С пьедестала на ринг: скандал в организации Speed gaming

Last year, back in 2012 I met weir (online most of the time) and Jet who was his team manager at that time for RattleSnake. After seeing LGD.int success in China I got the idea to get a team myself and get to that kind of level bringing to China another foreigner team. I shared this idea with few friends and after doing some math I was able to get the team myself and be able to afford their salaries, transportation and so on.

At that time as supporter from the SA community I had my eyes on the team known as Artyk Gaming (now Sweet Revenge) but couldn’t really commit as I had to invest into another non-gaming projects as well this year. I started talking with fellow friends and even coworkers to see what would they think about it and if it was a good or bad idea. While doing that I met Jet just prior TI3 - he seemed very smart and talented guy who had the same interest as I did. I was surprised when he started giving me some advices and contacts with his fellow Chinese friends and potential investors to the point that I invited him to visit me in Hangzhou and discuss this further face to face. So far we had the same ideas and it seemed we could work together at that time he told me about his boss (weir) - who was unfair to him and his team mates and was thinking about leaving the organization. I had some savings and I was thinking about hiring him to work with some projects together in China, even if it wasn’t about a team – but at least getting an office in shanghai and get some kind of consulting company as startup.

With this being said and after meeting together he gained more confidence and introduced me some of his friends and investors (we even met Brian - a potential investor from Shenzhen who was very interested in the project and passionate about e-Sports. He was rich and ready to pump some cash into the project but due to his young age I decided to take some time to think about it first, since most young people are always hyper and ready to do things fast if the things are not going their way - they will pretty much stop it and even quit and since this was a big project I couldn’t gamble about it. Well, we had an agreement and I was going to invest half of the project and he was going to invest the other half and put the money together in to a secure bank from where we would just withdraw monthly with a real staff together: Finances/HR/crew etc.

Everything seemed fine but when we were about to sign the contract and get this project going - he had one, last request - get the office in Shenzhen rather than Hangzhou or Shanghai - where for me it was easier to keep an eye on everything and make sure things are going well. As investor you want to always look after your business and do the necessary adjustments if needed, so I got a bit unsecure and couldn’t really commit mostly due to his young age and lack of experience. I wasn’t 100% sure, so I’ve decided to take a vacation and decided to get in touch with weir -- and this is how everything started. He was asking me what I was doing and so on and I did the big mistake to share it with him. He immediately showed to be interested and told me he was going to give the full investment for the project. I was surprised as this came unexpected but couldn’t trust him since Jet had already told me he pretty much took advantage of him and the players. He told me he was offered X amount of money as salary and his own space in the gaming house but after 1-2 months he decided to cut his salary and also cut the gaming house putting all together in just 1 small place with a low salary, not to mention they had to pay their own food - so this guys, after all this were surviving with 2000 to 3000 rmb (not even 500$ per month)

So even his offer was attractive I couldn’t really be sure about it - but then I came back to US with my gf and after spending my savings I couldn’t really commit with Brian and I had to let him go and decided to work with Jet, who was an amazing person to me and smart in how eSports works in China

I spoke back with weir and I told him that if we were to work together - I had few requests - such as the location of the gaming houses, salary for the players and so on and he agreed. While looking for the team I exposed few options but he didn’t like any of them. He was obsessed with navi/alliance but I’ve told him that those players are unavailable for us, since they’re already contracted. He pushed me to get them and offered big amount of money. I was already scared by this and asked Jet if he was really able to pay what he was saying to those players. Jet told me - yea he has the money but be careful the guy is not honest and has 0 idea in how the scene works. Well I could get that since he was pushing me to offer 3000$ monthly salary to PGG, Ars-Art and so on. Even Black (ex-mouz) was mentioned. I remember very well when I spoke with Black and I told him about my project - the salary plan is about 1000$ up to 2000$ depending in the performance. Black wasn’t interested without knowing the other players so I went back to Weir and said - sorry weir he won’t accept it. Then he said - go back and tell him 2500$ - same story happened. “Ok, now offer him 3000$”. It was like he was trying to buy players against their will and many will confirm this - I approached many players such as Bamboe, ComeWithMe, pgg, Ars-Art, Artstyle etc.

They all refused - and I couldn’t blame them. I was even getting stressed when I thought about Kaipi that was without sponsors - and even they refused the first offer of 1000$. They seemed more interested when I told them about 2000$ and things started from there. (Weir was the one who posted the news in Chinese about the 200k investment and so far I haven’t seen anything else than 1 salary payment to players and the rent of the house in DC aside of that nothing else at all).

Things seemed to be ok until we went to Korea and the team lost to Dignitas. When we got back to the hotel, weir was sending me messages by qq pretty much complaining about the results and when I shared this with the players they took it the wrong way and even had small incident with Image not foundAui_2000 and EternalEnvy.
Before arriving to Korea there was another incident regarding the salaries. Salaries were supposed to be sent by October 18th and instead of that Weir sent it October 24th or so. Players were asking about their salaries, so I’ve asked weir what is going on and he kept saying he will do it tomorrow, because he was either busy or had other excuses until he sent it 24th with a bank transfer and it took 3-5 business days. I got the money right before going to Korea and asked the team if they wanted the salary in cash or PayPal or bank transfer and they said we were going to discuss that in Korea.

Since weir payed on time for the gaming house in DC I thought it was just one time incident that didn’t really matter. Since we got to Korea, I was very busy and I had problems with doing PayPal money transfers (Aui was sitting next to me and can confirm). Once that happened, team thought I’m a “shady” character and even EternalEnvy went to weir to try to release me from my own project.

I was with very limited temper and EternalEnVy was asking me to release the team.
They didn’t want to go to China since there was an internal drama going on that I won’t get in to details, and this was also an argument to why I wanted to get the contracts published - so people can be aware and know what is going on and how things are being handled. With this said I still had plans to meet the team at MLG and fix the issue and get things straight before going to China but due some work schedule I wasn’t able to do it. I would like to thank Charlie because that guy seems to be good with the team and they work pretty well with him - so a big thanks to him from my behalf.

Yesterday I got the choking news that the CN team(RattleSnake) will be disbanded by the 24th of this month. Weir told me that since his CN squad wasn’t getting any results he is going to disband them and get psg team as replacement. I immediately reacted because that wasn’t part of the deal and players wouldn’t be happy about it since they were very clear with me about their living conditions in China.

The gaming house he planed to take them was in nantong province - a rural area far away from the city, Chinese style, hard beds etc.

I was already getting suspicious, because he requested to pay the next salary to the team only after they arrive in China (he was late with last salary as well). Also the team requested to get home after G-League for the holidays season and I agreed with them - but after sharing this with weir - he refused and said they should stay in China. After this all, G-League is the one paying for the air tickets and accommodation For the last week I pretty much had the feeling that something wasn’t right.

Salaries were not paid completely. Weir even asked me to pay to an agency of his friend for the air tickets (which got the players in terrible conditions due to the conflicts they had with their flight) and sent EternalEnVy his salary late. Not even sure if he got it yet or not but I was the one being called “Shady” by the players -- while I was doing my best to complete their requests. In the meantime I got some good sponsors for the team (most of them already worked with me for netolic and trusted me with the project).

Well, I was unhappy with this decision and I expressed this to him and he said : since the team is going there, you will not get your salary either and we will hire an ayi and you will only get your 5%. So he keeps 15% from their prize money / 90% from the sponsors & marketing / 40% from the stream (PS: the stream was a deal I was getting for the team with FY and YY in China - famous Chinese platform that were going to pay up to 10 000 RMB per player to stream per month, while they stay in China - since they couldn’t stream in twitch from there plus the normal 50/50 ad revenue each month, they were going to earn around 2k to 3k USD extra per player by just streaming. ( My basic salary as agreed was 4000 RMB around 500$ per month and I was getting him all this contacts, sponsors, marketing, team, players, etc. and then he decided to cut my basic salary giving no information in advance, and going against everything we agreed before….)

Once again this wasn’t what we agreed on and I was even more surprised and regretful at that very moment - since I was warned about such issues from Weir months ago by my friend Jet, who got the same experience with him.

I couldn’t say anything else - he told me : you will only get 5% share of the prize money and I just didn’t trust him anymore, since he was changing his words and our agreement without consulting me or the players.

Because of doing my own analysis I knew there was going to be even more drama when the players will arrive and find out that their new gaming house isn’t what they got promised and I was going to be the one to blamed on once again… I didn’t lose anymore time and immediately shared this with Image not foundpieliedie so they could know what is going on.

This morning – due to the amazing results SpeedGaming had in MLG I told weir that players must get their raise from 1000$ to 2000$ just as we agreed and he tried to fuck up with me saying it : that it only counts if 2 or more Chinese teams are involved in the tournament and so on.
I told him this is unbelievable. None of this was on what we agreed and players are doing their best right now with all this in their minds because no matter if they lose or win against sigma they know they would get an immediate raise and not having it - they will pretty much eat me alive.
We had a long conversation with weir. I was trying to explain him how unhappy I was about him and all the promises and I’ve told him to keep with what we agreed on ->
At the end, weir told me that I’m not a part of the project anymore. Having the players up against me there was nothing I could do about it. Right after, he(weir) immediately deleted me from QQ and while I was talking with Paul, the other investor and his partner about the big mistake he is doing and the consequences it would bring - weir came and laughed at me saying : take legal actions If you want, this is now my project, and left the group right after that.
Well I am shocked and upset I don’t know if I should tell this to players or not yet but I am afraid this might ruin their performance so I might just wait and make it public once they finish the event.
I am contacting ACE and G-League in the meantime to get things straight and I am willing to help the team despite everything, since I really like to enjoy working with them, mostly with Image not foundSingSing / Image not foundpieliedie / bone7 as they’re great guys and even EternalEnvy or Aui_2000, like it or not, do a lot for the team.
As for now, the contracts are no longer valid and players are free to choose what they think is the best for them, even the name ‘Speed Gaming’ isn’t exactly the best name and I was against it from the very beginning but we got really far. This project got destroyed by a greedy person, who thinks he can do what he wants, because of the money he owns.
I really apologize to many of you reading this but at the moment I got a lot of anger inside me since it was something I’ve planned for the last year and watching it go down like this is just really sad.
However, since I already got the sponsors for the team and the team is already known I will do my best to keep them but at the end it all will be up to them to decide of their own faith as for myself.
If they accept my new offer I will make everything possible to support them and get things clear to never be called “shady again”, same as be more transparent and supportive to the scene.
With this said, I want to thank everyone, who so far is supporting Speed Gaming. Our players are really talented and they got a bright future ahead of them and I hope that this whole experience can just make us stronger.
I will update you as soon as MLG is over and arrange a conversation with the team to see where we are and where are we going.
But from this moment Speed Gaming and the entire project planned is no longer working with Weir the Owner from RattleSnake I had already offered him full refund of his investment while I will continue with the project same as working with the previews investors who had interest in the project or even directly with the sponsors.
Is really sad to see how people try to take advantage of the work from others and mostly when it is becoming successful they become more greedy really sad.
Have a nice day and thanks for reading
Marco A. Fernandez