Last night I published a short opinion piece about having realistic expectations in eSports. Specifically it was in regards to getting paid from eSports positions and the Major League Gaming Fall Championship.
The first point I went on to make was my theory about why such a small percentage of people get paid from eSports. It’s because these organizations, while appearing large and successful from the outside, are actually operating on razor thin margins. This instability in a volatile market means we need to treat them like start-up companies. They are only able to hire the absolute best candidates because a single bad employee could literally put the company out of business. And we see this every 6-9 months, with another organization going under. So as an individual interested in pursuing eSports professionally, understand that you have a long road ahead. You must prove your worth by creating value over a consistent period of time. Only then will they consider paying you.
The second point I wanted to make was that as fans we need to have proper expectations when dealing with tournaments. I saw a number of angry Tweets on Friday and Saturday from HD purchasers who said they would never buy MLG again. This saddens me because 1. they are giving you a free pass for the next event and 2. this industry is really young. eSports has only been around in its current context for ~12 years and the technology we’re using make everything possible only 3-4 years. No matter how much money someone throws you, hosting an event at this stage of the game is going to result in problems. MLG took a risk by switching streaming partners (I’m assuming because of a better deal or simply to “test the waters” and take power away from Twitch), which results poorly. It’s going to happen as things evolve. Please give them a chance to grow and support whatever they do so we can have a bright future. Of course I should also clarify by saying that complaining and holding people to standards is a good thing, just don’t count them out completely.
Here is the full video:
Other Tags: MLG, TwitchTV