haven't clearly explained anything in your exposé. You leave out all the important details and just tell us to trust that it's all down to malice when the "worst" you show and highlight with a big red box us is Tumba telling you "you own China" and then you not getting a specific casting job because you lost it to Tasteosis. Did I miss it, or did you not even explain how Tumba could help that not happen?
I did address this actually. This thread is really long so I'll go through it one more time in a shorter format.
I was working for Taiwan Esports League for 4 or 5 months already as a World of Tanks caster in their own studio. In the skype calls that we had, the one before I went to Korea, he said he would "Introduce me to Tasteless and Artosis." This last sentence requires you to believe me saying what Tumba said that was off the record, but at the time I had zero clue what that actually meant. I found out in late 2014 that it meant they control all the casting jobs in Korea. Beyond that Tumba typed, "You own china" which was ambiguous enough to mean both Taiwan and China. Well 8 months later, after the Korea debacle, Taiwan Open 2014 takes place and he basically said to TESL, "If I send you Tasteless and Artosis, BreAKer isn't casting with either of them." One month later, Tasteosis left Tumba's company. I could have told TESL right then and there that I would quit working for them if they didn't let me cast for an event that I spent, arguably, 2 years preparing for, but I was too afraid to do it. Do you think I didn't tell Tasteless and Artosis about what happened to me in Korea when they came to cast that tournament in Taiwan? They knew, more or less, what had happened, and they knew I was salty about it.
https://tl.net/forum/sc2-tournaments/362149-asia-starcraft-league-group-stage-ro128 - this is the first online tournament I ever casted, but there were far more I casted but didn't record VODs for pretty much any online tournament - which, again, was very stupid of me because I didn't know how I could leverage youtube as anything more than a recording platform, and we could already use SC2 replays to do that.
On December 22 2022 13:19 BreAKerTV wrote: I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
Nobody can make substantial comments because you haven't clearly explained anything in your exposé. You leave out all the important details and just tell us to trust that it's all down to malice when the "worst" you show and highlight with a big red box us is Tumba telling you "you own China" and then you not getting a specific casting job because you lost it to Tasteosis. Did I miss it, or did you not even explain how Tumba could help that not happen?
I did address this actually. This thread is really long so I'll go through it one more time in a shorter format.
I was working for Taiwan Esports League for 4 or 5 months already as a World of Tanks caster in their own studio. Tumba said "You own china" which was ambiguous enough to mean both Taiwan and China. Well 8 months later, after the Korea debacle, Taiwan Open 2014 takes place and he basically said to TESL, "If I send you Tasteless and Artosis, BreAKer isn't casting with either of them." One month later, Tasteosis left Tumba's company. I could have told TESL right then and there that I would quit working for them if they didn't let me cast for an event that I spent, arguably, 2 years preparing for, but I was too afraid to do it. Do you think I didn't tell Tasteless and Artosis about what happened to me in Korea when they came to cast that tournament in Taiwan? They knew, more or less, what had happened, and they knew I was salty about it.
https://tl.net/forum/sc2-tournaments/362149-asia-starcraft-league-group-stage-ro128 - this is the first online tournament I ever casted, but there were far more I casted but didn't record VODs for pretty much any online tournament - which, again, was very stupid of me because I didn't know how I could leverage youtube as anything more than a recording platform, and we could already use SC2 replays to do that.
I read all that the first time, and in "shorter format" it's no more clear.
Still no idea how Tumba and TESL are related. My best guess doing the legwork to piece together all your fragments is that Tumba, as manager for Tasteosis, got them a job in Taiwan despite telling you earlier that "you own China/Taiwan". I mean I guess that's kind of a "betrayal" you might be salty about but he's beholden to those he is managing, not to you. Who is going to begrudge him doing his job over kowtowing to the pushy fly buzzing around in his DMs?
No clue why it matters that Tasteosis left Tumba after that, or that they knew you were salty.
On December 22 2022 14:00 Turbovolver wrote: I read all that the first time, and in "shorter format" it's no more clear.
Still no idea how Tumba and TESL are related.
So, figuratively speaking, TESL was "My own Dojo" and I began collaborating with them as early as 2013. But when I officially joined them in 2014, that was like the beginning of a dream come true. I tried asking tumba if we could talk about this (letting me cast TWOP 2014) on skype, but at the time he was ignoring me, and like I said before I was too chicken shit to confront TESL even though I felt like I was dying spiritually.
The irony: At one point, I said, "I don't care who is casting the grand finals. I mean we all know a Korean's gonna win this tournament anyway." Can we call that the "BreAKer Curse"?
No clue why it matters that Tasteosis left Tumba after that, or that they knew you were salty.
It lends credibility to the timeline of events that took place. nothing more nothing less.
EDIT: And i just realized that it sounded as though I didn't get to cast anything at all. For most of the event i was a stage host, which I didn't spend 2 years preparing to become, and I got to cast 2 best of threes on Day 1 of TWOP 2014. that's it.
Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
Yeah, I don't get it. Artosis told you to hustle and you were. But just because you are hustling in an area doesn't mean it becomes your personal fiefdom. Others are making their own moves just like you- including Tastosis. They're hustling for new gigs as well.
They got one in China- doesn't mean they are in China forever. That message from Tumba is not a granting of a monopoly to you. He's telling you to go ahead in China because they've got a lock on the Korea market and are busy enough. If someone else (anyone, but it happened to be you at that time) wants to go west to try and strike it rich in the Chinese market, knock yourself out. That's all that is. Nor does it preclude them from parachuting in every now and then to promote the Chinese scene. That Tumba comment is still true. They return to Korea shortly after and do not set up shop.
And yeah, they are under no obligation to promote your career to break up the Tastosis duo. They are already in less viewer territory by casting an unknown Starcraft scene (to the English speaking scene), to break up the duo on top of that? It's neat and all when Dave Grohl gets a fan to play his guitar for one song... but really your there to see Foo Fighters be Foo Fighters. If they want to put eyes on an unknown scene at the same time as promoting a relatively unknown caster... that's a big ask.
In short, you wanted to be the warm up band on the big Metallica tour- so does every up and coming rock/metal act. Just because they went with a different warm up band doesn't mean they screwed you in particular. What you wanted, they were not obligated to do, neither by contract nor by gentleman's agreement.
Edit. I mean, I get the rejection part. It sucks getting out there, putting in the hard work and not getting a pay-off for your grind. I get that. I don't get how you were screwed by anyone in particular... except maybe screwed in the cosmological/ existential sense?
On December 22 2022 21:57 Chill wrote: Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
I suppose there have been too many moments where I let what others say / said influence my thinking and didn't think to myself, "What would be best for me? in 5 years or 10 years."
The TL;Dr of 2012-2016 was imagine a millennial as naive as SpongeBob and as selfish as Mr krabs. That was me.
Let's do a thought experiment and imagine that this happened to someone else? like let's say the people at pro league weren't mad at nathanias and he was told the same thing and acted the same but kept his personality and the same thing happened to him, what would you say then?
Like I said in the O.P. I'm not even angry about it anymore. The things that made me angry are the things I haven't posted here: Blizzard forcing every tournament organizer to buy broadcasting licenses if the prize pool surpassed 10k usd, or if they had televised the tournament in question. I know people who lost jobs because of that. I am slightly disappointed in myself for not realizing how dumb I was for going through with this venture from 2012 forward.
alas I digress. I won't be looking for casting opportunities based on what happened to me in 2012, the lack or professional hiring, and the things I've seen happen with my own two eyes.
I might have a follow up blog on a completely separate incident sooner or later.
This whole post comes off a delusional and I can see why nobody really wanted to work with you. I think you think you're a lot better at this than you are. There's a reason you didn't get to where you think you should have and it isn't everyone else's fault.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this post but you sure as hell aren't going to get any sympathy.
On December 23 2022 11:04 RowdierBob wrote: This whole post comes off a delusional and I can see why nobody really wanted to work with you. I think you think you're a lot better at this than you are. There's a reason you didn't get to where you think you should have and it isn't everyone else's fault.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this post but you sure as hell aren't going to get any sympathy.
I'm not here for sympathy but it's more like if anyone ever wanted to know what happened or why I was a jerk or something like that. I also just wanted to get it off of my chest. I very quickly turned into an asshole during that time frame.
If I could go back in time 10 years ago and tell myself what to do: 1) quit completely or 2) work on my personality. Maybe doing both would've helped.
I have some new content creation ideas that I want to bring to life but it has nothing to do with gaming and I don't even have to be on camera.
This video is a perfect 20-30 second summary of the whole situation.
Also, in 2013, you posted in one of your blogs:
TL;DR Version - Hi guys. Sorry for being a douche. I want to work on my personality and just be an overall, more likeable guy. Take what I have to say with a grain of salt, my apology as genuine, and read the rest of this blog with an objective point of view and I think you'll have the right concept.
Hi guys.
There are a lot of people who I have introduced myself to as a hate-filled mongrol via blogs, and it makes me look like the IdrA of teamliquid blogs.
On December 22 2022 02:22 BreAKerTV wrote: paid for Tasteless and Artosis. Artosis definitely knew I wanted this event.
I am truly shocked that the SC2 event paid for Tastosis to cast it and that they, professional casters, took the gig. However what really matters here is if you called dibs. You say Artosis knew you wanted the event but there was no obligation for him to turn down the gig and give it to you unless you had, in writing, called dibs.
If you hadn’t then I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, legally speaking.
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