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Kicked host says Valve wanted to pay the talent at TI4 with signature sales

A

ashecitism

Member
Talent as in host, caster, panelists. Signatures as in digital signatures. And TI as in the Dota 2 International. This is from the other thread about Valve kicking James aka 2GD (the host) and Gabe calling him an ass on reddit. James responded with a 16 page doc. A lot of it isn't relevant to the situation, but this was interesting:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B061Rs4gw4zkCec35Q5v2r576e_Jd6pJfrT_5_GZ74I/preview

So History Time.

I host TI2, Valves second international. I was hired as a host. I knew some about dota2 but not much. I turned up, No one at Valve had much of a vision of what the hosting would be like apart from Ali wanted sports broadcasting. He didn’t really push for it but you could tell every segment if we had too much… fun? He was asking us to tone it down a bit. Despite the huge reception myself, Godz, Bruno, Nebula were getting for our hosting roll.

I should also point out Valve weren’t controlling back then with our input, they didn’t act like they knew best. Infact they were very receptive of feedback. Bruno wasn’t even meant to be on the panel. But I asked if he could join because I feel inlove with the guys style of humour. We put him on the panel and it was a blast. The whole event was a hit.

The only small problem I saw while there after talking with others was... no one was getting paid….. Only me? I’m like wtf… So you're paying me because I’m not involved in dota 2. but your dota 2 casters are not getting paid. Owning my own agency and working with countless talent over the years. This for me is a big no no. And i'm a problem solver, I don't shy away from trying to help even If i am the ‘annoying guy’ you have to deal with. So, I start conversations with Valve during the evening over drinks. Explain that, These people make very little all year round atm. But they help build your community, they help market your game. If they leave this event paid they can continue to put time and effort into Dota 2, Also they get to tell their families and loved ones, this is their job (it's hard to sell your parents on this type of job. you want to shout about video games for a living, but once you get a pay cheque, things do change!). If they don’t have this income, they might stop due to financial restraints. I sell them on the idea of payment. Maybe they were going to do it themselves, but the talks they gave me was it's good for their brands to be here. The one Valve employee I spoke to the most who kicks ass obviously talked with the team and by the end of the event and EVERYONE got paid! Thank you for helping fight for us! I don’t think I could have done it without your influence.

Either way, We finish the event. Its a hit. everyone is getting along well and we are all happy, including Ali! TI2 10/10

I host TI3, One year later I’m invited back. Talent turn up. We all have payment sorted before the event. Life is good. we nail the event. There are of course small problems, but overall everyone is great to work with. Valve upped the production. Best TI Finals ever!

I come away from the event very happy, we all get on including Ali! TI3 10/10

I host Ti4,

Group Stage I am in a weird mindset for this one. Valve have made a lot of decisions that has taken the event backwards in my opinion, further away from esports and more into sports. including these problems we do not get paid for our time as hosts only signatures…

Remember those? Well basically our pay was 0. but we got money every time someone would buy an item and add our ingame signature. So if you added my signature for a dollar. I think I got 50c or the whole dollar. I cannot remember. So valve turned the talent into signature salesmen and women. Everyone is in a bad mood. Though luckily a lot of talent talk to Valve and we got this changed and had a base payment no matter how many signatures we sold. but If we sold a lot of signatures we get more than our base salary. If we do not they will give us our base pay. So…. they outsourced all talent costs :) gg. But to explain. if I’m paid 10k, and I sale 11k signatures for 1 dollar each. I am paid 11k. If the sigs gave us 1 dollar.
If I’m paid 10k and sale signatures for 2k. I am paid 10k. got it? good!
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edit: another caster chimed in

Wok said:
Be careful, guys. The drama is still fresh.

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posted on reddit too: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/47u067/this_scared_panel_is_boring/d0fw253

It wasn't just 2GD that pushed for salaries every time. I give him full credit for TI2. We wouldn't have been paid if not for him, but him and the valve employee he referred to worked it out with valve and we all got paid, which we definitely deserved. Valve did the right thing there, ultimately. TI4 from my perspective(from what I saw) it was a small group of people that pushed for it, not just James. I just checked the initial contract. There was ALWAYS a base salary at TI4 to be included with the signatures. Right from the start(as of a contract that I received end of June). And that base salary got adjusted and increase by valve multiple times during the event. Regardless of how much you feel they were screwing us over in the contract, Valve did work with 'us(the people arguing for us)' to increase it a few times. They simply wouldn't raise it more if they disagreed completely. There were some faults in the TI4 system and it wasn't perfect but at the end the base salary was extremely respectable, and while low sellers of tickets didn't get extra revenue from signature sales, their base salary was increased by ~80% after the negotiations.
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I was open on my twitter to the fact that I was only speaking as English talent see here. Generally contract negotionations differ between regions(for some events, not necessarily valve ones, RU casters might get paid different than English).

Not sure if it's because of salary rates for each country you're from or tax reasons, but i'm only speaking as what I saw as an employee of that event and other talent that were involved in my segment of contract negotiations.
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That's not my point. My point was that James framed his argument as:
Initial base pay was 0$+tips, then everyone was upset("Everyone is in a bad mood"), then
"Though luckily a lot of talent talk to Valve and we got this changed and had a base payment no matter how many signatures we sold."

The ONLY way this timeline makes sense(and if he does he's misremembering/misconstruing the 'Everyone is in a bad mood') is if James was asked/involved with talks about pay BEFORE we were ever shown contracts. Considering James was also quite off on the cut of the signatures going to talent, I think it's more likely just an error. That was almost 2 years ago. I had to double check on a LOT of details to remember things.

With that said, the way he wrote it furthers his narrative of 'Valve trying to get as much as they can out of talent' which I think is painting them in an unfair light.

There are many things you can criticize about the way Valve chose to determine pay for TI4, but saying they started at 0$ base and we had to collectively bargain for a higher base(while we were all informed of the situation) is completely wrong(or I and other people I talked to at the time were somehow left out this piece of information, which is fairly unlikely).
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latest tweets by Purge

01892a3e_o.png
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edit2:

Anuxinamoon said:
Spirit of Jazz said:
Was the lack of pay for casters/hosts known before James' statement? That seems utterly ridiculous.
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I knew, and the insiders at ti4 knew, but since it got fixed I don't think people really talked about it.

The most interesting thing I remember a player telling me at ti4 was how Valves Pre event player meeting was talking a bunch about how much money is in dota2. I remember him saying something like it was really different to ti3 where they cared about the players and community and that was the main talking point at the ti3 meeting.
He was pretty concerned with the shift in focus over 12 months. Maybe he was right to be worried. Maybe we just don't know all of the story.

I hope valve learns from this a lot, where dota2 and the events after will be a lot more smoother.
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She does cosmetics items.

edit3: Russian caster

7c0bf11b_o.png
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edit4: community/stats guy

While I don't agree with the way Valve payed the talent at TI4, it was stated (by several Valve employees I talked to) that one of the reasons (or the biggest reason) for this form of payment was to not get in trouble with American Tax and Immigration authorities.

When the casters come to the US, they don't have a working Visa (so they can't get paid for their work), and the workshop system is/was a way around this (since they are sharing revenue on an item, which is not "working in the usa").

I don't know the exact specifics of the deals, but just wanted to add some extra info.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comm...d_to_pay_talent_through_ingame_images/d0fpxzu
 
B

bluexy

Member
Not surprised by the huge shitshow this thing turned into. James of course releases a huge anti-Valve manifesto and of course he takes zero responsibility for any of his actions, admits no error. And of course the Dota 2 community immediately believes every word he says.

To be fair, Gabe went out of control posting that James was an ass on a community forum. It was just an escalation of the events, and now he and his company will pay the price. If he's smart he won't respond anymore and just take the hit.

And it is a hell of a hit. Even if most of what James had to say had nothing to do with his firing, a lot of what he said about previous TIs is especially concerning. If anything, let's hope this pushes Valve into creating a permanent eSports team, rather than this very sad situation for the contractors that very clearly love their games.
 
B

bigkrev

Member
GavinUK86 said:
I don't like how he refers to viewers/fans as customers.
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E-sports is marketing. Instead of paying money for TV ads you see for 30 seconds, they put the money towards prizes for top players and venues, so that you spend hours watching and thinking about the game.
 
S

spindoctor

Member
bluexy said:
To be fair, Gabe went out of control posting that James was an ass on a community forum. It was just an escalation of the events, and now he and his company will pay the price. If he's smart he won't respond anymore and just take the hit.
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There won't be any hit. Nobody will stop playing a video game they enjoy because some one they don't know got fired in an event that will be forgotten two weeks after it's over. By this time next month the Dota community will be back to complaining about how the latest cosmetic isn't what they expected and how their favorite hero is not powerful enough.
 
B

Briarios

Member
GavinUK86 said:
I don't like how he refers to viewers/fans as customers.
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I'd rather be considered a customer than a viewer. A viewer is just a passive role, but as a customer they have to work to provide services I'll pay for. It may be limited, but you have far more influence and value as a customer as opposed to just a viewer. It's semantics, but it matters.
 
D

Dodecagon

works for a research lab making 6 figures
Valve's in a tough spot that ultimately they put themselves in. They responded in an unprofessional manner and validated the counter response that was obviously coming. Now they are forced to respond if they don't want the only story to be the one put out by James.
 
B

Big-E

Member
So some of these people took a gig not knowing how they were going to be compensated? How are there not contracts in place? Is valve really that incompetent?
 
H

hamchan

Member
Pretty ridiculous that Valve thought they could basically outsource these people's entire wage through a tipping-like system.

Also ridiculous that they weren't planning to pay anyone besides 2GD for TI2. Now that is what I call making use of these caster's enthusiasm for the game.

I'm glad that they all complained and got paid in the end. With how much money Valve makes they didn't even want to pay the people they hire a base salary, c'mon Valve.
 
T

The Foul

Member
queequegs__coffin said:
You might want to poke around Valve's/Newell's business philosophy. To think you are anything but a customer and he is anything but a shrewd (albeit revolutionizing) businessman is pretty naive.
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In valves defense, they put their "customers" first, their strategy for making zillions is to do right by the customer and give them what they want first - not shareholders or megalomanic management, us gamers first everytime.

I personally don't think Gabe responded unprofessionally, again this is a private company not one that has to appease a bunch of suits. There is no corporate spin doctor horseshit, James acted like a fuckwit and got fired, that's what happened and what we got told, I find it refreshing.

Now James is being a petulant child by releasing a gigantic TL:DR statement about petty issues that obviously weren't important enough to die on the hill for before, only now that he's been given the boot does any of this matter to him. Crocodile tears mate, what a twat.

James is grasping at straws, has zero respect and integrity and imo getting what he deserves.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
hamchan said:
Pretty ridiculous that Valve thought they could basically outsource these people's entire wage through a tipping-like system.

Also ridiculous that they weren't planning to pay anyone besides 2GD for TI2. Now that is what I call making use of these caster's enthusiasm for the game.

I'm glad that they all complained and got paid in the end. With how much money Valve makes they didn't even want to pay the people they hire a base salary, c'mon Valve.
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They didn't all complain for TI2, but thankfully 2GD did most of the footwork is the statement is accurate. TI4 is where more people had to get involved to steer Valve away (partially) from their idea. It still baffles me that if everyone was seemingly happy with TI2 and 3, why make the change to what doesn't seem beneficial to anyone for TI4. Again though, this is a one sided look at the situation.
 
L

Lyng

Member
The Foul said:
In valves defense, they put their "customers" first, their strategy for making zillions is to do right by the customer and give them what they want first - not shareholders or megalomanic management, us gamers first everytime.

I personally don't think Gabe responded unprofessionally, again this is a private company not one that has to appease a bunch of suits.

...statement about petty issues...

.
Click to expand...

Are you serious? Please tell me this is sarcasm...
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
The Foul said:
I personally don't think Gabe responded unprofessionally, again this is a private company not one that has to appease a bunch of suits. There is no corporate spin doctor horseshit, James acted like a fuckwit and got fired, that's what happened and what we got told, I find it refreshing.

Now James is being a petulant child by releasing a gigantic TL:DR statement about petty issues that obviously weren't important enough to die on the hill for before, only now that he's been given the boot does any of this matter to him. Crocodile tears mate, what a twat.

James is grasping at straws, has zero respect and integrity and imo getting what he deserves.
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I think what Gabe said is unprofessional, but exactly what makes sense to say to the audience of r/dota2 and the general Dota fans out there, who would undoubtedly call out any sugar coated statement.

As for James, his lengthy statement does avoid a lot of the actual situation for why he had to leave, but at the same time I can't imagine so many pages worth being written at such a time and somehow remaining coherent to a single topic. Either way he brings some interesting topics to light, which he kind of has to do when a big player in gaming and esports in general has basically slammed him, with the potential to damage his future career prospects - not that the unprofessionalism of him divulging all this stuff and personal messages so publicly would be seen as good by potential employers / clients.
 
GavinUK86

GavinUK86

Member
Zemm said:
People have tried to correct you, but I agree. Valve want to make this a "sport" but sports teams don't use terms like customers in that way. Just the other week Liverpool FC fucked up and had to change the wording - http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-owners-fsg-change-controversial-7313431
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Yup. Maybe it's British thing? I don't know. We don't like being called customers. I would prefer viewer or fan, but not customer. I found it very weird.

I don't really know what to make of the rest of the doc. He pussyfoots around a lot and the bit about his brother being up for raping someone is a pretty off topic and info we didn't need to know.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
Big-E said:
So some of these people took a gig not knowing how they were going to be compensated? How are there not contracts in place? Is valve really that incompetent?
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It's Valves incompetence if people come work for them and don't ask for written contracts? Could Valve handled it better? Sure. Should people in question asked for contracts and payment figures? Absolutely.

Incompetence at both sides.
 
M

M.D

Member
Tovarisc said:
It's Valves incompetence if people come work for them and don't ask for written contracts? Could Valve handled it better? Sure. Should people in question asked for contracts and payment figures? Absolutely.

Incompetence at both sides.
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There's only one side here who is looking to get out of paying people for the work they do
 
C

Cipherr

Member
canedaddy said:
Wow. Anti-Semitic piece of shit.
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It's amazing though, honestly. That's why the community for the game is so toxic. SOOOO many people have no problem with the guy, and so they are defending him. While a lot of us look at that behaviour and have a 'good riddance' feel.

Basically all the people defending this dude are the "It's just a prank/joke bro!" types.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Cipherr said:
It's amazing though, honestly. That's why the community for the game is so toxic. SOOOO many people have no problem with the guy, and so they are defending him. While a lot of us look at that behaviour and have a 'good riddance' feel.

Basically all the people defending this dude are the "It's just a prank/joke bro!" types.
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I feel the same way. I enjoy it in the right place and time and when things are clearly jovial, but at the event that did not feel like the case at all, and the general community for the game are so fully accepting of it that nothing challenges that culture.
 
C

Calabi

Member
Nzyme32 said:
I think what Gabe said is unprofessional, but exactly what makes sense to say to the audience of r/dota2 and the general Dota fans out there, who would undoubtedly call out any sugar coated statement.

As for James, his lengthy statement does avoid a lot of the actual situation for why he had to leave, but at the same time I can't imagine so many pages worth being written at such a time and somehow remaining coherent to a single topic. Either way he brings some interesting topics to light, which he kind of has to do when a big player in gaming and esports in general has basically slammed him, with the potential to damage his future career prospects - not that the unprofessionalism of him divulging all this stuff and personal messages so publicly would be seen as good by potential employers / clients.
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Yeah it likely doesnt matter what James says now, Gabe has fucked him. I dont like this James guy either but Gabes response is seriously messed up.

It's the usual Valve shit though, they dont have a clue what their doing. Paying people in signatures is ridiculous and is illegal in some places.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Calabi said:
Yeah it likely doesnt matter what James says now, Gabe has fucked him. I dont like this James guy either but Gabes response is seriously messed up.

It's the usual Valve shit though, they dont have a clue what their doing. Paying people in signatures is ridiculous and is illegal in some places.
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They didn't actually do it though thanks to the opposition, but since this was in the US, it wouldn't surprise me if they could have done it legally. Gabe's response makes sense for that community, but I would bet it doesn't have much forethought to the repercussions. Either way for that community, it is far more palatable than the usual careful statement, that likely would not be accepted by them
 
Acerac

Acerac

Banned
Nzyme32 said:
I feel the same way. I enjoy it in the right place and time and when things are clearly jovial, but at the event that did not feel like the case at all, and the general community for the game are so fully accepting of it that nothing challenges that culture.
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To this day, DotA2's culture is the main thing preventing me from playing that game.

For all the many problems LoL has at least their moderation team cracks down hard on any sort of nonsense.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
M.D said:
There's only one side here who is looking to get out of paying people for the work they do
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How that even excuses casters etc. not asking "By the way, what about contracts and what kind pay we are talking about?" from Valve if Valve doesn't bring that stuff up. Maybe Valve thought that casters etc. selling cheap signatures would give said people good pay and that it's good idea to go ahead with, but caster talent going along with this plan until James said "WTF" is fucking insane. They needed James to look after their arses because they couldn't ask Valve for paycheck and say "Yeah, not doing gig without actual pay"?

If that isn't incompetence to look after own arse then I don't really know.

I'm not excusing Valves payment approach, but to go say Valve is only incompetent party here who tried to save some dollar by smoke screening casters into selling signatures is weird. Talent should ask for pay and contract, and not come to do gigs for free.
 
K

Kyuur

Member
Though luckily a lot of talent talk to Valve and we got this changed and had a base payment no matter how many signatures we sold. but If we sold a lot of signatures we get more than our base salary. If we do not they will give us our base pay.
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This doesn't makes sense, is there a base pay or is there not?

Either way, I know he's trying to make it look like Valve fucked them over but the 'talent' did not have to accept the contract if they weren't happy with the arrangement. They could have looked for other work and Valve could have went with others. This sort of thing happens all the time in the real world.
 
A

ant_

not characteristic of ants at all
Doesn't it speak greatly that Valve listened to their complaints and instituted a base pay?
 
S

Seiniyta

Member
Kyuur said:
This doesn't makes sense, is there a base pay or is there not?

Either way, I know he's trying to make it look like Valve fucked them over but the 'talent' did not have to accept the contract if they weren't happy with the arrangement. They could have looked for other work and Valve could have went with others. This sort of thing happens all the time in the real world.
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The way it worked was:

Base pay until the signature exceeded the base payout. Is actually a rather shitty way to do it.

If under the base pay amount all the signature revenue goes to Valve. The casters don't see anything.

If the signature is above it the base pay amount goes back into Valve's pocket and it's the community that basically paid for them only.

It's so incredibly greedy.
 
Caayn

Caayn

Member
So first we learn that Valve isn't paying their translators, now this. No wonder Gabe is a rich man.

Who's the bigger ass.
 
P

Pureauthor

Member
Seiniyta said:
The way it worked was:

Base pay until the signature exceeded the base payout. Is actually a rather shitty way to do it.

If under the base pay amount all the signature revenue goes to Valve. The casters don't see anything.

If the signature is above it the base pay amount goes back into Valve's pocket and it's the community that basically paid for them only.

It's so incredibly greedy.
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And it's extra scummy because this was never at any point communicated to the fans. What they said was that some of the money spent on buying signatures goes to the personality in question, period. None of this 'exceeding base pay first' bullshit.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
ant_ said:
Doesn't it speak greatly that Valve listened to their complaints and instituted a base pay?
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Guess Who said:
No?
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Well it's nice that each time they listened and were very open to taking advice and idea in general, but they had an issue in TI2, which was resolved happily to all parties, yet then for TI4 they decided to do something which is almost nonsensical, and then were shown it clearly wasn't going to make people happy, so they changed it.

Good that they listen
Bad that they came up with the idea in the first place, after knowing people were happy being paid the "normal" way
 
F

funkystudent

Member
I am pretty sure Valve is conducting social experiments to see how much bullshit they can get away with before all their goodwill is gone.
 
M

megalowho

Member
Pay the people that you hire, Valve. Especially the on air talent that represents the game, and especially with the kind of money they rake in with Compendium sales. We're not talking about a community operation here. Even if they went back on it someone over there thought this was a good idea to save some money - twice - and that's pretty shitty.
 
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