Introduction

I’m an ex senior marketing specialist of a large company operating in e-sports, I’ve seen some shit and I’m writing this blog because I want to straight out some manipulated facts about CS, organizations, pro players and fan bases. Obviously I will not present any hard evidence because those consist exclusively of legal documents and correspondence between companies & pro players. It would never get shared on purpose because that could be a subject to lawsuits etc. Everything that I write in this blog will be based on educated guesses, experience and conversations with other people in the business. If you’re one of those persons that can’t draw conclusion from common sense and needs to get abducted to believe in UFO than you should stop reading here.

Sponsors & Organizations– the core of competitive sport.

Now that I’m done with introduction I have to make sure that you’re familiar with some basic facts so you can understand my main points. Lets start with organizations in e-sports – why they exist, how they make profit, how they pay pro players etc. When you’re a pro player you should concentrate purely on training, strats, counter-strats and winning events. Buying plane tickets, cooperation with sponsors, negotiating deals with them, booking hotels, taxis is something you won’t have time for if you want to be successful. It also takes skill and experience in the business to negotiate good deals. That’s why there are organizations to take care for that stuff. Tier 1 organizations in e-sports make a profit of tens of thousands of dollars each month while tier 3 can make as little as thousands. The amount of money they make is a big factor of whether they hire full-time or part-time rosters. Smaller organizations don’t pay their players anything at all. They just buy their tickets, pay for hotels, sometimes they give them free gear etc. Some organizations even take a chunk of roster’s money won from tournaments.The MOST important thing for each organization is their brand. The stronger it is the better deals, better sponsors, and better profit from merchandise it gets. Obviously certain sponsors don’t want to cooperate with other ones. Competition is an important thing in the business. For example, there is no way you’d see Nvidia and Radeon or Intel and AMD sponsor the same organization. It’s pretty obvious. Due to their importance they have the biggest impact on organizations, players etc. Conflict of interest comes when one of the players in a roster IS IN PERSON a strong brand himself ( http://imgur.com/KQ5Tx7Y ). Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong about creating your own brand. The problem is when that brand has EXCLUSIVE deals with OUTSIDE sponsors :NvidiaZowieKinguinEven bigger conflict of interest comes when that person wants to promote his brand more than the brand of the organization he’s playing for. Do you really believe that Hiko chose a tier 5 team (Nihilium) over 2nd best in NA (CLG) because as he said “he sees potential”? (P.S. Yeah nice potential considering there is only 2 people left from the original roster in that team since he joined) He chose it because CLG (or any other self-respecting organization) wouldn’t let him promote his brand OVER the brand of organization. Nihilum made that mistake, probably because they’re a small inexperienced organization and didn’t have that much exclusive sponsor partnerships. Now let me tell you something that you won’t read on HLTV or on twitter. Money that organizations pay to pro players are PENNIES in comparison to what they get from sponsors. Money from sponsors consist of 90% of organizations profit. They use it to pay for plane tickets across the world, pay for days of stay in hotels for SIX PEOPLE AAAANNNDDDD they still have loads of cash left as a profit. Now image how much Hiko makes when he doesn’t have those expenses.

Trick or treat

http://imgur.com/9gYVTGh you see this? What you see is just a case of having extremely bad taste of wearing a baseball cap along with a suit (What happened to people’s dignity and good taste? What’s next? Will people start wearing clown costumes to funerals?). What I see is a free forced advertisement for which a company like Intel or Nvidia would have to pay TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars for.Now I see people’s comments like “poor Hiko” or “OMG Hiko curse I feel so sorry for him”. There is no curse. That what happens when you’re devastating your way up the ladder instead of just climbing it. People and organizations don’t count, he doesn’t give crap about them. They fall like flies in a thunderstorm in effect.“To Desi, Hiko, Sancz, Semphis, Valens and Legija, we know that whichever org is lucky enough to have you guys will be forever blessed. You guys truly were incredibly humble superstars” – This is how Nihilum commented on roster drop. Do you see the ironic tone of that comment? They seem pissed off. The team cooperated with the organization successfully for months and then Hiko comes and BAM instant devastation. Can’t you see a connection? I mean, there is nothing wrong with changing organization. When a roster keeps climbing up the ladder, being successful and the organization is too incompetent to acquire new sponsors or better deals to give them a raise then go for it. The problem is this team has been shit, hasn’t improved at all since it was created, in fact it got worse. It reminds me of those middle aged “may I speak to the manager” entitled moms that think they deserve everything for free. Not cool.

Conclusion

Now after all you read do you really think he left C9 (top 1 NA, TOP 10 world team) because he saw no potential for improvement? He left it because they wouldn’t let him expand and promote his own brand. Funny thing is that he said that he joined IBP because he wanted to play with swag (I don’t think most of you know or remember that swag left complexity because of Hiko. Hiko played swag’s favorite spots therefore not letting swag fully show his potential – can’t find the source now but it’s in either one of Thorin’s or Dazed vlogs). I also wonder if the current roster knows that what’s going to happen might not be best for them but best for Hiko. If new team will be Team “X” (insert one of Hiko’s sponsors here) than it is already answered.I wrote this blog “on my lap” during my lunch break so I might’ve made some mistakes. Also English isn’t my native language so sorry for grammar. If you have any questions about anything at all go ahead and ask in comments – I will try to reply. I hope mods don’t delete this blog just because it has some uncomfortable facts in it.