The Begging Bowl
Kickstarters are the latest financial model to be abused by esports organisations, all the while deferring the necessary move towards sustainable business models this industry desperately needs.
“Landfills can be regarded as a viable and abundant source of materials and energy In the developing world, this is widely understood and one may thus often find waste pickers scavenging for still usable materials.”
In another life the people plundering these landfills for whatever they can find and use, like tragic wombles, would have been perfectly suited for e-sports. After all, the whole industry has for many years subsisted on what other people throw away, namely marketing budget. In times of plenty e-sports seems to thrive, in times of financial famine e-sports seems to be hit the hardest. However these cycles never last long enough for a drastic rethink of the system – the amateurs and part times wither and die in the winter, the stalwarts remain in hibernation. Just when things look dire, the sun breaks out.
It has created a very strange culture within e-sports, one that doesn’t seem to exist in mainstream business, or certainly none I’ve been a part of in my other life outside of this. E-sports people, outside of a few actual businesses, have no qualms with living on sponsor handouts, of feeling comfortable taking a lump sum of money for the vague promise of some sort of return, although not many can quantify what that might actually be. It’s speculative on the part of the companies that invest in e-sports and many get their fingers burned not just because they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into but because the organisations they handed over their marketing budget too became suddenly disinterested about the terms of the partnership round about the time the cheque cleared.
Streaming revenue, as we’ve already touched upon in previous columns, has also turned the process of players and teams reaching their fans into something more akin to “Live Jasmine”. Everyone goes all out to find that thing that will appeal to the lowest common denominator, so rather than getting hard hitting e-sports content pushed to the forefront, we get tens of thousands of people encouraged to watch someone making a living through e-sports humiliate themselves in exchange for your views. Dance for those pennies you hobo… And never forget if you use ad-block it’s you who is killing the industry, not the people who serve up this trash.
On top of that “donations” have always been an accepted norm. If you’re a fan of an e-sports group it isn’t enough to help in all the ways you already do – web traffic, viewer numbers, brand strength – but you are also expected to dip into your pockets too and part with your money. It’s OK because research shows you’re a middle class, aspirational, white teenager or young adult with access to disposable funds. They know you can spare it and we’ll incentivise it in ways that cost the recipient absolutely nothing – a special avatar on the forums, a free “lesson” with the player of your choice… It is money for old rope in every sense of the word and it’s incredible just how many suckers there are. I’ll view it with less suspicion at the time I see Man Utd fans having a whip round for Wayne Rooney because he needs another hair transplant.
Whatever you think of all that, there was a new low recently that is the e-sports equivalent of the homeless beggar that sits by a cashpoint and then asks you for change. Except, you know, he actually has a good reason for doing it. It was no surprise to see Root Gaming involved either, a recent string of incredibly bad judgement calls making the one professional decision that e-sports deemed they made correctly – the parting of the ways with Steven “Destiny” Bonnell – look like some sort of fluke moment of clarity. Since then they seem to have consistently plumbed the depths in a desperate bid to look anything other than a small time organisation that was one time relevant in a game when it was in beta.
You see, they want YOU to buy them a gaming house. Many top organisations have found ways and means to pay for them – and can actually justify them through excellence in the field of e-sports – but ROOT offer so much to the e-sports landscape that it’s only fair you make a contribution to that. If that doesn’t get you reaching for your wallets and hastily logging into Paypal just check out the tawdry incentives…
$10 or more and you get a pack of 200 replays… Files from games they played that realistically should be publicly available anyway. The three biggest donators get signed jerseys and can watch the players matches as and when they occur. And the single largest donator gets to visit the finished house and meet the players… Provided they pay for their own travel to do so.
[quote]Our goal with the house is to create a proper practice environment for our players - a very rare (if not nonexistent) thing on this side of the world. We also want to start building the Western e-sports culture and infrastructure. The hope is that more teams start moving close to us and, in the future, we can help develop the scene like that - by creating localized leagues and pushing each other to become better every day.
For these reasons we've picked California. The ping to the korean server (best existing ladder by a mile) is better in Cali than most, if not all, other places in the United States. This combined with the fact that Blizzard, NASL, Twitch, EG and others are in Cali, made the decision an easy one. We are currently trying to decide where exactly within Cali would be the best place for us.
We've narrowed it down to a few strategic locations that would serve our goal. Our pledge to you is to provide you with regular content, live shows and videos for you to follow our progress as we try to become the best players we can be.
Any suggestions for things you'd like to see coming from the house will be considered and we'll do our best to fulfill the community's expectations.
WHAT WILL YOUR MONEY BE USED FOR?
At least 4-5 ROOT players + Rob "Kavik" Collins (our main content producer) will be moving to
the house. We expect more players to come and stay for months at a time as well.
Fundraiser money will be used to help cover especially, but not exclusively, the set-up costs, which are quite high. Some of these include:
- Flights for the players to the house (one-way)
- Beds, computer and house furniture in general.
- Initial rent and security deposits.
- Computers and Monitors (we hope to get a sponsor to do this one)
Our high estimate for one year is about $75,000. Two-thirds of that would be recurring expenses, but the initial set-up cost is high regardless. The more we get, the more we'll be able to do. Our initial GOAL is to raise $25,000
The first counter-argument issued by the organisation and the fans are that “it’s a donation. You don’t have to contribute if you don’t want to”. This is true but there is still an absolute shameless gall in asking, not to mention the trickery in the implication of asking to begin with. There is an implication in the very request that if people don’t comply there is a dark future ahead for the organisation, a sort of subliminal guilt trip laid on people who care.
Next up is the complete lack of transparency or accountability. No-one really knows what’s going on with the money, where or how it will be spent, how much a gaming house costs, whether or not they had a pre-arranged deal to get a house and this cash on top is a sweetener… You’ll most likely never know. Their initial target was $25,000 but they happily admit to having excelled that… What happens to the excess? Do we know the excess only amounts to $5,000? You know very little because, in the grand scheme of things, despite behaving like a charity there are no regulations about it. It is literally strangers exchanging money with not even a verbal contract in place. One party gives, the other takes. The relationship – no matter how much ROOT want to spin it – ends there.
What we can safely say is that ROOT are in a position to make money from what they do. If they don’t make enough, why should it be on the community to help them make more, to take their business to a stage it is unable to reach without charitable donations? If they don’t earn enough then the implication is that either they don’t do smart enough business or their product isn’t in high enough demand. Either way, if they want to progress, they should be speculating and that should come from within or through private investment, not through asking everyone who enjoys their players or uses their website (which is in itself an act that provides ad revenue) to have a whip round.
People have compared it to Kickstarters. If so then ROOT’s request is comparable to what Hollywood star Zach Braff did, asking the public to fund a film rather than dip into his own pockets. The kickstarter culture was invariably going to take hold of e-sports in a big way as it’s “money for promises” model is a wet dream to every e-sports shyster. We saw “e-sports journalist of the year” Patrick “Chobopeon” O’Neill tentatively try to start the trend by basically saying it would take YOUR money to get an e-sports journalist to tell the truth. He was, quite rightfully, laughed out of the scene, temporarily at least, but not before he had taken $2,422 from 40 backers, probably more than the average e-sports journalist sees in three months, and that’s just the ones that are paid.
In games development the kickstarter notion isn’t so bad. It frees the developers from the cynical and derivative brains of the big software houses who don’t want innovative games, just sequels or clones to existing cash cows. It has seen the rise of independent titles, the return of beloved genres, belated sequels to fan favourites… It works because at the end of it, in the vast majority of cases, there is something in return. Those who pay get not just early access to the game but they get the finished product. They help shape it and in some cases are immortalised either as a character or a sly reference somewhere in the game storyline. Regardless of the fluff, they get given the game they would invariably bought anyway.
There is nothing so solid in e-sports. Spectate a few practice games, watch a few demos? I am amazed that people will part with their money for so little, even for their favourite team. The trick is, of course, to give the donator the illusion of being part of something, to make them believe they are as important and as valued as anyone contributing to the organisation. But of course, we know that isn’t true, not even for the “Big Gosu”, who will be given his manufactured moment before being mostly forgotten about despite making a contribution probably equivalent to a lesser sponsor.
The worst thing that could have happened for e-sports was for any other outcome except it falling flat on its face. The fact that ROOT surpassed their expectations will now open the floodgates for others and it indeed we see Absolute Legends try the exact same thing, seemingly without realising that their stock is nowhere near as high as even ROOT Gaming… They current stand at a whopping $402 of their proposed $35,000 goal. Not that it matters anyway. They keep what they get. The goal is irrelevant. It is probably only there to elicit sympathy if they miss the amount that is so desperately important to them but they’ll no doubt find a good use for the money they took from you for a house…
The fact Absolute Legends would extend their begging bowl to a community they’ve constantly exploited is especially hilarious. Their CEO, the hilariously named Tim "WetDreaM" Buysse, has a long standing history of being associated with non-payment to players, the outstanding amounts of which would probably have given them a six month lease on the gaming house they now seek. He denies it all, yet for several players across several games that are only linked by having the misfortune to have represented the organisation to come up with some sort of conspiracy… Seems as unlikely as them getting another $34,500 in 20 days.
That’s the sad reality. These organisations and the individuals behind them already live a lifestyle most would envy thanks to e-sports. They cream off enough for themselves and when that comes to its inevitable conclusion they always know there’s more people to turn to. Worst case scenario, change organisation names, blame someone else, start over, call that contact at that other company… Now, you’re on the list. You’ve already been commodified as a number but now they want to take more money out of your pockets to further their dream reality – rent free, self sufficient living off the back of e-sports.
Until the fans get wise to what this is e-sports can’t be professional. Professionals earn their living, it’s not given to them. Anything else is just garbage.