Support NeoGAF

[Keikaku]

A friend throwing a friend an insult isn't shocking.

Again, LD is one of the people coming out in support of James right now.

He must've been reaaaaallly offended.

If you want to insult your friend do that on your own time and maybe don't think that it's an acceptable way to behave in a public manner? How about also don't make "jokes" about porn starring disabled people called Mr. Wang or being "monitored" while you're in China?

I don't understand how it's so hard to not be an ass in public and maybe separate your personal interactions with other members of the Dota 2 scene from the way that you act when invited to a more professional Dota 2 tournament.

 

[Austriacus]

Can you please give links to those? Or just say who those were?

Anuxinamoon shares her view on post 709, shes does hats for us so she knows basically everything there is to dota really.

 

[Syder]

A friend throwing a friend an insult isn't shocking.

Again, LD is one of the people coming out in support of James right now.

He must've been reaaaaallly offended.

So only the person racism is aimed at are allowed to be offended by it?

Aimed at a friend with the intention of being overly offensive or not, he's a public figure and he knew people would see it. There's no excuse for this sort of behaviour.

 

[GorillaJu]

If you want to insult your friend do that on your own time and maybe don't think that it's an acceptable way to behave in a public manner? How about also don't make "jokes" about porn starring disabled people called Mr. Wang or being "monitored" while you're in China?

I don't understand how it's so hard to not be an ass in public and maybe separate your personal interactions with other members of the Dota 2 scene from the way that you act when invited to a more professional Dota 2 tournament.

If you want a friendly, professional host for your dinner, do you hire Bill Burr to be your MC? They knew exactly who they were getting and hired him anyway.

 

[leaf_]

Didn't knew this guy very well but since this incident I took the time, and to my surprise it really seems like everyone jumping on "he's an ass" bandwagon should just try to learn a little more before passing judgement.

Here is a view from a different perspective of a co-worker https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/47tu4s/statement_from_james_to_valve_and_the_dota2/d0fnpbo

Wish I had this kind of "ass" at my work.

 

[lifa-cobex]

This guy's English isn't he? Of course he is.

u wot m8?

 

[Zia]

Not the most professional response sure, and if he bothered to address this surely he's able to poke his head above ground and be a little more transparent about stuff the average customer would like to know about, but James is a douche so oh well.

 

[ashecitism]

Anuxinamoon shares her view on post 709, shes does hats for us so she knows basically everything there is to dota really.

Thanks! Didn't notice her post.

 

[woodland]

Didn't knew this guy very well but since this incident I took the time, and to my surprise it really seems like everyone jumping on "he's an ass" bandwagon should just try to learn a little more before passing judgement.

Here is a view from a different perspective of a co-worker https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/47tu4s/statement_from_james_to_valve_and_the_dota2/d0fnpbo

Wish I had this kind of "ass" at my work.

GAF is probably one of the more sensitive places on the internet, so that explains a pretty big amount here.

Edit: Also, there's a ton of drive-by posting here too.

 

[krameriffic]

If you watch the entire ASUS ROG highlight real of James and iNcontrol, they banter back and forth a lot the entire show, casually throwing insults at each other and laughing most of the way. James also proceeds to make fun of his own mother right after that joke, because equal opportunity and all that.

AMAZING what a little context can do to frame a situation.

They need to get iNcontroL into Dota. He's a fantastic caster.

 

[ashecitism]

v1lat responded to Purge

 

[Tieske]

So only the person racism is aimed at are allowed to be offended by it?

Aimed at a friend with the intention of being overly offensive or not, he's a public figure and he knew people would see it. There's no excuse for this sort of behaviour.

come on. its on his personal stream with like 250 people max watching (all people who are into his humour mind you). feel free to criticize his appareance on the major stream, but stuff like this is just asenine

 

[GorillaJu]

GAF is probably one of the more sensitive places on the internet, so that explains a pretty big amount here.

Edit: Also, there's a ton of drive-by posting here too.

There are people in this thread who are like "I don't play Dota 2, I've never seen James cast before and never heard of him before this, but I watched that 2 minute video on YouTube of him being an ass and I have to say Valve made the right choice!!"

 

[depths20XX]

After reading into this more I still don't understand why this guy was fired other than Gabe is a douche. Lighten up you fat cunt.

 

[Rurunaki]

After reading into this more I still don't understand why this guy was fired other than Gabe is a douche. Lighten up you fat cunt.

To be fair, this drama is the only thing Shanghai Major has going for it. Publicity is publicity.

 

[Vanillalite]

Total shit show all around.

Announcer went to far, and Valve/Gabe didn't exactly handle it with class.

It's also just another bullet point for people to use against esports in general for being total amateur hour to the general public at large.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Total shit show all around.

Announcer went to far, and Valve/Gabe didn't exactly handle it with class.

It's also just another bullet point for people to use against esports in general for being total amateur hour to the general public at large.

strictly speaking, this is only the second time Valve has hosted their own event in China and I believe this was a new location and new production crew. So yea, it will have amateur hour aspects from time to time. nothing like this before, and probably never again either.

 

[nilbog21]

The fact that James wrote a 20 pg report not saying anything of significance leads me to believe he is probably full of shit

Look how poorly valve is treating these casters.. Yet every single Dota caster would give an arm or a leg to work at TI without pay

I know a few big casters in esports industry and they generally ask for a lot of money.. Much more than they are worth, which is why a v lot of problems with casters emerge at big events

 

[BlastProcessing]

strictly speaking, this is only the second time Valve has hosted their own event in China and I believe this was a new location and new production crew. So yea, it will have amateur hour aspects from time to time. nothing like this before, and probably never again either.

Wasn't this the same production crew (KeyTV) that presided over the trainwreck at the Nanyang Championship?

So something exactly like this happened 4 months ago and Valve choose to reward those responsible with a bigger gig.

 

[Ludens]

Language aside, do you really think the Dota community watching the event were not going to talk and run into rampant speculation of the host being removed and no panels when the English production team disappeared. Someone had to make a public statement as the effects to the English side of the event are massively obvious.

Going as far as calling him an ass while doing so is questionable since no one outside knows the full truth of why he got fired. We assume it was due to unprofessionalism, and if you were watching you can blatantly see why. Throughout the day he progressively got worse even by his standards. He even called himself out part way through the day saying in a half joking manner he wouldn't be back anyway after this.



I generally love the Brit sense of humour and mockery that goes on with 2GD, yet he was always more reserved in other TI events yet was still fantastic. In this event he goes far further and even I thought it was wrong to do for that broadcast. It's a massive shame since previously he was doing really well in my opinion outside of a few incidents. This was on a whole other level though.

A statement is ok, but further arguments are futile to me.
If Valve just removed him, it would be ok. But the arguing on Reddit just seems childish to me, expecially from a corporation.

 

[Sasie]

Seems like 2GD have a bit of a hard understanding he was hired by a company to do a job the way they wanted it and when they ask him to do something it's more than a suggestions. He might have liked his whiteboard but they told him no and he ignored it, then he got a email from the CEO himself and he still don't get the hint. Not much sympathy for this guy.

 

[LiQuid!]

Wasn't this the same production crew (KeyTV) that presided over the trainwreck at the Nanyang Championship?

So something exactly like this happened 4 months ago and Valve choose to reward those responsible with a bigger gig.

Yeah, Valve doubly knew what they were in for, getting back into bed with James and KTV. The only difference is when Gabe fired the entire KTV production staff he didn't call them all asses. Probably would have been more justified tbh.

 

[ashecitism]

Wasn't this the same production crew (KeyTV) that presided over the trainwreck at the Nanyang Championship?

So something exactly like this happened 4 months ago and Valve choose to reward those responsible with a bigger gig.

Yeah, it's the same company.

 

[Keikaku]

More context from Purge about the TI4 payment aspect

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.

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.

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).

 

[TheYanger]

More context from Purge about the TI4 payment aspect

Even if you just take all of that, you still end up with Valve trying to not pay these guys AT ALL for TI2 until James stepped in, scummy shit.

 

[LiQuid!]

Even if you just take all of that, you still end up with Valve trying to not pay these guys AT ALL for TI2 until James stepped in, scummy shit.

But according to nilbog21:

Look how poorly valve is treating these casters.. Yet every single Dota caster would give an arm or a leg to work at TI without pay

Those guys should have been THRILLED that Valve allowed them to grace their glorious TI stage and work 18 hour work days for zero pay!

 

[Tovarisc]

Those guys should have been THRILLED that Valve allowed them to grace their glorious TI stage and work 18 hour work days for zero pay!

Apparently it was a case before James made thing out of it, and got some money to people. Why this talent didn't ask for pay in first place? That is what I don't understand here.

 

[Trickster]

Apparently it was a case before James made thing out of it, and got some money to people. Why this talent didn't ask for pay in first place? That is what I don't understand here.

Fear of not being able to get the job or even blacklisted for being an ass?

 

[LiQuid!]

Apparently it was a case before James made thing out of it, and got some money to people. Why this talent didn't ask for pay in first place? That is what I don't understand here.

A lot of that talent was involved in the Dota scene back when it was a Warcraft mod as a hobby. There was no multi-billion dollar company trying to grow it as an esport and profiting off their work. That talent made the Dota scene what it is today just as much as Valve did. James simply had the leadership and acumen to fight for the rights of his peers.

 

[lifa-cobex]

Apparently it was a case before James made thing out of it, and got some money to people. Why this talent didn't ask for pay in first place? That is what I don't understand here.

Probably wanted to make a good impression and not rock the boat.

Perhaps Vale didn't like the factor of James standing up for the little ppl?

 

[TheYanger]

A lot of that talent was involved in the Dota scene back when it was a Warcraft mod as a hobby. There was no multi-billion dollar company trying to grow it as an esport and profiting off their work. That talent made the Dota scene what it is today just as much as Valve did. James simply had the leadership and acumen to fight for the rights of his peers.

This. These are passionate fans doing what they love, but that doesn't mean the multibillion dollar company just gets to use that passion at no cost to earn themselves money. It's straight up abusing them and Valve was going to do it, that's pure dick.

 

[Creamium]

Even if this guy was fired for a good reason, as an employer it's in pretty poor form (and unprofessional) to call that person 'an ass'.

 

[Keikaku]

A lot of that talent was involved in the Dota scene back when it was a Warcraft mod as a hobby. There was no multi-billion dollar company trying to grow it as an esport and profiting off their work. That talent made the Dota scene what it is today just as much as Valve did. James simply had the leadership and acumen to fight for the rights of his peers.

No one's arguing that, only that James shouldn't have acted the way he did. If he did have "the leadership and acumen to fight for the rights of his peers", he also has the intelligence to know how to act when contracted as a host. Don't act like there is no middle ground here; there is and he simply didn't act in an appropriate fashion in any way.

 

[Devilgunman]

Even if this guy was fired for a good reason, as an employer it's in pretty poor form (and unprofessional) to call that person 'an ass'.

I don't think Gabe cares. This is Valve we're talking about. They don't operate like others companies. Unprofessional or not, the truth remains. Dude is fired as fck and we'll probably never hear any more input from Gabe regarding this.

 

[Mr.Fox]

https://twitter.com/PurgeGamers/status/703626032125861888

Turns out that James might have framed his side of the story unfairly. Who could have guessed?

He didn't, their contracts were different. Other european casters are confirming James story.

 

[Rurunaki]

I don't think Gabe cares. This is Valve we're talking about. They don't operate like others companies. Unprofessional or not, the truth remains. Dude is fired as fck and we'll probably never hear any more input from Gabe regarding this.

That's a piss poor argument that because Valve is not like other companies. Valve or not there needs to be a degree of professionalism especially with how big of a company they are. Any other company that does this would be called out for it and Valve should not be an exemption.

 

[Anbokr]

What's that drama about? I read some snippets about money?

Matt is 500k in debt.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Wasn't this the same production crew (KeyTV) that presided over the trainwreck at the Nanyang Championship?

So something exactly like this happened 4 months ago and Valve choose to reward those responsible with a bigger gig.

Huh. Welp, fool me once...

Idunno. It's all learning lessons and growing pains I suppose. I see no reason to e xpect things won't get better in the future for such esports events, but we should all keep perspective: esports are very much in their infancy. It's a bit unreasonable to compare them at this stage to standard sports at this stage in their lives. Regular sports have had in some cases more than 100 years to figure their shit out, develop best practices, trustworthy contractors, and generations of experience. esports is what? like 4 or 5 years old? Maybe a little older if you include Quake competitive days? give it time.

 

[fester]

Even if this guy was fired for a good reason, as an employer it's in pretty poor form (and unprofessional) to call that person 'an ass'.

Presenting the Professional Police, a sister organization to the Tone Police. If your statement doesn't comply with their view of "professionalism", it gets diminished or invalidated regardless of the truth or its factual nature.

 

[Complicated]

So many people spinning this as Valve putting their foot down on unruly community members when Valve was overseeing the event. Are they putting their foot down on themselves? Not surprising people would excuse Valve as they throw all their partners under the bus after that attempted murder on Dota 2 as an esport we just watched.

 

[Tieske]

Huh. Welp, fool me once...

Idunno. It's all learning lessons and growing pains I suppose. I see no reason to e xpect things won't get better in the future for such esports events, but we should all keep perspective: esports are very much in their infancy. It's a bit unreasonable to compare them at this stage to standard sports at this stage in their lives. Regular sports have had in some cases more than 100 years to figure their shit out, develop best practices, trustworthy contractors, and generations of experience. esports is what? like 4 or 5 years old? Maybe a little older if you include Quake competitive days? give it time.

I suppose that is true, but going back to TI3 where Dota seemed like it was about to enter a golden age (amazing tournament, amazing atmosphere and right at the beginning of exponential growth) it's kinda sad to see we've not come too far compared to then. There's more money and more people involved, but the scene as a whole hasn't really improved that much. The recent Secret fiasco is another example of that

 

[Princess Carl]

Public caster says inappropriate things for high viewer stream. The end.

So many people spinning this as Valve putting their foot down on unruly community members when Valve was overseeing the event. Are they putting their foot down on themselves? Not surprising people would excuse Valve as they throw all their partners under the bus after that attempted murder on Dota 2 as an esport we just watched.

Perhaps the Cs:GO devs have been busy after all? "rubs hands deviously"

 

[meerak]

Being yourself or not doesn't matter, that's not a free pass to being a jerk. I think it's awesome they axed him how they did. Transparancy is the shit. It's a good opportunity for him to rebuild his image anyways. If he's the real deal anyways, otherwise guess it's the end for his career. Alternatively, he could make a go at it in the "TOO EXTREME FOR TV" way of things.

Also.. Calling someone an ass isn't unprofessional. Not having any way to prove this person is an ass? That's unprofessional. There's a world of difference between professionalism and not calling bad behaviour out. Companies fire people for being rude assholes all the time, they just rarely have the balls to say that. "It didn't work out" isn't more professional, it's more cowardly. Oh and sure, polite too. But politeness is inferior to the truth in business.

 

[Nzyme32]

So many people spinning this as Valve putting their foot down on unruly community members when Valve was overseeing the event. Are they putting their foot down on themselves?

In a sense they are. Gabe's statement mentions that they had issues with 2GD in the past, but members of Valve internally lobbied for 2GD to have another chance. Gabe describes it as a "mistake".

 

[Cipherr]

So many people spinning this as Valve putting their foot down on unruly community members when Valve was overseeing the event. Are they putting their foot down on themselves?

Yes. And rightfully so.

 

[BlastProcessing]

Huh. Welp, fool me once...

Idunno. It's all learning lessons and growing pains I suppose. I see no reason to e xpect things won't get better in the future for such esports events, but we should all keep perspective: esports are very much in their infancy. It's a bit unreasonable to compare them at this stage to standard sports at this stage in their lives. Regular sports have had in some cases more than 100 years to figure their shit out, develop best practices, trustworthy contractors, and generations of experience. esports is what? like 4 or 5 years old? Maybe a little older if you include Quake competitive days? give it time.

I think we can say that esports goes at last as far back as Starcraft, so over a decade. I agree that there needs to be a lot of growth and my main takeaway from all of this is that Valve is currently not structured to effectively grow it.

From the outside looking in it feels like Valve's vaunted flat organizational structure is working against them here. To grow you need a unified vision and for everyone to pull in the same direction, not Icefrog saying one thing then then having the CEO email a programmer ordering him, to fire a host midcast. Yeesh.

eSports can grow into any number of things and it needs to find a way to do so without jettisoning the elements that the current audience cares for. That calls for a lot of difficult decisions and careful consideration and that is only going to come out of a unified chain of command.

 

[LordofPwn]

If James wanted to he could sue Valve/Gabe for libel.
He doesn't seem to be the person to do that but he could, and it would not be great for Valve.

I don't care if the guy deserved to be fired or not, as a CEO you don't call someone you've paid before an ass on reddit. You handle that stuff in person. I mean isn't that against reddits policy to say something like that towards someone?

 

[Sibylus]

Can someone with a better understanding libel law shine a light on me, because to my mind calling someone an ass isn't a factual claim, it's pretty evidently a subjective one. If Gabe had accused James of an assault, true or not, would that not be the grounds for a libel suit if James contested that statement?

 

[TheIronChancellor]

So my understanding is that James was almost universally beloved by both twitch and reddit and the only thing keeping an otherwise disastrous major from being an utter failure. They had hired him before, knew what he was like, and expressly told him to be himself and are surprised with what they got? I dont care how much of an ass someone is, if they are the only person keeping your shit from imploding you pat them on the back and thank them.

 

[jaekeem]

If James wanted to he could sue Valve/Gabe for libel.
He doesn't seem to be the person to do that but he could, and it would not be great for Valve.

I don't care if the guy deserved to be fired or not, as a CEO you don't call someone you've paid before an ass on reddit. You handle that stuff in person. I mean isn't that against reddits policy to say something like that towards someone?

Lol

someone that makes a joke about masturbating to handicapped pornography and bottom bitches on a million dollar stream is going to sue someone for libel after being called an ass

you are insane lad