Very insightful read! I had no idea it was the same scummy publication who put out that piece on s1mple after he gave his emotional 2022 IEM Katowice Speech, I genuinely hope that they get their karma in the end and that we stop seeing these disgusting hit pieces and smear campaigns put out on popular players for the sake of drumming up clicks and further dividing the scene.
I want to be very clear. Players was the only official Ukrainian esports media that worked on-site, in Katowice. The interview was booked in advance and agreed with ESL. At that time s1mple talked only with HLTV, James Banks and Players. We also did an interview with B1ad3.
I don't want to talk about our local competitor but that's not journalism. It's reputational damage to Gameinside and the local esports media industry. But not all of us are biased. We took our time and carefully verified this information.
What reputational damage you cretin? You have to have a reputation in order to have it take damage. And from the looks of it outside of a functionally irrelevant cesspool of internal dialogue within the Ukrainian esports scene, bent on farming interactions on trash click-bait stories and Russophobic hate-porn, Gameinside is, or was, a total nobody that has only recently garnered an exclusively negative reputation in the West. No doubt with significant help from morons in the Ukrainian esports scene massively boosting this story, and others like it, to the point where Western audiences got to see the vitriol directed at one of esport's least controversial and most wholesome figures. Good job.
I hope your kind are sued out of existence. You want into the EU? Play by the same rulebook.
Carefully verify the integrity of the swamp you live in before you write up another laughably transparent hitpiece.
I'm aware you're not from Gameinside. You made that pretty clear citing yourself as the source of an interview. The point was broader Western perception of Ukrainian esports media is practically 0, there was no reputation to be had, until this flood of random toxicity came out around the time of the Russian invasion.
Meanwhile your supposed response article to the shit Gameinside published does not even call them out for fabricating a story out of nothing and then peddling it to a wider audience. Your luke-warm "response" to that merely pointed out there was a lack of "100% confirmation." Do not conflate half-hearted criticism and fence-sitting for doing the right thing. If you spent 10 seconds reading Richard's article above you'd see how a real journalism covers libelous garbage like Gameinside's Hooxi article.
As for your initial comment above, you did not even address the opening claim from the commenter above me. The issue raised was the speech S1mple gave at IEM Katowice 2022 in which he stated esports was supposed to be apolitical, and while countries may go to war, he and his Russian teammates would continue to compete in CS. Gameinside wrote a hit-piece targeted at one of Ukraine's most high profile players with slanderous nonsense as the contents of the piece.
I can't tell if your problem here is a language issue or a cultural issue, but multiple claims made here you cannot seemingly respond adequately to. I cannot take seriously a "journalist" like that.
Keep calling them out. It is a travesty that people believe such obvious lies, but they do. The propaganda machine is strong on both sides. People need to start to think for themselves and judge if something makes sense or not and If you are not informed enough then it is better to be silent than to take a side blindly. It is such a disgusting trade to earn your money by creating so much needless discord.
Combination of quality reporting, knowledge of the media and eSports space, and a pinch of humor (what a title!), exposing another bad actor while helping an innocent player clear his name. This is RL at his best, a force for good we need more of.
To quote Clive Tyldesley, witnessing Zinedine Zidane pull off a perfect pirouette during the final tournament of his career:
"Please don't give up the game."
I hope an article like this about a popular player will win over some fans who don't yet see the importance of good journalism.
Worth noting that one of the many tragedies of war is how ardent nationalism can result in intense bias like this, where there's a very real chance that a completely innocent person from a non-participating country can be a victim of real violence, and is perceived as 100% just
But what's worse is that it's almost understandable...Ukraine is really IN IT, on top of being invaded by a much larger aggressor, they're being used for weapons trafficking and money laundering by the US government and are likely to succumb to Russia without direct involvement by NATO
Not excusing this publication at all, clearly this behavior needs to be put in check, but in trying to see things from their perspective this just lines up with what unfortunately always happens in major conflicts
Very insightful read! I had no idea it was the same scummy publication who put out that piece on s1mple after he gave his emotional 2022 IEM Katowice Speech, I genuinely hope that they get their karma in the end and that we stop seeing these disgusting hit pieces and smear campaigns put out on popular players for the sake of drumming up clicks and further dividing the scene.
Hi Missy. Can you please clarify what do you mean by 'scummy publication'?
If we are talking about an interview with s1mple in the press zone at IEM Katowice it was done by Alex Kharchenko, Editor-In-Chief of Ukrainian esports media Players. Link to the interview (sorry, it's in Ukrainian) https://players.com.ua/news/eksklyuziv-s1mple-pro-porazku-vid-heroic-pidtrimku-fanativ-i-skandalne-foto-z-cloud9/
I want to be very clear. Players was the only official Ukrainian esports media that worked on-site, in Katowice. The interview was booked in advance and agreed with ESL. At that time s1mple talked only with HLTV, James Banks and Players. We also did an interview with B1ad3.
I don't want to talk about our local competitor but that's not journalism. It's reputational damage to Gameinside and the local esports media industry. But not all of us are biased. We took our time and carefully verified this information.
https://players.com.ua/news/redakcziya-players-ne-zmogla-verifikuvati-informacziyu-pro-hooxi/
Best,
Alex
Please read Richards article AGAIN and tell me they are not a scummy publication with awful journalistic standards, I IMPLORE you to read it again.
What reputational damage you cretin? You have to have a reputation in order to have it take damage. And from the looks of it outside of a functionally irrelevant cesspool of internal dialogue within the Ukrainian esports scene, bent on farming interactions on trash click-bait stories and Russophobic hate-porn, Gameinside is, or was, a total nobody that has only recently garnered an exclusively negative reputation in the West. No doubt with significant help from morons in the Ukrainian esports scene massively boosting this story, and others like it, to the point where Western audiences got to see the vitriol directed at one of esport's least controversial and most wholesome figures. Good job.
I hope your kind are sued out of existence. You want into the EU? Play by the same rulebook.
Carefully verify the integrity of the swamp you live in before you write up another laughably transparent hitpiece.
Are you a complete idiot? I'm not from Gameinside, I'm from other local esports media named Players.
What I was trying to say is that Gameinside is shit but not all local journalists are the same. Period.
Don't bother to reply to this comment,
I'm aware you're not from Gameinside. You made that pretty clear citing yourself as the source of an interview. The point was broader Western perception of Ukrainian esports media is practically 0, there was no reputation to be had, until this flood of random toxicity came out around the time of the Russian invasion.
Meanwhile your supposed response article to the shit Gameinside published does not even call them out for fabricating a story out of nothing and then peddling it to a wider audience. Your luke-warm "response" to that merely pointed out there was a lack of "100% confirmation." Do not conflate half-hearted criticism and fence-sitting for doing the right thing. If you spent 10 seconds reading Richard's article above you'd see how a real journalism covers libelous garbage like Gameinside's Hooxi article.
As for your initial comment above, you did not even address the opening claim from the commenter above me. The issue raised was the speech S1mple gave at IEM Katowice 2022 in which he stated esports was supposed to be apolitical, and while countries may go to war, he and his Russian teammates would continue to compete in CS. Gameinside wrote a hit-piece targeted at one of Ukraine's most high profile players with slanderous nonsense as the contents of the piece.
I can't tell if your problem here is a language issue or a cultural issue, but multiple claims made here you cannot seemingly respond adequately to. I cannot take seriously a "journalist" like that.
Keep calling them out. It is a travesty that people believe such obvious lies, but they do. The propaganda machine is strong on both sides. People need to start to think for themselves and judge if something makes sense or not and If you are not informed enough then it is better to be silent than to take a side blindly. It is such a disgusting trade to earn your money by creating so much needless discord.
Combination of quality reporting, knowledge of the media and eSports space, and a pinch of humor (what a title!), exposing another bad actor while helping an innocent player clear his name. This is RL at his best, a force for good we need more of.
To quote Clive Tyldesley, witnessing Zinedine Zidane pull off a perfect pirouette during the final tournament of his career:
"Please don't give up the game."
I hope an article like this about a popular player will win over some fans who don't yet see the importance of good journalism.
There are click-bait publications and apparently there are also gun-trigger inducing publications...
Worth noting that one of the many tragedies of war is how ardent nationalism can result in intense bias like this, where there's a very real chance that a completely innocent person from a non-participating country can be a victim of real violence, and is perceived as 100% just
But what's worse is that it's almost understandable...Ukraine is really IN IT, on top of being invaded by a much larger aggressor, they're being used for weapons trafficking and money laundering by the US government and are likely to succumb to Russia without direct involvement by NATO
Not excusing this publication at all, clearly this behavior needs to be put in check, but in trying to see things from their perspective this just lines up with what unfortunately always happens in major conflicts