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Well said jason

ditto

Thanks for writing this up.

don't seem as hostile in this post (no pun intended.)

Hostile was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a very rare and unfortunate case. I don't think the housing had much to do with him getting robbed.

Actually, the housing has a lot to do with him getting robbed. When you stay in a large hotel with your team, especially at an event like Cebit, this type of crime is almost impossible. There is a huge police presence at events like this, and even the slowest of criminals won't take the risk. Having the players stay in the homes of families is arguably acceptable, however making them walk there alone is NOT fine at all.

Even in my small hometown, I would NEVER take the risk of walking around downtown late at night by myself. Hell, just last night I went downtown for a couple hours, and when I came back to my car it had been broken into despite all the doors being locked.

Opportunity is all a criminal really needs to commit crimes like this, and if you reduce that opportunity(i.e. lodging the players in large hotels with lots of police) then this sort of thing won't happen.

Despite the fact that I'm an outgoing person, I know i would have been a little upset at finding out I had to stay with local residents that I had never met. The option to stay in a hotel should certainly be given to the players. Just because E-Sports is nowhere near as big as the MLB, NFL, NBA, etc, doesn't mean that the players don't deserve safety, at the very least.

deefop, you do realise hostile got robbed at 1 in the morning after being at a bar. ESL can't escort you everywhere and as far as I know the players were picked up everyday and taken to the event.

Hostile was robbed about 10 seconds from his host house, which you would know if you were really following the incident. The pub in question is literally next door to him, and he was actually enjoying friendly conversation with the people who mugged him for about 20 minutes prior to the attack. Normal people don't spend 20 minutes making friends with someone and then mug them, this was obviously a sketchy area, as Shaun has already stated, and the gamers don't deserve to be housed in areas where 10 seconds from your home is no mans land.

Well said...... ESL has presented CS on a platform that rivals any to date, and should set the bar for any future events to match. As for the housing issue, for me, if i go to an event i'd find it rather unsettling that i'd be seperated by the rest of the team unwillingly and staying at some persons house.

deefop whats your point?

They weren't trying to make friends, they sus you out, find out what you have on you and if its valuable or not then jump you outside. No doubt during the time at the bar he had his iPhone out and obviously got his wallet out to purchase drinks, also being on holiday means you have a fair bit of money on you too.

This is not ESL's fault at all, freak incident and staying in local residents is safe and acceptable enough. This may of been the first incident of violence in that area for all you know, ESL have also said they avoid the rough areas.

@ deefop

You talk and try to make a point as if hostile would be forced to live in the worst possible place on this planet and what happened was almost preprogrammed.

ESL has today released another statement, on german sites and on HLTV.org where they made clear that they care for any individual. They pick up the players in the morning, drive them to the gaming place and drive them back home in the evening, to give them maximum possible security. As ESL also stated, is Hannover the city with the statistically lowest crime rate in germany - a main reason for this is the CeBit and other important events that last for the whole year - because the police presence is immense and by far higher than in any other german city. And the area, within this statistically lowest crime rate city, where hostile stayed is the quietest area in Hannover. ESL also said, that they are really shocked and sorry for what happened to hostile, but they are no "babysitters". ESL takes care on the security during the event, but they are not responsible for what a player (or any other visitor of CeBit) does in the evening and night hours in their free time.

It's also discussed in german forums, and this is quite a point here, that the housing circumstances have not changed and many player of the ESL event live in worse areas than hostile did, but nothing happen to them. Furthermore are they very happy to live more "familiar" in a household rather than in a boring hotel room.

Point is, the majority think that it was a sad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and blaming ESL for this incident is just unfair.

Everyone can have their own opinion on this matter, but some objective view on what happened wont harm.

i agree completely with Bossi on this. What happened to Hostile was an unfortunate thing. It is not ESL's fault.

A thing you americans need to understand is, that this is an extremly rare situations. In europe, we dont have guns like you guys, and shooting/gun-threatning accidents is very rare. I know its very normal in USA to have a gun, and walking around in the streets at night is unsafe because of that. However, its not the same in Europe, atleast not countries as Germany. Just having a gun hided in your closet can give years of prison. In Europe we let our kids be out all night, because assaults is so rare.

And blaming this on ESL is rather pathetic in my oppinion. First of all its not possible to get all players in hotels, i mean, how can you expect a 500.000 city to have hotel room for 600.000 guests? Second of all, im having a hard time understanding how you could use 500$ on taxis, as ESL had sorted transpotation for everyone. Ive heard many clans about this, and the only one complaining is the americans. A coincidince? Last, but not least, if you go out to a pub at the middle of the night it could never be ESLs responsibility to make sure you are alright. They cant have babysitters for everyone.

About the whole "lets-sue-ESL", i must say thats rather pathetic. Once again there is some cultural differences between America and Europe, and one of them is that you cannot go sue people of ridicolous reasons. I know that in America you can sue a company if your put your cat in the microwave - however in Europe, we actually need a prober reason to sue.

Last i want to say that im ofcourse sad on Hostiles behalf, must have been a terrible experience and i hope he will get back on his feet asap!

The crime could of happened anywhere to anyone. Just tough luck.

500 euros on cabs? Maybe you should of called the free shuttle which was driving teams around.. I managed to stay under 100 euros with cabs.

I feel it's so unthankful to blame everything on ESL like this, if you didn't like the houses, go into a hotel, if you don't like cabs, don't go to an event.

Roychez the problem is that the players didn't know this was the situation and couldn't make a change without spending a lot of money when they arrived.

So they just went to the event without checking where they sleep? Sorry, that's just stupid.

uhm....you know there is public transportation in Germany, a Weekly ticket is max 20 Euros (instead of 500... WOW).

Kinda sad trying to blame this on ESL, because you have to behave quiet stupidly or naive to be robbed.... but what can you do, it happens to the best of us.