[VoxMSI.Rogue]

Evil Geniuses announced today they would be suspending their newly signed French Zerg player Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri for the month of October due to the inappropriate comments he had made to Dignitas player Samayan 'Bling' Kay.

He will be suspended without pay as well as banned from entering any online or offline tournaments including the upcoming DreamHack Bucharest.

Stephano had the following to say.

“I want to very sincerely apologize to all of my fans, my teammates and management at EG, all of EG’s sponsors, and the rest of the community for my comments last week. They were insensitive, inappropriate, way over the line, and are deserving of the serious ramifications I have received from my team. I accept responsibility for my mistake, and I will be more careful in the future.” - Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri

Read More Here!

Quick Comments

Dox:

LOL

[Dox]

As far as I can tell, no-one was actually upset by what he said...

+ [Show Images] +

...but it just goes to show how much power people yield when e-mailing sponsors.

Quick Comments

	mGGDaedalus:	yup, people are stupid. so are SRS
	NvPinder:	HOLY SHIT BLINGS FACE HAHAHAHAHAHA

[ETL.ViTaL]

Serves him right I think Evil geniuses were right to punish him- that doesn't put out the greatest image for Stephano himself and EG as a team whether or not it was a joke.

[Asrathiel]

They need to realise they're in the public eye representing people who are financially supporting them, and act accordingly! Hopefully this helps...

Quick Comments

Cyanide:

agreed

[Fairyking]

He made a joke to his friend and didn't realize his friend was streaming. Leave the guy alone imo lol. He apologized the second he realized. I agree that they should act proper when being around fans etc or when streaming but he didn't know his friend was streaming. People make mistakes, e-sports fans etc should not care as much as they don't get the reference of the joke that his friend did.

Quick Comments

crAzerk:

what was the reference?

[mGGAequitas]

bling probly should have mentioned that he was streaming lol

[PiG]

Dumbest thing I've read all week. Sad little s**** that go and post this on reddit

Quick Comments

SLCN.Kez:

agreed

[FsDronesInJail]

A month for this?.......... lol

[ikki]

I guess people dont have better things to do than take things out of context...

Quick Comments

Fairyking:

Pretty much lol.

[Maynarde]

So ridiculous

[Unstable]

No matter how stupid or ridiculous you think a joke is, doesn't mean someone else doesn't take major offence to it. Regardless if it was meant to be in private or not welcome to the world of public scrutiny and having to be politically correct at all times.

[syfChadMann]

That's silly - let him play his games. :-(

EDIT: yeah - read what he actually said - not good -_-

[NvRossi]

after listening to most of this podcast

i think it might be 5-10 mins after the time linked http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...R_7mio#t=5069s

The Razor esports fella talks about similar issues to this and after listening to him i find this a very reasonable reaction by EG.

The important thing is hes not getting kicked off the team!

Quick Comments

Baldie:

Thanks for link lot's of great info re sponsors in here!

[AuXCoolpuff]

ah man that sucks =/

[[TOG]Chrisau]

I think whether he is representing a sponsoring company/team or not, making those kind of jokes is offensive and just not cool. Starcraft aside, I think some people want to come across as being 'the funny guy/girl' so much that they don't even stop and think about whether the jokes they're saying are appropriate/offensive to other people. See this alot these days (on TV, the Internet). So in Stephano's case, hopefully he learns from it.

[syfChase]

EG Curse! :Þ

Unfortunate for Stephano, but we're all human. To me the punishment seems quite severe, but if you're representing arguably the strongest team in North America as of now I can see where they're coming from.

[BearPack]

People need to stop emailing sponsors over shock-value shit.

[PiG]

Yeah @unstable @rossi I agree it's really fine for the organisation to do this. It's just sad as shit that due to the nature of the exposure in eSports being so up close and personal with the players that a conversation he thinks is completely private gets seen on stream.

Add the nature of a minority of the viewers that dig up drama and add technology (Screen capture + reddit) the slightest things often get taken out and exposed to the public. And it's not just like when a rugby player supposedly said something and there's back and forth about if it's true. There's a digital copy that gets shown to the whole world.

It's fine. It's just stupid as all hell that this happened over some shittalking. Ah wells, tis the nature of the beast...

[Cyanide]

I think it's a good thing in the end.

It sets a precedent for other teams. It raises the maturity and professionalism of the sport (at least I hope it would, eventually) that we all want to see grow.

[iM MaFia]

normally a months ban with no pay or tourneys would be pretty harsh for a progamer, but its stephano i think he'll be ok

[AlopexToT]

LOL stephano gets banned then goes to korea to train for a month, why does it sound not like a punishment to me?

[ikki]

Originally Posted by AlopexToT

LOL stephano gets banned then goes to korea to train for a month, why does it sound not like a punishment to me?

EG @ Stephano: "Stephano you fucked up therefore we are punishing you by sending you to the coolest place on earth"

Quick Comments

FsDronesInJail:

lol

[TABjornbrandr]

Originally Posted by AlopexToT

LOL stephano gets banned then goes to korea to train for a month, why does it sound not like a punishment to me?

Because EG don't want to punish their players. They have to in order to save face.
The best thing to do as a team is to make the most use of a month without tournaments.
EG wants Stephano to do well, they don't want to be hindering a player from their team - complaints to sponsors are hard for a team to ignore.

[Champi]

EG did the right thing. but the fact that they had to do it stems from the fact that dumb fcukheads think that they're legitimising esports by emailing sponsors and telling them to punish those they sponsor in hopes that their punishment will help them clean up their act.

the chances of kingston actually finding out about this little joke woulda been pretty small if drama phag's didnt email them.

half the people who emailed them are potentially just anti-fans of stephano and wanted to see him crippled rather than legitimately believeing he molested a teen =/

[Demosthenes]

Poor taste. Very poor taste.

Some progamers don't seem to understand that their 9-5 life is on public display. There are so many of these stories now a days.
When you're a pro gamer the people you play with are not just your friends they are you're colleges. Treat them like colleges first because the boss (ie the audience) is always watching.

Or the simpler route is don't joke about underage sex?

[Nemo]

They are professional, they get huge salary for representing a brand a giving exposure and good publicity to this brand. The price is having to take care of what you say more often that every one. They know they are scrutinized and he had to be more careful.

[justice]

Gets in trouble for joking about abusing a 14 year old.

Gets abused by 14 year olds.

edit:

Quick Comments

FsDronesInJail:

lol

[syfChadMann]

Oh.. Stephano isn't going to be able to defend his ESWC title because of this?

Thats sad to see - Petraeus was looking forward to seeing him play..

Quick Comments

	ROOTPetraeus:	sadface :(
	nirvAnA:	that makes the ban huge actaully :(

[NvRossi]

Originally Posted by fray`ChadMann

Oh.. Stephano isn't going to be able to defend his ESWC title because of this?

Thats sad to see - Petraeus was looking forward to seeing him play..

it says 'for the month of october' so i believe he will still attend ESWC, theres so much cash on the line i highly doubt he wouldnt attend!

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

yea makes sense!

[iVnschmuttt]

IMO EG would have been fighting to keep him on the team, the sponsors would have taken this pretty seriously.

Whilst it isn't the worst thing in the world, and I hate people who email sponsors, normal people don't joke about ******* 14 year olds wtf? Progamers need to realise they are being seen as a role model now and need to act accordingly.

[syfChadMann]

Watching Stephano stream...
Playlist - Sweet Child of Mine.

Ironically awkward.. as you can imagine - alot of trolling in chat.. >.<

[syfChadMann]

Probably the most well thought out and intelligent view on this whole issue. here
Warning, not for the sensitive, or brainwashed Reddit troll.
Written by the amazing Sunset.

EDIT: just noticed the double post - my bad.. email my sponsors.

Quick Comments

	TCPLemminks:	To the people emailing his sponsors; They're convinently located in his signature
	|Erasmus|:	^^ good catch... now I can killl esports with even less effort on my part.

[Unstable]

Originally Posted by fray`ChadMann

Probably the most well thought out and intelligent view on this whole issue. here
Warning, not for the sensitive, or brainwashed Reddit troll.
Written by the amazing Sunset.

EDIT: just noticed the double post - my bad.. email my sponsors.

It was very refreshing reading something like that compared to the dribble I encounter on a daily basis. I agree with everything except the underlying issue of why this email sponsor stuff has happened in the first place. In a regulated world of pro sports teams act first in fear of even heavier fines from regulators, but e-sports is not regulated and likely never will be.

There were countless examples of people doing stupid shit and the teams not doing anything about it because at the time they needed more exposure, and any press is good press right? no, absolutely not. So you had this section of the demographic getting very visibly irritated about the lack of professionalism, and over time this has been warped into this new "well we cant trust the teams to do it we need to force them via sponsors now"

There is no getting rid of these types of people because they exist everywhere, but this in my opinion is a good thing overall, WTF why? because it forces teams to be more vigilant in the first place because of the threat of what could happen if people did email the sponsors.

So overall while we might be in this stupid middle ground now but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[Demosthenes]

Originally Posted by fray`ChadMann

Probably the most well thought out and intelligent view on this whole issue. here
Warning, not for the sensitive, or brainwashed Reddit troll.
Written by the amazing Sunset.

EDIT: just noticed the double post - my bad.. email my sponsors.

This...blog...is amazing... and is typographically pretty! (this is an important issue to me...)

[FS.Kezz]

Originally Posted by fray`ChadMann

Probably the most well thought out and intelligent view on this whole issue. here
Warning, not for the sensitive, or brainwashed Reddit troll.
Written by the amazing Sunset.

EDIT: just noticed the double post - my bad.. email my sponsors.

I was about to post this when I saw your post, because it is a great take on the whole matter and written in a kind of 'no bullshit, just truths' way.

[ToRSoul]

Good to see they're not afraid to suspend their best player because of his actions. Well done by EG.

[SFTAElessar]

Silly Stephano :PP serves him right

[Antel0pe]

Originally Posted by TheYoungOne

did u see what he wrote? if u were my age u would understand! he is talking like that to kids my age!! its disgusting! u have a look at what he ACTUALLY wrote, there was a screen shot of the real thing

funny thing is, i'm younger than you, and i didn't feel offended at all. lol.
welcome to the 21st century man,

Quick Comments

	asdfSchnitzel:	im nearly as young as you and im not offended either, sc2sea chat is worse ;)
	ROOTPetraeus:	more like rogue is worse
	SFTAElessar:	Probably coz u don't know any girls ur age, and i don't feel offended, i just think it is disgusting
	NOM:	^neither do you mate

[SFTAElessar]

no he wasn't

[syfSoundwave]

Originally Posted by TheYoungOne

no he wasn't

You Tube

You Tube

??????????????????????????

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

Why is nom in that video lol!

[ToRSpookToR]

sorry for bm TT revenge pull your head in.
also http://i.imgur.com/z3paT.png jesus

Quick Comments

	syfSoundwave:	Vintage Spook!
	ChowMuddha:	what a bloody flamin mongrel

[Cyanide]

Originally Posted by TheYoungOne

did u see what he wrote? if u were my age u would understand! he is talking like that to kids my age!! its disgusting! u have a look at what he ACTUALLY wrote, there was a screen shot of the real thing

I'm sure the homosexual community would be offended by you using the word "gay" as an offensive term to describe Diablo 3.

Quick Comments

asdfSchnitzel:

^

[syfSoundwave]

Originally Posted by TheYoungOne

oh ok very funny, i remove ok!

lemminks: ur brain probably doesn't understand that i wasn't referring to myself as a girl but girls my age i know and if he did what he did to my friends i would hate him forever but i still hate him coz its principle u moron

...You do realize he didn't do it, right? He was making a private joke to his friend. If he actually DID do it not one person would be defending him. -_-

Also, show Lemminks some respect. He's done far more for this community than you could ever.

Quick Comments

SFTAElessar:

we shall see about what that community part my friend :D