We need Dr. Phil in here to have all parties sit down and hug it out! I wonder if this has hit the korean forums yet and will jessica chime in? She was quite critical of genna/tb on twitter when axiom was formed. Having her say something would just be the icing on this drama filled cake, lol!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Just going to add some additional info here. Several reasons have prevented us from participating in the offline portion of ATC.
•After WCS NA, we felt that CranK needed to focus on recovering from his injury.
•There is not much time left to prepare for DreamHack Bucharest and we want to be in top condition. (Also in the event we make it to the SC2L offline portion, we wanted to be prepared for that as well.)
•We were not directly made aware that teams would only receive $1500 for the entire team to travel from Korea to Germany until flights were ridiculously overpriced. ($1500 per team is comped by ATC, not per person)
While our team is not in any kind of financial distress (if it were, I have my primary accounts and 401K to dip into) it is my goal as owner of Axiom to break even as much as possible and not to grossly exceed our income from sponsorship. It's not always pleasant to have to be fiscally responsible, but there are other factors at work here which made my decision to keep the team at home easier.
Thank you all for your understanding in this matter. We have some wonderful sponsors and fans who expected to see us compete at this event and we are very sorry to have to let everyone down by forfeiting our position in ATC. We are sure that ATC will announce our replacement shortly, so please support them and enjoy the finals regardless of our absence."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey everyone in the esportscene as you have seen Axiom did a post that they won`t be able to participate in the Acer TeamStoryCup powered by Intel which makes me very sad! I have seen some bad feedback from the community which gives me a very bad feeling cause Axiom same as us tried to figure out all options if they can make it and do not have to cancel thier participation.
We kept talking for along time already and also informed Millenium right after we knew that it _might_ happen that Axiom won t be able to attend. I wanna thank Axiom for keep talking to us and trying to find a solution. So as you can see Millenium will be the replacement in this case - Stuff like this can happen and is very sad for the team itself cause they fought for this place.
I hope to see Axiom back in action if there is a next season and they can do it once again to qualify for the Finals! I hope even with this bad news you are looking forward to the ATC Finale as i do which will be already saturday and i also wanna let you guys know that we try to work on this league to let stuff like this not happen again and try to have even a better communication to the teams but don t forget esport is a very very busy business and all of the people actually working here invest more time than most "normal" people would ever do.
My view on this is frankly pragmatic. Take and ATC are not suffering in any way. Millenium was confirmed as our replacement some time ago in private, which has been announced today. The roster has not suffered and the tournament will happen as normal, just like any other tournament that has a cancellation and has to find substitutes. Millenium are popular and will no doubt bring in the French crowd that otherwise might not have watched the event, balancing out the lost numbers from Axiom players not participating. The net cost to Take and ATC is zero, who are still paying out the same regardless, they are just paying it out to a different team. The tournament will go ahead as planned with a roster change, there is no disruption to the event.
On Axioms side, we have provided the following. 14 weeks of competition at unholy hours of the night for our players with no prize money. Our players have essentially worked hard for something they will no longer receive. Our sponsors will not receive exposure in the finals as we had hoped, so they are losing out. The team in general suffers, the tournament does not. ATC also received many hours of free casting from myself and the sponsors benefited from that significantly, with views 3-5x higher on average than the other English streams and an additional 20-30,000 views per series from VoDs hosted on the TotalBiscuit Starcraft Youtube channel, giving exceptional sponsor ROI Acer and Intel that would otherwise not have existed. Teams also received sponsor ROI due to use of the virtual jersey in all matches, software we developed specifically to help everyone.
So, after all that, my opinion of this is that the backlash on Axiom is unwarranted and makes little logical sense, when Axiom are the ones who put a lot into this tournament and are suffering due to a combination of unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances. If anything I would have hoped for support from the community in a difficult time for the team, but for the most part it seems that will not be happening. As always, we will endure that and push on regardless.
Then this would have passed over and been a thread filled with, Well that sucks at least mill going, and Crap wanted to see Axiom, and been over. Instead TB decided to start insulting people in the community to get some face time. Then Genna, I'm assuming thinking if people saw what she did would be more understanding posts what she did. After people including Take were offended instead of agreeing. Again instead of being calm and professional TB used his regular approach of attacking. Which cause another crap storm. Then genna quit, AND AGAIN instead of being calm or professional, even though he claimed he was going to, heads right bac into attacking people on the forums and on twitter.
This could have been a complete non issue. And the quotes I used are what people actaully said, even the one from TB. Sadly he mixed in 50 jerk posts, and cause a raging forest fire from a small camp fire. Don't feel sorry for TB he created this. Feel bad for all the others pulled into the mess. Including his wife, who instead of protecting he is making a target. Its akin to he saw his wife in a room with a bear, the bear was sleeping so he decides screw this bear I'm gonna start poking it repeadly with a stick. Not shockingly bear wakes up mad. But I digress.
If some one collected all the posts this could be a perfect case study on what not to do and then you could show how professonal organizations handle MUCH MUCH bigger issues then axiom pulling out of the live finals.
Heck they could have just said "Sorry we can't make it guys we feel awful, wish we coudl be there but with Miya retiring and Cranks health we just can't. Glad millinum is stepping up hope its a great tournment. We arn't going anywhere and are going to come back stronger. Thanks for all your support sorry to disapoint in this case, we will be back!"
Great points. Agree completely, it's not necessary, and it's all just a bit sad for everyone involved. I guess though that you need to remember that everyone involved is a person and can be emotionally affected by stuff.
It's a new industry, it doesn't have the benefit of having well worn, streamlined paths and structures ensuring that the right people are in the right positions, and the right things get said at the right time.
As bystanders I think we need to realize this, and not expect perfection from everyone, all the time.
Personally I'm all for giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. So there are warts, so what? We're all people here, enjoy the game and move on.
I totally agree, maybe this will be mores eye on the ATC final? I hope there is some positive spin off. Its like apologies are being sent and all that good stuff. It might take some time for people to completely forget, but overall people move on pretty quick.
Massive overreaction in my eyes. "I hope that by law this is something you can get punished for" is hardly "threatening legal action". Especially when, as is widely known, Dennis' grasp of the English language is far from perfect.
Now I completely understand that a minor misunderstanding like this can be the straw that breaks the camels back, especially when someones health is compromised. So all in all I think this might be for the best, Genna can get some well deserved rest and or help. Good luck to everyone involved.
Well that's unfortunate. I always liked how Intricacy handled things. Don't agree with publishing chat-logs without asking though, I'd be pissed about that too even if it was nothing negative (although talking about legal action was a bit over the top).
Too bad it came to this seeing as this whole thing seems to be mostly a misunderstanding/miscommunication on both sides (even if the stepping down was due to other factors as well).
GL HF yourself, and hopefully it will be less stressful now, not having to deal with daily team affairs on top of all the rest.
In Germany you have to inform your chat partner your messenger creates log files. Also privacy and privacy protection is a much more important thing to the German people than anywhere else in the world, I guess. It's one of the most important things though. You are not allowed to share your private conversations with someone else without letting the other party know.
Well - I am pumped for the ATC finals. It's going to be awesome!
This has happened to StarLadder in dota2 like 3 seasons in a row and nobody quits, gets in forum wars, posts private emails or makes countless posts and threads about it. Starladder just doesn't invite the teams that fail to show-up to the lan finals next year and everyone goes about their business.
This whole situation and the reactions from everyone (people directly involved and the community) is why SC2 is silly. I think the Beiber community has less mindless drama than SC2 and I'd wager it's mostly 12-15 year old girls.
To be completely honest, I am disgusted by Genna's behaviour.
The whole Axiom dropping out of the ATC should have simply been a statement from Axiom saying something like:
"We incorrectly assumed that travelling costs would be $1500 per person instead of per team, we should have had further inquiries into the travelling finances but we mistakenly didn't and because of this we are forced to withdraw from the tournament due to budget concerns. We apologise to fans and the organisers of the event but we hope you all understand our situation."
Instead, we now get a thread by Genna taking subtle stabs at TaKe and what was clearly a communication error with what TaKe said because he isn't the greatest at English. I am quite sure what TaKe meant was "what you did was wrong and you can get in trouble for it", it wasn't a legal threat. But just to tarnish his reputation she decided to include it in this thread. Congratulations on making TaKe look bad, you're an incredible person.
I also love how this whole parting with Axiom blogpost is a "look how great I was for my team, I am so fucking amazing! Axiom is a great team and now TaKe just ruined it" Or at least, that is what I inferred from reading it several times over.
As much as I like the Axiom team in terms of their player roster, I can not like their (former) management for pulling crap like this.
Jesus, the childish displays in the SC2 scene are just staggering. I typically only watch the tournaments, day9, etc, but it seems like every time I poke my head into the forum ("Oh, I wonder what type of new strategy guides there are") there is always a shitstorm.
Bluntly, I believe the reason SC2 isn't ever going to become really huge is because any reputable business person wants to stay as far away from this fucking nightmare as possible. There is little money to be made (partly because businesses are probably too spooked to invest), and what little money there is is extremely risky to reach for, because you have to deal with God knows what kind of PR issues--the antics that are the daily reality in this scene would get you fired immediately in any other industry. This scene lacks respectability.
I wonder what would happen if teams were to hire professional, trained managers and PR people to clean up the scene. Yeah, you would lose the "nerd with a dream starts his own cast/stream/team" element, but I think that would be a small price to pay if the daily landmines planted for businesses to avoid were cleared out and they could invest without fear that some caster or player receiving their funds is going to explode into some extreme diatribe that paints that company in a bad light.
So after reading the entire thread and listening to TB's soundcloud the one thing that boggles me the most, is why on earth Genna decided to announce Axioms withdrawal from ATC and her own departure from Axiom. If the problems caused by misunderstandings between Genna and Take was indeed merely the last straw, these two seperate matters has nothing to do with one another. Imagine how much bullshit that could have been avoided if Axioms withdrawal from ATC had been announced and explained by a spokesperson from Axiom and not Genna herself, and if Gennas retirement had been announced next week in a seperate thread.
Of course nothing is easier than being a wise guy after the dust has settled, but i really hope that people is going to learn from this matter. Getting emotionally involved in this case was quite possibly the most stupid thing that Genna and TB could have done. Hopefully this will set an example for future disputes.
Also i think that people should avoid picking a side in this matter. Obviously this has already happened and numerous people have already proclaimed that they won't follow TB anymore or watch ATC, but honestly people - grow a pair. Nobody is going to benefit from people picking sides in a personal matter that is most likely caused by cultural differences, regarding publishing private conversations.
Wow, I thought that Acer handled the issue well and that Genna was doing them a service showing all the ways ATC tried to help, but now that Take is taking about legal action I'm pretty disappointed. Take and Acer have lost my viewership
I work in the corporate world. And I think what some of the Starcraft personalities lack is true accountability for professionalism.
It's fine for e-sports to toe the line and be a little bit 'off-color' because, lets face it, that's what the typical e-sport demographic does anyway. But this is just embarrassing. I see all these personalities that are clearly very intelligent, dedicated, and so many other great things but they are immature because they allow emotions to dictate actions.
I have some anger management issues, and there are some fucking dumb people I work with on a daily basis that I cannot stand but if I were to send a petty e-mail to them I would surely be written up and potentially fired for insubordination and un-professionalism or whatever else they decided to call it. So what do I do when I just cannot take it? I stand up and walk away for 10-15 minutes. Then I come back and I sit down and I ask myself what do I have to do RIGHT NOW to accomplish whatever my ultimate goal. If I need something from someone, I will send a very direct specific e-mail, no need to add any extra comments because that's not going to get things done faster or better. This is just silly. This wouldn't be allowed at most large corporations. I am not saying we need to go corporate, just that they know how to be productive. Lets all grow up please, acting like brats does not get anyone anywhere :-)
IMHO posting private conversation is wrong by itself. But doing shit behind others' backs, and acting like "I'm the coolest one" on the surface is even worse.
After watching state of the game with Genna, I have grown up a big respect to that lady. And she had already mentioned bullshit behind WCS and SC2 scene during that episode!
If we want SC2 to grow - we need more transparent folks like Genna, and we do need to get our shit together, no matter who's right in this dispute (imho everyone loses here).
This is so bs, now take looks bad for doing nothing wrong just because a incompetent person is telling uninformed and wrong stuff. She should definitely make a new statement where she apologizes for this unnecessary drama instead of just saying she was uninformed because in the comments i can still see people who actually think she did everything right just because they dont bother actually reading up on the topic...
Mistakes were both on both sides with regards to the ATC drama. Having said that, posting private chat logs in public is the very definition of unprofessional. I don't see how it can be inferred that Take was threatening legal action - even a douche phrase like 'I hope that's legally punishable' doesn't amount to a 'threat'.
Just to be clear: do usually offline team leagues provide travel expenses or not?
To me, it's really weird that you organize a team league but teams have to fly all the team on their own. You better take out some of the prizemoney to finance this IMO.