Outrage in Germany? on CompLexity Gaming

Outrage in Germany?: Posted by: IndependenT on March 7th, 2009

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ESL marred by controversy over player lodging, transportation and violence

In recent news, the Extreme Masters Global finals have been tainted by allegations of subpar treatment of players attending the major event. The global finals which captured the attention of the world and re-ignited interest in a struggling eSports community have been battered with charges of poor housing and transportation that resulted in the hospitalization of an American star player.

News reports have been trickling in throughout the week from players claiming they were housed with local residents rather than the traditional hotel/motel accomodations. Players state that at no point during the Extreme Masters discussions was such subpar housing discussed with them. There have been comments made regarding housing with local families who had livestock living on the property. Others suggest they were placed in housing which was located in less than desirable areas vis-à-vis safety.

Most of these claims were shrugged aside by global gaming media until tonight when American stand out Shaun "Hostile" Catron was assaulted and robbed, apparently on the way back to his EM assigned local housing. According to a Winout.net interview this robbery resulted in Mr. Catron's hospitalization. He pulled no punches when he suggested the organization abandoned gamers and left them in poor areas:

That seems very courteous of the ESL, especially considering the incident took place after 1 AM local time. Do you think the housing conditions provided by the ESL were part at fault for this occurence? Did they put you up in an unsafe area? Where are you now?

Shaun "hostile" Catron: Courteous of ESL..? they came to see me in the hospital, like they should have it's their event. I respect them for coming and thank them for the help, but lets be real what do you expect to happen when you put people in such bad areas. I kid you not, 3 different taxi drivers could not find where we are on a roadmap, the street was not even there. Do I blame ESL entirely for this incident? No. But splitting entire teams up into 3 different houses 3 miles apart from 1 another, as well as putting us in areas that ARE NOT SAFE. you be the judge for yourself. We bought a hotel room to get the f@$! out of the s@#$hole we were put in.

Gotfrag.com reported live updates including comments from Mr. Catron. We were contacted by his family who is outraged but felt it was best to stay off the record due to possible litigation against Extreme Masters.

At this hour we are unable to reach representatives from the Extreme Masters Global Finals.

Unanswered community allegations and questions linger:

Why were the world's best professional gamers subjected to local housing?

Why weren't the gamers notified in advance that their free lodging would mean living with local residents? Were they offered alternate forms of housing?

Was adequate and safe transportation provided as players have denied?

If said allegations are true, how will the Extreme Masters respond to these concerns in the future?

Stay tuned for all relevant updates as this story unfolds.

Update: ESL's Director of Community Management David "affentod" Hiltscher has responded to the situation.

Hey all,

I'm here to shed some light on the allegations made here and elsewhere from the tournament organizer's perspective. First of all, everyone here is shocked that such a thing happened to hostile. Hannover is one of Germany's least dangerous cities, and police activity during CeBIT is very high. To put it bluntly, hostile had incredibly bad luck.

Especially if you take into consideration that the area where he and other teams are housed is a regular residential area. Being housed in private homes is a CeBIT tradition, as there are several hundred thousand people coming to Hannover for the trade fair. Hotel capacities are very low and hotel rooms are extremely pricey and also fully booked months in advance.

So all kinds of people stay in private houses, from company executives over staff and crew of all booths to pro gamers participating in the many tournaments here. Who ever has been to one of the previous tournaments at CeBIT like Masters I & II or SEC knows this. There is nothing unprofessional or dangerous about this fact, it's just normal for a giant trade fair like CeBIT.

We shuttle players from their residences to the fair in the morning and bring them back in the evening to make sure everybody gets where he needs to, and gets there safe. For all evening activities, whatever the starting point is, common sense is a requirement. Walking the street alone at night is risky in any major city.

All rooms are booked through an agency that guarantees a certain quality. All flats and houses are in quiet residential areas. We do not book rooms in bad neighborhoods.

We are very sorry to hear what happened to hostile, and our admins were the first to join him in the hospital. I understand, that hostile's statements come from a deep sense of injustice, but please keep in mind that we have no interest whatsoever to cause our star players any harm, and that we do anything in our power to keep them safe and happy during their stay in Germany.

We wish hostile a quick recovery from the shock and hope the police does its best to catch the people who did this.

If any of you have questions about this, go ahead and post them. I'll do my best to answer them.

Comments

#1 on 03/07/09 at 3:16 AM

deLay

Hopefully the skum WILL be caught

#2 on 03/07/09 at 3:20 AM

Viper

When i saw HappyMint's video saying he was living in a random home i was so confused... why would they do that.. the people don't even understand english

#3 on 03/07/09 at 3:22 AM

IndependenT

<span class="cquote">When i saw HappyMint's video saying he was living in a random home i was so confused... why would they do that.. the people don't even understand english</span>

I was thinking the exact same thing. Unacceptable.

#4 on 03/07/09 at 3:25 AM

Viper

http://winout.net/index.php?page=view_article&id=240

#5 on 03/07/09 at 3:49 AM

beasta

the players are spread all around Hannover, because CeBIT is too damn big and all hotels are booked months before the event, so the ESL has no choice and put the players wherever is free :S

#6 on 03/07/09 at 3:55 AM

joker

hostile ended up going to a hotel so obviously all of the hotels weren't booked ..... esl is just cheap

#7 on 03/07/09 at 4:01 AM

Gillz

Yeah this seems very wrong. Put the players in houses with other people? Very unsafe, dangerous, and cheap. At least a hostel, or something.

#8 on 03/07/09 at 4:14 AM

tonynot

Pretty shady stuff!

#9 on 03/07/09 at 4:32 AM

peakz

Man I would be so pissed. It is an outrage. They should take care of the players, and put them in a hotel. Bad economy or not man. Shit is ridicules, and needs to be handled. Man I pray nothing like this happens again, to any other players. How is that even a good idea to put them in a Euro house. A lot of European people (NOT ALL!) hate us for what we are doing right now. I think they should have thought some things a little better. I could understand OTHER gamers in the matches houses. But not randoms like this.

#10 on 03/07/09 at 4:51 AM

Macdad88

I think its interesting that ESL has said the reason for the housing they used was that hotel rooms were booked for months in advance and yet Hostile gets a hotel room right away? This is absurd. Im sorry he had to go through that and hopefully this opens the eyes of event organizers so situations like this do not occur in the future. Jason's response on Gotfrag was well put and i would be interested to see an interview with him on what his full thoughts on this are.

#11 on 03/07/09 at 4:52 AM

Jake

Simply put, all of that is really messed up. Why would a gaming organization / host even think about that type of housing much less hosting an event in what seems to be an unsafe location according to the evidence in the news post... I swear, the world these days :\ People don't think

#12 on 03/07/09 at 5:13 AM

Portland

Online
Quote

ESL has responded to the housing situation: http://insideresports.com/article/474

#13 on 03/07/09 at 5:46 AM

av9891

unacceptable to be in an area like that and under those living conditions. seems poorly planned or just the only possible solution for a place for the players to stay. well like he said, bad things happen in bad areas. i feel sorry for him because nobody regardless of how much of an asshole they are deserves to have a gun pointed at their head and jumped.

#14 on 03/07/09 at 6:21 AM

NacaV1g

Comical, Gravitas organization should be the ones providing housing not ESL. ESL already is giving out prize money, has a
great lan set up, and now players want housing too? lmao, cry more please.

#15 on 03/07/09 at 6:46 AM

chefnnnn

"Why were the world's best professional gamers subjected to local housing?"
I was under the impression this article was about Gravitas? I have yet to hear of anything like this happening to fnatic/sk/mtw/mym...

Maybe the bigger organizations took care of housing for their own teams? I don't see the point in ESL doing it for everyone when they could simply add whatever they are shelling out for it to the prizemoney instead. That way it ends up in the pockets of teams who can actually compete :S

just my 2 cents

#16 on 03/07/09 at 7:37 AM

chefnnnn

apparently neither edit or delete are working for comments - which doesnt suit me since i allways write my comments in asshole-ish ways at first and then edit them (easier to work with a posted comment than a text-box i guess, im weird like this)

Anyways i read the full interview and get how the housing thing works now. Also i forgot to comment on the fact that he was held at gunpoint which must have been horrible. I've been in a somewhat similar - albeit far less dangerous - situation and i know it has a way of shaking you up. I hope he doesn't let it get to him too much. Can't let these things chane the way you live your life or the thugs have won.

#17 on 03/07/09 at 7:42 AM

clone1hp

why dident ESL assign all the members to the same hotel or hotels with busing ect.

#18 on 03/07/09 at 7:54 AM

Ben

Unanswered community allegations and questions linger:

Why were the world's best professional gamers subjected to local housing?

Read the ESL post on their site, it's made quite clear the vast majority of hotels in Hanover at full booked some times a year in an advance, ESL use a local agency to find residential accomodation that meet a certain critiera.

Why weren't the gamers notified in advance that their free lodging would mean living with local residents? Were they offered alternate forms of housing?

People who'd attended previous years knew, there is nothing wrong with the houses we've been put in(only downside is there is no net access there, some houses do have that though) - I admit i did have to ask one of my CS guys prior to flying out to Hanover what the accomodation was like, i was a little suprised.

Was adequate and safe transportation provided as players have denied?

Yeh? Every team has been given the option of taking a free personalised taxi service to/from the event, if they decided not to take it that's up to them.

If said allegations are true, how will the Extreme Masters respond to these concerns in the future?

www.esl-world.com - Check the response.

I'm a little suprised to see people laying the blame on ESL here. Criminal activity in Hanover must be up 100% during the week of cebit as any half intelligent theif will know that 90% of the people in Hanover for cebit week will be visitors and could potentailly have something of value to steal. ESL pickup and drop off players every day of the tournament, literally taking them from their front door to the event hall, outside of this surely it's the individuals problem? ESL Cannot be held accountable for this, it's just an unfortunate event, really unlucky.

#19 on 03/07/09 at 8:35 AM

Macdad88

Like i said earlier, They said hotels were booked and yet hostile and his squad now has a hotel room.

#20 on 03/07/09 at 10:29 AM

break17

My other question about housing is why the hell were teams not housed together and in parts? Hostile & thomz were apparently housed together, assuming that the other 3 were housed elsewhere.

#21 on 03/07/09 at 10:41 AM

Shadowz

Online
Quote

Awful situation but lets not blame ESL here. This is a classic situation of a few people running something for others. With the economy the way it is ESl tried to do the most cost effected thing. Unfortunetally these events took place and someone got hurt. A similiar yet unrelating situation is having a hacker on your team. Although he acts solely on his own it damages this image and reputation of all players on the team.

I wish for a speedy recovery. Hope all goes well over there.