Update: 2023/01/18 - If there is any anger to direct in this blog, it is strictly towards tumba specifically because of the way he verbally manipulates people. If you go to missingmoney.com and search his real name, then you see 4 reports from enterprises that list his name I won't comment on more than that.
Forenote: I'm not angry about this (now long-gone) stage of my life. There is an element of trust required with this blog. You have to trust that the redacted information that I present to you all here is reliable - you also have to trust that the things said off the record, without screenshots, and without records, are accurate. If your name pops up in this blog, I've been more than generous with the amount of time I've been silent - anywhere from 6 to 9 years depending on how you see it.
Forenote Edit: There's way too much to write here that was going on when I was in Korea. There were other things that took place at the time that I didn't mention like getting in touch with the other bigger casters at the time and asking how to get in touch with the relevant people in Korea, the fact that I was working for ESL at the time, and a few other things (like I actually worked at Thermaltake (a company that sponsored Tasteosis and IdrA at one point) less than a year after they stopped sponsoring PRIME team).
TL;DR - You could say the agent of Tastetosis, Brendan Valdez, Tastetosis, and Tumba, conspired to steal my job while I was too chicken shit to do anything to stop them. But it's more complicated than that and it turned into a free-for-all in a manner of speaking. Now I work as a contractor/freelancer in big data. I'm not angry about it any more (though I was absolutely furious at the time this was all happening and for years that followed), this thread is meant to serve as a warning to anyone trying to do similar work that might be naive or gullible enough to fall for this kind of stuff and bring closure to myself and answers to anyone who might be curious.
Where do we begin? This is going to be a long long long story, but I'll do my best to condense it.
Part One: getting screwed my attempt at becoming a caster in Korea
If you guys remember some dude who was casting SC2 from his family's garage in America, that was me. I ran the twitch channels Enders116, ESLTaiwan, and later my own partnered channel "BreakerSC2" (now renamed to "BingeHD") It happened because I was somewhat unwilling to
In 2012 I studied abroad in Taiwan and became starry-eyed with everything starcraft and Taiwan at the time. Beforehand I knew there had to be an esports scene because I saw their best starcraft player kicking NA, EU, and KR asses at NASL season 1 and NASL season 2 over a decade ago. Being a foreigner, and studying Chinese language like it was a religion for 2 years, I sold myself the idea of going to Taiwan.
I studied abroad and got hooked on the prospect of becoming a gaming / streaming personality and shout caster since I couldn't go the pro gamer route. To that extent, I've seen some success. I became a twitch partnered streamer in 2014, but haven't streamed since 2020 now.
I built a following in 2012, but it was nothing compared to whoever was casting GSL, NASL, IEM, Dreamhack, etc. back in those days. I remember I sent an email to a "reputable" agency that saw a spike in my twitch channel viewership from 2012.
There was a lot of anger pent up in me as I developed - if it's one thing I should have learned to do better, it was definitely youtube. However, streaming on two different twitch channels also screwed up the ability for people to remember my name / who I was or at least a face people could identify in SC2.
Timeline of Events 2012 - networking, streaming, trying to build my name. 2013 - See above with much more moving around. I applied to study abroad in Daegu Korea for my final semester of university. Got screwed once. 2014 - Taiwan Open 2014 - Got screwed a second time. I ended up casting World of Tanks and Starcraft II at Taiwan Esports League's final season though. See the photo dump I have attached below. 2015 - Wrapping up casting Starcraft II and World of Tanks leagues that began in 2014. Sadly coming to the realization that there was no casting work left, which was difficult to accept. 2016 until present - developing the skills I needed to get the jobs I have now.
rebuffing on 2013 - the buildup to the biggest let-down anyone trying to make a living in Starcraft II could have:
Take-aways:
I was told to cast only Chinese-speaking players. I did this.
Artosis knew I would be in Korea.
In 2014 at my first offline event, he could have helped me. He did nothing.
Screenshots / Convos to corroborate everything that happened before, during, and after I got screwed in Korea. + Show Spoiler +
I also saw Wolf and Khaldor face to face in Korea. I only had time to go to one GSTL event because I studied in the south end of the country. In one of the calls that I had with Tumba, he mentioned that Khaldor wouldn't be at the following GSTL or GSL season. Since Khaldor was probably my favorite caster, I had to tell him this after the show, and he didn't believe what I had to say.
I also asked Wolf if he could put me in touch with the people who hire the casters. He basically coughed up a bull shit excuse about not being able to because this is not how people do things in Korean culture, and gave the job to Brendan Valdez.
So I left Korea and went back to America, and ended up casting starcraft in my family's garage. I got my own Twitch-partnered channel back then, so that was something new I could look forward to pushing later and I had some success.
Part 2 will be continued in the first comment I put here.
Part 2: The after-effect, and how I got screwed a second time by Tasteosis and Tumba.
"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"
Taiwan Open 2014: My big, fat, dream event.
There is a considerable possibility that a significant portion of all of this was delusions of grandeur. Before I left Taiwan in 2012, I told people, "I would love to be a Starcraft II caster here in Taiwan." and a few people said to me, "We have a big event later this summer, we can help you ask!". This would've been realistic because at that time, blizzard didn't have the "invasive" WCS system that they had built in 2013. However, my student visa would have expired and I would have had to leave the country, so I couldn't stay any longer.
Leading up to this event, I was still riled up internally by what had happened to me in Korea. I had one nightmare in particular where Wolf and Tasteless were chasing me with guns in my sleep. This made me think that no matter how much preparation I had done, I was done for.
If I was personally in charge of hiring broadcast talent for Taiwan Open 2014, it would have been like this: BreAKer, Khaldor, Kane, and QXC. Khaldor would've been paired with QXC and I would've had Kane and myself casting the other 50% of the matches. QXC and Kane were in Taiwan at the time, and Khaldor would've had to be flown in from Korea. Any remaining budget would've been dedicated to setting up a "clean-source" stream that shows the observer feed and then allowed 7 other language streams to cast the tournament in various languages like Portuguese, French, Polish, German, Russian, and so on.
Instead, not knowing any better, and not wanting to do anything but "deliver what they think is the best." for blizzard, the tournament organizers, TESL, just over-paid for Tasteless and Artosis. Artosis definitely knew I wanted this event. Something that shocked me was TESL was definitely overpaying because at that point in time, Has had already knocked Jaedong out of WCS NA premier league, and he didn't know that Has was the only Taiwanese protoss at TWOP 2014. I basically said to him, "there's 7 taiwanese zergs and 1 taiwanese protoss." He responded saying, "Who's the P, Ian?" The event in question where Has KO'd Jaedong had taken place in WCS Premier League Season 1 of 2014 (basically in winter 2014), and here we were in Late July / Early August talking about this.
Jaedong vs. Has WCS 2014 Season 1 match in question (match 3): + Show Spoiler +
So, what exactly happened? When asked if I could cast Taiwan Open 2014 with Tasteless and/or Artosis on a 3-man rotation (that is to say, 2 of the 3 casters present at the time, one resting off-stage), Tumba told TESL that it would be "Bad for their brand name". I'm sorry, Tumba, what? Doesn't filling a young-man's head with dream-teasers about becoming a shoutcaster and then getting exposed for it worse for their brand name? Come on. At that point in time, I wanted to bite my lip in the hopes that there would be a Taiwan Open 2015, and that it would have been better than in 2014.
What I could have done, and I certainly contemplated, but didn't do: At the time, TESL (Taiwan Esports League) was running a significantly large world of tanks league that was sponsored directly by the developer itself, Wargaming - and it was supposed to last another 5 months. I could have threatened TESL and said, "If you guys don't let me cast this event, because neither of the casters know anything about 50% of the players (the taiwanese players) in this tournament, I will leave TESL." This might have worked, but I was too dumb, too naive, or too scared to do anything about it.
My outburst on the final episode of the "Unfiltered" podcast. I had no idea Tasteless and Artosis were going to leave GEM until about 30 days after Taiwan Open 2014 had ended. This was because I got stuck casting the League of Legends tournament for the same event where they casted the same Starcraft II event in Hong Kong in 2014.
A friend (now deceased due to cancer, RIP Michael) who worked the HKESPORTS 2014 event told me what had happened - basically he was trying to reach Tumba / GEM and get them to get tasteless and artosis arranged accomodations and flights, but they were unresponsive for whatever reason. I simply forwarded Artosis' skype information to this friend, and he got everything squared away.
The result: Tastetosis left Tumba / GEM. The best part: He got zero compensation for doing what he did to me, especially after using words to tease me into having a chance at my dream job(s). If I had to guess, if he was collecting 15%, then at the time it is possible GEM / Tumba lost north of 1000 USD.
Taiwan Open 2014 was both the best day of my life and the worst day of my life. My favorite players, Ian, Sen, and Has, all managed to kick ass and battle their way through 8 Code S Koreans. On day 2, It was just Hyun, Has, Sen, and Ian. When it ended, and Sen took the championship, I stepped off the stage and finished translating from Chinese to English, and stood there in awe of the fact that my first offline event was won by my favorite player of all time. I was dating a girl at the time, and I lifted my left hand to wipe a tear sliding off my cheek and she slapped it and said, "Really?! You're crying over this?!" while I had to explain to her that it was the first time a Non-Korean had ever won a major Starcraft II tournament since the release of Heart of The Swarm in 2013, over a year prior. That wasn't the only reason why though: I couldn't be certain that Taiwan Open would or would not have happened in 2015 - spoiler alert: Blizzard ceased collaboration with TESL and there was no Taiwan Open 2015.
All of this has been long. Thanks for staying with me this far. If you've had a similar experience with Tumba, please let us know. I know of someone who did something in the hearthstone scene but he didn't tell me much information, and he is out of esports as well now. Last I checked tumba was shilling NFTs. If I were you, or if you represent a large brand, I would stay away from the following enterprises: Foundry IV and Collor Collab and head for the hills if he tries to talk to you.
Overall after-effect: I became increasingly paranoid after what happened to me in Korea. I became even more paranoid and less-trusting of others in general. There was an EU-based caster that could have helped me get in touch with people in Korea to become the pro league caster.
What I didn't know while all of this was happening: Tasteless and Artosis gave the casting job to Brendan Valdez. There was no interview process, there was no job board I could have searched,and there was no authentically professional method to apply to become a shoutcaster. You only have connections. That's it. I found out that Tasteosis just "gave" Brendan the job about 1 week after the 2014 Hong Kong Esports tournament when a coworker at TESL told me he had been out drinking with them all night long and found out about this. But the ability for someone to move in and set up shop on your own "territory" is absolutely disturbing. At the time Taiwan Open 2014 had taken place, I was working for TESL for 5 months already.
So you moved to Korea to study and assumed that you would just be given main seats on the caster desk of premiere events despite having nearly 0 credibility beforehand and think you were screwed over?
On December 22 2022 12:40 Gemini_19 wrote: So you moved to Korea to study and assumed that you would just be given main seats on the caster desk of premiere events despite having nearly 0 credibility beforehand and think you were screwed over?
Keep telling yourself that lol
At the time you could argue and say I had more credibility than Brendan Valdez. I was in master's league when I arrived in Korea, was running the ESLTaiwan channel, had joined Flash Wolves, and had over 300 VODs on my channel - and those were mostly only replay casts that I had found from /r/castit and the front page of drop.sc. As I said before, I should have learned earlier how to leverage youtube.
Do you know what brendan valdez did? He entered a contest where to watch League of Legends in person in Korea and had his name drawn out of a hat by a company that was laundering money (Azubu). He didn't go there to be a caster, made zero preparation, and his experience at the time was minimal if non-existent.
I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
On December 22 2022 13:14 Turbovolver wrote: Sorry, but, yep. Sure seems that way.
To be fair, if you keep going with something and you are right even once the payoff can be big.
On December 22 2022 13:19 BreAKerTV wrote: I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
Nobody can make substantial comments because you haven't clearly explained anything in your exposé. You leave out all the important details and just tell us to trust that it's all down to malice when the "worst" you show and highlight with a big red box us is Tumba telling you "you own China" and then you not getting a specific casting job because you lost it to Tasteosis. Did I miss it, or did you not even explain how Tumba could help that not happen?
Really looks to me like you aggressively befriended some names in the scene and then blamed them when they couldn't make it all work out for you.
On December 22 2022 13:19 BreAKerTV wrote: I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
Nobody can make substantial comments because you haven't clearly explained anything in your exposé. You leave out all the important details and just tell us to trust that it's all down to malice when the "worst" you show and highlight with a big red box us is Tumba telling you "you own China" and then you not getting a specific casting job because you lost it to Tasteosis. Did I miss it, or did you not even explain how Tumba could help that not happen?
I did address this actually. This thread is really long so I'll go through it one more time in a shorter format.
I was working for Taiwan Esports League for 4 or 5 months already as a World of Tanks caster in their own studio. In the skype calls that we had, the one before I went to Korea, he said he would "Introduce me to Tasteless and Artosis." This last sentence requires you to believe me saying what Tumba said that was off the record, but at the time I had zero clue what that actually meant. I found out in late 2014 that it meant they control all the casting jobs in Korea. Beyond that Tumba typed, "You own china" which was ambiguous enough to mean both Taiwan and China. Well 8 months later, after the Korea debacle, Taiwan Open 2014 takes place and he basically said to TESL, "If I send you Tasteless and Artosis, BreAKer isn't casting with either of them." One month later, Tasteosis left Tumba's company. I could have told TESL right then and there that I would quit working for them if they didn't let me cast for an event that I spent, arguably, 2 years preparing for, but I was too afraid to do it. Do you think I didn't tell Tasteless and Artosis about what happened to me in Korea when they came to cast that tournament in Taiwan? They knew, more or less, what had happened, and they knew I was salty about it.
https://tl.net/forum/sc2-tournaments/362149-asia-starcraft-league-group-stage-ro128 - this is the first online tournament I ever casted, but there were far more I casted but didn't record VODs for pretty much any online tournament - which, again, was very stupid of me because I didn't know how I could leverage youtube as anything more than a recording platform, and we could already use SC2 replays to do that.
On December 22 2022 13:19 BreAKerTV wrote: I also like how you had the balls to just drop a sarcastic comment here without addressing the non-existent job interview process.
Nobody can make substantial comments because you haven't clearly explained anything in your exposé. You leave out all the important details and just tell us to trust that it's all down to malice when the "worst" you show and highlight with a big red box us is Tumba telling you "you own China" and then you not getting a specific casting job because you lost it to Tasteosis. Did I miss it, or did you not even explain how Tumba could help that not happen?
I did address this actually. This thread is really long so I'll go through it one more time in a shorter format.
I was working for Taiwan Esports League for 4 or 5 months already as a World of Tanks caster in their own studio. Tumba said "You own china" which was ambiguous enough to mean both Taiwan and China. Well 8 months later, after the Korea debacle, Taiwan Open 2014 takes place and he basically said to TESL, "If I send you Tasteless and Artosis, BreAKer isn't casting with either of them." One month later, Tasteosis left Tumba's company. I could have told TESL right then and there that I would quit working for them if they didn't let me cast for an event that I spent, arguably, 2 years preparing for, but I was too afraid to do it. Do you think I didn't tell Tasteless and Artosis about what happened to me in Korea when they came to cast that tournament in Taiwan? They knew, more or less, what had happened, and they knew I was salty about it.
https://tl.net/forum/sc2-tournaments/362149-asia-starcraft-league-group-stage-ro128 - this is the first online tournament I ever casted, but there were far more I casted but didn't record VODs for pretty much any online tournament - which, again, was very stupid of me because I didn't know how I could leverage youtube as anything more than a recording platform, and we could already use SC2 replays to do that.
I read all that the first time, and in "shorter format" it's no more clear.
Still no idea how Tumba and TESL are related. My best guess doing the legwork to piece together all your fragments is that Tumba, as manager for Tasteosis, got them a job in Taiwan despite telling you earlier that "you own China/Taiwan". I mean I guess that's kind of a "betrayal" you might be salty about but he's beholden to those he is managing, not to you. Who is going to begrudge him doing his job over kowtowing to the pushy fly buzzing around in his DMs?
No clue why it matters that Tasteosis left Tumba after that, or that they knew you were salty.
On December 22 2022 14:00 Turbovolver wrote: I read all that the first time, and in "shorter format" it's no more clear.
Still no idea how Tumba and TESL are related.
So, figuratively speaking, TESL was "My own Dojo" and I began collaborating with them as early as 2013. But when I officially joined them in 2014, that was like the beginning of a dream come true. I tried asking tumba if we could talk about this (letting me cast TWOP 2014) on skype, but at the time he was ignoring me, and like I said before I was too chicken shit to confront TESL even though I felt like I was dying spiritually.
The irony: At one point, I said, "I don't care who is casting the grand finals. I mean we all know a Korean's gonna win this tournament anyway." Can we call that the "BreAKer Curse"?
No clue why it matters that Tasteosis left Tumba after that, or that they knew you were salty.
It lends credibility to the timeline of events that took place. nothing more nothing less.
EDIT: And i just realized that it sounded as though I didn't get to cast anything at all. For most of the event i was a stage host, which I didn't spend 2 years preparing to become, and I got to cast 2 best of threes on Day 1 of TWOP 2014. that's it.
Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
Yeah, I don't get it. Artosis told you to hustle and you were. But just because you are hustling in an area doesn't mean it becomes your personal fiefdom. Others are making their own moves just like you- including Tastosis. They're hustling for new gigs as well.
They got one in China- doesn't mean they are in China forever. That message from Tumba is not a granting of a monopoly to you. He's telling you to go ahead in China because they've got a lock on the Korea market and are busy enough. If someone else (anyone, but it happened to be you at that time) wants to go west to try and strike it rich in the Chinese market, knock yourself out. That's all that is. Nor does it preclude them from parachuting in every now and then to promote the Chinese scene. That Tumba comment is still true. They return to Korea shortly after and do not set up shop.
And yeah, they are under no obligation to promote your career to break up the Tastosis duo. They are already in less viewer territory by casting an unknown Starcraft scene (to the English speaking scene), to break up the duo on top of that? It's neat and all when Dave Grohl gets a fan to play his guitar for one song... but really your there to see Foo Fighters be Foo Fighters. If they want to put eyes on an unknown scene at the same time as promoting a relatively unknown caster... that's a big ask.
In short, you wanted to be the warm up band on the big Metallica tour- so does every up and coming rock/metal act. Just because they went with a different warm up band doesn't mean they screwed you in particular. What you wanted, they were not obligated to do, neither by contract nor by gentleman's agreement.
Edit. I mean, I get the rejection part. It sucks getting out there, putting in the hard work and not getting a pay-off for your grind. I get that. I don't get how you were screwed by anyone in particular... except maybe screwed in the cosmological/ existential sense?
On December 22 2022 21:57 Chill wrote: Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
I suppose there have been too many moments where I let what others say / said influence my thinking and didn't think to myself, "What would be best for me? in 5 years or 10 years."
The TL;Dr of 2012-2016 was imagine a millennial as naive as SpongeBob and as selfish as Mr krabs. That was me.
Let's do a thought experiment and imagine that this happened to someone else? like let's say the people at pro league weren't mad at nathanias and he was told the same thing and acted the same but kept his personality and the same thing happened to him, what would you say then?
Like I said in the O.P. I'm not even angry about it anymore. The things that made me angry are the things I haven't posted here: Blizzard forcing every tournament organizer to buy broadcasting licenses if the prize pool surpassed 10k usd, or if they had televised the tournament in question. I know people who lost jobs because of that. I am slightly disappointed in myself for not realizing how dumb I was for going through with this venture from 2012 forward.
alas I digress. I won't be looking for casting opportunities based on what happened to me in 2012, the lack or professional hiring, and the things I've seen happen with my own two eyes.
I might have a follow up blog on a completely separate incident sooner or later.
This whole post comes off a delusional and I can see why nobody really wanted to work with you. I think you think you're a lot better at this than you are. There's a reason you didn't get to where you think you should have and it isn't everyone else's fault.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this post but you sure as hell aren't going to get any sympathy.
On December 23 2022 11:04 RowdierBob wrote: This whole post comes off a delusional and I can see why nobody really wanted to work with you. I think you think you're a lot better at this than you are. There's a reason you didn't get to where you think you should have and it isn't everyone else's fault.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this post but you sure as hell aren't going to get any sympathy.
I'm not here for sympathy but it's more like if anyone ever wanted to know what happened or why I was a jerk or something like that. I also just wanted to get it off of my chest. I very quickly turned into an asshole during that time frame.
If I could go back in time 10 years ago and tell myself what to do: 1) quit completely or 2) work on my personality. Maybe doing both would've helped.
I have some new content creation ideas that I want to bring to life but it has nothing to do with gaming and I don't even have to be on camera.
This video is a perfect 20-30 second summary of the whole situation.
Also, in 2013, you posted in one of your blogs:
TL;DR Version - Hi guys. Sorry for being a douche. I want to work on my personality and just be an overall, more likeable guy. Take what I have to say with a grain of salt, my apology as genuine, and read the rest of this blog with an objective point of view and I think you'll have the right concept.
Hi guys.
There are a lot of people who I have introduced myself to as a hate-filled mongrol via blogs, and it makes me look like the IdrA of teamliquid blogs.
On December 22 2022 02:22 BreAKerTV wrote: paid for Tasteless and Artosis. Artosis definitely knew I wanted this event.
I am truly shocked that the SC2 event paid for Tastosis to cast it and that they, professional casters, took the gig. However what really matters here is if you called dibs. You say Artosis knew you wanted the event but there was no obligation for him to turn down the gig and give it to you unless you had, in writing, called dibs.
If you hadn’t then I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, legally speaking.
On December 22 2022 21:57 Chill wrote: Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
I suppose there have been too many moments where I let what others say / said influence my thinking and didn't think to myself, "What would be best for me? in 5 years or 10 years."
What's the opposite of self-reflection? Because that's what this is.
Do you have any anecdotes that back this statement up? Because from your last decade of blogging it seems like that is literally all you thought about.
Let's do a thought experiment and imagine that this happened to someone else? like let's say the people at pro league weren't mad at nathanias and he was told the same thing and acted the same but kept his personality and the same thing happened to him, what would you say then?
I don't understand this thought experiment so I'll tell you a personal story.
In 2009 I was in Korea for a few months. I hung out with Artosis and Tasteless and others a bunch. It was a really amazing time. I had so much fun. I was young and staying in random places around town and some nights Artosis let me sleep on his floor.
In 2012 I visited Korea again. Artosis and Tasteless were now casting together. I went to go watch a broadcast. I hoped they would want to grab drinks afterwards, but if they didn't it would have made total sense and I wouldn't have felt anything negative - I hadn't seen them in years and everyone was now in different places in our lives. Also, I was on a trip but this was just a typical workday for them.
But I absolutely didn't ask them if I could cast with them or ask for a connection to start an interview - that would have made me a lunatic. Even thinking about that now makes me feel weird and uncomfortable. When you read your screenshot text do you feel uncomfortable?
Because the casting world seems like somewhat of the wild west on what it takes to get gigs and network and have politics and popularity involved ect… I think you approached it with a very abrasive and aggressive approach rather than letting things develop organically… on your YouTube channel I don’t see any starcraft casts, I’m not sure if they’re on a separate channel but in my mind if you were getting the views organically on YouTube that would reflect to yourself that you could generate viewership, more importantly this would obviously be appetizing to event hosts to have you cast. I think you were ambitious with your goals but may have taken an approach that burned more bridges than created. In all honesty relying on casting gigs for a career seems like a stressful job in the sense that gigs are few and far between and the pool for potential commentators is large and experienced
On December 22 2022 21:57 Chill wrote: Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
I suppose there have been too many moments where I let what others say / said influence my thinking and didn't think to myself, "What would be best for me? in 5 years or 10 years."
The TL;Dr of 2012-2016 was imagine a millennial as naive as SpongeBob and as selfish as Mr krabs. That was me.
Let's do a thought experiment and imagine that this happened to someone else? like let's say the people at pro league weren't mad at nathanias and he was told the same thing and acted the same but kept his personality and the same thing happened to him, what would you say then?
Like I said in the O.P. I'm not even angry about it anymore. The things that made me angry are the things I haven't posted here: Blizzard forcing every tournament organizer to buy broadcasting licenses if the prize pool surpassed 10k usd, or if they had televised the tournament in question. I know people who lost jobs because of that. I am slightly disappointed in myself for not realizing how dumb I was for going through with this venture from 2012 forward.
alas I digress. I won't be looking for casting opportunities based on what happened to me in 2012, the lack or professional hiring, and the things I've seen happen with my own two eyes.
I might have a follow up blog on a completely separate incident sooner or later.
Hey it’s a brutal industry that hasn’t quite matured into having the various pathways for people to break into certain roles without connections.
And there’s only so much content that needs casted. You wouldn’t be the first guy whose content I enjoyed that didn’t push through to those bigger gigs.
No shame in that, I don’t think you’ve processed/dealt with that in the most healthy way, equally I do have a degree of sympathy and understanding where that comes from.
Best of luck with whatever you’re doing now and next man
On December 24 2022 03:26 castleeMg wrote: Because the casting world seems like somewhat of the wild west on what it takes to get gigs and network and have politics and popularity involved ect… I think you approached it with a very abrasive and aggressive approach rather than letting things develop organically…
On December 24 2022 08:29 WombaT wrote: Hey it’s a brutal industry that hasn’t quite matured into having the various pathways for people to break into certain roles without connections.
hiring processes are BS every where. Welcome to the free market economy. I'd say the author of the blog lacked life experience at the start of his casting journey. Now he has some life experience and perspective.
An example in another industry... The 2 best baseball minds of the past 50 years were forced to take the most horrible jobs. Hiring processes in Major League Baseball and baseball in general are total BS. No one wanted to hire them. They rose above it and absolutely crushed and rofl-stomped their competition.
On December 24 2022 08:29 WombaT wrote: Hey it’s a brutal industry that hasn’t quite matured into having the various pathways for people to break into certain roles without connections.
And there’s only so much content that needs casted. You wouldn’t be the first guy whose content I enjoyed that didn’t push through to those bigger gigs.
No shame in that
Very much this. And at the end of the day... did anyone actually make a sustained living casting the Chinese scene? I'm super out of the loop with SC2 even before viewership went down, but I have a hunch that no-one did. The first advice Artosis was bang on: it's freaking tough job to do. There is not currently interest and if you want to cast for Taiwan, you have to create your own interest- build a market that doesn't exist by becoming an expert on the scene and to educate Starcraft fans and build your own hype over a scene where Starcraft fandom is already saturated with tourney coverage. The fact that (I think) no-one has done it probably has less to do with any supposed 'getting screwed'. Even were you the second coming of Day9 or Tastosis and had the supposed old boys connections, would we be seeing a thriving English shout-casting scene in Taiwan? Who the heck knows. But if it never really took off for anyone...
I wanna thank everyone on the second page here for being chill and cool. I was expecting to come back here to people figuratively ripping me a new one. Like I said, I'm not even angry about this now (although at the time it made me think pretty savage thoughts), and when I was angry about this, several years ago, I thought to myself, "NDAs about this kind of drama usually last 3 years, so I'll just wait until way longer than that to talk about it.“
On December 24 2022 07:41 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: How many viewers did you usually have on twitch?
There are very few of these big casting gigs around so don't take it too hard you didn't end up getting one.
The first time I got a ton of viewers from a cast was an online tournament sen was playing in. I peaked over 2.5k concurrents in 2 days back in 2012. After that, I tried to cast anything I could in (very broken, now much better) Mandarin. Then one day one of the tournaments I was casting in Mandarin suddenly had their English caster (I forget who it was at the time) disappear on them, so they asked me to step up to it and I was a bit excited because I didn't know how many people will watch. I think that day I had 3k viewers watching me cast and 4k the following day? Back then I was running the ESLTaiwan channel on twitch. The thing that I loved about it was explaining to everyone in the audience what was going on in game like they were my best friend trying to learn more about the game.
Other days anything would ruin a cast for me: illness, and the day after TWOP 2014, I nearly forgot I had to cast while I was really hungover from partying with tasteless and artosis. That day I sucked and I could see it in the twitch chat, but the next day I was perfectly sober and everything went great. Overall I would say good casts / bad casts came at 40 / 60. I also battled depression over the years (was diagnosed at 16), and sometimes that would show in my personality while casting. These last few years have been pretty good to me though and I've had more control over my thoughts.
On days when I was just streaming myself on the ladder, maybe I would have 50 concurrent viewers.
On December 24 2022 03:26 castleeMg wrote: Because the casting world seems like somewhat of the wild west on what it takes to get gigs and network and have politics and popularity involved ect… I think you approached it with a very abrasive and aggressive approach rather than letting things develop organically… on your YouTube channel I don’t see any starcraft casts, I’m not sure if they’re on a separate channel but in my mind if you were getting the views organically on YouTube that would reflect to yourself that you could generate viewership, more importantly this would obviously be appetizing to event hosts to have you cast. I think you were ambitious with your goals but may have taken an approach that burned more bridges than created. In all honesty relying on casting gigs for a career seems like a stressful job in the sense that gigs are few and far between and the pool for potential commentators is large and experienced
I think the last time I tried to cast starcraft was probably 2016 on twitch, but by the time I was in Korea I had 300 VODs on my channel? None of them got an amazing amount of views.
On December 24 2022 10:49 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I'd say the author of the blog lacked life experience at the start of his casting journey. Now he has some life experience and perspective.
Basically this. I was extremely naive as well. I think from 2013 until 2017 I happened upon 4 life-changing offers. One was a total scam, and I'm dumb for falling for it, and I'll take the L on that (nowhere in this blog did I mention it). And the last one was something I was in the right skype group for, but I didn't meet the expectations of the organizer.
An example in another industry... The 2 best baseball minds of the past 50 years were forced to take the most horrible jobs. Hiring processes in Major League Baseball and baseball in general are total BS. No one wanted to hire them. They rose above it and absolutely crushed and rofl-stomped their competition.
Gentlemen, Welcome to the real world.
I would love to know more about this story. Do you have a link to a video or news article or something?
On December 24 2022 18:04 BreAKerTV wrote: I wanna thank everyone on the second page here for being chill and cool. I was expecting to come back here to people figuratively ripping me a new one.
Perhaps think about why this happened. As much as you claim now in follow-up posts that you are just sharing a story you used to be emotional about several years ago, you wrote the first post like some grand dishing of horrible dirt on some big names. You had at best a sliver of complaint against Tumba, and told me yourself that Tastosis were only relevant as people who could corroborate your story about the one thing there might have been something to. Yet what was the tl;dr you provided to your original post, in bold font?
TL;DR - You could say the agent of Tastetosis, Brendan Valdez, Tastetosis, and Tumba, conspired to steal my job while I let them
You blatantly told a slanted story to try to manipulate teamliquid readers into hating/doubting a bunch of big names out of jealousy, and still want to act like it was unfair that you got called out on that. Just as your first post was pretty transparent, so is your damage control after it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you got some replies that were more even-handed. We're (almost) all here because we love Starcraft, and a goal to professionally cast the game is a relatable one. Picking up another language to cast in is very impressive, too. ...let's just not pretend that this wasn't a hit piece. You even say in the title that you're "retiring" even though you've been doing data science work for the last 5 years, and actually talk later in-thread about possibly returning to casting that you've been away from. So not only did you try to distort events into a hit piece, you kinda actually then clickbaited people into that hit piece.
On December 24 2022 19:29 Turbovolver wrote: Perhaps think about why this happened. As much as you claim now in follow-up posts that you are just sharing a story you used to be emotional about several years ago, you wrote the first post like some grand dishing of horrible dirt on some big names. You had at best a sliver of complaint against Tumba, and told me yourself that Tastosis were only relevant as people who could corroborate your story about the one thing there might have been something to. Yet what was the tl;dr you provided to your original post, in bold font?
TL;DR - You could say the agent of Tastetosis, Brendan Valdez, Tastetosis, and Tumba, conspired to steal my job while I let them
Sorry so in one of the comments on the front page I mentioned how naive I was. At the time when all of this was happening, I thought Tumba had connections to KESPA / Tournament Organizers. Instead his "connection" was Tastosis, and they had the connection(s) to Kespa / Tournament Organizers in Korea.
So it went Tumba -> Tastosis -> Kespa / tournament organizers when I thought it was Tumba -> tournament organizers. In one of the calls I had with him, he said he would, "Introduce me to Tasteless and Artosis." and at the time I had no idea what that meant.
Something that I didn't mention until now is how it would have made much more sense to hire/rehire whiplash (that guy who casted the DoTA 2 League in Korea in 2014). Since I was "in the dark" at the time, and I didn't know everything that was going on behind the scenes in Korea, I only knew that there would be demand for 1 new caster.
Another reason why I heard Brendan got hired was that Azubu got him some kind of an actor/entertainer visa (https://overseas.mofa.go.kr/gb-en/brd/m_20265/view.do?seq=669268) that has very lax work regulations for in Korea. Others I talked to that said they had interviewed with the guys running SPO TV Pro League, who then were told by the guys running SPO TV Pro League, "We can't get you a visa, so maybe you will need to get a visa here as an English teacher."
On December 24 2022 18:04 BreAKerTV wrote: I wanna thank everyone on the second page here for being chill and cool. I was expecting to come back here to people figuratively ripping me a new one. Like I said, I'm not even angry about this now (although at the time it made me think pretty savage thoughts), and when I was angry about this, several years ago, I thought to myself, "NDAs about this kind of drama usually last 3 years, so I'll just wait until way longer than that to talk about it.“
On December 24 2022 07:41 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: How many viewers did you usually have on twitch?
There are very few of these big casting gigs around so don't take it too hard you didn't end up getting one.
The first time I got a ton of viewers from a cast was an online tournament sen was playing in. I peaked over 2.5k concurrents in 2 days back in 2012. After that, I tried to cast anything I could in (very broken, now much better) Mandarin. Then one day one of the tournaments I was casting in Mandarin suddenly had their English caster (I forget who it was at the time) disappear on them, so they asked me to step up to it and I was a bit excited because I didn't know how many people will watch. I think that day I had 3k viewers watching me cast and 4k the following day? Back then I was running the ESLTaiwan channel on twitch. The thing that I loved about it was explaining to everyone in the audience what was going on in game like they were my best friend trying to learn more about the game.
Other days anything would ruin a cast for me: illness, and the day after TWOP 2014, I nearly forgot I had to cast while I was really hungover from partying with tasteless and artosis. That day I sucked and I could see it in the twitch chat, but the next day I was perfectly sober and everything went great. Overall I would say good casts / bad casts came at 40 / 60. I also battled depression over the years (was diagnosed at 16), and sometimes that would show in my personality while casting. These last few years have been pretty good to me though and I've had more control over my thoughts.
On days when I was just streaming myself on the ladder, maybe I would have 50 concurrent viewers.
On December 24 2022 03:26 castleeMg wrote: Because the casting world seems like somewhat of the wild west on what it takes to get gigs and network and have politics and popularity involved ect… I think you approached it with a very abrasive and aggressive approach rather than letting things develop organically… on your YouTube channel I don’t see any starcraft casts, I’m not sure if they’re on a separate channel but in my mind if you were getting the views organically on YouTube that would reflect to yourself that you could generate viewership, more importantly this would obviously be appetizing to event hosts to have you cast. I think you were ambitious with your goals but may have taken an approach that burned more bridges than created. In all honesty relying on casting gigs for a career seems like a stressful job in the sense that gigs are few and far between and the pool for potential commentators is large and experienced
I think the last time I tried to cast starcraft was probably 2016 on twitch, but by the time I was in Korea I had 300 VODs on my channel? None of them got an amazing amount of views.
On December 24 2022 10:49 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I'd say the author of the blog lacked life experience at the start of his casting journey. Now he has some life experience and perspective.
Basically this. I was extremely naive as well. I think from 2013 until 2017 I happened upon 4 life-changing offers. One was a total scam, and I'm dumb for falling for it, and I'll take the L on that (nowhere in this blog did I mention it). And the last one was something I was in the right skype group for, but I didn't meet the expectations of the organizer.
An example in another industry... The 2 best baseball minds of the past 50 years were forced to take the most horrible jobs. Hiring processes in Major League Baseball and baseball in general are total BS. No one wanted to hire them. They rose above it and absolutely crushed and rofl-stomped their competition.
Gentlemen, Welcome to the real world.
I would love to know more about this story. Do you have a link to a video or news article or something?
Pat Gillick and Andrew Friedman have been the best baseball minds of the past 50 years. Both men got their first management jobs with teams that had zero financial resources. Furthermore, the ball parks the teams owned were the worst in the league. No free agent players wanted to play on the teams. Both turned their teams into perennial winners.
In the 130+ year history of baseball there are only 4 non-owners who never played top league baseball that are in major league baseball's Hall of Fame. One of those 4 is Pat Gillick. The best job he could get was as an assistant for the horrible 1977 Toronto Blue Jays.
Same story for Andrew Friedman. The best job he could get was with the really super-bad 2003 Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He is currently the #1 mind in baseball.
Hiring is just fucked every where for a myriad of reasons. I suggest accepting this fact as a fundamental condition of the free market system and move forward as best you can with this knowledge.
On December 22 2022 02:22 BreAKerTV wrote: paid for Tasteless and Artosis. Artosis definitely knew I wanted this event.
I am truly shocked that the SC2 event paid for Tastosis to cast it and that they, professional casters, took the gig. However what really matters here is if you called dibs. You say Artosis knew you wanted the event but there was no obligation for him to turn down the gig and give it to you unless you had, in writing, called dibs.
If you hadn’t then I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, legally speaking.
Wait hold on, no one mentioned dibs being involved.There were actual dibs called? That changes the whole thing!
I remember your TL blogs from the past. I don't know how good you are at casting but based on these blogs, if I were Tastosis from the past I would have wanted to keep you at a distance too.
When experienced people hire someone they look for their behaviour and character first before their ability, because a humble noob could be coached but a skillful but hard headed person will always be impossible to work with.
Now that it's over and you're moving on, I hope you at least take this as an opportunity to learn by reflecting on what other wise people have said. I wish you all the best.
The only thing I'll say is nepotism/cronyism and connections are definitely one of the only ways you'll ever get anywhere in pretty much any industry without any form of protections for employees and the esports scene, even streaming in general is absolutely terrible right now for that. The whole industry in general is just absolutely cutthroat and the amount of horrible stories that comes out of the esports and streaming industries are enough to prove how awful it is.
It's at a point where realistically it's still relatively new and unless you're already an established name or manage to cuddle up with an established name you may as well not even bother. The whole thing is obscenely top heavy and the idea of a small streamer making it big anymore on their own is basically impossible - even big streamers have said the same thing. I can't imagine the streamer generation will last forever though, it's definitely in a bubble. Although maybe society has hit a point where now streamers can make more money than movie stars and that's just normal and will be forever? Maybe people thought that about Hollywood when it started to become big.
1. "I'm not angry about this" in basically every post. 2. Also comes off incredibly butthurt about the whole thing in every post.
Gee, somehow I'm struggling to believe your narrative that you aren't mad, that you've grown as a person, and that you got cheated out of a career in casting.
BreAKerTV I hope you can take the comments and feedback people are posting, to get ideas on how you could approach social situations differently going forward. Bringing all of this up a good 8yr after it all happened certainly doesn't seem like a "I'm over it" move. If you're bringing it up, it still clearly bothers you. And, the move of bringing it up itself, shows that you still have some of the same personality & social skills shortcomings. So overall I think it's promising, because you now have a chance to learn some stuff.
A repeated theme is 'The Social Side of Business Skills'. Learning more skills in this are can really help you have more success overall in life, both professionally and also relationally.
Practice the ingredients that make up Popularity: How to be pleasant, how to be and come off as a calm stable trust-able guy
Get more feedback like this more often to develop social awareness and tact. I'll use a gaming analogy: top players have 'map sense' and 'game sense'; from just a few signals (e.g. scout timing, lack of attack at certain timings) they can accurately infer a lot of other info. This needs to also happen in social situations. It comes from having played lots of matches, and having gotten good advice and feedback to learn what signals to look for and what is the standard way to interpret them.
Now, I'm not particularly good at this myself, but I'll give it a shot for what you've posted:
Firstly, read everything Chill has written very carefully. I think it is very endearing that he's taken time to pop by and give you some feedback. It speaks to the good quality of the people in our SC community.
Second, make clear distinctions between preferences and obligations. It seems like all the situations you've described were preferences. In your feelings, you wanted to get this or that gig, you wanted people to give you free job referrals, you wanted their input, you wanted there to be more tourney spots etc. But none of those were obligations. None had clear agreements, contracts signed, guarantees etc. If you had obligation agreements, and those were broken, that'd be cause for resentment. But if it was merely preferences that's cause for little more than personal feelings of disappointment. Your posts read like someone with strong feelings of disappointment and resentment, which brings us to our 3nd point:
Distinguish between things you feel that other people are responsible for, and things you feel that you yourself are responsible for. If other people treated you fairly and normally (which it seems they have), then it is not fair or reasonable for you to feel that the disappointments you faced are their fault. No, the problem there is you. If you feel bad when people treat you normally, then its your turn to develop your confidence and life abilities, to not feel bad in those situations. They weren't responsible for giving you advice, for stepping aside for you to get some limelight, or for making your casting career happen. Thus if you feel bad and resent them for 'failing' to do things that they weren't responsible for doing, you are being the unfair one, and those feelings are not sensible for fairly calibrated.
Overall I hope you can learn more social awareness, can develop as a person to have more confidence and life ability to get the success you're looking for (without feeling trapped, needy, or overly dependent on external help), and can have emotional closure over these past experiences.
It's really hard to develop as a person. That sometimes requires re-writing deeply held opinions, which risks destablizing our sense of self. In this case, I would respectfully submit that, from an outside reader who doesn't know you and isn't in your life: you come off currently as being socially un-aware, un-reasonable in your expectations for how much other people should help you, and not particularly emotionally aware balanced or stable (leading to having emotional reactions that are more intensely negative than normal, to the same situations that other people won't react so strongly towards).
The good news is, by working through this complicated social and emotional history from your past, I do believe it could help you tremendously in developing and growing as a person. And when that happens, that reduces the chances of this same sort of screw-up and disappointment happening again further on in life. And it opens the door to more happiness, success, and life satisfaction to you, when you become a more considered, insightful, and stable person. All the best!
I fully support you to write out your ideas, and I hope you are doing ok. You might want to find a more private blog--even if it is public--to write your ideas out. I do think you got cheated, scammed, and hustled. Many of these events might use agents or intermediate services that sign contracts, and they say their workers are contractors. There might be some grey legal area. Of course, it is not a normal salary. Because the business is ruthless, people do cruel things. I thnk people in these positions need more protections, better stable salary, and not just treated like trash and tossed aside. However, that benig said, I would say this is not a job or industry where many people can "making a living" just doing this. The reason I am replying is that I read some people said you need to check the social norms. No. You got cheated. What needs to be checked is the agent and how the pay happened? Were they paying tax? Or paying out in cash? If there was an agent involved, it is almost like human trafficking. Was it all legit or were people being cheated, exploited, and chewed up and spit out by this system? So, yes, speak your mind. Resolve unrsolved issues. Get away from this industry that cheated you. And stay strong. People who are saying you need to respect social stuff... Um, get a clue. However, I do agree that we should focus on ourselves. Why did you enter the industry? You were naive.. delusional. Took you awhile to "retire". If you enter a dirty industry where bottom feeders go, cheat, and throw people udner the bus because they are barely able to survive by doing these "unofficial jobs" overseas. One thing you can know... if it helps you to feel better. Many people are on a doomed path. If they go abroad, party, go to these events, lose a decade or two, squander all the money they made, or they were not making that much--not much to buy a hosue and settle down... they will eventually fail. Be strong. Might find a private place--but also make it public; showing you are not scared to be transparent. Here is a fun question for these agents and event organizers... Are they paying state tax, federal tax, or social security on their caster's pay? Nope, nope, nope. takes awhile to think of the implications, but "dirty cash" should never be hushed up. This dirty industry also promotes people to scam and cheat others. Horrible.
Hypothetical... Let's say I am an agent. The actually business does not have a license to hire foerigners. I sign a contract with them to disconnect them from the hiring of foerigners. I take a huge fee. I never show the foreigners what their salary should actually be, and I make them a different offer. Many of these agents do not pay benefits for their contracts, etc. I read in one place, maybe 90% of the workers are full-time. Many of them pay in cash or transfers without showing you the "pay slip'. How many taxes were taken out? Nope. Which means the agent does tax evasion. Let me describe this as it sounds... Agents... they get paid big money to find people. And place people in certain places and jobs. Sounds like human trafficking to me. Sounds liket he agent did tons of illegal things. But they want to be arrogant and not use you? They want to appear to be all righteous and powerful. Yet they are the most corrupt.
On the flip side... Let's say... casters have a full-time salary. And they get income for doing events. And they get benefits. They are fully protected according to the labor laws. Guess what? These casters are not protected by labor laws because the agent.
Love reading the replies... "You need to respect the social norms..." Wait... he got exploited, cheated, betrayed, tossed under the bus, and people are doing scams, hustling, cons, fraud, tax evasion, human trafficking, and 20 laws were broken by the agent and them? Yet, we need to respect social norms.
On December 27 2022 03:35 ZeroByte13 wrote: Wow, just wow. It's possible that this is not a 2nd account - but it surely looks like one.
*sigh* it wasn't mine. mods/admins can verify this, and I welcome it.
On December 27 2022 00:06 Jackie1 wrote: Love reading the replies... "You need to respect the social norms..." Wait... he got exploited, cheated, betrayed, tossed under the bus, and people are doing scams, hustling, cons, fraud, tax evasion, human trafficking, and 20 laws were broken by the agent and them? Yet, we need to respect social norms.
User was banned for this post.
Does this look like something I would type? Honestly guys, it's 3 A.M. where I live and I'm drunk AF.
The only thing I will say to support this is when you have casters at a Blizzard event (WCS World Championships in Shanghai in 2012) saying, "Esports is growing." and you have Blizzard spending so much on advertising for a professional gaming league, be it the overwatch league or anything starcraft or anything blizzard-made for that matter, you're feeding a "propaganda" message to everyone that says, "Join us." in whatever way possible, it almost becomes like brainwashing with the old Donkey, Carrot, and Blizzard riding your back meme.
We can’t prove a negative but he wasn’t autoflagged as a second account. I know because I checked when he posted under what was obviously his second account.
On December 27 2022 05:04 KwarK wrote: We can’t prove a negative but he wasn’t autoflagged as a second account. I know because I checked when he posted under what was obviously his second account.
can I dm you to corroborate a story? get your "stamp of approval"? something that just says "ok yeah this seems legit."? Surely you guys have a webmaster who can verify this with you internally.
On December 27 2022 05:04 KwarK wrote: We can’t prove a negative but he wasn’t autoflagged as a second account. I know because I checked when he posted under what was obviously his second account.
can I dm you to corroborate a story? get your "stamp of approval"? something that just says "ok yeah this seems legit."? Surely you guys have a webmaster who can verify this with you internally.
Not sure how I would be able to corroborate anything.
On December 27 2022 05:04 KwarK wrote: We can’t prove a negative but he wasn’t autoflagged as a second account. I know because I checked when he posted under what was obviously his second account.
can I dm you to corroborate a story? get your "stamp of approval"? something that just says "ok yeah this seems legit."? Surely you guys have a webmaster who can verify this with you internally.
Not sure how I would be able to corroborate anything.
I dm'd you. I'm gonna send you a second one as well.
On December 27 2022 00:06 Jackie1 wrote: Love reading the replies... "You need to respect the social norms..." Wait... he got exploited, cheated, betrayed, tossed under the bus, and people are doing scams, hustling, cons, fraud, tax evasion, human trafficking, and 20 laws were broken by the agent and them? Yet, we need to respect social norms.
User was banned for this post.
Does this look like something I would type? Honestly guys, it's 3 A.M. where I live and I'm drunk AF.
The only thing I will say to support this is when you have casters at a Blizzard event (WCS World Championships in Shanghai in 2012) saying, "Esports is growing." and you have Blizzard spending so much on advertising for a professional gaming league, be it the overwatch league or anything starcraft or anything blizzard-made for that matter, you're feeding a "propaganda" message to everyone that says, "Join us." in whatever way possible, it almost becomes like brainwashing with the old Donkey, Carrot, and Blizzard riding your back meme.
I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
Can we just agree that I can put words on people's computer screens (IE posting a blog here) without getting angry (present tense) even years after I've uploaded any content to youtube or streamed on twitch?
EDIT: there were two documentaries I saw that are (at least now) pretty irrelevant and taught me to separate my emotions from everything that I see happening online: The Great Hack and The Social Dilemma. As I said before, irrelevant, but watching these got me more in tune with my attitude whenever I sit down in front of a computer and read or watch anything online that might make people angry.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Can we just agree that I can put words on people's computer screens (IE posting a blog here) without getting angry (present tense) even years after I've uploaded any content to youtube or streamed on twitch?
Can you agree that what you have claimed is not a neutral, how I feel statement but some pretty weighty accusations against some beloved figures in the Starcraft community?
Whether intentionally or not, you came at Tastosis and you missed. You did not prove your accusations and people are clowning you as a result (at worst).
edit You may not agree that you missed (why would you write this blog otherwise), but can you agree with my first sentence: Your blog is not neutral and amounts to serious accusations of wrongdoings by beloved members of the community.
from what I gather, it just seems Tastosis may have used their influence to get Valdez the job instead of OP, which isnt serious at all since they never owed OP anything and, by OPs own admission he is very rage-y and unlikable. The other casters want to enjoy their co caster and they want the tourneys they cast to be successful, so i'm struggling to see the wrongdoing here. can anyone shed some light?
On December 28 2022 05:59 BreakfastBurrito wrote: honest question, where is the serious allegation?
from what I gather, it just seems Tastosis may have used their influence to get Valdez the job instead of OP, which isnt serious at all since they never owed OP anything and, by OPs own admission he is very rage-y and unlikable. The other casters want to enjoy their co caster and they want the tourneys they cast to be successful, so i'm struggling to see the wrongdoing here. can anyone shed some light?
Nope, that's basically it.
On December 28 2022 00:22 Qikz wrote: If anything the other account was Jealous just fueling the fire again lol. I've lost how many accounts he has haha
I'm late to this, but I felt something similar to what I've read in this thread: some form of resentment, maybe jealousy, and no real acknowledgement of the fact that the esports casting industry, especially for a niche game now like Starcraft, is hellish and has almost no room for new casters.
I casted BW. Did some work for AfreecaTV when they held their first couple ASLs when Tastosis came back and took over. Basically held the seat warm for them until Brood War was back to being sustainable. Yeah, took it like a punch in the gut. Got no recognition for my work either which sucked, neither did anyone from Teamliquid who worked hard to keep the foreign BW scene alive (Bisudagger especially). Tried to keep a 2nd stream open to allow me to continue to cast, but it wouldn't be paid and my hours casting from the USA were already so fucked, so I gave up. So yeah, at first I was bitter and angry, felt like Tastosis only did this for the payout instead of passion. Stewed on those thoughts for about a year, realized that no matter what angle you looked at, Afreeca went after the best possible casters for them. They had the following, would generate the most views, and although they were rusty on their game knowledge coming back, they picked it back up pretty quickly. I had to acknowledge all of that, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Niche industries in general are a matter of grinding so so hard, and then realizing that you also need a ton of luck to actually get a foothold in the business. Reminds me of a Bo Burnham segment with Conan about how people should just give up on trying to get into the industry because everyone at the top of those niches are survivorship bias. They all got lucky to be there. There's always another 100 people along with you that are working just as hard as you, and won't get anywhere either. It's not personal, it's just a lot of luck, and probably a lot of nepotism too. And that's that. We realize that our dreams are just that, dreams, and ultimately we find a new profession and career that is actually sustainable and doesn't need that luck to be successful in.
GL in the future though, yeah, it sucks we can't cast professionally and follow those dreams but ultimately, it's just for the best.
On January 01 2023 05:38 FlaShFTW wrote: I'm late to this, but I felt something similar to what I've read in this thread: some form of resentment, maybe jealousy, and no real acknowledgement of the fact that the esports casting industry, especially for a niche game now like Starcraft, is hellish and has almost no room for new casters.
I casted BW. Did some work for AfreecaTV when they held their first couple ASLs when Tastosis came back and took over. Basically held the seat warm for them until Brood War was back to being sustainable. Yeah, took it like a punch in the gut. Got no recognition for my work either which sucked, neither did anyone from Teamliquid who worked hard to keep the foreign BW scene alive (Bisudagger especially). Tried to keep a 2nd stream open to allow me to continue to cast, but it wouldn't be paid and my hours casting from the USA were already so fucked, so I gave up. So yeah, at first I was bitter and angry, felt like Tastosis only did this for the payout instead of passion. Stewed on those thoughts for about a year, realized that no matter what angle you looked at, Afreeca went after the best possible casters for them. They had the following, would generate the most views, and although they were rusty on their game knowledge coming back, they picked it back up pretty quickly. I had to acknowledge all of that, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Niche industries in general are a matter of grinding so so hard, and then realizing that you also need a ton of luck to actually get a foothold in the business. Reminds me of a Bo Burnham segment with Conan about how people should just give up on trying to get into the industry because everyone at the top of those niches are survivorship bias. They all got lucky to be there. There's always another 100 people along with you that are working just as hard as you, and won't get anywhere either. It's not personal, it's just a lot of luck, and probably a lot of nepotism too. And that's that. We realize that our dreams are just that, dreams, and ultimately we find a new profession and career that is actually sustainable and doesn't need that luck to be successful in.
GL in the future though, yeah, it sucks we can't cast professionally and follow those dreams but ultimately, it's just for the best.
And then you got 3-0'd by a washed-up not-even-has-been foreign Protoss. StarCraft is brutal like that, I'm proud of you for moving on and coming out better for it 😂
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
Am I misunderstanding what you are saying? I have better things to do than bump my own blog.
I'm on mobile right now and a question for Flashftw: I didn't follow starcraft at that time and the last time I played anything Blizzard made was 2017, so forgive my lack of familiarity for this question: did you cast in-studio? or was it all run-from-home?
The best days that I had in professional gaming / streaming were unpaid (or at least paid very little) compared to the days I was making money. I might make another blog at another time about how things went for me when I was streaming and not trying to do casting.
On January 01 2023 05:38 FlaShFTW wrote: I'm late to this, but I felt something similar to what I've read in this thread: some form of resentment, maybe jealousy, and no real acknowledgement of the fact that the esports casting industry, especially for a niche game now like Starcraft, is hellish and has almost no room for new casters.
I casted BW. Did some work for AfreecaTV when they held their first couple ASLs when Tastosis came back and took over. Basically held the seat warm for them until Brood War was back to being sustainable. Yeah, took it like a punch in the gut. Got no recognition for my work either which sucked, neither did anyone from Teamliquid who worked hard to keep the foreign BW scene alive (Bisudagger especially). Tried to keep a 2nd stream open to allow me to continue to cast, but it wouldn't be paid and my hours casting from the USA were already so fucked, so I gave up. So yeah, at first I was bitter and angry, felt like Tastosis only did this for the payout instead of passion. Stewed on those thoughts for about a year, realized that no matter what angle you looked at, Afreeca went after the best possible casters for them. They had the following, would generate the most views, and although they were rusty on their game knowledge coming back, they picked it back up pretty quickly. I had to acknowledge all of that, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Niche industries in general are a matter of grinding so so hard, and then realizing that you also need a ton of luck to actually get a foothold in the business. Reminds me of a Bo Burnham segment with Conan about how people should just give up on trying to get into the industry because everyone at the top of those niches are survivorship bias. They all got lucky to be there. There's always another 100 people along with you that are working just as hard as you, and won't get anywhere either. It's not personal, it's just a lot of luck, and probably a lot of nepotism too. And that's that. We realize that our dreams are just that, dreams, and ultimately we find a new profession and career that is actually sustainable and doesn't need that luck to be successful in.
GL in the future though, yeah, it sucks we can't cast professionally and follow those dreams but ultimately, it's just for the best.
And then you got 3-0'd by a washed-up not-even-has-been foreign Protoss. StarCraft is brutal like that, I'm proud of you for moving on and coming out better for it 😂
Yeah you made me quit Brood War. I hope you're happy with yourself.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
Am I misunderstanding what you are saying? I have better things to do than bump my own blog.
I'm on mobile right now and a question for Flashftw: I didn't follow starcraft at that time and the last time I played anything Blizzard made was 2017, so forgive my lack of familiarity for this question: did you cast in-studio? or was it all run-from-home?
The best days that I had in professional gaming / streaming were unpaid (or at least paid very little) compared to the days I was making money. I might make another blog at another time about how things went for me when I was streaming and not trying to do casting.
I was working from home in California with co-casters. I had a paid contract with Afreeca for ASL from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017 (so ASL 2-4, plus the ASL Team Battle in 2017).
On January 01 2023 05:38 FlaShFTW wrote: I'm late to this, but I felt something similar to what I've read in this thread: some form of resentment, maybe jealousy, and no real acknowledgement of the fact that the esports casting industry, especially for a niche game now like Starcraft, is hellish and has almost no room for new casters.
I casted BW. Did some work for AfreecaTV when they held their first couple ASLs when Tastosis came back and took over. Basically held the seat warm for them until Brood War was back to being sustainable. Yeah, took it like a punch in the gut. Got no recognition for my work either which sucked, neither did anyone from Teamliquid who worked hard to keep the foreign BW scene alive (Bisudagger especially). Tried to keep a 2nd stream open to allow me to continue to cast, but it wouldn't be paid and my hours casting from the USA were already so fucked, so I gave up. So yeah, at first I was bitter and angry, felt like Tastosis only did this for the payout instead of passion. Stewed on those thoughts for about a year, realized that no matter what angle you looked at, Afreeca went after the best possible casters for them. They had the following, would generate the most views, and although they were rusty on their game knowledge coming back, they picked it back up pretty quickly. I had to acknowledge all of that, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Niche industries in general are a matter of grinding so so hard, and then realizing that you also need a ton of luck to actually get a foothold in the business. Reminds me of a Bo Burnham segment with Conan about how people should just give up on trying to get into the industry because everyone at the top of those niches are survivorship bias. They all got lucky to be there. There's always another 100 people along with you that are working just as hard as you, and won't get anywhere either. It's not personal, it's just a lot of luck, and probably a lot of nepotism too. And that's that. We realize that our dreams are just that, dreams, and ultimately we find a new profession and career that is actually sustainable and doesn't need that luck to be successful in.
GL in the future though, yeah, it sucks we can't cast professionally and follow those dreams but ultimately, it's just for the best.
And then you got 3-0'd by a washed-up not-even-has-been foreign Protoss. StarCraft is brutal like that, I'm proud of you for moving on and coming out better for it 😂
Yeah you made me quit Brood War. I hope you're happy with yourself.
*adding "Literally killed a man's career" to my eSports resume*
On January 01 2023 05:38 FlaShFTW wrote: I'm late to this, but I felt something similar to what I've read in this thread: some form of resentment, maybe jealousy, and no real acknowledgement of the fact that the esports casting industry, especially for a niche game now like Starcraft, is hellish and has almost no room for new casters.
I casted BW. Did some work for AfreecaTV when they held their first couple ASLs when Tastosis came back and took over. Basically held the seat warm for them until Brood War was back to being sustainable. Yeah, took it like a punch in the gut. Got no recognition for my work either which sucked, neither did anyone from Teamliquid who worked hard to keep the foreign BW scene alive (Bisudagger especially). Tried to keep a 2nd stream open to allow me to continue to cast, but it wouldn't be paid and my hours casting from the USA were already so fucked, so I gave up. So yeah, at first I was bitter and angry, felt like Tastosis only did this for the payout instead of passion. Stewed on those thoughts for about a year, realized that no matter what angle you looked at, Afreeca went after the best possible casters for them. They had the following, would generate the most views, and although they were rusty on their game knowledge coming back, they picked it back up pretty quickly. I had to acknowledge all of that, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Niche industries in general are a matter of grinding so so hard, and then realizing that you also need a ton of luck to actually get a foothold in the business. Reminds me of a Bo Burnham segment with Conan about how people should just give up on trying to get into the industry because everyone at the top of those niches are survivorship bias. They all got lucky to be there. There's always another 100 people along with you that are working just as hard as you, and won't get anywhere either. It's not personal, it's just a lot of luck, and probably a lot of nepotism too. And that's that. We realize that our dreams are just that, dreams, and ultimately we find a new profession and career that is actually sustainable and doesn't need that luck to be successful in.
GL in the future though, yeah, it sucks we can't cast professionally and follow those dreams but ultimately, it's just for the best.
I read OP and decided I was probably not the right guy to respond, exactly because of efforts you and others put in to keep the seat warm BW alive were not recognized enough. While OP may give shit Tastosis they don't deserve, they don't deserve praise either simply because they're big fish.
When Tastosis came back to BW they definitely were rusty on their game knowledge, I mean they didn't even know units' names anymore (really wtf?) and I have to disagree with that they picked their game knowledge back up pretty quickly,
Your casting was bomb btw, much more passionate than Tastosis even now. It took a lot of coaching sessions from Scan before Artosis was a decent caster again, i.e. he wasn't talking out of his ass and misreading the game for the majority of the cast. He was basically faking it till he made it, which I find incredibly not passionate. Professionally wise however, yes. I could say something similar about Tasteless, but unlike Artosis - I learned - his role was not to give the audience great insight, but rather be a good entertaining addition to Artosis. I miss your casting and I'm glad Nyoken & Scan ended up filling the void you left that Tastosis couldn't (for me).
@OP: Most imprortant things were already mentioned. As you can read I'm not a big fan of Tastosis. Ever since they switched to SC2 pretty much, because I just don't care about that game. It actually felt like they abandoned BW completely, which I can't blame 'em for as it was in their interest to make a living casting. But when they came back to BW it felt undeserved, because there were plenty great casters already there, longer too. It's like the 2 fat kids in school jumping the queue for lunch, and thus bullying the small kids, simply because they're bigger. That's just fucking life. I'm sorry that your dream got crushed regardless of whose doing that is.
On January 02 2023 07:05 Peeano wrote: @OP: Most imprortant things were already mentioned. As you can read I'm not a big fan of Tastosis. Ever since they switched to SC2 pretty much, because I just don't care about that game. It actually felt like they abandoned BW completely, which I can't blame 'em for as it was in their interest to make a living casting. But when they came back to BW it felt undeserved, because there were plenty great casters already there, longer too. It's like the 2 fat kids in school jumping the queue for lunch, and thus bullying the small kids simply because they're bigger. That's just fucking life. I'm sorry that your dream got crushed regardless of who's doing that is.
Yeah, so I waited for the longest time, for this to reach a significant amount of irrelevance for more than one reason. Tumba emailed TESL telling them he was consulting with a lawyer (I'm not sure if this was Tawian or America, or both, or even if this was true at all) to see what he could do to salvage his situation or threaten me.
Once again, I'm posting while drunk. As the saying goes, "Drunk words are sober thoughts." and as I metnioned in the (now edited) op there is so much stuff that happend while I was in Korea for the final semester of my unviersity studies I couldn't mention all of it.
I DM'd a couple of people in this blog as opposed to posting here because I didn't want to bump the thread. I can certainly have sympathy with Flashftw here because he clearly loved BW more than tasteosis did.
I can proudly say that when I think back to the days of Starcraft II in taiwan, I recall with a tear in my eye because although I worked at my dream for 2 years to make 1 year of paid work, everything that happened in Taiwan's starcraft II scene made it worth the time I spent to make it happen. A part of me wonders instead, "What would have happened if I had just decided to stay in Taiwan and study there for the final 2 years of my university studies?" I suppose you could say that this is the path not taken. I remember seeing people in Taiwan holding parties over the Heart of The Swarm Launch party, but it made me sad that I couldn't be a part of it and I just had to settle for picking up a retail copy of the game in 2013, nothing more nothing less.
On top of paid work vs. unpaid work... I can totally understand your frustration. I casted 14 hours one day and only made about 5 USD in Twitch ad revenue at the time.
The worst part about working in this industry is that when people move on to another game or just forget about your game completely - almost nobody remembers the work that you did because all you did was add commentary to the game where your favorite player rekt another player's face.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
KelianQatar's account was restored. I have no idea who this BreakerTV person is. If you'd like to waste some time finding some kind of connection between us... good luck.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
KelianQatar's account was restored. I have no idea who this BreakerTV person is. If you'd like to waste some time finding some kind of connection between us... good luck.
Ah okay no reason to get so defensive I'm just asking questions.
The plot thickens below.
What does it all mean if we put the pieces together?
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
KelianQatar's account was restored. I have no idea who this BreakerTV person is. If you'd like to waste some time finding some kind of connection between us... good luck.
Ah okay no reason to get so defensive I'm just asking questions.
The plot thickens below.
What does it all mean if we put the pieces together?
😂
That you are a big fan of mine.
Though honestly I probably have a quote of his in my profile, or a quote of someone roasting him more likely.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
KelianQatar's account was restored. I have no idea who this BreakerTV person is. If you'd like to waste some time finding some kind of connection between us... good luck.
Ah okay no reason to get so defensive I'm just asking questions.
The plot thickens below.
What does it all mean if we put the pieces together?
😂
That you are a big fan of mine.
Though honestly I probably have a quote of his in my profile, or a quote of someone roasting him more likely.
Actually true (the second part). Incidentally, I hadn't noticed until now, but that's quite the collection of roasts and self-owns that you've compiled in your profile over the years.
On January 02 2023 07:05 Peeano wrote: @OP: Most imprortant things were already mentioned. As you can read I'm not a big fan of Tastosis. Ever since they switched to SC2 pretty much, because I just don't care about that game. It actually felt like they abandoned BW completely, which I can't blame 'em for as it was in their interest to make a living casting. But when they came back to BW it felt undeserved, because there were plenty great casters already there, longer too. It's like the 2 fat kids in school jumping the queue for lunch, and thus bullying the small kids simply because they're bigger. That's just fucking life. I'm sorry that your dream got crushed regardless of who's doing that is.
I DM'd a couple of people in this blog as opposed to posting here because I didn't want to bump the thread. I can certainly have sympathy with Flashftw here because he clearly loved BW more than tasteosis did.
I can proudly say that when I think back to the days of Starcraft II in taiwan, I recall with a tear in my eye because although I worked at my dream for 2 years to make 1 year of paid work, everything that happened in Taiwan's starcraft II scene made it worth the time I spent to make it happen. A part of me wonders instead, "What would have happened if I had just decided to stay in Taiwan and study there for the final 2 years of my university studies?" I suppose you could say that this is the path not taken. I remember seeing people in Taiwan holding parties over the Heart of The Swarm Launch party, but it made me sad that I couldn't be a part of it and I just had to settle for picking up a retail copy of the game in 2013, nothing more nothing less.
On top of paid work vs. unpaid work... I can totally understand your frustration. I casted 14 hours one day and only made about 5 USD in Twitch ad revenue at the time.
The worst part about working in this industry is that when people move on to another game or just forget about your game completely - almost nobody remembers the work that you did because all you did was add commentary to the game where your favorite player rekt another player's face.
I wouldn't say that I love BW more than Tastosis, who literally moved to Korea with no job security to make their dreams come true. I can certainly say that at that exact moment, I was doing more work to contribute to the BW scene than Tastosis were when they returned. But that gets overshadowed very quickly when their English stream can easily pull thousands while mine was sitting anywhere from 80-500 viewers depending on popularity of the match.
As for the whole unpaid vs paid work, yeah it sucks that we work in a niche industry that "pays in exposure" as Tank would always harp on. But sadly that's the nature of it especially when the spots are already taken and they don't have anymore spots to give.
I hope that you didn't regret your time in the scene, because ultimately I did do my casting because I absolutely loved the game and loved talking about it all the time. Casting was my love letter to the game, to unload my feelings and love for the game onto the viewers. I still do love the game and do hope I can return to just casually casting for fun instead of trying so hard to get recognition/make a living. I don't regret my decisions, and I hope you don't either.
On January 02 2023 07:05 Peeano wrote: @OP: Most imprortant things were already mentioned. As you can read I'm not a big fan of Tastosis. Ever since they switched to SC2 pretty much, because I just don't care about that game. It actually felt like they abandoned BW completely, which I can't blame 'em for as it was in their interest to make a living casting. But when they came back to BW it felt undeserved, because there were plenty great casters already there, longer too. It's like the 2 fat kids in school jumping the queue for lunch, and thus bullying the small kids simply because they're bigger. That's just fucking life. I'm sorry that your dream got crushed regardless of who's doing that is.
I DM'd a couple of people in this blog as opposed to posting here because I didn't want to bump the thread. I can certainly have sympathy with Flashftw here because he clearly loved BW more than tasteosis did.
I can proudly say that when I think back to the days of Starcraft II in taiwan, I recall with a tear in my eye because although I worked at my dream for 2 years to make 1 year of paid work, everything that happened in Taiwan's starcraft II scene made it worth the time I spent to make it happen. A part of me wonders instead, "What would have happened if I had just decided to stay in Taiwan and study there for the final 2 years of my university studies?" I suppose you could say that this is the path not taken. I remember seeing people in Taiwan holding parties over the Heart of The Swarm Launch party, but it made me sad that I couldn't be a part of it and I just had to settle for picking up a retail copy of the game in 2013, nothing more nothing less.
On top of paid work vs. unpaid work... I can totally understand your frustration. I casted 14 hours one day and only made about 5 USD in Twitch ad revenue at the time.
The worst part about working in this industry is that when people move on to another game or just forget about your game completely - almost nobody remembers the work that you did because all you did was add commentary to the game where your favorite player rekt another player's face.
I wouldn't say that I love BW more than Tastosis, who literally moved to Korea with no job security to make their dreams come true. I can certainly say that at that exact moment, I was doing more work to contribute to the BW scene than Tastosis were when they returned. But that gets overshadowed very quickly when their English stream can easily pull thousands while mine was sitting anywhere from 80-500 viewers depending on popularity of the match.
As for the whole unpaid vs paid work, yeah it sucks that we work in a niche industry that "pays in exposure" as Tank would always harp on. But sadly that's the nature of it especially when the spots are already taken and they don't have anymore spots to give.
I hope that you didn't regret your time in the scene, because ultimately I did do my casting because I absolutely loved the game and loved talking about it all the time. Casting was my love letter to the game, to unload my feelings and love for the game onto the viewers. I still do love the game and do hope I can return to just casually casting for fun instead of trying so hard to get recognition/make a living. I don't regret my decisions, and I hope you don't either.
Well, I had two spend two very bad years to make one half-way decent year for myself followed by about 3 more bad years and last year, financially, things started to look up for me and now they're pretty ok. It's just that we all thought we'd see Starcraft II become the next big game, it turned justin.tv into twitch.tv, and we all know the rest when League of Legends displaced us.
I don't fully regret my time in the space. Steve Jobs (I know not many people like him, I don't personally hate him) said, "You can never connect the dots looking forward. You can only do it looking back." and I connected the dots like 5 or 6 years after 2015.
On December 27 2022 14:22 Falling wrote: I mean at this point, who the heck knows. Like Kwark said the automated system didn't detect anything, which is the first thing I checked as the posts have all the hallmarks of a sock puppet account. However, without proof, a charitable interpretation could be a friend of Breaker that decided to jump on TL or a long time TL lurker also happened to be a Breaker Stan. Or just someone trolling for kicks and giggles.
Still super suspicious posting however you look at it.
This thread has been some wild ride, I will say.
or an enemy of Breaker trying to make it appear he is using alt accounts. who knows.
Didn't you have your own run-in with a suspected alt account?
Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
KelianQatar's account was restored. I have no idea who this BreakerTV person is. If you'd like to waste some time finding some kind of connection between us... good luck.
Ah okay no reason to get so defensive I'm just asking questions.
The plot thickens below.
What does it all mean if we put the pieces together?
😂
That you are a big fan of mine.
Though honestly I probably have a quote of his in my profile, or a quote of someone roasting him more likely.
Actually true (the second part). Incidentally, I hadn't noticed until now, but that's quite the collection of roasts and self-owns that you've compiled in your profile over the years.
Thanks friend Lots of laughs on TL throughout the years, this thread included.
On January 04 2023 16:15 BreAKerTV wrote: I don't fully regret my time in the space. Steve Jobs (I know not many people like him, I don't personally hate him) said, "You can never connect the dots looking forward. You can only do it looking back." and I connected the dots like 5 or 6 years after 2015.
Steve Jobs was a bully as a child... he used to bully Jack Garbarino and other fat kids in his school.
On January 04 2023 00:51 oBlade wrote: Ah okay no reason to get so defensive I'm just asking questions.
it took me a week to respond and you responded in minutes. so um ya. also,
On January 04 2023 00:51 oBlade wrote: Perhaps that enemy is you and this post is your way of deflecting suspicion.
is not "just asking questions". Fire a shot... expect return fire.
From the childhood friendship with Steve Jobs that inspired him, to his touching mentorship of a jungle child named Dende, this self-help novel will make you laugh, cry, and think. And it might even help you lose a few pounds, too.
I have zero opinion on Steve Jobs. I have no idea if he bullied any one. When I was a kid I did some bullying.. and I also got bullied as well. meh, to me ... its just a natural part of childhood.
On December 22 2022 21:57 Chill wrote: Hope you can move past this and wish you all the best.
All your blog posts, especially this one, come across as extremely self-entitled. In the interest of self growth, you might want to reflect on that and and revist these situations though others' viewpoint. This blog post makes me side with everyone you've interacted with over you, despite you trying to paint them with negativity. I see you bothering everyone for connections and opportunities while bringing very little to the table. You talk about what others "could" have done for you, but it's always out of the kindness of their hearts. Why would they introduce you to other organizations? What's the benefit to them risking their reputation for you? I personally would have done exactly what everyone did to you - be friendly and polite and keep you at arm's length.
Yeah its bizarre right? This whole thing seems symptomatic of everything that happened post SC2 launch. The over-exaggerated hype. 100 casters. 10 planned documentaries. People turning up everywhere asking for donations to play/cast. When of course the existing and trusted long term western BW scene (and even more so the entrenched Asian scenes) had already been involved for a long time. From the outside it was really sad to see the opportunism.
If you want to do something these days you have to do it yourself for example Sonic reviving the post-KeSPA BW scene or Zero currently running BSL for the Foreign BW scene. The SC2 scene has been a total 'me me me' thing for the start. There's ENDLESS content and even the BEST content is of arguable quality in the first place! Whos the audiences once the casuals die off? Because of this particular brand of eSports narcissism it ends up being hardcore wanting to watch the hardcore, after the initial fight for the casual viewers/players ends when they inevitably get bored of the content.
Where's all the enthusiasm now the sponsor money and the casual viewer has moved on? There's plenty of interest still in SC (look at the viewer counts right on the sidebar here). Building the sport in your own region is probably a lot of sacrifice and hard work nobodies going to gift anything to anyone. I'd love Starcraft to take off again in the UK (you'd think we would be an appropriate country for it, interest in Chess and hobbies like Warhammer and PC games is very high, it all connects very well). But it never has done. It needs the right person to sacrifice and build the scene themselves.
Also it was kinda sad to see Artosis/Tasteless back doing the ASL when it's not their full priority. Maybe they should reconsider that now. Anyone really into the game would watch Scan and Nyoken. Having the game explained over and over again in every new cast is insane, we are surely far past that point.
If you are really into casting you can make content and keep going until it works. Right now my main watched content is 'Joe's Starcraft Casty Cast' on youtube, he casts fastest games mostly and knows his stuff. I believe the main caster in the AoE2 scene simply casted games until he was the main guy - it really can happen. Just find high level replays and cast them. In Joes case the Fastest scene is actually a very large niche within SC itself. I'd love it if we had a serious Hunters or BGH caster as well - there is viewers for it, i'm certain of it!
edit: sorry i don't want to sound as if i'm picking on the OP. The SC2 launch and how shameless the whole push was revealed a lot of what to expect in the future, behaviour from Blizzard and behaviour of streamers/bandwagon jumpers.
I don't believe Starcraft 2 is even an appropriate game to plan a long term eSports scene around (it just got a new patch? the whole thing confuses me!). How can we know the historical context of older games if they patch the game endlessly. If i go back and watch old BW OSL/MSL finals the games are still relevant today as they were then. But SC2 how can i understand the context of old games?
I don't feel as though your picking on me. And after everything I saw in 2013 to 2015 that replayed in my head, for years after, I won't touch anything made by Activision Blizzard again. I'm already making way more money now than I was back then by leaving esports behind. There was a short stint of about a year where I was doing pretty good as a pubG streamer and had a collaboration with MSI, but that's a blog for another time. I've kind of been waiting for this blog to die down so that I can post it without, figuratively speaking, "hogging" the entire blog section of team liquid. I think professional gaming as a whole was a bubble, With some exceptions.
EDIT: Looks like this thread has died down. If the mods find anyone "bumping" this thread, feel free to lock it if you find it suits your needs. I just want to write some conclusions here, and there are far too many for me to highlight to put in the OP.
- After everything you've read so far, I will own up that I was dumb for believing everything I was told, but does that absolve every single person of every single thing that I was told to do, did, and got little or nothing in return? - In 2012 I wanted to be a caster for pretty much everything and anything starcraft with Chinese speaking players. I loved all of it. - If you go to missingmoney.com and you search for Tumba's real name, you'll see evidence of financial disputes between him and some companies or another. This is not evidence of any criminal behavior, but leads me to think that if he can take advantage of people or companies with zero liability to himself (basically getting "freebies"), he'll do it. - Another person I know of, without a contract in place with him, had a problem with Tumba in the hearthstone scene. - In 2016 I was tempted by the idea of suing Tumba. I called a lawyer based in Florida to look into the situation, this lawyer told me there was a legal dispute between GEM and someone else previously. - Every time I felt like giving up, something would happen to keep me going just a bit longer. - I gave up guaranteed hourly minimum wage working at simple jobs to chase what I thought could (and only slightly) became real. I've seen blogs - I was told to "keep doing what I'm doing" by tumba in 2012. - I was in a skype call with tumba in March 2013 where he told me I would be introduced to tasteless and artosis when I arrived in Korea. At the time I had no clue what this meant. I didn't know what this meant until September 2014 after a coworker went out to drink with them and they told this coworker that Brendan Valdez got the job just because they gave him the job. - There was no professional hiring process, no application process. Combine this with tumba telling me "GSL needs a caster." "Pro League will be hiring." and the fact that he is an agent in the esports industry hat has those kinds of contacts. - I contacted everyone you can imagine and their mother to find a contact window to pro league in Korea. Other casters who said they got asked if they wanted to cast Pro league (up to and including: Axeltoss, Axslav, Khalaeris, pro league social media (twitter, facebook) and Ghost, the guy who posted here about Pro league at the end of 2013 to advertise it). - About 2 weeks after I arrived in Korea, all I got from Tumba was "It looks like they're not gonna do it." and every time I asked for more info on skype, he almost never responded. Why did he do this? To absolve him of legal liability? Did you know that if I tell you to do action A and you will get result B in some states that is illegal depending on how far it goes? This is known as a verbal contract, and with enough documentation it holds weight as evidence in civil court. - When gaming companies put messages like these and they entice people to spend their time, their money, and their education on chasing their dreams, they need to add a disclaimer that says, "We are not responsible for any amount of time, effort, financial losses, or psychological trauma you may endure with our intellectual properties. If you try to get a job in this industry and you get hurt, it's your fault, not ours." - And to Tumba, especially, if you ever read this message, I want to thank you for emailing Taiwan Esports League in 2014 and embellishing a story about me making a reddit thread to smear your reputation when you did this to yourself. It brought me closer to them. Oh, and remember - this was your fault, not mine. I donno why you would email my employers for something that you did and I had insider info on. Oh and lawyers in Florida, don't prosecute cases in Taiwan. - I also want to thank Tumba for being a man of his word, right? That worked out with Sons of Starcraft, his personal interactions with people (I've talked to other people who worked in professional gaming who had problems with him) show how trustworthy he is. I'm sure the NFT and cryptocurrencies that he is selling people are 100% legit. Right? - Speaking of lawyers, I consulted with a few about everything Tumba told me, and one told me I had a "skeleton" of a case, while another based in California told me I he seemed most culpable, and a lawyer in Florida was willing to entertain taking this to court, but I didn't have finances to do this and he wasn't willing to work Pro-bono, which might give you an idea of my chances (not that high). - At one point I was working for Thermaltake / TT ESPORTS. That job made me miserable. Imagine Amazon moving it's HQ to Taipei, and maintaining its toxic work culture and then you get Thermaltake. It was all very awkward because, at the time, Tobias had close connections to my supervisor at the time, who left three months or so after I joined. Another problem that I had with working at Thermaltake was I lost over 2000 USD in potential casting fees for three different events that I could have casted, "because those tournaments are sponsored by competing companies." in the words of my boss. But do you guys remember Artosis winning the 2013 Hearthstone tournament at Blizzcon while he was sponsored by Thermaltake? How about casting that year's WCS world championships while he was sponsored by TT ESPORTS and that year's tournament was sponsored by Steelseries? Talk about double standards...
I hate to say this but as a viewer, having seen your cast and Brendan Valdes', I'd say he was the better caster. Do you think when they were deciding the casters they compared his cast to yours and found his better?
Casting is really an art imo. Having some kind of radio/voice training would help a lot. For example, I used to not be able to stand Wardi's casting, but this past year I found his casting dramatically improved due to how he changed his phrasing, speaking, and intonation (basically he sounded like PiG a lot more, which I really enjoy).
Also it might help to improve your social cue reading and "empathy" because it not only helps to get along with people but it's also a good strategy to put yourself in someone else's shoe when you're engaging them because it helps to predict how they might respond differently depending on how you approach them. There's a classic book called "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie that I recommend reading.