[dippa]

(Following is a repost of my thread on TL. Someone said they couldn't read it there, so, here it is.)

WARNING: This is a long post; it's more than 2500 words. Get a drink before reading, and if you can't be bothered reading, then don't post.

At the time of writing, Weapon of Choice has just concluded. I caught the last half of what was, well, a fairly fiery argument.

But a lot of important topics came out of the discussion that deserve its own topic and also some thought about where eSports is going.

This is what came up when I googled "killing esports".

Anything purporting to be "professional" cannot exist on a system of handshakes and verbal agreements.

If we want to take eSports to the level where it is a sustainable, healthy sport, there needs to be some legally binding method of allowing players to move about in the market.

Let's be realistic. Once players get into the situation where they are getting paid and organisations are competing for them: it's a market.

It's a business. This isn't kid's stuff anymore.

People are getting butthurt about the transfer of Puma, but let's keep in mind this is all to the benefit of Puma; whatever happens, he is going to benefit. Most likely, he would have gotten some form of contract or improved conditions at TSL. He could probably still acquire that if a deal with EG cannot be worked out. And, obviously, EG want to secure him as a player.

But let's think of the reverse.

Give some thought to the players who are on the B-teams, with no formal contracts and are struggling to get by. Eventually, one day, the team decides to cull them. That's it - you're off the team. You can't stay in our house anymore, you can't practice with us. It's just not worth it, you're not good enough.

Get out.

Not everyone gets to win Dreamhack. What happens to the hundreds of players that don't make it?

This situation is not unrealistic at all. Some of you might be saying that the "Korean culture" would prevent such an undesirable situation from occurring. But the reality is that should events line up in a fashion where this could happen: it will happen - because this is a business, a cut-throat, no-holds barred, sport.

A lot of teams would act with more integrity than this, I'm sure, but the point is that there needs to be security for the players. Teams are formed up of players that are essentially no more than children and teenagers devoting some of their best years that could be spent working towards a lucrative career in law, engineering, finance, or hell, even professional sport.

If this was any other industry, any other "sport" - there would be some form of regulation. ESports has no regulation, as Garfield pointed out, although I would argue the generally defined standards on dealing with cheaters is effectively self-regulation as everyone plays by the same book.

But the life-blood and potential growth out of this industry is impossible without the groundswell of players required to make it happen. If kids are in the situation where they get thrown out on the streets, eventually the media is going to find out about it and do one of those "horror" stories that makes everyone shit their pants. You want to talk about killing eSports? Watch what happens to sponsorship dollars when companies run like crazy to avoid the bad PR associated with wasting young people's lives.

We must do everything as a community to avoid the worst case scenarios. This is cut-throat competition. Let's not kid ourselves. Every team wants the best players and wants to win everything. That's what gets them sponsorship dollars and lines people's pockets.

But the only way we can safely navigate all of the treacherous waters is with legally binding agreements that protect everyone. That's a fact.

A worldwide recreation of KeSPA is not, and will never be, possible.

Milkis asked Garfield a few times why this wasn't the case. It works in Korea, so logically, why can't it apply elsewhere?

djWHEAT said it was a "utopia", and I tend to agree. But let's get realistic: we're dealing with humans here and not everybody is going to agree on everything. Players want to play the game a certain way. Teams will want certain players on their teams.

And just like everyone else, organisations will want to do things their way.

Garfield is right. It's all one massive competition. Organisations ARE competing with other teams. Why, do you ask? Because organisations are just as capable of hiring people and running their own sponsored events. Do you think sponsors give a shit about how it plays in the community? That's not what they're in it for. I'm not saying they're evil bastards looking to scam people. They're simply making an investment and they will go where they can get the best return.

That might be sponsoring a player like IdrA or Destiny. It could be sponsoring a particular team so players and websites can sell their products. It might just be a tournament.

But the idea is that everybody is trying to fight for a piece of the same pie. Ideally we want that pie to grow so there's a slice for everyone. Real life, however, is never that kind. Especially business.

What otaku think of when you say "utopia"

Organisations have their own interests as stake, chiefly being their continued existence as an organisation. A Korean company can't extend into Europe unless it already has an established foothold there or it takes over a company with an existing presence. That's how business works: if you over-extend, you either get punished for your troubles or you just simply collapse outright. (ABC Learning is an example for Australian readers of what happens when you expand too aggressively.)

So you will have the situation that we have now where different organisations control different sectors of the market. For a KeSPA style model to arise, all of those companies have to give a little and sacrifice to make it work.

Now, you tell me: who's going to give up their money, power and appeal to sponsors first to make this a reality?

No-one will. Because that's business, and the key tenet is that you look after numero uno first.

Defamation is something that needs to be seriously approached - but not in the terms that Garfield framed it.

I'm not using the word defamation lightly here. In essence, Garfield was insinuating that Milkis was partially responsible for the damage caused to EG by translating content without doing proper justice to the "facts".

Garfield's question was an argument - and it would be highly disingenuous of Alex to claim that he wasn't making a point with his "open question" - that the community should apply stricter standards to their content; ie. hold the story until EG had time to prepare a response.

Sorry Garfield, but time waits for no man. If the internet isn't going to wait for major airlines to announce that a plane has been grounded, what on God's green earth makes you think it's going to wait for you?

This is just reality. The author published an article on PlayXP based on the information he had available. There's nothing wrong with him writing from just "one" side of the story, because it's a community contribution. They've done nothing more than write an article about comments from a key industry figure (one of the coaches of a pro-gaming team) about a situation that the community has massive interest in.

EG didn't get time to publish their side of the story. That happens. It's no different from a government withholding press conferences until an hour or two before the news bulletin at dinner time. In that scenario, ministers do that so there is no time to disseminate the information beyond reporting on what's been released.

It doesn't make the reporters irresponsible for not having read the hundreds of pages of supporting documentation. All they've done is their job with the time limited to them.

There's an important line to draw here in what's been reported. Coach Lee has come out and said EG have signed Puma, which EG has denied. The reports are just running headlines off that information. It's not illegal, irresponsible, and nobody in the community is to blame. This. Happens. In. Business. All. The. *******. Time.

How many news websites have you seen that update a story after its been published? Hell, some newspapers will update their websites without even notifying readers of the changes. More commonly though, breaking news will often have an Update: This Shit Just Happened above or below the body of a piece. That's what we're talking about here. A story goes to press and the story is later edited with contradictory information. Whoever is writing has a responsibility to report as honestly as possible, which is what PlayXP and Milkis has done. Garfield is unhappy about it because it doesn't reflect his side of the story (or the facts - but this isn't about who's right or wrong).

Qantas plane gets grounded. Passengers tweet about plane failure. Airline shits itself until PR department can produce a statement. Morale of the story? Write faster.

In that case, the onus then shifts to organisations to "control" the story as much as they possibly can. That's how PR works. This is why I mentioned airlines beforehand. Qantas, the largest airline in Australia, now has a Twitter account that they keep updated 24/7, because it is the fastest possible way of disseminating information that they can control. That way, companies give themselves a hedge against journalists who run stories.

(NB. Here's a story about Qantas getting butthurt by social media. Keep in mind, you can't prosecute people for sharing an opinion in the Western world. Thank **** for that; Twihards are idiots.)

But let's not forget - we're talking about JOURNALISTS here, paid professionals who adhere to a certain code of ethics and particular procedures. Communities don't do that. TeamLiquid doesn't have a set of Terms and Conditions that requires me to talk to all parties involved before I make a post flaming someone. I'm not supposed to ask casters for a comment if I believe their analysis to be batshit-stupid. That's not what a forum is.

So what do companies like EG do then? Are they to be left without any protection whatsoever, for people to disparage their players, procedures and damage their brand freely?

Journalists **** up just as much as forum posters do. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72I0AC20110319

The nature of the internet says this will happen regardless. But what is not unreasonable is for teams to have their own Twitter accounts, their own Facebook accounts and their own ways of getting information out quickly. If you move to correct a story that you believe to be wrong, you can then at least paint something as being in dispute. If someone continues to blindly argue otherwise, despite evidence to the contrary - which you have spread into the public arena - then I think you can have an argue for a case.

This isn't the print media. If you're an hour behind on the internet, you're effectively a day behind in the real world. In situations where things are happening rapidly, you may as well be a week behind. The ability to hold stories for both sides of an argument, sadly, has vanished - because the value of that story diminishes exponentially with every passing hour.

One easy solution is that administrators of websites have an understanding that all "news" posts are open to being edited by a moderator so that more information can be added in the future to reflect the reality of a situation. That might not fit the business utopia that Garfield wants, along with a hell of a lot of other businesses, but that's how the internet works.

Finally:

This could eSports version of the Bosman ruling or the World Series Cricket battle.

I'm not saying TSL and EG are going to end up in court over this.

Here's some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_Cricket

The basic idea was that in both situations, the end result was a transfer of power from the teams and governing bodies over to the players. In the Bosman ruling, Jean-Marc Bosman was denied from playing for another team even though his contract had expired.

World Series Cricket was eventually resolved in Britain's High Court. There, the world governing body (the ICC) had tried to prevent players from participating in the 50-over, World Series Cricket, by banning players from Test cricket and first-class cricket had they played in Kerry Packer's tournament. The court eventually found that banning players amounted to preventing citizens from plying their "trade" and that the ICC could not prevent professional cricketers from choosing what leagues they wanted to participate in.

Puma, no doubt, held a very powerful position. He could, and may still be able to, play TSL and EG off against each other for the best possible offer. This is essentially what happens in most professional sports today, just with a shitload more money - and better representation.

Sadly, this man is not in a position of power.

But however it plays out, TSL has now recognised that they have to contract ALL of their players - lest they lose them to foreign organisations. Fact of the matter is, they could lose them to Korean teams as well, because there's nothing legally stopping one team from securing a free agent.

To me, this raises another question: should players be allowed to represent themselves? As eSports grows bigger, I think it is inevitable that some players will remain in the scene as agents, using their experience to help other players navigate a world of contracts and obligations that many, quite frankly, are too young to understand.

I'd imagine parents would act as the "agents" for many players, but that's simply not sustainable if you want to seriously grow eSports. An organisation like the GSL, or KeSPA, could arrange to have some former players or someone acting in an independent role that can oversee the legalities for players concerned.

Should eSports attract the eye of governments, which is inevitable if its grows to the point that we want it to, this type of regulation will be forced upon us anyway. That's another reason why contracts are absolutely essential; sooner or later, eSports is going to have to conform with the labour laws of their respective organisations.

So rather than have the fat foot of governments sort shit out for us, we'd best move our asses and start thinking and developing our own methods of representation. Remember, this is to safeguard all parties involved. Obviously, most financial dealings and contracts are done honestly and in a secure way.

But if we want to really grow this scene so that there's something left behind when we're 40, this is the kind of ballpark we're playing on. Like it or lump it kids, it's time to grow up.

-dippa

Quick Comments

	TAhackdZ:	Excellent article dude. Your on the right track
	Maynarde:	Read on TL. Very valid points.
	Nobunaga:
	ZergGirl:
	LennX:	Excellent! Looking forward to more of such article.
	deL:	I am keen for contracts as well, the pros just outweigh the cons in most cases. I have a trouble with it being unregulated though.
	NvRossi:	Simply stupendous my good man
	Cyanide:	well written :)
	TAriiChard:	Awesome read.
	TCPLemminks:	You covered the topics of media coverage and player contracts excellently, both of which need to be recognised as key factors in the growth of esports