OVERDUE

I’ve been working in esports for several years now and there are many misconceptions and I want to clarify the true story behind my career. This is how I feel right now and I wanted to write honestly about my past and what I’m trying to do now.



Over the past four years, I’ve worked with many players; some have gone on to NA/EU CS and NA/EU LCS and even Riot. I’ve always given everything I can to help. During my short career, I’ve been homeless off and on and have moved 11 times. In order to do the best I can in my work and chase a dream no one in my family really supported., I’ve sacrificed a lot that people don’t realize that has sometimes affected my actions in the past. There’s been plenty of personal hardships, which is no excuse to be short with players or staff. In retrospect, I can see all the mistakes that were made on my part and the missed opportunities that ended up passing me by.



I’m 27 now and looking back over my experiences, I’ve become more self-aware. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. In one one of my EU teams, I had even lashed out at a player after having a third Jungler put the team in a compromised position. The first two were told by another company to throw matches and I was lucky to get a sub not on the roster. Regardless of circumstances or how I felt it was unprofessional.



My overall best trait was being able to find players that were aspiring to go pro and provide the tools for them meet their goals. Biofrost is one of the most recent success stories. On F5/Vortex, some of the players treated him poorly and I felt terrible for him to have to deal with the negative behavior. I was also the person who brought on shernfire before his ban. I helped get Gate out of his contract with Coast. I also helped Bischu get out of the contract he was going to be held to at a buyout of 25k where I was offered 49% of it. I chose to get him out of contract because the contracts I negotiated were not the ones the company had them sign. I think as a manager, one of the hardest things is being promised something by investors, and then when they don’t deliver the responsibility falls on me. I have learned to not promise anything I cannot personally deliver. I am SORRY to any of my players who may have been hurt by deception of investors I was partnered with. I am sorry to any players I have made upset or feel bad about themselves. My intent was NEVER to hurt anyone.



One of my biggest regrets was not doing research on Neil Samadder. Perhaps, if I had done my research I would have known that he was not fit to work with in any capacity and wouldn’t have pushed to defend him. Something that not many may know, my investor in Final Five refused to bring over Veritas. I took out a personal loan of 2000 USD to get him here because he begged for a chance in NA. I still am working to pay off this loan. There’s few players that I’m still in contact now due to something that I did that upset them -- misunderstandings or mishearing or whatever happened -- and that pains me. At one point I had their trust in my hands I broke it and I take full responsibility for that. I do try my best to help any players I can and majority of players I've worked with made it professional to some degree.



For a long time, I believed that my reputation wasn’t my fault but it is. NO ONE else can ruin your career. Only you can decide when your career is over and the choices you make in social media or any aspect of life can indirectly hurt you. I won’t point fingers but I do know that I could have done more to protect myself and the EUCS project.



I don’t do everything perfectly and my entire career in esports has been a learning curve. Whether it has been my control in a project or lack of ability to fully explain my thoughts or any errors that there are -- I have never done anything with malicious intent. RIOT has cleared me on this. My goal in every endeavor I’ve taken on and will take on is to help people. I hope that becomes clear in my project announced soon.



I do understand the drama in the scene is fun for a lot of people but this is my career. Articles that falsely paint me abusing players has lost both professional opportunities and personal relationships. What was worse than that was that I allowed my reputation to get so bad that I was on the front page of reddit and painted as a monster and did not take the correct actions to remedy the situation.



This statement is long overdue and I hope at least a few people can read this. I am not careless, just gullible. During the investigation, Riot told me I was not under any suspicion because they know how much I care about players. My biggest problem is getting into esports with the wrong people and I trust people too quickly and that's not going to happen anymore. With the launch of a new company I can prove to everyone that I care more about my staff, players, and community more than myself. Maybe that's the problem with my self branding. I will try to be less brutally honest (maybe even less of a troll) and not let my emotions get to me in the next 3 phases of my new project. Phase one should be Monday.



I am sorry for anyone I have offended or hurt. I now have majority ownership of a project and I will make sure that I accept all responsibility of failure, and praise my staff with success. I will not make the same mistakes I made in previous endeavors. And I hope I can continue to help people improve in the scene.



Thank you.

Nicole "MizzPeach" Manning

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