EPTI can see it all now.
About the new Korean SC2 Association - Page 6
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Falling
Canada11173 Posts
I can see it all now. | ||
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Macavity
United States83 Posts
So I have a few questions about this new Korean SC 2 Association. 1) How much percentage of the cashflow does the Korean SC 2 Association get? [Since, obviously, these people are not going to work for free. They will have their hand in the SC 2 E-Sports money jar.] 2) Where are the problems of the current Starcraft 2 situation that warrants any need for some sort of 'association'? [I haven't heard of any problems but, then again, perhaps unfortunate events occurred that are not well known on this forum.] 3) If this SC 2 Association is so awesome, why not have similar associations in the Americas and Europe? [Perhaps because the players in the West would never abide to such terms? Such associations, such as in the United States, have been in steady decline for the past century.] 4) What are the consequences if a Korean player chooses not to participate in such an association? On November 18 2010 04:18 Rekrul wrote: This association isn't really a union anyways. LOL @ Macavity's post btw. Well, what is it then? Everyone else in this thread is referring to it as a union. We could use some more specifics and less on the glittering generalities. The consistent reference of 'player's rights' deserves some more specifics. In a law class, whenever a student made a rhetorical notion of 'rights', the law prof would always slam the table and shout, "Rights? What rights!? Show me in the law what rights you are referring to!" I have personally been in losing sides of contract disputes, and it was because I didn't fully understand the contract. As a U.S. judge told me, someone not understanding the contract doesn't invalidate it. It really sucks, and it has been a life lesson for me. But the solution is education on contracts and some on business/law. People have said that in Korea, there is fear to 'speak out against the establishment'. If this is true, that means the Korean population would be considered 'easily controlled'. My fear is that people see a potential money pot with SC 2 there and are seeking to leverage it as much as possible... at the expense of the talent (the players). If the SC 2 Association defines the 'max potential' of earnings, this means the limit of what SC 2 players earn will be determined by this association. It is putting a ceiling one what a player may earn. Why not have the players determine the 'max potential' of earnings the SC 2 Association may make? After all, it is the players doing all the work. + Show Spoiler + On November 17 2010 19:42 dacthehork wrote: Just a note to the above guy Kespa controlled all of SC:BW in korea (the only real market). Kespa was controlled by the sponsors, so in effect it was a complete monopoly. You either did what kespa wanted and played on a kespa team or you didn't play. There was no real "free market" or anything like that, it was all settup so all new players would be forced to play on a Kespa team (draft), and be forced to play in such conditions if they wanted to play SC:BW competitively. Also there are no legal rights (I believe) to "Entertainers" in korea, especially those under 18, and slave contracts are extremely normal. It seems the teams/players are forming this to collective bargain with sponsors and probably with gomtv. It seems to be non profit, and the leader is a guy against "forced" practice (aka slave teams). It definitely seems to be a positive effort, and I'm sure rek has some inside information/insight far above anyone else in this thread. 1. Kespa is an extreme example of something gone wrong. But it is not uncommon. 2. Slave contract is an oxymoron. If someone is going to use the language of slavery and all, I need some specifics. The solution to 'bad contracts' is not some bloated organization who will only remove money from a limited niche market. The solution is to educate the players (who are very young) so they don't sign such bad contracts. And if it is so bad, why not make such contracts illegal through the Korean legislature? 3. "It seems to be non-profit." You better confirm that. 4. "I'm sure rek has some inside information/insight far above anyone else in this thread." Then perhaps he can say more than 'LOL'. I suspect the only purpose of this SC 2 Association is money. It is a way to dip a hand into the revenue stream generated by SC 2. If anyone is so concerned about Korean players' rights, why not educate them instead of being a parasite on their revenue stream? + Show Spoiler + On November 18 2010 08:26 xtfftc wrote: This is a bit ironic... People often consider "socialism" to be a dirty word, but when you explain them why organising a union (KESPA2) to protect the workers (progamers) from being exploited by ruthless capitalists (sponsoring corporations), pretty much everyone is really happy about it.  Curious that there is so much political rhetoric in this thread where it isn't warranted. Primarily, this is an issue of cashflow concerning E-Sports. + Show Spoiler + On November 18 2010 02:17 Innsmouth-Zerg wrote: Macavity it seems to me you have very limited knowledge how unions work in the real world. There for all your arguments are tainted and can not be taken seriously. Edit: At least the ones you make against a Union. A team- players union would be amazingly good for every team / player in that union. You get better and most importantly fairer deals for everybody in that union. Since I have, as you say, 'very limited knowledge', perhaps you can enlighten me in some specific examples. The specific examples I have seen would be the utter collapse of the American car industry (Detroit is a fourth world city now), film unions' high prices resulting in more and more movies being made outside Hollywood, and the the collapse of states such as California and New Jersey due to state unions (such as teacher's unions). | ||
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Slow Motion
United States6960 Posts
I don't know what law professors you guys have been exposed to, but most understand the distinction between legal rights and other unenumerated rights. Actually any Constitutional law professor will talk about this in the first year. | ||
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HollowLord
United States3862 Posts
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AyJay
1515 Posts
On November 18 2010 08:26 xtfftc wrote: This is a bit ironic... People often consider "socialism" to be a dirty word, but when you explain them why organising a union (KESPA2) to protect the workers (progamers) from being exploited by ruthless capitalists (sponsoring corporations), pretty much everyone is really happy about it. My thoughts exactly. KeSPA is ran by sponsors and let's face it - sponsors most of the time don't give a shit about players. Except for the tip-top ones. | ||
Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
On November 18 2010 13:28 Char711 wrote: You're right, writing such a long post in order to respond to an issue shows that you're not serious about it at all. After all, it's not like you were responding to what everyone was already saying about it or anything. We're not saying he owes us anything. We're just asking that, if he replies, it actually gets down to the core issues rather than just reading through and casually dismissing most of the arguments, especially considering how cogent most of them are. Besides, Rekrul's a good guy and his posts are usually awesome -- I see no reason why it's not something we couldn't appeal to. My post is a general overview in order to put things somewhat in perspective for the people who don't have the common sense and/or knowledge of e-sports to understand. You and Macavity's posts are merely taking random points that strung my original post together out of context and trying to argue them on a plane that has nothing to do with any of the issues at hand in the first place. If I felt like making a comprehensive post about e-sports and it's business side I would have done it long ago. | ||
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shell
Portugal2722 Posts
There's a lot a threads in the foruns that will explain why Kespa is viewed that way: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=168895 Every sport, industry, profession etc.. has a association to provide support to it's members, create bussiness oportunities and stand up for their rights! Even lawyers have it.. come on why does it have to have middleman? this new "Kespa" is made of players and teams so i don't why they have to hire someone to work full time. Maybe some day in the future. Right now there's one sponsored league and a player association would be the right way to talk to that league to try and change something the players and teams feel they should. Imagine the players don't like the maps! would you prefer that each team talk to the league or that a representation of the majority of the teams opinions talk to the league? | ||
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Almeisan
50 Posts
Teams can't survive into the future without sponsors. Let alone get professional. Only Gretech is allowed to run tournaments and once Blizzard is no longer spending money to market SC2, prize money will drop. Teams right now already struggle. Sponsors and professionalism will have to increase. At that point sponsor/team/player interests will be the same and they will oppose Blizzard. Blizzard doesn't dislike Kespa for the reasons we do. Even if Kespa were saintly, Blizzard and Kespa interests collide. Blizzard wants to share the IP rights of the complete end product of esports 50/50 with the broadcaster. Be it Gomtv/Gretech or MBC/OGN. The teams/kespa want to share 33/33/33. The teams and players are putting in a huge investment. They provide the actual creative content. In the future it will take months to train up top class players out of merely talented ones. It is a huge investment. Players and teams will step up and demand a 33/33/33 in SC2. If not, SC2 will die or become like WC3 in the later years. I also don't see how SC2 players are ever going to be able to have the luxuries that SC BW proteams have. SC BW market their sport the most optimal way. I don't even know who sponsors oGs, Prime, EG or any of those other teams while TL is sponsored by a very small company that is probably run by only a few people. And I only know that because of shutouts during interviews. How are SC2 teams going to market their sponsors? You need to have team leagues with teams named after the brand their promote. And then the only improvement over SC BW you are going to get is to have something similar to the Bosman ruling they had in football. And that is going to compromise the integrity of the game where 2 top sponsors are going to get all the top players by paying the right salaries and winning every team. Especially since there's no actual team work involved. You can just get Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, etc and win everything. Restricting player movement was done for to keep proleague exiting and balanced like how they do in the US where the weakest teams can draft the best new talents. It is worse for the players, but having no team league and no relevant sponsor money is way way worse. Bosman ruling gave players way more rights and maybe rights they should have. But it damaged football tremendously and is the cause of almost all football teams going broke and having to have million euro taxplayer injections while the top players get absurd salaries. US sport federations do a much better job. Also, Blizzard so far hasn't been able to awake the sleeping giant that is China. China and Korea are where SC2 esports is going to be important. NA and Europe are important for sales, but not for Esports. There's a reason 100% of the money Blizzard spends on esports prize money is going to Korea. There's a reason why Gretech doesn't run a parallel GSL outside of Korea. | ||
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xtfftc
United Kingdom2343 Posts
On November 18 2010 14:01 Macavity wrote: [Perhaps because the players in the West would never abide to such terms? Such associations, such as in the United States, have been in steady decline for the past century.] I'm not going to delve into the political implications - I don't think this is why this thread was created - but I would like to point out that the professional players in the West abide to even worse terms. However, it is agents they are dealing with, not associations. Anyway, Almeisan has made some good points. It's nice that at least some people realise that GSL is not that mega-awesome league that is the future of Esports. It is not, it is merely a marketing campaign. And this is also the reason why the quality of the games does not match the size of the prize pool. It didn't grow gradually, while players were providing a better entertainment and fans were demanding more coverage. Instead of nurturing the community and investing in development, Activision are relying on big headlines. The bottom line is that they have made a huge gamble, instead of aiming at sustained growth, so the Korean SC2 scene could crash badly in 2011. | ||
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Chrispy
Canada5878 Posts
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dacthehork
United States2000 Posts
On November 18 2010 20:27 Almeisan wrote: blah blah blah bunch of random shit that has nothing to do with the issues at hand. If you read rekrul's post he talked about how it was so that the teams/players could hopefully avoid signing crappy contracts with bigger companies. They still obviously want big contracts and will try for them, just not ones where the players end up slaves and coaches forcing them to practice all day. Also your random paragraph at the end about china is stupid and has absolutely nothing to do with anything. | ||
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dacthehork
United States2000 Posts
On November 18 2010 21:16 xtfftc wrote: I'm not going to delve into the political implications - I don't think this is why this thread was created - but I would like to point out that the professional players in the West abide to even worse terms. However, it is agents they are dealing with, not associations. Anyway, Almeisan has made some good points. It's nice that at least some people realise that GSL is not that mega-awesome league that is the future of Esports. It is not, it is merely a marketing campaign. And this is also the reason why the quality of the games does not match the size of the prize pool. It didn't grow gradually, while players were providing a better entertainment and fans were demanding more coverage. Instead of nurturing the community and investing in development, Activision are relying on big headlines. The bottom line is that they have made a huge gamble, instead of aiming at sustained growth, so the Korean SC2 scene could crash badly in 2011. great point on the new SC2 korean association. Talking about GSL prize money and how it will crash in 2011.. Excellent also "not going into political implications".. yeah the political implication behind SC2 are vast. Thanks for sparing us expert insight into how it effects korea/US relations and the political climate. | ||
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dacthehork
United States2000 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + On November 18 2010 14:01 Macavity wrote: + Show Spoiler + On November 17 2010 19:42 dacthehork wrote: Just a note to the above guy Kespa controlled all of SC:BW in korea (the only real market). Kespa was controlled by the sponsors, so in effect it was a complete monopoly. You either did what kespa wanted and played on a kespa team or you didn't play. There was no real "free market" or anything like that, it was all settup so all new players would be forced to play on a Kespa team (draft), and be forced to play in such conditions if they wanted to play SC:BW competitively. Also there are no legal rights (I believe) to "Entertainers" in korea, especially those under 18, and slave contracts are extremely normal. It seems the teams/players are forming this to collective bargain with sponsors and probably with gomtv. It seems to be non profit, and the leader is a guy against "forced" practice (aka slave teams). It definitely seems to be a positive effort, and I'm sure rek has some inside information/insight far above anyone else in this thread. 1. Kespa is an extreme example of something gone wrong. But it is not uncommon. 2. Slave contract is an oxymoron. If someone is going to use the language of slavery and all, I need some specifics. The solution to 'bad contracts' is not some bloated organization who will only remove money from a limited niche market. The solution is to educate the players (who are very young) so they don't sign such bad contracts. And if it is so bad, why not make such contracts illegal through the Korean legislature? 3. "It seems to be non-profit." You better confirm that. 4. "I'm sure rek has some inside information/insight far above anyone else in this thread." Then perhaps he can say more than 'LOL'. I suspect the only purpose of this SC 2 Association is money. It is a way to dip a hand into the revenue stream generated by SC 2. If anyone is so concerned about Korean players' rights, why not educate them instead of being a parasite on their revenue stream? 1. Don't see any point to this point. I was pointing out kespa sucked, and you agreed. 2. Slave contract is not an oxymoron. Being beaten with bats when losing, forced practice schedules with little freedom, if you quit you can not play kespa events for many years. Your point on "bloated organization" is ridiculous. The teams banded together and elected a single person to represent them along with a council with a person representing each team. Also players will elect 1 player to represent them. It is not bloated at all and your point makes no sense. Also it is not a "middle man" because it's representative/selected from the players/coachers directly. (Directly means no middle man if you are dense) SC:BW korean players had 2 options, play under KESPA or not play. Funny enough all the players we have ever heard of chose to play under KESPA. KeSPA is part of the korean government sort of, it was approved by the ministry of culture and sports etc. Also it is widely known that korea offers no legal protection (in terms of hours worked or contracts) to entertainers. You can freely look this up yourself and then talk once you are slightly educated on korean culture. 3. The organization announced "we are non profit unlike kespa". I'm not sure what more proof you want or anyone could supply to you. 4. He already did, did you not read his post? He has been around a long time and is probably the most trusted person when it comes to the inner workings of anything in Korea, even the match fixing scandal etc. You suspect something.. yet everything points otherwise including very trusted sources, aka no one cares and all your points are coming from someone who just learned about teamliquid less then 6 months ago. The people in charge of this organization are the teams themselves, it's not a middle man moving in. This was extremely clear to anyone who read the post on it (aka coaches/managers being on the council/heading it up) along with rekruls post in this thread. You are basically making up some story about people coming in and establishing this as a third party, when it is the teams themselves. Then arguing as if your imaginary world where it is a third party is true. Your argument is baseless, look at the members/leaders/people involved in the organization and you will see it is just a way to collective bargain, not a middleman skimming revenue. Again this point is stupid and baseless, you are making up some stupid fucking argument from a baseless claim they are just parasites instead of a collectively picked representative to protect their interests (players/teams). Please stop posting in this thread/teamliquid in general. You expect everyone else to educate you while you make stupid claims. How about educate yourself so you don't make such stupid claims in the first place or speak without a base to stand on. User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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tony-pol
Australia9 Posts
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kirkybaby
Korea (South)781 Posts
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Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
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kazansky
Germany931 Posts
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Niick
Australia426 Posts
On November 18 2010 23:16 Cheerio wrote: I dont understand the point behind why TL team should not get involved. Because its made up of foreigners? That is simply racist. Because it lives in OGS house? That is just funny. TL.net is just a site, it has nothing to do with SC2 association in Korea, but TL team is just as relevant to that association as any other Korean team. They live in Korea, they have sponsors, they play korean tourneys, why not? Dont mix TL.net and TL team. Maybe because TL doesn't have dozens of members in korea? | ||
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Peanutsc
United States277 Posts
I agree with you that TL should not be involved at this moment. It will be very interesting to see how this model pans out, especially as more and more non-Korean companies get into the sponsoring business for SC2 teams. I wonder if South Korea will always remain the geographic center of the StarCraft world just because no other place has the physical infrastructure to be the focal point, or if some other country will catch up and become a new haven for StarCraft (China?). | ||
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Char711
United States862 Posts
On November 18 2010 15:56 Rekrul wrote: My post is a general overview in order to put things somewhat in perspective for the people who don't have the common sense and/or knowledge of e-sports to understand. You and Macavity's posts are merely taking random points that strung my original post together out of context and trying to argue them on a plane that has nothing to do with any of the issues at hand in the first place. If I felt like making a comprehensive post about e-sports and it's business side I would have done it long ago. I must respectfully disagree on behalf of my posts, at least. You're guilty of the same thing in the few substantive responses you've given, in my opinion. It seems this is a time when we all agree to disagree. It's nice to have a place like Team Liquid where people won't cruise control caps lock or just insult you and actually respond. <3 you guys. | ||
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