One of our readers decided to leave some feedback after reading the March blog.
Wow
Just ended up here after looking at some stuff on team liquid. Was very impressed that an Australian team was taking on the Starcraft word in what I assumed would be some sort of semi-professional state.
I was wrong - get your act together - I just read a series of ridiculously unprofessional actions - people getting drunk before a tournament they were committed to playing, people pulling out of tournaments because they were too tired. But that’s ok it’s an online game and people have no idea about why people pulled out or why people were playing so bad (tired, drunk etc) – but wait --- all this is on public display in a blog written by someone who I assume is the manager and is charged with organising and focusing the team.
I notice the sponsorship section has a strategic “Can’t say anything now but some “big” news to come”. I wonder what company would be happy to put money towards a team that couldn’t be bothered playing in a tournament because they couldn’t manage their sleep time or alcohol consumption.
As an Australian and someone who would love to see e-sports taken seriously here I am mortified that the first real attempt that I see is nothing more than a group of frat boys whos behaviour and approach may win a few local tournaments against decent opponents but will lead to a disappointment at higher levels. In this country gaming is viewed as a joke and kids play by most people and the actions of this team are not going to change this. We live in a world where sadly people are judged by their actions and dress, I would love to turn up to work in T-shirt and shorts but it will never happen. The GSL casting has become more professional over the past year with the casters now in suits and now been more careful with their general comments. They are not doing this to cater to the average gamer but to the people with money, to the corporate world, to people parents (they control if their 13 year old kids get money for a GSL subscription) and to first time viewers (no matter who they maybe). These should be the people you want to be putting a good image to.
Your first reaction on reading this will be no doubt be “who the F@#$ does this loser think he is - he is just another F!@#ing hater” but I really hope that this is taken as intended – a harsh but fair observation.
I do wish you luck in trying to bring an e-sports team to Australia and would love to see a positive human interest story on Wide World of Sports or Sixty Minutes or even Today Tonight but if what I read is the public image you will be projecting I can’t see it ever happening and nor can I see a bright future for growth and expansion.
Unfortunately my reply was too big to fit in a comment, so this is my formal response to him.Troy
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Hi there Troy. I'm going to reply all out of sequence in an attempt to address your concerns as concisely as possible.
My immediate reaction isn't aggressive at all. It is a fair observation, albeit a skewed one. I hope to elaborate on the "issues" you raised and help to put things in perspective.
Firstly, may I ask how old you are? I ask only out of social curiosity. My next question, is to ask exactly how active are you in the Australian eSports scene? Do you compete in local tournaments? Do you attend events like ACL or WCG as a spectator? Do you get involved in the community (ie. SC2SEA.com)? None of this is terribly relevant, but it helps me to understand your background, and where your ideologies stem from.
To keep things fair, I'll answer the same questions about myself. I'm 27 years old. I work full-time for a global engineering firm. Over the last 11+ years, I've been managing Australian eSports events from StarCraft and Unreal Tournament, to WarCraft 3, Halo, Counter-Strike and of course now StarCraft 2. I'm very familiar with the "industry" of Professional eSports, and what sponsors expectations are. I've hosted events on behalf of Samsung, aBit, ATi, Blizzard Entertainment, Tt eSports and dozens more. I have a close relationship with many of these organisations, and continue to represent their brands on a regular basis today. Over the last 18 months, I've invested approximately $11.5k of my own funds into eSports ventures, including sponsoring tournaments, and now the five Invidia players. I challenge you to find someone in Australia who takes eSports more seriously than I do.
So with the introductions out of the way - please keep one more thing in mind, before you continue reading. This blog serves two purposes:
1) To keep interested parties ("fans") informed on the progress of our team. Notice I used the word "progress", instead of success? Because no matter who you are, or what team you represent, everyone has their ups and downs. No-one wins everything. And I feel it's important to communicate our failures as much as our successes, because these are our most valuable opportunities to learn from our mistakes and improve.
2) To entertain our readers. People want to read interesting stories about human beings they can relate to. They don't want to read about a group of omnipotent robots with no personalities and carbon copy press releases. Empathy plays a very, very important role in user engagement. On top of all that, I tend to embellish the events to make things more interesting to the reader.
Having said all that...
The IMGUR Team League was a very minor event. First place is $300. The incentive for everyone to wake up and participate in such a low-value event at 3:00AM is incredibly low - especially seeing as though we're in the middle of the ACL season and all of our attention is currently focused on that. I don't think it's fair to criticise the entire team and label them as "ridiculously unprofessional" because they chose to attend a social gathering for the GSL Finals with their friends the night before. When it comes to important, high stakes events, you can surely bet that each of them will manage their fatigue adequately. This has certainly been the case for WCG and ACL. Nonetheless, we learned a lot from this experience, and bounced back much harder the following week. I'm disappointed that you failed to acknowledge this.
As for your next point about people pulling out of tournaments - again, I don't think you understand how insignificant this is. You cannot expect someone to wake up at 3:00AM for a tournament, and participate at the best of their ability for another tournament later that afternoon. No-one wants to embarrass themselves - or their team - by performing poorly. I'm a strong advocate of "all or nothing." (As a twist of irony, an Invidia player went on to win the event anyway.)
To further clarify, it's not like they simply chose not to show up to an invitational event and caused distress to the tournament director. It was free for anyone to sign up as they pleased, and I personally contacted the tournament host 5 hours prior - before the brackets had been generated - to give him the heads up. No harm was done. No professional lines were crossed.
If you would truly like to see exactly how serious eSports is being taken by Australia right now, I'd recommend you come along to an ACL event in the near future. Or at the very least, tune in to our broadcast.
The companies who have approached us with regards to sponsorship are doing so because they recognise that we represent strong brand value. We have a group of intelligent, sensible and likable people, who perform incredibly well when necessary. Did you know that NesTea won't be participating in the MLG Winter Arena this weekend, due to a wrist injury? Would you criticise Incredible Miracle for being incapable of managing their health and safety? It's all relative, except in our case it was a low-key tournament that no-one really knew about.
It's interesting that you mention Wide World of Sports and Sixty Minutes, because myself & Rossi are scheduled to be interviewed by Gamespot in a few weeks, whilst mOOnGLaDe is being interviewed for an article on News.com.au.
I'm not even sure that you'll check back to read all of this, but in the event that you do - if you'd ever like to learn more about the team, or Australian eSports, you're more than welcome to get in touch with me via:
e-Mail: derek@sea-play.com
Skype: Dox_au
- Derek
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