All of esport’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

- William Shakespeare.

I think that’s how it goes.

I keep having these images of the hit ‘90s children’s animated series ‘Rugrats’, only the characters are esports people.

In this episode, the esports community builds a little theatre made of cardboard and building blocks. We’ll say, for the sake of entertainment value, 2GD is the host and Incontrol is the usher, and they exchange witticisms. Only they’re babies and possibly drunk*. The curtain raises and TaKe is on one side, threatening legal action, waving around a piece of paper scribbled on incoherently with purple crayon. Genna gets upset and leaves and we’re all standing around the cardboard theatre amongst teddy bears and whatnot, wailing, throwing our pacifiers around. (We’re hard to shut up at the best of times, after all.) TaKe feels bad and apologises, only no-one understands and he doesn’t reference the purple crayon scribblings and we’re all left a little confused. Total Biscuit comes out from backstage and starts yelling at everyone.

Credits roll and Genna has left esports.

Well, shit.

I know, the ‘Rugrats’ thing is a bit weird, but once I get these images in my head, it’s really hard to shake, you know? Especially when it feels poignant in my brain.

I just have this impression that, for an industry that prides itself on being so cutting-edge - the next big thing - sometimes we’re all a bunch of children pretending in our roles, and we’re all just fucking up just a tiny bit.

First off, I was very pleased with Genna’s first blog on TL about Axiom being unable to compete further in the ATC. I was. All emails and Skype conversations with TaKe and some other dude and such. “How transparent”, I thought to myself, pleased. “That’s that then.”

Then she released her second blog on TL about stepping down as Axiom’s manager, with another Skype quote from TaKe about not wanting Skype to be quoted.

Then TaKe released a statement on TL as a reply to Genna’s blog and I don’t get it. He writes English better than I write German, so I feel terrible about this, but I don’t quite get what he’s saying.

So I step back away from the popcorn in order to get a little perspective on the situation, and I try to think of any other industry ever that I have ever come across ever where business decisions and disputes are played out in front of everyone.

This isn’t the first time. Oh, no.

How about when Sundance announced there was no SC2 at the upcoming Columbus event? On Twitter.

140 characters can say so much and so little at the same time.

“That sucks,” I thought, “Still, better than waiting till a month before like a certain IPL that made me lose like a grand NOT THAT I’M BITTER I’M NOT BITTER-”

Then Kevin Johnson, a Blizzard employee who works as a community manager for StarCraft, tweets back “Why not?”

I turn back from picking pieces of the falling sky off the floor and gasp.

What? Why is a Blizzard employee asking that? Is Blizzard out of the loop on this? Does Blizzard not know? Why would Blizzard not know? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Then Sir Scoots says Red Bull booked the MLG weekend, then Rob Simpson and some MLG employees are tweeting about rumbling in the playground after school and I just don’t even anymore.

I tried to find a way to tweet “You STOP THAT, Red Bull Esports’ Rob Simpson and MLG employees and #SSNN’s Sir Scoots, you stop playing with my emotions and the emotions of those who love StarCraft 2, you big meanies,” but it’s more than 140 characters and I like Rob Simpson and Red Bull and MLG and Scoots I just can’t join in the theatre, really.

Honestly, though.

I can’t think of anywhere else where this kind of interaction between professionals in public is OK.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I sit there and michaeljacksonpopcorn.gif to this shit till Brooklyn.

It’s entertaining, for sure.

But is it really good business?

We’re a demanding, childish, prone-to-raging group of goldfish. We think we’re entitled to all details always about everything. Genna sharing conversations and emails was transparent, to be sure, but was it entirely necessary? What she said in that blog could have been said in a well-put-together statement. She wasn’t blaming anyone in the end - the statement would have held the same sentiments.

TaKe losing his shit to her was childish and no way to interact with someone you have business dealings with - if the information he shared was so sensitive, it shouldn’t have been shared, and if there’s no NDA, tough friggin’ cookies. And his statement, well, I’m just saying maybe someone could have looked it over before it was posted.

I love Genna and I love TaKe. They are incredible contributors to this community**. But did we really need to see this play out? Not really. And it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Genna and now we’ve lost someone we really needed around these here parts. There are no winners.

The same applies to this MLG/SC2 situation - would a statement have been better than a tweet? Could there have been some kind of simultaneous statements organised with Red Bull and MLG, considering everyone with eyeballs can see the volatility that exists among us?

I once helped release a set of simultaneous statements for ROOT with KeSPA. It can’t be more scary than that, right?

I even fucked that up.

And the world kept on turning.

And why did we have to hear the reason from a tweet from Scoots?

It was 2am my time when all this was happening on Twitter and it was more compelling than watching a documentary on baby penguins***, but is the business of esports serious or a reality show?

Could things have turned out differently if things were handled the way real life businesses would handle something similar? If Axiom had just released a neat and tidy statement, if MLG/Blizzard/Red Bull got together and worked out how to break their news to everyone?

Y’all are mates, I see your man love on Twitter, don’t even act like you can’t work it out.

Is our world so interactive, do we feel so entitled, that this is the way it has to be? What are the consequences of that?

I fear there are more negatives than positives - right now, anyway.

At the very least, there has to be a balance.

Openness is appreciated.

But there’s openness, and then there’s openness.

Genna’s tweeting sad songs and quotes on her Twitter and it’s making me sad.

We’re all sometimes just like children playing our roles -

sometimes it’s like we forget

what PR is,

what marketing is,

what management is,

what privacy is,

what good business is,

what journalism is…

..and we just give it a go.

And sometimes, it’s just not quite right.

Maybe we’ll learn.

Ah, man.

I just can’t get it out of my head.

* On milk.

** THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN YES WE ALL HATE IT HASHTAG SEMANTICS.

*** And I fucking love baby penguins.