The Land Of Broken Promises 0.5
The reaction to an article pointing out the importance of keeping promises made in exchange for community money has been as predictable as you'd expect.
It has been six days since I published my introductory piece about the trend of “broken promises” in e-sports, alongside with a vow to write up the specifics of each one that presented itself. The reaction from the community was mixed, as expected. Some people see it as drama-mongering, others as a refreshing change to the usual slew of self-congratulatory bilge the e-sports press throws out. What I hadn’t anticipated was just how hostile some of the e-sports
The piece had clearly ruffled feathers in a manner I hadn’t anticipated it doing because, regardless of the language used to convey what was happening, it was all true and everyone is aware of it. Yet the hostility I found myself on the receiving end was surprising, even by e-sports standards, where anyone rocking the boat is shunned and accused of “killing” the industry, as if scrutinising what we do was somehow inherently wrong.
I was asked yesterday what I think about the statement that “e-sports journalism doesn’t exist yet”, an assertion made by an ex-e-sports journalist Lawrence 'Malystryx' Phillips in an interview over at Gosugamers. It is nothing new to see oldschool writers refuse to accept the work they did has been eclipsed by the people active today, something I’ve mentioned before. The question comes at an interesting time because, based on the response I got to my recent piece, I could understand why no-one would want to write anything challenging people at all.
At the forefront of the response was accusations of trying to stir up “witch hunts”. You will see this term bandied around in e-sports a lot, almost entirely inappropriately, yet is a clever use of linguistic trickery in its own right. The term obviously derives from the time when any foaming Christian fundamentalist could declare anyone a “witch” or occultist for displaying behaviours they didn’t approve of, or maybe just out of some weird and twisted form of malice. Using fear of God and fear of reprisals, the local populace could be stirred into creating impromptu courts to try and punish the accused. These would usually take the form of torture whereupon the only way to prove innocence was to die. And of course, let us not forget, the accused was always innocent because there are no such things as witches.
Now, I’m not sure asking valid questions about e-sports accountability is tantamount to the same thing. Witches may not exist – dishonest people do and in e-sports there are little channels for genuine reprisals when they are discovered. There is little doubt of the guilt of the “accused” in my piece – the fact that at the time of writing promises were still outstanding shows that to be the case. When I wrote the piece I wasn’t setting out to whip everyone into a murderous fever and to take actions. I wanted people to be aware that when this type of manipulation is taking place you need to be wise to it and you’re well within your rights to ask questions relating to accountability. There should be an easily spotted difference behind the two.
Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson had taken exception to my naming him in my piece. He was the first to be vocal about the article being “tabloid shit” after I pictured him above a quote he had said. He also incorrectly believed he had been named a chief offender in the pizza.gg situation, when of course that label was applied to Evil Geniuses. I pointed out that he had not helped the situation by effectively saying “you got half price pizza and that should be enough for you, regardless of promises”, something which he denied. I then linked him to the following quote he made on Reddit in this thread (http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1lxo4p/if_you_work_in_management_at_eg_root_or_team/cc3sjbw):
“but getting angry about it seems odd. If you partook in this activation you got a 50% off pizza”
This would be the standpoint most would adopt anyway, so it seemed strange to deny it. However, it was clear that he was trying to use his position within the community to attack me over things, for the most part, I hadn’t even written. Of course, I expected some blowback from Evil Geniuses. It’s not secret that I am on their “blacklist” of journalists they will not co-operate with. This would be the first of many people to launch into scathing attacks following the publication.
The next person to go on the offensive was John “Totalbiscuit” Bain. It isn’t odd that he would disagree with something I say, as this seems to be the norm. What is odd is that he would take the time to speak out about it given he has reminded on me multiple occasions that I “have no following” and can’t possibly have any journalistic savvy as I work for “a small European Counter-Strike website”.
It also seemed odd that we weren’t in agreement. John was one of the first dissenting voices about the Papa John’s promotion in the first place, as the Tweets below show, which was something we did indeed agree about. To offer a long recording on the matter, a significant portion of which effectively adopted the standpoint that the people who took part in it should be grateful they got 50% pizza regardless of other promises, seemed to be at loggerheads with his initial negativity towards the project. As he worded it:
“I'm gonna be frank and honest guys, if you bought pizza to "help ESPORTS" then you are part of the problem here. Something Richard never said, for what reason I cannot speculate, is that some of the blame for this kind of pandering lies with the people who were "taken in" by it. You're really trying to convince me that you bought pizza to "help ESPORTS" and not because you were hungry and there was an offer for cheap pizza right in front of you? I honestly do not believe the majority of the community is stupid enough to buy into the whole "help ESPORTS" thing and frankly as I said in my audio blog, I don't believe it's even that prevalent in the first place. You are not morons, you didn't buy a bunch of pizzas you wouldn't eat just to impress EG and Papa Johns, come on now. So which would you rather admit? That you were effectively marketed to, or that you threw money at a nebulous concept called "ESPORTS" for ultimately pointless rewards that had no deadline on them at all? You can't come out of this feeling 100% smart and above it all, sorry guys.”
Now, I’m not sure I can accept this but there’s again some smart linguistic trickery at play here, something you can expect from someone familiar with litigation. According to him if you were one of the people – which I believe to be the majority – who bought the pizza for both the benefit of e-sports and the specific rewards promised, then by extension you are a moron. If you were buying it for 50% off then you are not a moron but certainly shouldn’t be upset at the lack of delivery of the other promises.
For me this isn’t right at all. We had it shoved down our throats about how this deal would help e-sports, how if it was successful we’d see big companies come back time and time again. Don’t remember that? Read the initial press release at the start of the campaign again:
“There comes a time in every fan's life where he realizes that he must eat pizza for the good of the realm. This is that time. We all want to see more mainstream companies invest in esports. "We have the numbers! - we're bigger than some of that stuff on TV!”
The focus was never on rewarding existing e-sports fans with 50% off. It was a clear rallying call for us to allow the organisations we care about to earn more money and to grow the e-sports pie for everybody. If the assertion from Totalbiscuit is that you can be taken in by marketing, then how many were taken in by that specific part? If the intention was never to come across as saying “this is FOR ESPORTS” then why specifically say that in the first paragraph of the advertising campaign?
Let’s put it in simpler terms. When you buy a happy meal for your kid, you expect the fucking toy. It is the incentive to buy the same old burger. If it doesn’t come with it, McDonalds don’t turn around and say “well, the meal is what you’re really buying, so don’t be a moron”.
He continued:
“Delays are not the same as broken promises…”
In any promise there is an implicit deadline for delivery. When making promises in exchange for donations it stands to reason that the promise must be at least mild inconvenience, something out of the ordinary, for it to even warrant the donation in the first place. Think about it logically – the promise of a showmatch will probably yield more results from e-sports enthusiasts than recording themselves fixing breakfast first thing in the morning. While I cannot disagree that there were no deadlines for the promises, I don’t think it unreasonable for them to be delivered within a respectable amount of time. Five months doesn’t feel like that, something we will come to in a moment.
Although most of the recording was a response I can at least respect – once you get past the constant focus on semantics and even typos to try and discredit the sentiment behind the initial article – the final summation turned into a diatribe. Although I wasn’t named, it was clear that I was being accused of wanting to “destroy e-sports”, which as we’ve established is the repetitive phrase used to discredit people who challenge the way things are done by those at the top end of the industry.
“I do feel that there are some people in this scene that are just interested in destruction now. Maybe they’re just bored. They lost their passion and enthusiasm a long time ago and they think “you know what, maybe if I can just take a little bite out of this scene I once loved that no longer caters to my interests, so…” “For some reason I feel justified in trying in my own small way to destroy it.” Perhaps that’s the attitude.
For the record I don’t hate e-sports. My desire to see it operate in a more honest fashion, and for people who contribute to it financially so content creators can make a full time living from it to get what their contribution deserves, is surely not a negative thing. What I am bored of, after a decade, is the same thing happening over and over and people continuing to profit from abusing the trust of regular fans.
Next came Live on 3, hosted by Marcus “DJWheat” Graham and Rod “Slasher” Breslau. They had decided to put the piece on the list of topics to discuss, which I wasn’t aware of until someone messaged me about it. I watch the show regularly anyway and sat and waited for the inevitable. The article wasn’t discussed in the main part of the show but at the phone-in part JP McDaniel called in and brought it up in what felt like a very scripted fashion.
JP McDaniel: “I asked in the chat if you guys had talked about it yet as it seems a pretty big topic, especially today. Totalbiscuit’s released his thoughts on it and it’s all about Richard Lewis’s article “Land of Broken Promises” number zero – Slasher, are you upset that I brought this up?”
Despite the host having admitted to not reading the article, they felt comfortable debating it anyway and made several conclusions about the piece and the topics it addressed. These ranged from the article itself being a cynical traffic driving exercise, to reiterate Totalbiscuit’s assertion that pizza.gg should not be listed in the same breath as other non-fulfilled obligations – despite the commonality of everything in the piece being “broken promises” not “crowdfunding” – and that the way to avoid future problems is through a combination of communication and common sense. There was also the insistence that if you are concerned about the non-delivery of promised content then you are probably more obsessed with drama than e-sports. Rather than pad out my word count to ludicrous levels, an abbreviated transcript of the discussion is here.
For those of you who read it you will notice that not only do they arrive at the conclusion they couldn’t possibly have misrepresented an article they didn’t read, but that the person calling in had no opinion about the subject anyway. It felt a very contrived way to reiterate that the Pizza.gg campaign should be exempt from any criticism because people got pizza, to blame the community for their love of drama and, of course, to effectively gloss over the article and dilute its message. I would have much rather they didn’t discuss it at all.
On the 28th September, in what I’m sure was a coincidence, one of the outstanding tiers of the pizza.gg promises was actioned by Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid. Tier 6 had promised that Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson and Dario "TLO" Wünsch would swap teams, between EG and Team Liquid respectively. What we got was a fake “April Fool” style announcement that featured some amusing jibes at the expense of one another and the organisations that housed them. It also saw both players continue this theme via Twitter.
On the press release announcing the move, in the largest font used, was the slogan “Esports: Delivered”. Of course this is a play on words relating to pizza delivery, however the statement of intent is also quite clear, namely that they have come good on their promises and the rest will follow.
My question, quite fairly I think, at this point would be “what was so special about a short piece of writing and a few Tweets that it took five months to produce it?” I’m not so sure that both teams worked on lengthy scripts and planned the whole event out. There is no reasonable explanation for why it couldn’t have been done sooner, especially if we take it as read that it was a reaction to the current climate.
Next came the Team Liquid and EG exhibition match, actioned on September 29th, which was tier 8 of the listed promises. One of the defences of this not happening sooner, was that no deadline was given. Well, that’s not strictly true as it was stated on the 24th of May:
“Since many players in all games are busy at events this week, we'll be doing these next week after they're all back. We'll make sure you to update you guys when we know exactly when!”
Anyway, despite the longest week in e-sports history transpiring, the event went out without a hitch and took the better part of an evening to perform. Again, given the training schedules and streaming expectations place on the players, could it have been done sooner? Almost certainly. What was interesting was the way it barely even felt linked to the original campaign. Several mentions of sponsors were made and Papa Johns, despite what we were told about future campaigns forthcoming if the initial one was successful, were not among them.
Of course the fulfilment of those tiers greatly altered the complexion of any article I could write. There were two more tiers outstanding, suitably larger projects (a LoL music video and a community pizza party) and I’m confident that all efforts are being made to set them up sooner rather than later. I was still going to complete the piece, more for posterity at that point, but it made sense to focus my research on some of the other outstanding projects listed in my introduction.
Regarding the Sons of Starcraft documentary, which had raised $42,155 via kickstarter for lifelong friend of Nick "Tasteless" Plott, Jeffrey Alejos, I decided to speak with the subjects of that documentary to see how the project was coming along. My first port of call, Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, was surprisingly hostile to what seemed like fair questions. I was very explicit in what I was writing, which I dubbed “some pieces about people not fulfilling promises in the scene”, as I did not wish to be misleading about my intentions. Immediately he became agitated.
“Do you know how long it takes to make a documentary? He filmed me recently and we have a little more coming up. by the way, state of play took 4 years, and star nation started before sons of starcraft. This isn't abnormal. I see him all the time, been filmed a ridiculous amount.
I Don't really wanna talk anymore about it to be honest, sorry. Too many retarded witch hunts.”
I explained the following:
“What it appears like, in the absence of any other information, is that the person making the documentary took a big chunk of change and has led a very nice lifestyle while not delivering the film he promised would arrive nearly a year ago.
Now that might be the case, or it might be this guy has ran into all sorts of problems and tirelessly slogged away for the entire time, in which case that is something of benefit to be communicated. I'm just trying to tell the story either way.”
The conversation ended there and I decided I’d pursue other avenues. That should probably be the end of it, right? I mean, journalists ask questions, you don’t have to answer them. Not everything you need to write about can be looked up, found in reference books. You have to ask around and that’s what I’d been doing throughout working on these pieces. It is simply the job and you know when you do it not everyone will like it but you have to do it anyway.
What I hadn’t bargained with was that Dan would relay the fact I was asking questions to
Tobias Sherman of the Esports Management Group, whose clients include Tasteless and Artosis, the two people featured in the Sons of Starcraft documentary. In line with the other criticisms levelled at me for simply trying to find out what was happening with all these community projects, he tweeted the following:
He would accuse me of saying things I didn’t say – namely that the documentary isn’t coming out – and make light of the fact that the individual had acquired over $42,000 to make a film that was behind schedule. The only productive thing that came out of the exchange was him stating that the reason it had been delayed was that it was going to debut at Blizzcon.
I wonder why the creator of the movie couldn’t have communicated this himself at any point, and why instead that information was being relayed to myself via social media by someone whose management company supposedly doesn’t even represent the filmmaker as a client, but the rest of the sentiment was clear. If you want to ask questions about this sort of thing expect hostility, expect bridges to get burned and expect us to use everything freely available at our disposal to make you look like an idiot.
This isn’t really the issue here but it is a consideration. I, as a journalist and not a player, or personality, or commentator or any of the more prominent positions you can hold in e-sports, doesn’t have the tools to win a ward of words. My pieces might find their way to the top of Reddit but many of the people who see these responses won’t have even see the piece in question. All they will know is that some guy they have never heard of is a liar for some reason and they’ll go about their day. In the future they may be less inclined to pay attention to anything I do because of what bigger names have said to a wider, and more receptive audience.
I can handle that. What is concerning is why they would choose to do it at all. Accountability is not something we should be trying to drive out of e-sports. People who shortchange the community should simply have the decency to apologise and try to make it right, not spend their energies being evasive or relying on their colleagues to make explanations for them. I’m not even saying these people are malicious. I’m saying that in the absence of consequence where is the incentive to make it right?
They day after this latest tirade against me had clogged my Twitter feed The Verge published a piece about e-sports was continuing to grow. In it, Rod “Slasher” Breslau is quoted as saying “it’s the golden goose everyone is chasing”, a statement I can agree with. With all this opportunity and profitability has to come responsibility. If wanting people to realise they can’t have one without the other is killing e-sports, then I guess that label can be rightfully applied to myself and doubtlessly it will again soon.