eSports is an industry in its infancy, largely purveyed, governed and consumed by those who have no idea what they are doing when it comes to big business.
It’s a trailblazing industry, and like any other company of its kind in the digital age, the legislation, governance and control has largely been left as a side issue as the growth trajectory continues to skyrocket.
Like a blindfolded man walking in a forest, the people in the eSports industry are trying to get to their trusted destination but have absolutely no idea of whether they’re going about it in the right way.
Professional sport is a complicated beast. It’s complicated by the fact that athletes are paid large sums of money and are heroised by millions of viewers all around the world. It is one of the few true live experiences is left, which is great for rights holders, fantastic for athletes and continues to be a boon for fans.
When sport moved from being amateur to professional, and when stacks of money started changing hands, that’s when it all became complicated. The response was swift – ethics commissions were established, integrity units formed, governing bodies rose from the ashes of the loose committees that formerly made the big calls.
That didn’t come straight away. It’s taken the best part of 20 years for World Rugby to cobble together anything close to what you’d consider to be a unified strategy after the game was professionalised.
With eSports less than a decade into professional competition, at least outside of South Korea, the exploitation of its athletes is up there with what happened to Mohammad Amir five years ago in cricket.
Two of South Korea’s finest ever Starcraft and Starcraft 2 players, codenamed Savior and Life, have been banned from competing in the sport. One is currently serving a jail term for match-fixing in the game’s biggest team leagues, and the other copped 120 hours community service and two years probation (on a 12 month suspended jail sentence) for fixing the results of televised games.
This is relatively well known by those in the eSports scene. Life’s fall from grace, in particular, has had a deep effect on Starcraft 2 – he was one of the preeminent players of the game at the time of his sentencing.
There’s plenty of information about the details of the scandal here, but the thrust of it is this guy was one of the best in the world when he fixed games.
He was also 18.
Savior is now 28, living his gaming life in disgrace, but was 22 at the time of his offences. In gaming terms, he was past his peak.
More recently, Counter Strike has been in the news for, you guessed it, more shady betting practices. This time, the level of corruption runs very deep, with the owners of CSGO betting websites, also some of the most popular content producers on the web, setting up what every other industry with an ounce of professional development would see as a legal and ethical travesty. This video is a great summary of what happened, but probably doesn’t go far enough in condemning the perpetrators.
And this isn’t the half of it…
The stories are plentiful of players (and others) being ripped off by any number of bodies including but not limited to:
– Their team
– A tournament
– A distribution and broadcasting platform
– A sponsor
Maybe companies see it as an easy way to reach a mass audience for very little money. Maybe it’s just a case of an industry in its infancy going through growing pains, having to rely on less mainstream companies with less mainstream ethical compasses for revenue.
Maybe it’s just a case of eSports doesn’t pay.
But tell that to the team that wins The International and pockets over a million bucks in prizemoney.
The fact is, whether you like it or not, eSports is here. What’s not here is an adequate governing body to deal with the issues that continue to plague those who want to earn a living from it.
It’s encouraging to see countries like the UK launching eSports governing bodies. South Korean powerhouse KESPA is an old and powerful organisation too.
There remains a huge amount of individuals operating on the fringe, and the problem with all of it is regulation is just… absent. No rules. No guidelines. Just individuals doing their thing.
And the longer that remains the case, the longer it will hold eSports back.
Patrick Effeney
Editor
A real horror show mate. Goes to show how much the whole gaming/eSports scene has to go with very young and inexperienced people leading the charge.
Nate
Guest
You just happened to write an article on a topic that has grabbed my attention lately Patrick. I have played a little CS casually and never gambled in my life but I did have a few friends who used to gamble skins on comp games so I was interested to find out more about the story and the more you read the more you want to read, it's such a train wreck!
Nate
Guest
The biggest concern there seems to come down to tmartn's involvement with Team Envyus. Indivduals in that team have taken up sponsorship deals with CSGO Lotto but Envyus are claiming that was all done individually and nothing to do with the team. That aspect is all very dodgy indeed. Then there's the Faze guys with CSGO Wild. Really murky stuff. It will be interesting to see just how many people are able to get their skins out of these sites now that Valve has issued cease and desist letters. I have a feeling that more than a few of those sites will quietly disappear with whatever inventory they have.
Patrick Effeney
Editor
Interesting perspective! I guess it's pretty analogous to the idea of legalising all drugs in sport.
Patrick Effeney
Editor
Thanks for the comments Nate - I agree on the lack of direct link to eSports as such. But there is a degree of relevance in that the 'scene' is heavily interlinked. Tournaments are watched by the grassroots players after all, and if some of the pros were engaging in that kind of behaviour in any code or game I think there's some connection. But I do take your point.
Nate
Guest
Also regarding your point about governing bodies, this is something that is absolutely essential to the respectable growth of the e-sports scene.
Nate
Guest
The latest issue has less to do with e-sports and more to do with the economies enabled by the in game drops in CS and the Steam trading system. While these sites undoubtedly (at least in the case of tmartn) have poured money into e-sports teams that seems to me to be the extent of the impact on the professional e-sports scene. Well worth checking out Richard Lewis' videos on the topic. He has been very active posting a lot of content on these issues and some of the revelations about tmartn and phantomlord have been shocking to say the least. So many kids ripped off.
Brainstrust
Guest
Esports they would only have a betting population that uses computers so they can look at the volumes of betting and detect things that way. What abiout cricket where the betting in India and Pakistan is done illegally and manually. Amir was detected by a newspaper doing a sting. AFL and NRL with their cosy government connections now take money directly from gambling. The problem with that is that allows those who bypass their fees to offer better odds. So they now have illegall offshore betting, and any match fixing can be done on those offshore sites. I think the whole match fixing thing is a waste of police resources. Let them fix away and any punter dumb enough to bet deserves what they get.