The Great CS Esports Apocalypse: Chapter 2 Notes

- "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for counter strike esports in 2021."
	"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
- Didn't think he would live long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike kill itself
	considering all the scene has been through "incredible upheavals and trials and tribulations"
	"[CSGO] is a pioneering game in the space [esports/gaming]"
- Went through the apocalypse of Source and saw the death of that scene.
- Played CSGO before everyone else with the pros, ran CS:Source website
	Probably distributed more beta keys than almost anyone else other than Valve
- Had doubts in 2013/2014 they [the CS scene] were going to get their shit together
	Famously wrote in a piece: "Maybe we should all get ready to accept CSGO isn't what any of us want it to be."
	Eventually we built something
- "For the past 5/6 years we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
	"We're spread way too thin"
- "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
- Thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out
	Recent CSPPA strike
	ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
	Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
	Widespread match fixing
	Pandemic
		"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault"
		"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie"
			"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week"
				"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production" (hinting FACEIT)
			"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up"
	"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed maybe we ride it out"
		Has talked to Riot devs working on Valorant, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike"
			Says this is factored into their business plan
			Says we never had a competitor but just so happens to have one coincide when we are at our worst

- CSPPA [00:16:40]
	- Thinks CSPPA is a mockery
		Points out they wouldn't strike for pros who were kicked out of EPL
			Says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering
		Doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
		Tells chrisJ to admit and own that the fact he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
		"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
		CSPPA beefing with ESIC when they should be working in harmony
		Angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
		"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all."
		"If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
	- Says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players
		But not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
		Thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
		Needs to talk with the teams [orgs] that have sold that right to BLAST
		"Your employers the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month."
			"Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
		"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
	- "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?"
		"Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
		"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
			"That's a big issue your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
		No strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r cant play in them
		"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you."
			"That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
	- Rankings are a joke
		"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20 not by a long shot."
	- "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"

- ESIC [00:28:00]
	- "They have been put in an impossible position."
	- "Maybe I'm biased, I'll let you decide that. I've known Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC, since he's came into the space. I know his credentials, I know what he's done in mainstream sports, in particular Cricket, I know the type of fights he's taken, on both sides by the way, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair. I think he is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He has my respect and my friendship."
	- "ESIC is a tiny organization"
		"They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
			"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
		"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
		"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
		"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
			Calls people who fucked off to Valorant to escape consequences who were in tier 2 CS match fixing rat cunts
	- ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
		Calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them
			More coaches being banned are coming
			Points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans
				"Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
	- ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
		"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
		"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS."
		"They're doing this with half a dozen people."
		"They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
			"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together."
				"because its all about what's in it in for me."
					"2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."

	- Stream Sniping  [00:34:34]
		No integrity from dead, always denying when caught doing something
		On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe'
			"Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it."
				"because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
					"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
		Says ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS
		BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them don't do this again or "you're gonna get got"
			Says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
		New MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping)
			Gave credit to Flashpoint for quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response
			"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'"
				Upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies"
					Says if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams
						Also says that we've fucked it and it's too late
		Says players will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area, pointing out the integrity problem
		"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
			"All of this shit was mad avoidable even in the pandemic era."
				Says why aren't we filming them. Where are the representatives making sure players aren't cheating

- CSPPA cont. [00:40:30]
	- Agrees with the players but says it's not the right time for strike action
		"It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward."
		"The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
		"The CSPPA have been involved in so many transgressions already"

- Match Fixing [00:42:32]
	- "How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?"
		Gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
		"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs."
			"His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships."
				"NBK promoted them. People forget."
	- "We just let it happen."
	- "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players"
		"Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
	- "The level of greed and corruption, it was like a poison to our scene."
	- Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
		Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins
			Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
		Would use info to bet and subvert the odds
		"That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
		"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
		"Some of these players are still playing."
		"Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
	- "This scene has been rotten for so long."
	- "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
	- "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
	- "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
	- "I get sent chat logs all the time ... and they're morons, these players short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp."
		People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs

	- Valorant [00:49:45]
		Says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something
			Says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
		ardiis (current Valorant pro) accused of match fixing
			Riot investigated and said they can't prove he fixed any games and clears him
			Was on a recording saying that he would be happy to fix a match
			"His punishment is he gets a contract with G2"
			Says the only reason he didn't match fix was because he didn't want to split money with the other people he was working with
			Came from CSGO
			"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"

	- "There's these private Chinese websites now."
	- "They place bets on bet365 and Pinnacle"
		From the chat logs they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
	- Says this is traceable is still happening
	- "There's too many of them fixing matches right now."
	- "You know what Valve are doing while all of this is going on? Nothing."
		Continues to rag and mock Valve for their non-action and ignorance on everything
		"Just admit you don't give a fuck so I can go do something else."
	- "I am sick of it. There are too many forces to battle. The scene is done."

	- NA [00:56:41]
		"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
		"It's over if you're in NA now you don't pick up a CS team you pick up a Valorant team."
		Says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS
			"The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you."
			"To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
		There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer
		"Why are you going to shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games if the viewership is less?"
			Same people overinflating salaries in CS are doing the same in Valorant
		"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower"
			"These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
		"I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it."
		"I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA."
		Doesn't think it's worth to go pro in CS in NA. Tells people to go to Valorant. Thinks that damage would have already been done after the pandemic.
		"Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
		Rags on Valve again to be more hands-on with the esports side of things

	- "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

- Talent [1:08:36]
	- "TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
	- Says people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less there
	- TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar
	- Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money
	- Is amazed viewership is holding up even though we are serving an inferior product over and over again with no new ideas
	- Says we need to be unified and need to get our shit together right now because if we don't Valorant is going to take over
	- Compares Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking
	- Says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists
		Says DeKay is leaving the scene soon
		Says Thorin is close to leaving also

- "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene."
	"We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done."
		"What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
- "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this."
	"I don't see a way we stop the dominoes."
		"When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
- "I'm not gonna stick around and watch these guys pick through the ashes."
	"We don't deserve to win at this point."
		"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again' and another scandal."
			"The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it."
				"The people who could be driving that don't want to."
- Says that community brushing the gambling thing under the rug "sowed the seeds for the next generation of people doing it right now"

- Talent cont. [01:21:05]
	- Had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons
	- DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT
		Says this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other"
		Says this is why we don't have a talent union.
	- New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
	- Moses left because of the terrible conditions
	- Says Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises
	- Says esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream
		"Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

- ESIC cont. [01:30:42]
	- ESIC needs money
		MTG gave seeding money to Ian Smith and made it a requirement that he won't be in debt to them
		Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them
			They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"

	- Points out that ESL, although not always on the right side of history, was an integral part of esports

- Slasher joins stream [01:42:25]
	- Slasher "Esports as a whole, while it is succeeding during COVID, it is now taking a backseat to what I would say is Twitch culture and livestreaming culture, which is kind of overshadowing esports as a whole, and that has been hurting the industry, industry-wide."
		Says the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are bigger problems.
	- Says the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it
	- Wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
	- In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors
	- Says there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win
	- Calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era
	- Valve used to come to the majors, doesn't think they do anymore
	- RL met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major
		Tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment by giving Brax's story
			Family member passed away, lost a lot of income, had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay salaries, was pressured by family to make money and didn't support his career
			Valve told RL "How dare you try and make us feel guilty"
				"We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
					RL tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
	- It is the norm to bet on your own matches in tier 2 CS

- CSPPA cont. [02:05:02]
	- Calls out how the CSPPA, who has funding from ESL, did not speak up when pros got kicked out of EPL, but will against a competitor they are not in an agreement with (Flashpoint)
		Says timing is suspicious and that it has something to do with BLAST working with ESIC making the founding members of CSPPA look bad
		Again, points out hypocrisy of not fighting ESL, Valve, or for Jamppi, etc. essentially asking, Why now against BLAST?
	- Cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
	- Lower tier players/teams were never asked to vote on anything or opinions on anything

- NA cont. [02:10:52]
	- Points out the incompetence of NA team owners always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance
	- RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and have a good ROI
		Also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major
	- Says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going
	- Calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team
		Says HECZ not to blame here
		Says they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious
			They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
			When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
			"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
			He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs provided for free
	- Respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk
	- Says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team
	- Slasher says we need incentives for team owners to invest and that money is a big problem
	- Says there are still opportunities in NA and people and panicking and pulling out and says Valorant will be the same if not worse
	- Says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant
		Says it will continue to inflate
	- Slasher  says CS is still the better investment
	- Slasher  says the most important thing before anything else is if the game itself is succeeding, and in the case of CSGO it is
	- Heard rumors that EG are done

	In the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team
		We found out they were cheating and those players who lost have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters

- Valve [02:34:36]
	- "We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
		"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
	- Source 2/a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S
		"Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember"
	- Slasher  says "if there is anything the community should do is pressure Valve to hire a community manager"

	- Once again, says Valve doesn't care about CS esports
		They implemented dynamic weapon pricing in CS:S
			Basically a stock market, most popular weapons' price goes up, unused weapons' price goes down
				You could buy smgs and shotguns on pistol round, and deagles were 16k
			People complained and took a while to get removed
			Heard a rumor that they eventually sold the algorithm to another games developer
		Says Need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
		Says we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
		Hasn't talked to Valve in ages
			Have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
		Slasher  Says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
		Thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS"
			Were the only people that RL saw that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
		Slasher  says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
		Thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
			Slasher  says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money
				"Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"

	- "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
	- Slasher  suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
	- Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about
		Says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS
	- "Anything that Riot does is better than Valve's inaction"
		"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space"
	- Slasher  thinks that Valve had a missed opportunity to have used Valorant as a "gateway drug" into Counter-Strike

- CSPPA cont. [03:08:55]
	- Really surprised CSPPA is attacking a TO over something relatively minor compared to the other offenses against them
	- The root cause of all the TOs battling each other is the CSPPA
		Says TOs have to pay CSPPA in order to get their "seal of approval"
		Says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event"
		"Essentially the CSPPA, which is meant to be fighting for player rights, that is the mechanism through which ESL gets to dominate the calendar essentially for free because they have the upfront capital and they can see the big picture and realized, 'Yeah let's just concede and acquiesce.'"
			"That's how you end up with the CSPPA going publicly, 'Yeah ESL is amazing'"
				"ESL has done more to fuck over players in my time in esports than almost any other TO"
					"This is an organization that back in the StarCraft days, literally told Counter-Strike: Source players, 'You can't have your prize money because we need that money to fly StarCraft 2 players out to StarCraft tournaments that make us more money.'"
	"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
		"I thought unions fought for the little fella"

- "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
- "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who at least is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
- No good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad
	ESIC have it hard
- CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times
	"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one."
		"You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not."
	"We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
		"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
- What orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad
	"When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene"
		"Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters"
			"If you start stripping that away, you have nothing"
			"You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
- "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them cause the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
- "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
- "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone."
	"Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting."
		"I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
			"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
				"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
					"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
- "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
	"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
- "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."