PEA give players choice & ultimatum*

23-12-2016 20:04

The news of PEA has quickly snowballed in the past few days. The latest installment in the discussion concerning the PEA and its league, teams, and players comes from Noah Whinston, Immortals' CEO and a Player Relations Committee Member for PEA.

The first aftershock of the letter Scott “SirScoots” Smith penned, which was signed by 25 players in PEA, was the removal of Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares from TSM’s roster for damaging the brand’s image. Soon after that, the community rose in ire after the team’s owner, Andy “Reginald” Dinh tried to blame seang@res for manipulating his team into signing the letter, something his teammates were quick to dismiss.

During the commotion, James "⁠hazed⁠" Cobb clarified and strengthened his position and that of the players as having been kept out of the loop about their teams being dropped from ESL’s Pro League, and calling out Reginald for trying to twist his words, here.

Around 18:00 , PEA’s answer to SirScoots was published, allowing the players of the PEA teams to choose between PEA and ESL, but reiterating that playing in both—which is what the players wanted all along—wouldn’t be possible and that the resources destined to their CS:GO league would be put to other uses if the teams decided to play the WESA tournament.

Whinston’s letter opens with six "TL:DR" points:

1) The intention of the PEA League is to create a better league for both American players and organizations. It is not an exclusive league. The teams will continue competing in non-PEA operated leagues and tournaments.

2) It is not financially viable for organizations to run a PEA CSGO league and also participate in all of the other existing online leagues because of issues with over-saturation.

3) PEA proposed a compromise to WESA to resolve the over-saturation issue, which WESA declined.

4) Though PEA organizations unambiguously have the contractual right to decide where their players compete, the organizations have decided to offer the players the choice to either participate in the PEA league or in the ESL Pro League North American division.

5) Financially, the PEA league offers more money to NA players. The PEA league pays out a guaranteed minimum average of $81,250 per PEA team (prize money + minimum guaranteed profit share), compared to a guaranteed minimum average of $21,428.57 (see http://bit.ly/2hOIE9I) per NA team in ESL Pro League (and a maximum average of $49,857.14 per team if NA teams took all the top 6 spots at the NA/EU EPL LAN final).

6) We sympathize with the players’ sentiments around not feeling more included in the decision-making process and we acknowledge that we could and should have done better. That’s why, in good faith, we’re going to give this decision to them.

While it is technically true that the PEA is not an exclusive league, what has been questioned by many pundits immediately after the release of the letter is the fact that PEA has only tried to force WESA/ESL’s Pro League out of North America without mentioning smaller tournaments which also clutter the calendar, or other large competitors like ECS or ELEAGUE. As SirScoots puts it in a twitlonger of his own after reading Whinston’s letter:

The PEA's proposed compromise with WESA involves forcing this false dichotomy. When Jason Katz described the PEA's compromise to me, he specifically said that EPL would have to "vacate" North America. In Noah's letter, he describes the EPL as being allowed to "continue to operate in Europe" - let's keep in mind that the EPL, if you include ESEA league, has operated in North America for over ten years. The PEA has yet to host a single event. It doesn't really make sense, for the players or the community, to have teams completely withdraw from a league that has existed in North America for a decade in favor of a league that has never run an event before. Giving the PEA a fair shot at their first season is one thing, but forcing the EPL out of NA in order to so is another thing.

Another point made by Whinston is the analogy of esports and sports teams and their having the right to decide what tournaments their players take part in, which is in large part what started the players banding together in the first place:

One of the rights that players give up in their contracts, in CSGO, League of Legends, soccer, basketball, and every other professional team sport, is the ability to unilaterally decide which tournaments they compete in.

As seen from SirScoots’ and the players’ point of view, though, esports are unique and should be treated as such.

The esports industry has some aspects in common with traditional team sports culture, but in many ways it has more aspects in common with traditional individual sports culture. The general point is that esports is a wonderful, unique industry. It has been built around the openness its inherent technology offers, and this openness has contributing greatly to the industry's dynamic growth. We should not be trying to stifle that by stuffing esports into traditional sports precedents.

The PEA is giving the final word to the players on whether they will play EPL or not, but if they decide to play in it all the resources for PEA’s CS:GO league will be removed and invested elsewhere:

Based on our direct conversations with our teams and the representations of SirScoots, I believe every author of the player letter wants to participate in the PEA league, as well as EPL. Unfortunately, that option is not on the table. If the only option for the PEA is to lose money by functioning as yet another year-round CSGO league, we’ll instead devote the PEA league’s resources to other game titles where over-saturation is less of a problem.

To this, SirScoots answered that the PEA are creating an illusion instead of giving the players freedom of choice:

We'll be continuing to digest the PEA's open letter over the coming days, and we'll also be touching base with EPL. Please keep in mind that the players have repeatedly told the PEA that they have no issue with competing in the PEA's first season and that they simply do not want to be forced out of EPL in order to so. Being able to "choose" between two options that are not mutually exclusive is an illusion, not actual freedom of choice.

To read the full statement by Noah Whinston, go here, while SirScoots' reaction can be read in full here.

Finally, WESA jumped into the fray with a statement:

PEA’s compromise offer by Jason Katz boiled down to us terminating the NA division of the ESL Pro League. We politely declined that offer.

We are still interested in finding a solution that benefits teams and players alike. In the talks with PEA, we offered to give all teams and players, including the PEA teams, in the league a significant part of the revenue (not profit) of the league.

As the letter written by Noah Whinston on behalf of PEA is wrong on many accounts, we want to invite all players of Pro League, PEA or not, and their representatives, to go through the offer together with us to get the information first hand.

The players definitely deserve this! No one can dictate where you can play and where you can't.

2016-12-23 20:06

21 replies

Why cant they play both ? Get money from both the sides and show us bad na cs that they are famous for (except liquid and optic , and maybe 2015 c9 on adderall)

2016-12-23 20:09

15 replies

because from a viewer's POV, an optic vs c9 match is the same regardless whether it's EPL or PEA. Locking certain popular teams is more profitable for PEA.

2016-12-23 20:13

5 replies

Yeah , business and politics influencing sports since forever !

2016-12-23 20:16

2 replies

NA CS 4Head

2016-12-24 16:16

1 reply

Kto pl

2016-12-28 17:22

This just show how childish are PROS, if they were PROS they would act professional, this is his job and they work for the team.

2016-12-24 20:00

no the reason they cant play in both is because the leagues didnt get together to set a schedule that doesn't coincide with each other. basically if they were to play in both there would be teams that would have to be playing in two different matches at the same time. not possible.

2016-12-30 17:41

Liquid are one of the teams showing how bad NA CS is though OpTic is the only good NA team right now

2016-12-23 20:14

One semi and one grand final from NA , its okay they choke , but they win over many top teams in a high pressure lan , that has to account for something.

2016-12-23 20:15

4 replies

carried by UA wonder kid... after he left, Liquid would go 0-16 against all of those team they defeated with him before. But keep dreamin' muriboy.

2016-12-23 22:24

3 replies

Nah man elige played like hell that tourney .

2016-12-23 22:25

Doesn't chande the fact, that all they achieved was with s1mple. Without s1mple: - Elige is the only one to highlight sometimes; - - nitr0 goes full shit; - hiko is igl, so he plays normal for igl; - jdm skadoodles al his shots; - pimp isn't enough aggressive to be "in role of s1mple". - koosta plays shit with s1mple; - adren plays shit always; Maybe s1mple brings in some solidity into their game, because when he started playing for liquid, Hiko turned into the old Hiko with his insane clutches. Nitr0 changed his role for s1mple, and started playing really good. Jdm was really on fire, same for Elige. And now we have just a normal NA tier-2 team. Once again, #NAHOPE turned into trash.

2016-12-24 23:15

Elige LAN god

2016-12-24 12:06

NA CS lul

2016-12-23 20:41

Nt cashmere

2016-12-23 20:43

10/10

2016-12-23 20:48

Oh really?So your boss can't tell you what to do and where to work, right? You got to let me know where you work.... I think both parties were faulty in this process, players and organizations.

2016-12-24 05:08

CS:GO is the game, where players and teams form the scene, not orgs and owners. PEA's fault is that they are trying to rule over the whole scene, while doing absolutely nothing for the scene. Astralis and Heroic are good examples, when you don't need shady owners to have a good team. Ok, let's talk about Usain Bolt, he is good sportsman. He has some coaches and represents some organisations, that have some owners. And then, those owners decide, that he will not participate in some high tier tournament. He would just stop representing those owners' organisations, and find new ones, cuz owners in sports mean nothing. They are not Steve Jobs, they never created anything, (never used, can't affirms) never played, never been good in sports, so if they try to rule over scene, they just get their contracts cancelled. Would you say, that owners are right? Or both Usain and owners are not right???

2016-12-25 19:37

1. - "He would just stop representing those owners' organisations, and find new ones..."´- that is the mais solution, if you don't agree with your caompany/organization's policy and you have some of your problems solved. 2. - "...cuz owners in sports mean nothing." - ill get to that point in a second, but i am pretty sure you did not think that sentence off really well. 3. - "They are not Steve Jobs, they never created anything, (never used, can't affirms) never played, never been good in sports, so if they try to rule over scene, they just get their contracts cancelled." - you are saying that about people who invested and risked many things to create organizations in a growing, very unstable market, which is e-sports, so yes, they created something. Second you don't really need to be good at practicing something to understand it and knowing how it works,(almost every coach/manager, whatever you want to call it, of any traditional sports) although i agree it helps most of the times. Bottomline is, both parties did not act as they should, both owner(s) and players. So they should all get their acts straight and start working together because they are all part of the same industry.

2016-12-25 23:47

if you boil it down it's all about: orgs want the money that PEA offers bcz it's above the EPL. players want the reputation that EPL has bcz it offers a more international competition. you can't blame players for the desire to present their skills on a larger stage, to compete on a more spread pattern of skills and tactics across EU and CIS teams. Ofc you also can't really blame the orgs for wanting some of their investments back. but it's absolutely bullshit that they try to force them in ONE league. like said: they have not hosted a single event. you can't come out of nowhere and think you're gonna take over the whole scene. EPL has made it's way out of the basements and nerdy lan parties in the last 10 years. now some money-craving dipshits just want to build their profit on that. PEA has to prove itself first if they demand such dedication. But PEA just sees that if they have the NA teams only on their show that all the viewers HAVE to tune in on them if they want to watch. for PEA it's all about the money. so SCREW PEA

2016-12-26 12:17

Its a different thing in sports..

2016-12-25 23:01

HUGE!

6 replies

YUGE

2016-12-24 01:23

EGUH

2016-12-24 03:49

GUHE

2016-12-24 04:45

UGHE

2016-12-24 05:12

Hugh Mungus

2016-12-24 14:22

EHUG

2016-12-24 17:47

ESL can go fuck themselves, and PEA teams need to get their shit together and stop overreacting

7 replies

Wait r u retar or gay?

2016-12-26 19:25

ESL is retarded and gay. hope PEA scared the shit out of these greedy fuckers.

2016-12-26 19:27

No I asked If you were retar or gay

2016-12-26 19:28

im bandicoot

2016-12-26 19:29

Pea is greedy af they just looked and epl and said "wow that makes a lot of money" and decided to come out of no where and take over whole scene. As a player i would choose epl over pea any day

2016-12-27 18:19

im not defending PEA, im just saying im glad someone is directly challenging ESL in a way no one has ever done before

2016-12-27 18:21

So yes

2016-12-29 04:41

lol pea isnt gonna have teams to play in their league

9 replies

I wouldnt be so sure. PEA is still 4 times more profitable than EPL Money talks.

2016-12-23 20:11

8 replies

money talks but being exclusive is not the way to do it the players wont play in the league because of this the players want to play as many events as they can not just one.

2016-12-23 20:12

PEA only denied players' right to play in EPL, not in any other events. PEA has a higher prize pool therefore it's more likely players will choose it. Had PEA locked players from every other event, the choice would be obvious, as the other events have together a higher prize pool. Now if it was the other way around, meaning PEA offers more money than every other event together at the cost of exclusivity, I bet players will still go with PEA. As I said, money talks.

2016-12-23 20:23

your views are childish and ill leave it at that

how so? I'm very interested to see the "childish" part in my opinion.

2016-12-23 20:49

You think that money talks when the players are already opposed to PEA league the money isnt the issue the players want the choice to play in any and all league they want no way will this one "new" league be able to pay out more than all the leagues. The money was never the issue with the leagues its the exclusivity of PEA trying to tell the players where they can and cant compete PEA will most likely not have any relevance if they dont change this and they wont have players/teams wanting to join their league. So yes your views are childish to think that "money talks" in this situation.

2016-12-23 20:55

"no way will this one "nee" league be able to pay out more than all the leagues" It's only on league (EPL) that PEA has to pay out more than, no other leagues are being excluded as of now, and as it said in the letter they are able to pay lot more than them.

2016-12-23 23:07

but they should still have the right to choose PEA over EPL instead of being told they have to play in PEA and be excluded from EPL. Even if the choice is an obvious one this is setting a bad president for team orgs and leagues over the rights of players so if this can happen then say one day C9 org say their team will not play in EL or dream hack events unless they get some revenue from the event. it is giving org complete power over the decisions while making the players have to compete. Money talks yeah yeah but choices are what is really important and the players are showing that now. PEA right now has so much bad press that now if this does go through I personally probably will skip it even though I love the PEA teams I cant stand the patronizing nature of these team owners

2016-12-23 21:19

99% of the players wants to win big tournaments and be the best, they did not started playing pro cs to get rich and be the the orgs bitches, the players are 10000 times more important tham the orgs as they can leave it when the contract ends and build another org

2016-12-24 17:57

Rip NA CS

2016-12-23 20:07

fucking NA players acting like divas

yep, sad to look at

2016-12-23 20:17

Brainless idiots saying this is good.

i.imgur.com/GrpUcNW.png

2016-12-25 23:56

Seangares died for NAs sins

2016-12-23 21:55

Tomorrow it's Seangares day. Thank you Mr. Sean

2016-12-24 02:34

In a gesture of good faith, the PEA should give Jason Katz the walking papers. At least have the players a vote on the commissioner. He shouldn't be allowed to even speak of NACS after what the CGS did to our scene.

2016-12-23 20:08

+1,000 Amen

What pisses me off more are all these comparisons to the NBA and NFL. CS has run like/as Tennis since its creation. PEA also has CFL talent trying to act like it's the NFL, lmao.

2016-12-23 20:40

Not the first time i hear about cgs... Whats cgs, what they Did to your scene?

2016-12-23 20:32

CGS was a league for CSS that made team owners sell their orgs to the league. then they had a player combine aka draft. They changed the rule set of CSS to MR8 i believe. They blew like 10 Million dollars to make CSS marketable on TV but ended up making CSS and esports as a whole a laughing stock. They played top people insane amounts of $ like Heaton to be GM's and casters while destroying our scene. also it was 100% exclusive so if any player played another game or tournament they could be banned or fined (a player played in a local 1.6 tournament and was fined for it even though it was a small tournament in a different game.) also made Complexity have to go to court to get his org back after it failed. lasted like 2 seasons after boasting about being a 5-10 year system before going bankrupt. It was a complete failure that set back esports years and basically destroyed CSS competitive scene in the US

2016-12-23 21:28

See #96. So im right?

2016-12-23 21:30

not exactly CGS and PEA are similar (having some of the same people even) but PEA isn't outwardly exclusive, as teams that play in PEA will be allowed to play in I guess now some tournaments that are not commissioned by PEA but yes currently teams not in PEA cannot play in PEA tournaments so they are inwardly exclusive which is both bad and not at the same time since it is seeming like a franchise model so only those teams can play in it (kind of like tournaments with only invited teams can play but with a league) PEA right now isn't as open as they should be same with WESA so we don't really know how good or bad it could be but from this it is setting a bad example and risking our scene breaking into PEA and WESA. Upcoming talent will still show as is as smaller tournaments will still be a thing just as it has always been but this does risk that it will be harder to take the step up from t2/t3 to t1/t2 teams as PEA and WESA are exclusive to their respective teams.

2016-12-23 21:40

They are not exclusive YET, but in the future they will. As you said it will be harder to join t1/t2 players, this means pro players will be untouchables, and thats the main reason why our scene is so great, you can make your team today and face NiP on a random qualifier the next week.

2016-12-23 21:47

you cant be sure of exclusivity so speculation is only going to cause problems, the real problem is we dont know what they will do and as we all know the saying about assuming. As is now a t3 team might get to play a t1 team which is cool and can show how players progress through their career, as PEA and WESA have said if they don't touch lower tournaments we don't really have much to worry about on that front. We just need the info of what they actually want and from that we can make an accurate decision, until that we cannot make a decision that they are bad or good for our scene. (just my opinion even though I am opposed to PEA and WESA)

2016-12-23 23:04

this is why I am biased towards the players a bit in this ordeal. Jason Katz has the track record of Wiley E Coyote.

2016-12-24 02:31

Nothing changed, players still can't compete in both of the leagues. This will put players in a very weird situation between choosing the more ethical or the more profitable option. I could totally see EPL not letting this go on, I expect a significant bump in EPL's prizepool

2016-12-23 20:10

this is lit

Is there any fucking tldr on this whole shit

Players you have the choice, play on ESL and we take PEA down and invest it somewhere else, or play on PEA

2016-12-23 22:29

i don't know this whole PEA shits, the hell is going on with cs right now?

youtube.com/watch?v=4hsdSv0kYJg great explanation of the whole thing

2016-12-23 20:19

2 am here, won't gonna see it completely right now, but thanks anyway

1) The organizations do a poor job of supplying health insurance, decision making for players, and basic benefits all other companies/organizations do. How do we solve this? Lets bring the owners of all organizations who don't do it already, cuz that will surely fix the issue.. 2) The issue of oversaturation, the community is oversaturated already, so lets create a new league, ran by owners, to compete with the current leagues...... wow, hypocritical 3) Offering PEA teams to decide between PEA and EPL, claiming that if they play EPL that the organizations would look for another game to support. classic. The two best NA teams currently arent even part of PEA, how do they solve the issue of bringing the best competition to the fans? Bully SK and Optic into joining? This isn't about them attempting to benefit the players, his letter aggressively drives home the fact that players get more money, to the owners its about the money, to the players, its not. This is eerily similar to how CGS was, it failed miserably, but made people some money in the short term, but in the long haul there is no question that it dampened the future of counter-strike.

2016-12-23 20:20

It's a problem you face in the US. We don't need that stuff in EU.

2016-12-24 00:26

What the fuck is this PEA shit?

10 replies

The FIFA of North American e-sport. Its like communism, you play only for an association and they give you what they want to give or you play for every League you want to play. Its freedom vs. Money

2016-12-23 20:37

In my view it's rather security and money vs freedom and an opportunity to make a lot more money.

2016-12-23 21:02

Exactly. The problem is that it fucks up the entire low tier scene. PEA means the death of upcoming players and orgs. If their project gets accepted we are going to see the same orgs and the same players for the rest of our lives, like the traditional sports, but, do we want to be like traditional sports? Thats the coldwar RL was talking about.

2016-12-23 21:23

Players should make their own orgs just like some EU teams

Tbh eu players share a minor part on those orgs. The Dig/TSM crew only share a Max of 20% of Astralis. Not 20% for each player, they, together, share 20%.

Yes but at least they dont have all those shitty problems like the PEA stuff

2016-12-23 21:34

They are part of RFRSH (ASTRALIS,Godsent, Heroic and Norse), they didnt hit the news yet but this can be a trouble in the future.

2016-12-23 21:37

I hope fnatic is not in all this shit

Isnt fnatic part of wesa?

2016-12-23 21:48

Yes that's right, VP as well

2016-12-23 22:00

how contradictory; PEA isn't meant to be an exclusive league but the players in the teams in the league are guilded as to which league they want to play in, and can't play in both. basically, they're not explicitly saying it's an exclusive league but by saying PEA is more profitable than ESL for the players they're making it one.

2016-12-23 20:18

but hey they give them the option right, but if they choose to go with EPL they threaten to leave, LOLOLOL.

2016-12-23 20:21

throw this in maybe twitlonger.com/show/n_1spff9t

ok, now get rid of Jason Katz. The man that has done nothing but failed for 10 years

Well, if someone wants to watch Brazilian teams rekting NA teams or pugs between some famous streamers, Then it's a good idea to not let NA teams to ESL league where they fight EU on lan. But I won't watch a single match if there's only those 7 teams competing.

im glad someone is putting some competition to that cancer called ESL

+1 also for me PEA came out of nowhere. but if this causes NA teams to be more isolated they will decrease in skill.

2016-12-23 20:44

yeah theres a high risk this can go bad, but I just dont like how ESL is holding a firm grip on the cs scene and was even trying to take it all with wesa. even how bad this is, it still brings some attention to the real powers behind the scene for the average user and maybe they learn a thing or two about how csgo is run today and get more involved. that the positive sidenote

2016-12-24 05:47

"you are free to choose, but choose wisely because one option will make you kicked out of the team" Pretty much

2016-12-23 20:24

First

2016-12-23 20:28

sirscoots answer twitlonger.com/show/n_1spff9t

Nice way of putting that they don't want it to be exclusive xDDD Just because there is EPL and PEA (whatever it is) you want to exclude them from your biggest competitor while they just could abandon the leagues they don't like instead of you making the choice? :D

2016-12-23 20:35

"If you dont do what we want you to do, we leave and fuck you!. But dont say you dont got a choice!". Maybe we at least get rid of TSM, C9, Liquid and so on and other orgs can sign their teams. These 3 Teams are disgusting shit.

Players should all leave PEA and make money themselves

Im sure alot of players relationships with their owners are souring because of PEA, but many players are locked in contracts for a while, so while they may change orgs or form an Astralis type organization, they cant for a while.

2016-12-23 20:47

then wait

2016-12-24 17:32

who knows, I imagine either the PEA itself will crumble, some owners might take their brand out of CSGO, tough to tell. Most likely the player/owner relationship will improve and owners will realize that the players and the game they play make their brand and not them.

2016-12-24 17:51

no. owners are too rich to realize that. pea might fold tho

2016-12-24 18:45

their argument for saturation is extremely bad. There has been ESEA, ECS, CEVO and qualifiers that have run simultaneously for the past 4 years. Sounds like they only want the teams to participate in ECS AND PEA because ECS is their broadcast partner.

"Yeah, but money guys!"

2016-12-23 20:50

That explains the whole situation, haha.

2016-12-23 23:44

Did you click to More to follow...?

2016-12-23 20:51

ultimatum LOL

2016-12-23 20:58

all NA teams going for $$$

2016-12-23 20:59

so still rip sgares and shahzam?

2016-12-23 21:04

It is not financially viable for organizations to run a PEA CSGO league/ Financially, the PEA league offers more money to NA players. The PEA league pays out a guaranteed minimum average of $81,250 per PEA team hahahahah

POPCORN

2016-12-23 21:10

Like always, CEO's think about money and instant gratification instead of long term good PR and better viewership than this new and not well known american only league. IMO these CEO's who're giving ultimatum now are just an idiots who are more into quick money than team interest in terms of higher fan base. They could play in better league (ESL) in terms of skill so these american team could show us all that they deserve to compete with the best of the best, and not with only few good teams. (also if they finish at better positions then they'd get more money, it's not our fault that american teams usually get defeated before even teh quarter-finals so they get low money for it then) If i were Immortals CEO i'd let players do what they think is the best for the team and evaluate the team position and earnings after a full year to see if the players were right.

2016-12-23 21:14

What gets me all fucked up about this whole thing. "PEA is not exclusive" Yet they can't play in ESL Pro League... I think they need to redefine what they believe exclusive means...

2016-12-23 21:13

There has been rivalry between EU and NA teams throughout the history of CS. There whole point of all the pro leagues is that who is going to qualify to LAN finals between the best EU and NA teams. Now they want to create a league to only NA teams?

They're trying to build Trump's wall in CS:GO scene first, but this time it's against european teams who are usually beating americans in early stages of the events. Optic and SK are only recent american teams that are doing well against eu teams. So they chose the easy way for easy money.

2016-12-23 21:16

NA CS LOL XDDDDD

It's the same fucking thing, PEA is just showing his middle finger to players. Don't let them play on ESL PL and forcing them to choose between the 2 is the same shit, orgs will end up forcing players to play on PEA anyway. As spectator I won't care too much about an NA only league tbh, even more when the best team on NA (SK) on the last year on a half isn't on the league. I guess PEA guys doesn't really have an idea about CS community, but I guess this is one of those things where you don't need to be succesful on your community to make profit.

"It is not an exclusive league. PEA teams will continue to compete in non-PEA operated leagues and tournaments." "Choice to either participate in the PEA league or in the ESL Pro League" Legit.

2016-12-23 21:22

PEA is so fucking stupid, they're digging their own grave here. They literally can't see the forest cause of all the trees. It's not about players making more money in PEA vs EPL. This sets the precedent to allow PEA to say ok now you can't compete in ECS, Eleague, dreamhack and IEM events. Players make far more from all these events combined than they ever would from PEA. It's funny they're trying to spin this as not being an exclusive league when that's exactly what it is. It's also funny that they only have a small chunk of orgs yet they're attempting to put their boot on the throat of the NA scene. FUCK PEA, this concept only works in real sports because the players actually get a say in their CBA and discussions with team owners. These org owners in PEA are clearly fucking scumbags who tried to hide this from their players and basically force them into a league.

2016-12-23 21:31

They can make more money outside PEA if they win.

2016-12-24 14:53

i love my popcorn!

2016-12-23 21:49

*grabs popcorn

1."The teams will continue competing in non-PEA operated leagues and tournaments." 2." It is not financially viable for organizations to run a PEA CSGO league and also participate in all of the other existing online leagues " Let's not play PEA then lul

2016-12-23 21:53

confirmed by the smell: PEA = PEE

2016-12-23 22:17

This is horrifying on so many levels I can't even comprehend how they have the audacity to publish this statement. First: offer your money to another game that isn't "over-saturated" and see how that plays out for you. The entire reason this organization has come to fruition is because they want to take advantage of a market that has grown exponentially. This is false logic at its best, really. They want to immediately cripple their largest competition, while systematically monopolizing the region in their favor. But they know, because this is a business venture, that their eggs are in the baskets of the largest games and not in smaller ones (which is why CS was brought in to begin with). Hedge those bets, I guarantee you will not see PEA existing in a relevant capacity if they make good on their treats to vacate to a new title. Second: the rationalization that they're using by including large, franchised professional sports teams is broken. Those organizations bring in tremendous amounts of money, which enables them to offer exclusive contracts because their players are given true financial stability. PEA has neither the means, nor the history, of being able to offer that to anyone (and their own numbers literally undermine their entire point, no less). This is exactly why players are against the exclusivity of the event, because it threatens their livelihood (regardless of if the structure is a more fair share of dividends). Third: this is essentially the equivalent of financial blackmail. Which, really, I would find hilarious if it wasn't so starkly serious in tone. How can you possibly think it's okay to set a precedent when you're an unproven entity? How can anyone reasonably justify these terms when they have no history of success or failure? If PEA had run a profitable league for a number of seasons, they might've had a leg to stand on here, but they're asking for blind faith from their most direct investors (the players). What's to keep them from attempting to push players out of events like Majors on the basis of exclusivity? I feel as though the PEA exists under the guise of good intentions that are ultimately morally bereft. CS:GO has come a long way in providing players the opportunity to live off the earnings of the games they play, but it is by no means lucrative for the vast majority of those players. Until leagues can offer money on par with traditional sports franchises, it is unfair to restrict players the capacity to earn their money as they see fit. This is exploitation at its finest, in every sense of the word.

2016-12-23 22:21

i agree with most of what you said, however, is it really a money issue? i mean according to what he said in 5) the money might not be that important, especially for teams that don't have a good shot at winning anyways. the biggest problem imo is that this isolates NA teams which is detrimental to their development. NA teams already showed they are capable to compete with the best, however they lack consistency and shutting themselves in a NA exclusive league will only slow their progress. this is also a matter of prestige - to compete with the best teams and prove yourself. i'd like to believe that this is the main reason that pushes gamers to be competitive as opposed to all the money-grabbing myths. perhaps if PEA was an established, prestigious league with a rich history and the best teams in the world competing in it this exclusivity would make sense, but like you said in your 4th paragraph they are pretty much no namers which makes their ambition ridiculous and impudent.

2016-12-23 22:50

It's a money issue, even if it doesn't seem that way. This is a situation where they built a league due to the rising popularity of a title, while also attempting to exclude or eliminate beneficial forms of revenue for the players (thus making them more dependent upon their services rather than the competition). I'll address your other points in a second, but the other thing that I find odd about this situation is that it hurts the lower-tier players who are looking for a chance to move up. Many of these players rely on services like ESEA to grow, and removing a valuable asset to that collective's continued success hurts all parties involved. As for prestige, that's fine and good, but at the end of the day these players pour hours upon hours into a profession that provides them very little stability in their income. As someone who once competed in and around these kinds of people, and who has put that amount of time into the game, I can tell you that none of these players view it as a money-grab, because for that to be the case they'd have to be making large sums of money (which very few of them are). These are people who are working essentially full time jobs at minimum wage pay, which is ridiculous when you consider the amount of money that's generated by the scene internally (I'm directly pointing my finger at Valve here, to be clear). Anyway, I'm not arguing with you. I want to believe in the good of these organizations, but as someone who works in and around the corporate sector, I know what the bottom line tends to be. We are exploitable, above all else, and this is a fairly obvious example of that philosophy. Also just to keep this in mind: living expenses vary drastically depending on where you live. A lot of C9, for instance, reside in CA where the cost of living is double-to-tripple that of other parts of the US. The kind of money that's being proposed by PEA, who aren't established, is laughable. It's not even close to a living wage. I also just want to say that it somewhat disturbs me as to how illiterate TSM's Reginald came off in his statements. If my every day correspondence had that many grammatical errors in it I'd be fired on the spot. At a professional level there's simply no excuse for some of that garbage etiquette.

2016-12-24 00:21

I just realized, because of #127, that Jason Katz is involved (I realize it's in the statement above, but I didn't actually put it together). This is about money. Plain and simple. And his record is objectively a failure in these situations. The CGS was an atrocity from start to finish, and he shouldn't even be looked at when it comes to eSports. He's about equally as despicable as Angel Munoz.

oh i meant the player perspective. it's definitely all about money form PEA's perspective. i don't think that's the main reason why the players decided to protest though. perhaps i'm being too idealistic but i think considering how older generation pro gamers managed to compete with less support and exposure, this should be a non issue in the present considering they have it much better right now. in any case, i agree with everything else including the valve portion.

2016-12-24 01:11

Oh. Yes I misunderstood. I don't think it's entirely about money for the players either. It's about being limited for no real reason.

2016-12-24 04:23

good and smart analysis. Thanks

2016-12-24 01:09

Thanks!

2016-12-24 04:30

disgusting how PEA works

can you explain? i am dont know this details.

2016-12-24 21:57

ITS REAL SIMPLE... THE BIG DUDE WANTS TO FUCK UR ASSHOLE TO COLLECT HIS LEWT... NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER IS IT ANY OTHER WAY.

2016-12-23 22:26

Plz Valve unban iBP

2016-12-23 22:27

so, letter was useless, after all, lmao, GET_REKT, semi-pro NA playares... u gonna suck PEA's deek now, hahahahha

2016-12-23 22:28

Holy fuck, Jason Katz is behind this shit? CGS destroyed NA counter-strike, and it failed spectacularly. This slimeball has floated from failed company to company doing nothing. The last place he worked at was Azubu - how many people use that cancerous streaming service? That's insane. It's just a cycle of shit, isn't it...

Holy shit I didn't even realize who it was until you said this. My God. This is really bothersome.

2016-12-24 00:22

I wouldn't be surprised to know that players renewed their contracts just before all this PEA shit.

2016-12-23 23:09

>Players all chooses EPL over PEA >PEA leaves and invests in other game titles >Everything back to normal >Sean died for no reason

2016-12-23 23:15

I feel bad for Sean. He's a good guy that just want to play normally, without any annoyancr.

2016-12-23 23:53

he is the best igl no problem he can join more team better than tsm lol

2016-12-24 17:55

who gives a fuck

2016-12-23 23:49

exactly, men in suits invest money to make more money yay capitalism, contracts and legislation

2016-12-24 00:16

fuck a PEA and all the cheaters

2016-12-24 00:33

They're saying it's non exclusive but yet they act and talk like it is exclusive... Yeah these guys know how to lose all their credibility in public. This PEA thing is the worst thing that could happen to NA CS if it is ever going to happen. As explained, if you had years to prove yourselves as a stable league and profitable one, I'm sure players would decide to play your league instead. But here you're trying to force their hand but you have no history to back you up. Big fail inc.

2016-12-24 00:47

"If the only option for the PEA is to lose money by functioning as yet another year-round CSGO league, we’ll instead devote the PEA league’s resources to other game titles where over-saturation is less of a problem." lol this is the emptiest of empty threats, its hilarious. What the fuck are they gonna do, go to LoL? Good luck trying to force Riot out of their own system (LCS). Dota2? TSM, C9, CLG, Immortals, and NRG don't even fucking have Dota teams right now. That leaves what, Smash? Rocket League? OW? Hearthstone? On their best days does viewership of any of these games come close to a CS non-major Dreamhack tournament? lol.

2016-12-24 00:54

Heroes of the storm kappa

2016-12-24 00:56

It doesnt matter, USA is always right and we dirty aliens should not threat your superiority with european leagues, in your country.

2016-12-24 01:06

Hearthstone has tons of viewers, but as someone into HS community I can assure you than most of us agree than tournaments are a joke. Half of the time (maybe even more), matches are decided upon who has the best RNG. Fun to watch, but sad as competition and esport overall. PEA won't go anywhere if their CSGO endeavor fails, I hope it does if nothing changes. NA is maybe on their best moment on CSGO history, isolating from Europe won't do any good to their scene and we all know how everything went to shit on Source days.

2016-12-24 01:39

PEA just got some wind under their wings after Trump won. We USA, our teams are not playing in a dirty European league on out turf, sending money out of our country. HELL NO! Either you are with us or against us, yes i am a big baby!

2016-12-24 01:03

Lol that threat... These guys are such assholes, bet doing this shit is great for their reputation :D

2016-12-24 01:08

Honestly CS:GO should just copy Riot Games business model and implement an LCS kind of system for cs:go. Just look at what's happening in League, crazy football teams like PSG, Schalke, Fenerbahce, Besiktas and NBA teams investing each split because a proper league gives you stability for sponsors and players.

2016-12-24 01:13

eee

2016-12-24 01:16

"we’ll instead devote the PEA league’s resources to other game titles where over-saturation is less of a problem." Oh noooo, please stay and keep trying to fuck this scene a bit more, we can't possibly survive without you guys :( Fuck off already PEA.

kek

2016-12-24 03:33

RIP PEA

2016-12-24 03:34

Unban seangares, lez go! youtube.com/watch?v=jfa3U0d715M

2016-12-24 03:42

Hahah yeah sure it's Sean here damaging the brand image and not Reginald :D Hilarious shit

2016-12-24 04:29

i cant read cuz my eyes wont open. so this basically like trump thing or what?

2016-12-24 04:46

"It is not an exclusive league." LUL

2016-12-24 05:23

People forget how many of us grew up playing Counter Strike and in a tight knit competitive community. Remember this. The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We are working inside corporations that own your franchises. We are the people who infiltrate government servers all over the world. We control every part of your life. We are the middle children of history, raised by Counter Strike to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and be in the top echelons of competitive gaming, but we won't, because we decided to pursue other careers out of necessity. And we're just learning this fact. But that doesn't mean we forgot about what we grew up knowing and loving. So don't fuck with us.

2016-12-24 06:04

Indeed!

2016-12-25 16:11

USA THE COUNTRY OF LIBERTY LOL..... HITL@R I MISS U...

2016-12-24 06:46

All this because NA players are greedy. There's no point for PEA to let them play both tournaments coz they want have the advantage to have a big tournament exclusive for NA. If both parties agree to let the players play on both tournaments then the prize pool for the PEA tournament will be lower because of losing the uniqueness of one big tournament.

2016-12-24 11:34

question to PEA is this: why would anyone want to watch a NA league without SK and Optic in it? do you honestly think anyone's is gonna watch that?

2016-12-24 12:24

nobody should watch any game in a pea-league

2016-12-24 14:28

but NA cs is sh*t...

2016-12-24 12:51

Sir Scoots has nuts

2016-12-24 12:59

Thoorin just posted his analysis.

2016-12-24 14:08

Thorin is a moron either he is right or not

2016-12-24 14:55

He is cringeworthy in live appearances and his behaviour indicates some narcissistic psychological disorders. But he is intelligent and knowledgable so great as a background analyst. These videos are pretty good almost always.

+11111111

2016-12-24 20:08

Lastest analysis he did were almost all wrong xD

2016-12-24 20:54

wow so funny XDDXDDXDDXXDDXDXDXDX

2016-12-24 21:51

nice

2016-12-24 19:36

i would throw a party if every team involved in PEA just backed out and gave a fuck about jason katz and his idiotic way of "working" in esports. he got no fucking clue. without any teams, his ideas would crumble, just make it happen.

2016-12-24 15:41

Can anyone explain to me in few words what is the result of whole discussion

2016-12-24 16:24

NA players can sign to this PEA and get paid more than ESL but in the mean time they can't partecipate to ESL and other leagues. So it's like playing for PEA and get double the money or play all the leagues you want and get less paid, but if a team wins obviously get more money than PEA. It's like a 50/50 choise. Teams like TSM stay with PEA because they get paid and they are shit as fuck.

2016-12-24 20:56

There will be a pea league?

2016-12-24 22:00

I don't think so. It's like an association that provide money to the teams, it's like an agreement of getting the money to partecipate to the tournaments they say , so basically comunism

2016-12-24 22:06

Why do they give money to determine what tournaments they will be playing? I don't get this.

2016-12-24 22:07

When a player win they get a %

bless ya, my friend

2016-12-25 03:33

So when PEA got formed everyone got reassured they arent an exlusive league which has now changed to "if we cant be an exclusive leaugue we will leave CS". The lower tier german scene is clean as a whistle compared to the dodgy cunts working in "esports" behind the scenes.

2016-12-24 16:31

na pls leave pea

2016-12-24 17:53

SeanGares died for NAs sins, he will be honored and remembered for many years to come!

2016-12-24 18:07

Why are these comment threads so shit just let the situation play itself out for crying out loud.

2016-12-24 20:03

aw dang it this is so much to read can someone make TL;DR

2016-12-24 20:31

lul

2016-12-24 20:59

PEA has a higher predicted revenue share for the players and was never fully exclusive. People should stop worshipping the players as if they are never wrong and ask the players to elabourate on the topic. Ask them why they feel as if they have no voice and why WESA is a better option if WESA will clearly favour the EU teams over them.

2016-12-25 05:34

Players have done there fair share of mistakes, they signed their contracts and got into PEA in first place. But at least for me the problem isn't about PEA regulations and how players feels, we all know than exclusive NA league will hurt CS scene. Maybe the first PEA league will go for 3 months, but over time the tournament will expand and leave more people outside of NA scene. Eventually NA will isolate further and further from the rest of the world and if PEA fails, well, we know what happened on Source. A NA only league won't have too much viewers. There is other ways to monetize an event but unless they try something like E-League, on the long road you can't sustain something as big as this pretends to be with 20-30k viewers at their best. Europe is key on CS as probably isn't on any other E-Sport, maybe that's something NA enterprenours don't realize yet. A big tournament without global finals is almost useless, remember those Dreamhack NA events this year than nobody cared about because it was just a bunch of local teams playing on them. CS scene needs to stay togheter to grow and keep being competitive, the field is more even than ever and NA teams have done their fair share to contribute to it. E-League has teams from all over the world on TV, it's inclusive in that sense and tries to develop something different to what we are used to. NA companies trying to make money doesn't bother me, unless they're trying to break our scene apart and cage the players on exclusive leagues.

2016-12-25 08:41

2016-12-25 17:33

Srsly who Cares about NA CS... NA orgs biggest shit and liars and the players are T2. They didnt joined WESA because these shitty COD and lol orgs wanted more money than the EU orgs which are in esports/cs for More than 10years. And Now these greedy Team owners tryhard to fuck europe. They fuck esports ans their own players to fill their pockets. Go Europe, go ESL. You made esports, not these na scamm involved shit guys

2016-12-25 18:41

I would really hate if this became the way that NA fell to its 2015 low again. Leagues have ruined other e-sports and I would hate it if it ruined csgo. Valve really needs to step in and regulate.

2016-12-26 17:41