CountChocula Profile Joined January 2011 Canada 885 Posts Last Edited: 2013-06-03 18:27:47 #1

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The ECL 2013 Dota 2 season started recently and we were surprised to find iG, DK, LGD.cn and LGD.int not taking part in the group stages. These four teams weren't allowed to join the competition at first, though other Chinese teams like VG and TongFu and well-known foreign teams like Orange joined the tournament without a problem. We asked ECL insiders why this happened, and were able to obtain the following statement:



Author: SGamer.XiaoShouTranslator: CountChoculaSource: http://dota2.sgamer.com/news/201305/150744.html The ECL 2013 Dota 2 season started recently and we were surprised to find iG, DK, LGD.cn and LGD.int not taking part in the group stages. These four teams weren't allowed to join the competition at first, though other Chinese teams like VG and TongFu and well-known foreign teams like Orange joined the tournament without a problem. We asked ECL insiders why this happened, and were able to obtain the following statement: ACE (Association of Chinese E-sports) grouped teams in the association into tiers with iG, DK, LGD.cn and LGD.int forming Tier 1. They are not allowed to enter competitions which have a prize pool of under 250,000 RMB (~$30,000 USD). The participation of other ACE teams will be decided by discussions between the tournament organizers and ACE. The calamity suffered at G-1 and now this ECL matter have led many players and fans to question whether ACE is stunting the growth of competitive Dota 2 in China and whether they in fact are looking out for the interests of competitive players.



Shortly after the said events, our reporter XiaoShou was able to contact ACE chairman and Team WE's manager, King. King spoke to us and responded to the considerable amount of criticism recently levied against ACE. Let's take a look at what he said!





XiaoShou: Thank you, King, for accepting SGamer's interview request. As the chairman of ACE.Dota, have you been feeling like you are in dire straits as of late?



King: Yeah, I expected it as well. I knew this was going to happen the day people elected me, so the situation today was bound to happen.





XiaoShou: Up until now, your reputation in the competitive circle by word of mouth has been pretty good. Now seeing the vast number of accusations, do you regret being elected chairman?



King: I don't have anything to regret. It was other people who elected me, so I had no say in the matter. The only thing I had an influence on was to do well the things I had to do and help the clubs find a path to sustainability. I haven't been able to reach that point yet, but I have really been giving it my all. The sustainability problem is still quite a big issue though. The existence of the association has certainly affected many people's interests and got in the way of them. Even though we've angered a lot of people in the process of fighting for the clubs, I don't regret any of it.





XiaoShou: Whose idea was it to form an association in the first place?



King: I don't think it was suggested by any one person. It really was the case that all clubs were in a terrible state and that there were many questions that had to be solved. Firstly, teams and players had too many tournaments to play and you had to pay for travel and accommodation out of your own pocket. After the tournament, it wasn't certain you'd get the prize money and the teams that finished well would have to give raises to their players. Clubs didn't have time to convert results into value at all. Also, the problem of poaching players was very severe.Ateam would be playing in a tournament today and tomorrow all their players would have disappeared! Thus, all teams were in a crisis. At the time, iG took the lead and all clubs discussed how to proceed. Everyone liked what was being discussed and formed the association. Actually the goal behind forming the association wasn't to control anything, but to come up with ways to standardize club management and find a way to make clubs sustainable.





XiaoShou: Until now, has ACE been trying to find its own way or to borrow from more mature leagues like FIFA, NBDL, KESPA, etc.?



King: Yes. We've examined many traditional sports including the ones you named, but ultimately we need to adapt things to suit our own circumstances.





XiaoShou: Does ACE have regulations? Like, regarding transfers, player code of conduct, etc.?



King: Yeah, we have those. The ACE website is under construction as well. Once the website is done, they'll be made public.







XiaoShou: Since you guys have relevant regulations, were Longdd's transfer and currently active players flaming tournament organizers (ACE) on Weibo (TL note: Chinese Twitter) and other forums in accordance with ACE regulations?



King: In the past, we really did neglect communication with the players, and this has caused some misunderstanding. Going forward, we will take care to create channels for communication with players and avenues to hear complaints from players. We found a player representative on each team and had a meeting, and this resolved some misunderstandings. We formed an instant messaging group for communication with the players as well. If a player is being exploited by a club by not being paid a salary, tournament winnings or something else, they can take action by complaining to ACE. If it looks like there is a serious issue that needs to be resolved, both the club representative and the player representative will attend the meeting.





XiaoShou: In the year ACE has been existence, what has it done and what difficulties has it run into?



King: Since coming into existence, ACE has pretty much put an end to all poaching. All clubs, big or small, can be at ease developing new talent and not worry about the player being poached right after debuting. We've solved the problem of tournament attending teams having to advance a large sum for travel or accommodation cost, so clubs don't have to worry about losing money. In tournaments that have been recognized by ACE, the problem of clubs withholding prize money has been solved as well. For all players on ACE teams, their clubs don't dare withhold a player's salary. Of course in doing all these things, we've angered a lot of people (e.g. - the clubs looking to poach players). Of course some players still decided not to abide by their contracts to join clubs with better results. These players run the risk of being suspended by ACE. Some tournaments don't meet the standards set by the association. In the past, tournaments could get out of paying for travel or accommodation, but because of ACE this doesn't happen anymore.





Some clubs that used to withhold player salaries don't dare anymore. These people hold a grudge towards ACE and try to besmirch our name. Also, most of these people think ACE is too powerful, so we've forced their hand to take action. Above, I've listed some of the positive things ACE has done. Of course there are still things we need to improve on, because our manpower is limited. We're all volunteers in the association and for many things I am the only person taking care of it. In the process of getting things done, the effort I put on communication isn't enough. In the past, one thing we haven't done well is communicate enough with players. However, we will work on this problem going forward. Also, ACE representatives from each club will work together and help me take care of things. Currently regarding tournaments, it is iG's <em>Efeng</em> who is in charge. Regarding our website and news, LGD's <em>RuRu</em> is helping me. Regarding ACE's internal matters, DK's <em>FarSeer</em> will be helping me a lot.





XiaoShou: Why isn't ACE.Dota using professional outside clubs to help your work, like ACE.LoL?



King: It's because ACE.Dota isn't funded yet, so we're comprised of people from each club who each select a representative to do some work in their spare time. It's possible we're not as efficient as ACE.LoL, but since we're all club people it's possible our communication is better. In comparison, ACE.LoL is more standardized having received Tencent's support and is staffed with professionals external to the clubs. Since I have another role--WE's manager--I don't have much information about ACE.LoL.





XiaoShou: In my understanding, Tencent is very supportive of ACE.LoL. If active players breach the player code of conduct, they may get suspended in tournaments organized by Tencent. What attitude does Perfect World have towards ACE.Dota? Do they support you or do they want to wait and see?



King: I think it has to do with Perfect World's own Chinese servers not being fully online yet. Many events they've planned for after the server comes online haven't even been announced yet. Dota 2 hasn't started fully rolling out in China yet. Once everything is ready, I think they will support our association. Before their support becomes official, I think it's best if we handle our things as best as we can. The reason why ACE was formed is to provide a sustainable lifeline for clubs, and we haven't managed to do that fully just yet. Most clubs are completely without income, so there will probably be a club down the road that doesn't make it and disbands. Going forward, ACE will put in a lot of effort in this area. Even if some clubs failed in the past, we will try to give the surviving clubs some hope of sustainability.





XiaoShou: Maybe some prize money distribution system among the clubs?



King: We've examined some business models. Prize money distribution, we haven't looked at yet, but we have asked subsidies to be given to clubs in long-running leagues and big tournaments.







XiaoShou: Will this subsidy be included in the prize pool or is it given on top of the announced prize pool?



King: Yeah. At the moment, LoL's LPL, Dota's ACE and DSL are all like this.





XiaoShou: At the last meeting with player representatives, did they complain about the existence of ACE causing there to be fewer tournaments and cutting them off from a sizable portion of their income?



King: Yeah, we explained quite a bit to players. We haven't actually limited tournaments. First, we have to ensure a tournament's quality. Then, we need to coordinate the competition's timing. If there are many tournaments going on at once, then some will have to be skipped. Before, during DotA, tournaments were happening all the time; there was one every few days almost, that it's possible everyone got used to such a pace. People don't know about the awkward period after TI2: once players had their $1M USD tournament, they didn't want to participate in any DotA tournaments at all. Chinese Dota 2 entered a period where we didn't even know who the Chinese server management company was going to be, so we were in an awkward spot where no one wanted to organize tournaments. The second season of ACE League went ahead in such an awkward period. We looked for many companies to get them to sponsor ACE League, but it was because of the uncertain situation that many fell through.





XiaoShou: There are still many people who don't understand why teams aren't allowed to attend smaller tournaments.



King: Given that there are big tournaments throughout the year, we're categorizing tournaments in different levels. Tournaments that have been confirmed are: Dota 2 Super League (DSL - 500,000 RMB for first place), ACE League (1M RMB for first place), TI3 ($1M USD for first place). Due to time constraints this year, ACE League will only have one season. Next year, DSL and ACE League will have two seasons each. This means there will be four seasons of tournaments offering a grand prize of 500,000 RMB, running throughout the year. There'll also be an incarnation of a TI4 world competition somewhere in between. When these tournaments are perfected, we will consider their classification. Because these tournaments have the three highest prize pools, the other tournaments will seem small in comparison. We need to consider the sustainability of smaller clubs, so we should let there be some small tournaments for these smaller clubs to play. Also, when I was looking for investors for ACE League, during discussions with sponsors we needed to emphasize the fact that our players are stars and should be valued highly.



However if we attend major tournaments hosted by them and simultaneously take part in smaller tournaments, their tournament won't last more than one season. Let me make an example. Take for instance ACE League with a grand prize of 1M RMB. Someone is interested in investing in us to organize such a competition, but while our league is running, they see players playing in our tournament during the day and attending $1000-$2000 USD LAN tournaments at night. Only two possibilities will arise. Firstly, the tournament prize pool in season two will be lower. They will feel our players' value isn't that high. If you can make something happen for 100,000 RMB, you don't need to spend 1M RMB. Secondly, this tournament won't even run for a second season. Of course there is the third possibility that the tournament will keep running like before either due to the tournament being very profitable to run or the tournament organizer being the very company behind the game. This is why when we classify tournaments. We need to consider many things.





XiaoShou: But many people think the reason China was able to stand at the pinnacle of international Dota was because back then players had a lot of competitive LAN experience.



King: Quality or quantity is also something we've been considering recently. Like you mentioned earlier, we don't have a good reference in traditional sports. A well-to-do sport nowadays will have both leagues and tournaments, but they definitely don't win out through quantity. Take for example, the Chinese soccer league. If you showed up with millions of dollars to host a tournament, it's not certain at all that top teams will attend. That's why it is based on the premise of preserving the quality of competition that we need to preserve our star players' value. Regarding the question of what tier a team falls into and what tournaments they should attend, we will meet with each club's management and player representative at least once per month and decide based on the circumstances at the time which tournaments to attend and which ones not to attend.





XiaoShou: You brought up that this year there'll be a ACE League. Can you give some more details about this?



King: Let me explain it in detail. After the first season of ACE League ended, we've been preparing for a second season. Due to the switch from DotA to Dota 2, we ran into a very big problem. At the time, Chinese DotA's market penetration was very good. The number of players who can play Dota 2 is still very low. Nevertheless after we met with all the clubs, we understod that none of them wanted to play in DotA tournaments anymore. So, we decided season two would be held in Dota 2. However the problem of finding investors was one that vexed us greatly. I contacted many companies, but it wasn't until end of last year that I was able to reach an agreement with one. We were preparing to start season two of ACE League at the start of the year. The tournament would feature Dota 2 with 1M RMB for first place. We planned to set the start date as April 15th. Around Chinese New Year, I caught wind of G-1 wanting to host a new season of their tournament, so I quickly got in touch with their organizer. To avoid time conflicts, I got them to do their tournament earlier. On March 7th, Perfect World and Gamefy did a joint announcement. They were going to do an official tournament too, so I opened several rounds of discussion with Perfect World and Gamefy. The main topic of discussion was whether we could combine two large-scale tournaments into one league with higher production value.



I'm sad to say that due to time constraints and even though Perfect World and Gamefy were very supportive of my idea, season one of ACE League 2013 couldn't be held. However, this way it guarantees that there will be Chinese Dota for most of the year. Top domestic teams will have high-level Dota to play. DSL will go until July 8th and the rest of the year will be left for ACE. I summoned player representatives from each club and discussed the planned schedule with them. As it looks now, they'll have to leave for Seattle at end of July. Everyone agreed it wouldn't be good for there to be a big intermission in the middle of the league, so we decided that ACE League would begin once they returned from Seattle and had their summer vacation Thus we decided on a start date of September 1st. We'll do a press conference for ACE League in June and provide more information there.





XiaoShou: Having interviewed you until this point using my own questions, I'd like to ask you a question from a Dota fan. "Your association has already killed off DotA. Why can't you leave Dota 2 alone?"



King: When ACE together with the clubs can decide which game is popular or unpopular will be the day Chinese e-sports is saved. Regarding what everyone is saying how ACE favors LoL and spits on Dota, I want to make one thing clear: The fact that ACE League only has Dota 2 as its game should say a lot about that hypothesis. Regarding what everyone is saying about ACE killing Dota 2, I think our discussion with every club and their player representative every month about tournament systems and how they should be classified, how circumstances are at the moment and how we should adapt and improve shows how every person involved with ACE gets their salary from Dota 2. We're very democratic. If there's a contentious point, we let every team vote to decide and we don't let one person make unilateral decisions.





XiaoShou: In a time when many fans are flaming ACE while some pro players are supporting you publicly on Weibo, do you get the feeling that it's all worth it in the end?



King: Yeah, the things our association does -- as long as every club and every player supports the decision we will be happy with it. It wasn't our plan to perch ourselves above them, but simply to help them get some things done. It's not about who overrules who in terms of jurisdiction. Regarding what you said about flaming me and flaming ACE, I hope everyone will withhold passing judgment until you've understood the facts. If you do flame, then flame my Weibo. I hope you won't go on Hunan Television or CCTV5's Weibo (TL note: popular channels in China) to flame me. That way, other professions will look down on us.







XiaoShou: Having been ACE's chairman since its inception, what has been your strongest emotion so far?



King: I've been in e-sports for 13 years now. The first few alumni parties, I was near the top of my class in terms of success because I was at the top of my profession. At that time, my classmates thought I'd done really well for myself. However after such a long period of development, my classmates, despite not reaching the tops of their fields have managed to surpass me by a lot, but I'm still at the top of my profession. From this, one can see that our field hasn't had very big growth and all we've done is take a lot a lot of world titles. Actually by saying all this, my point is that I hope everyone can unite their efforts and raise e-sports to new heights. Ever since we were small, us gamers have wanted the approval of people next to us and of the general public. I sometimes think about how mainstream media doesn't talk about us. Radio and TV are likewise mute, but that if they were to suddenly change their mind, would we be prepared? I very much wish we show the general public we are an organized and vivacious profession, but so far I cannot say we are one. The areas we need to improve still are numerous. Even in our game, there are many who play one game and look down on those playing a different game. The day we stop fighting each other is the day we can make real growth. Shortly after the said events, our reporter XiaoShou was able to contact ACE chairman and Team WE's manager, King. King spoke to us and responded to the considerable amount of criticism recently levied against ACE. Let's take a look at what he said!King: Yeah, I expected it as well. I knew this was going to happen the day people elected me, so the situation today was bound to happen.King: I don't have anything to regret. It was other people who elected me, so I had no say in the matter. The only thing I had an influence on was to do well the things I had to do and help the clubs find a path to sustainability. I haven't been able to reach that point yet, but I have really been giving it my all. The sustainability problem is still quite a big issue though. The existence of the association has certainly affected many people's interests and got in the way of them. Even though we've angered a lot of people in the process of fighting for the clubs, I don't regret any of it.King: I don't think it was suggested by any one person. It really was the case that all clubs were in a terrible state and that there were many questions that had to be solved. Firstly, teams and players had too many tournaments to play and you had to pay for travel and accommodation out of your own pocket. After the tournament, it wasn't certain you'd get the prize money and the teams that finished well would have to give raises to their players. Clubs didn't have time to convert results into value at all. Also, the problem of poaching players was very severe.Ateam would be playing in a tournament today and tomorrow all their players would have disappeared! Thus, all teams were in a crisis. At the time, iG took the lead and all clubs discussed how to proceed. Everyone liked what was being discussed and formed the association. Actually the goal behind forming the association wasn't to control anything, but to come up with ways to standardize club management and find a way to make clubs sustainable.King: Yes. We've examined many traditional sports including the ones you named, but ultimately we need to adapt things to suit our own circumstances.King: Yeah, we have those. The ACE website is under construction as well. Once the website is done, they'll be made public.King: In the past, we really did neglect communication with the players, and this has caused some misunderstanding. Going forward, we will take care to create channels for communication with players and avenues to hear complaints from players. We found a player representative on each team and had a meeting, and this resolved some misunderstandings. We formed an instant messaging group for communication with the players as well. If a player is being exploited by a club by not being paid a salary, tournament winnings or something else, they can take action by complaining to ACE. If it looks like there is a serious issue that needs to be resolved, both the club representative and the player representative will attend the meeting.King: Since coming into existence, ACE has pretty much put an end to all poaching. All clubs, big or small, can be at ease developing new talent and not worry about the player being poached right after debuting. We've solved the problem of tournament attending teams having to advance a large sum for travel or accommodation cost, so clubs don't have to worry about losing money. In tournaments that have been recognized by ACE, the problem of clubs withholding prize money has been solved as well. For all players on ACE teams, their clubs don't dare withhold a player's salary. Of course in doing all these things, we've angered a lot of people (e.g. - the clubs looking to poach players). Of course some players still decided not to abide by their contracts to join clubs with better results. These players run the risk of being suspended by ACE. Some tournaments don't meet the standards set by the association. In the past, tournaments could get out of paying for travel or accommodation, but because of ACE this doesn't happen anymore.Some clubs that used to withhold player salaries don't dare anymore. These people hold a grudge towards ACE and try to besmirch our name. Also, most of these people think ACE is too powerful, so we've forced their hand to take action. Above, I've listed some of the positive things ACE has done. Of course there are still things we need to improve on, because our manpower is limited. We're all volunteers in the association and for many things I am the only person taking care of it. In the process of getting things done, the effort I put on communication isn't enough. In the past, one thing we haven't done well is communicate enough with players. However, we will work on this problem going forward. Also, ACE representatives from each club will work together and help me take care of things. Currently regarding tournaments, it is iG's Efeng who is in charge. Regarding our website and news, LGD's RuRu is helping me. Regarding ACE's internal matters, DK's FarSeer will be helping me a lot.King: It's because ACE.Dota isn't funded yet, so we're comprised of people from each club who each select a representative to do some work in their spare time. It's possible we're not as efficient as ACE.LoL, but since we're all club people it's possible our communication is better. In comparison, ACE.LoL is more standardized having received Tencent's support and is staffed with professionals external to the clubs. Since I have another role--WE's manager--I don't have much information about ACE.LoL.King: I think it has to do with Perfect World's own Chinese servers not being fully online yet. Many events they've planned for after the server comes online haven't even been announced yet. Dota 2 hasn't started fully rolling out in China yet. Once everything is ready, I think they will support our association. Before their support becomes official, I think it's best if we handle our things as best as we can. The reason why ACE was formed is to provide a sustainable lifeline for clubs, and we haven't managed to do that fully just yet. Most clubs are completely without income, so there will probably be a club down the road that doesn't make it and disbands. Going forward, ACE will put in a lot of effort in this area. Even if some clubs failed in the past, we will try to give the surviving clubs some hope of sustainability.King: We've examined some business models. Prize money distribution, we haven't looked at yet, but we have asked subsidies to be given to clubs in long-running leagues and big tournaments.King: Yeah. At the moment, LoL's LPL, Dota's ACE and DSL are all like this.King: Yeah, we explained quite a bit to players. We haven't actually limited tournaments. First, we have to ensure a tournament's quality. Then, we need to coordinate the competition's timing. If there are many tournaments going on at once, then some will have to be skipped. Before, during DotA, tournaments were happening all the time; there was one every few days almost, that it's possible everyone got used to such a pace. People don't know about the awkward period after TI2: once players had their $1M USD tournament, they didn't want to participate in any DotA tournaments at all. Chinese Dota 2 entered a period where we didn't even know who the Chinese server management company was going to be, so we were in an awkward spot where no one wanted to organize tournaments. The second season of ACE League went ahead in such an awkward period. We looked for many companies to get them to sponsor ACE League, but it was because of the uncertain situation that many fell through.King: Given that there are big tournaments throughout the year, we're categorizing tournaments in different levels. Tournaments that have been confirmed are: Dota 2 Super League (DSL - 500,000 RMB for first place), ACE League (1M RMB for first place), TI3 ($1M USD for first place). Due to time constraints this year, ACE League will only have one season. Next year, DSL and ACE League will have two seasons each. This means there will be four seasons of tournaments offering a grand prize of 500,000 RMB, running throughout the year. There'll also be an incarnation of a TI4 world competition somewhere in between. When these tournaments are perfected, we will consider their classification. Because these tournaments have the three highest prize pools, the other tournaments will seem small in comparison. We need to consider the sustainability of smaller clubs, so we should let there be some small tournaments for these smaller clubs to play. Also, when I was looking for investors for ACE League, during discussions with sponsors we needed to emphasize the fact that our players are stars and should be valued highly.However if we attend major tournaments hosted by them and simultaneously take part in smaller tournaments, their tournament won't last more than one season. Let me make an example. Take for instance ACE League with a grand prize of 1M RMB. Someone is interested in investing in us to organize such a competition, but while our league is running, they see players playing in our tournament during the day and attending $1000-$2000 USD LAN tournaments at night. Only two possibilities will arise. Firstly, the tournament prize pool in season two will be lower. They will feel our players' value isn't that high. If you can make something happen for 100,000 RMB, you don't need to spend 1M RMB. Secondly, this tournament won't even run for a second season. Of course there is the third possibility that the tournament will keep running like before either due to the tournament being very profitable to run or the tournament organizer being the very company behind the game. This is why when we classify tournaments. We need to consider many things.King: Quality or quantity is also something we've been considering recently. Like you mentioned earlier, we don't have a good reference in traditional sports. A well-to-do sport nowadays will have both leagues and tournaments, but they definitely don't win out through quantity. Take for example, the Chinese soccer league. If you showed up with millions of dollars to host a tournament, it's not certain at all that top teams will attend. That's why it is based on the premise of preserving the quality of competition that we need to preserve our star players' value. Regarding the question of what tier a team falls into and what tournaments they should attend, we will meet with each club's management and player representative at least once per month and decide based on the circumstances at the time which tournaments to attend and which ones not to attend.King: Let me explain it in detail. After the first season of ACE League ended, we've been preparing for a second season. Due to the switch from DotA to Dota 2, we ran into a very big problem. At the time, Chinese DotA's market penetration was very good. The number of players who can play Dota 2 is still very low. Nevertheless after we met with all the clubs, we understod that none of them wanted to play in DotA tournaments anymore. So, we decided season two would be held in Dota 2. However the problem of finding investors was one that vexed us greatly. I contacted many companies, but it wasn't until end of last year that I was able to reach an agreement with one. We were preparing to start season two of ACE League at the start of the year. The tournament would feature Dota 2 with 1M RMB for first place. We planned to set the start date as April 15th. Around Chinese New Year, I caught wind of G-1 wanting to host a new season of their tournament, so I quickly got in touch with their organizer. To avoid time conflicts, I got them to do their tournament earlier. On March 7th, Perfect World and Gamefy did a joint announcement. They were going to do an official tournament too, so I opened several rounds of discussion with Perfect World and Gamefy. The main topic of discussion was whether we could combine two large-scale tournaments into one league with higher production value.I'm sad to say that due to time constraints and even though Perfect World and Gamefy were very supportive of my idea, season one of ACE League 2013 couldn't be held. However, this way it guarantees that there will be Chinese Dota for most of the year. Top domestic teams will have high-level Dota to play. DSL will go until July 8th and the rest of the year will be left for ACE. I summoned player representatives from each club and discussed the planned schedule with them. As it looks now, they'll have to leave for Seattle at end of July. Everyone agreed it wouldn't be good for there to be a big intermission in the middle of the league, so we decided that ACE League would begin once they returned from Seattle and had their summer vacation Thus we decided on a start date of September 1st. We'll do a press conference for ACE League in June and provide more information there.King: When ACE together with the clubs can decide which game is popular or unpopular will be the day Chinese e-sports is saved. Regarding what everyone is saying how ACE favors LoL and spits on Dota, I want to make one thing clear: The fact that ACE League only has Dota 2 as its game should say a lot about that hypothesis. Regarding what everyone is saying about ACE killing Dota 2, I think our discussion with every club and their player representative every month about tournament systems and how they should be classified, how circumstances are at the moment and how we should adapt and improve shows how every person involved with ACE gets their salary from Dota 2. We're very democratic. If there's a contentious point, we let every team vote to decide and we don't let one person make unilateral decisions.King: Yeah, the things our association does -- as long as every club and every player supports the decision we will be happy with it. It wasn't our plan to perch ourselves above them, but simply to help them get some things done. It's not about who overrules who in terms of jurisdiction. Regarding what you said about flaming me and flaming ACE, I hope everyone will withhold passing judgment until you've understood the facts. If you do flame, then flame my Weibo. I hope you won't go on Hunan Television or CCTV5's Weibo (TL note: popular channels in China) to flame me. That way, other professions will look down on us.King: I've been in e-sports for 13 years now. The first few alumni parties, I was near the top of my class in terms of success because I was at the top of my profession. At that time, my classmates thought I'd done really well for myself. However after such a long period of development, my classmates, despite not reaching the tops of their fields have managed to surpass me by a lot, but I'm still at the top of my profession. From this, one can see that our field hasn't had very big growth and all we've done is take a lot a lot of world titles. Actually by saying all this, my point is that I hope everyone can unite their efforts and raise e-sports to new heights. Ever since we were small, us gamers have wanted the approval of people next to us and of the general public. I sometimes think about how mainstream media doesn't talk about us. Radio and TV are likewise mute, but that if they were to suddenly change their mind, would we be prepared? I very much wish we show the general public we are an organized and vivacious profession, but so far I cannot say we are one. The areas we need to improve still are numerous. Even in our game, there are many who play one game and look down on those playing a different game. The day we stop fighting each other is the day we can make real growth. 我会让他们连馒头都吃不到 Those championships owed me over the years, I will take them back one by one.