Time: 19:10:59 CET 10:10:59 PST 13:10:59 EST 03:10:59 Seoul 02:10:59 Beijing
NEWS
Two kilos of Trudy's cocaine
Read this column for your first share of esports drama in 2008. Now that I don't work for GGL, I can come out and share things that are known but not talked about in public. I am not going to make friends, but perhaps I will open some eyes.
By Michal 'Carmac' Blicharz
Jan 1, 2008 15:51
Read this column for your first share of esports drama in 2008. Now that I don't work for GGL, I can come out and share things that are known but not talked about in public. I am not going to make friends, but perhaps I will open some eyes.This is a column. An article that presents the view of the undersigned and the undersigned only. In this case it's Carmac. Not bds, not TheSlash, not SK Gaming, and by no means is it SpawN either.
Read this column for your first share of esports drama in 2008. Now that I don't work for GGL, I can come out and share things that are known but not talked about in public. I am not going to make friends, but perhaps I will open some eyes.
It's about ethics, about honesty, and about one of the best coverage websites in the world, GotFrag.com. Or maybe just about their Vice President and Strategic Brand Director, Trevor "Midway" Schmidt. I don't know who pulls the strings.
On August 23, 2006, Midway posted an article about GGL owing prize money to various players and teams. While there was nothing untrue about the story and I have never questioned its content, I lost all my respect for Midway after I read it.
After I saw Midway's article about GGL, I wrote an article about the CPL owing money to players and teams. It was as researched as Midways - I talked to the players, CPL's sponsors and Angel Munoz himself. I had a friend submit it to GotFrag as his own. Twice.
It was never approved and Midway knows about it, because he responded to my friend's email inquiry about it. GotFrag's Editor-in-Chief Mark "jESUIT" Cheben (very nice guy) was on vacation at the time.
If GotFrag did not see my effort as a proper article, then they surely must have noticed a story crying to be investigated! There was truth in that story - we all remember why the world's richest teams decided to not attend CPL Winter 2007. It was never published in any form.
But this is not why I lost my respect for Midway. Everyone, to some extent, protects their employers or business partners. Such is life. But Midway did not find out about CPL's debts to players after.
At the time of writing the article about GGL, Midway knew more than well that the CPL owed even bigger sums of money to teams and players, for periods longer than the GGL did. I met Midway at the 2004 Electronic Sports World Cup for the first time and he knew about it then. It was actually from him that I found that CPL had prize money issues.
Midway would tell anyone. But not his readers. It was a truth that never saw the light of day on GotFrag.
I blame exclusive broadcasting deals for CPL events and certain partnerships. Thanks to those we never get to read one critical word about most businesses in gaming, but instead get interviews where every question is a paraphrase of "Why are you so awesome?"
But it stinks and it's extremely dishonest to choose to write about the sins of one organization (even if they are undeniable) while covering up the sins of your business partners.
You don't go out calling your neighbor's wife Trudy a drug addict if your own spouse has a kilo of heroin in her bedside drawer. Even if Trudy has two kilos of cocaine in hers.
This is one of the reasons why I never went after CPL while working for GGL.
Read this column for your first share of esports drama in 2008. Now that I don't work for GGL, I can come out and share things that are known but not talked about in public. I am not going to make friends, but perhaps I will open some eyes.
It's about ethics, about honesty, and about one of the best coverage websites in the world, GotFrag.com. Or maybe just about their Vice President and Strategic Brand Director, Trevor "Midway" Schmidt. I don't know who pulls the strings.
On August 23, 2006, Midway posted an article about GGL owing prize money to various players and teams. While there was nothing untrue about the story and I have never questioned its content, I lost all my respect for Midway after I read it.
After I saw Midway's article about GGL, I wrote an article about the CPL owing money to players and teams. It was as researched as Midways - I talked to the players, CPL's sponsors and Angel Munoz himself. I had a friend submit it to GotFrag as his own. Twice.
"It stinks and it's extremely dishonest to choose to write about the sins of one organization (even if they are undeniable) while covering up the sins of your business partners."
It was never approved and Midway knows about it, because he responded to my friend's email inquiry about it. GotFrag's Editor-in-Chief Mark "jESUIT" Cheben (very nice guy) was on vacation at the time.
If GotFrag did not see my effort as a proper article, then they surely must have noticed a story crying to be investigated! There was truth in that story - we all remember why the world's richest teams decided to not attend CPL Winter 2007. It was never published in any form.
But this is not why I lost my respect for Midway. Everyone, to some extent, protects their employers or business partners. Such is life. But Midway did not find out about CPL's debts to players after.
At the time of writing the article about GGL, Midway knew more than well that the CPL owed even bigger sums of money to teams and players, for periods longer than the GGL did. I met Midway at the 2004 Electronic Sports World Cup for the first time and he knew about it then. It was actually from him that I found that CPL had prize money issues.
Midway would tell anyone. But not his readers. It was a truth that never saw the light of day on GotFrag.
I blame exclusive broadcasting deals for CPL events and certain partnerships. Thanks to those we never get to read one critical word about most businesses in gaming, but instead get interviews where every question is a paraphrase of "Why are you so awesome?"
But it stinks and it's extremely dishonest to choose to write about the sins of one organization (even if they are undeniable) while covering up the sins of your business partners.
You don't go out calling your neighbor's wife Trudy a drug addict if your own spouse has a kilo of heroin in her bedside drawer. Even if Trudy has two kilos of cocaine in hers.
This is one of the reasons why I never went after CPL while working for GGL.
RELATED NEWS
169 comments
Loading comments...
I've made the points i've needed to make, and i'm unsatisfied by your responses. But as this is going nowhere, i'll leave it be.
-GotFrag posted an article about the GGL not paying prize money with Quotes from Jason Lake of coL and others.
-GotFrag researched a story about the CPL not paying yet couldn't get people to go on the record.
-Carmac submitted an article to GotFrag under an alias saying "The CPL didn't pay out prizes" with no quotes confirming it and even one saying they wouldn't talk about it from Sam from fnatic.
-GotFrag decided not to run this article because it didn't have sources.
-GotFrag continued to press players for quotes and sources.
-GotFrag decided that it would not post until players decided to support a story by providing quotes and accurate information.
GotFrag takes responsibility for not getting any of these players to go on the record sooner, that's our fault. But here's where I'm confused, how did we protect the CPL? The way I see it, the players are the ones who protected the CPL.
A very well written article, and it's about time someone had the guts to publish something like this, good job Carmac. I might be a bit biased when it comes to discussing this issue, so I'm not gonna comment a whole lot on it since the bit of information I have about this is worth less than nothing.
It's a good read though and the cocaine metaphor rocks :)
Hope to see more critical journalism from you!
there was no real cocaine involved in this story at all
gay!
Myers3000 has it.