I think the overarching point he is alluding to is that Justin and Champ are willing to turn a blind eye to people like Nelson because they are too busy salivating at the potential payout.
Personally, I don’t understand how people listen to top figures in this community without questioning their motives after the whole SFxT experience.
Not that this is evidence, but I just want to point out that people have been saying this for weeks now, so it’s not like it’s some after-the-fact explanation. Personally with how overzealous Champ has been with promoting the event I’m willing to believe it. Dude is terrible at hiding his true intentions.
In what way? I’m not saying “if you are somehow tangentially affiliated with TL in some way or another that automatically means you stand for their values”. Combofiend also attended the event, and tried his level best to get the KOF players the pot money they needed. Should we ostracize him as well?
If you want to use this as an excuse to hate Max, Justin, and Champ, then you’re missing the point.
Update: Interview with Nelson rendering…
I agree. Max is a good person, he won’t make any money at Revelations, he’s just there to entertain.
It’s not about them attending the tournament so the Combofiend comparison makes no sense. It’s about them actively evangelizing for it for several weeks. Synikal is right, you can’t talk all flowers and rainbows about the strength of the Fighting Game Community on one hand and then defend top players shilling for a known shady organization because it benefits them personally on the other. Whether you have ethical qualms with what Justin and Champ did is up to you, but at least be consistent.
The so called “evangelizing” pretty much sums down to a re-tweet of registration links as it’s an event they’re attending due to the prize pot. If you’re going to affiliate them as friends, it seems like a stretch to me. But do what you will. I’m just saying the degree’s here of who should be looked into is more leaning towards the TO than the players who attend(or just go as far as retweeting a link.)
I understand you gotta go for every dollar you can if you’re trying to pay the bills with fighting games, but it does seem like they are just looking the other way and full on promoting the event. They probably have a deal worked out with Nelson. It’s just too sketch.
In addition, Filipino Champ was on FGTV praising Revelations. He said it’s a good tournament and actively told his viewers to sign up.
Wong and Champ are sponsored players. It is their job to go to tournaments, support and promote their brand, and support events so players/viewers have an awareness of the companies backing the players; they do something that conflicts with the purposes of their sponsorships (i.e. boycotting an event when they are expected to compete and place regardless of personal feelings).
Even though attending players with sponsorships may have personal feelings toward the TL practices, it is more important for them to compete and help increase exposure for their sponsors. EG and coL aren’t going to sit and read this thread to understand why their flagship player didn’t attend a major. They’ll only ask the player “Why weren’t you at ReveLAtions supporting our brand?”
Nevertheless, a community needs to work together as a community to avoid letting-in people who only take advantage, so they shouldn’t need to rally behind the top players in order to feel like they have a voice.
Justin wong himself has 27000 followers on twitter, filipino Champ has other 9000. Them retweeting the @TL_EVENTS posts that advertise the stream before and after the tournament together with the subscription links are none other than advertisements.
We all hate to see people like John Nelson harming the community. And we all agree on this. However, my point is that if you want prevent this from happening you need to have a coherent information system for the community: you are the one who makes documentaries, what better story than this to make some nice work?
I’m a nobody who watches streams: I see Justin posting stuff on twitter about this event and I see fchamp saying how cool this tournament is on his stream. As a result I’m genuinely interested in this event. You and no one else can deny this is a fact.
btw Max == Justin and Ryan simply because he is not a top player and he is probably honestly paid by TL to bring a show at their event.
Competing and trying to win money is understandable. But why did FChamp LIE to his loyal viewers and told them that Revelations is a good event and actively told his viewers to sign up for it? Why should anyone believe FChamp again if he lies to his loyal viewers like this?
Mike Ross is also with Complexity, you didn’t see him telling lies, and tricking his viewers to go to a shady event. Ross didn’t even support Revelations at all, not this year and not last year.
For someone who boasted a 50k total pot bonus over many games, how would Nelson in a hope in h-e double hockey sticks manage to pay out those people? Now I will be the first to admit that the only exposure to the west coast gaming scene that I have is an appearance at Devastation in 2008, but that shouldn’t disqualify me from saying that Nelson and TL’s priorities are messed up to have plundered nearly 50k if he had it at all.
Now I know Mike Haze by his reputation as a Smash TO, and I suspect that the only reason why the pot was undisturbed in that game(I am unsure about the bonus pot) was because Nelson was hands off and needed a third party to run things for him, or otherwise the Smash community would have made him out to be a fraud and not go.
The KOF people were smart to demand a third party hold the money.
It’s true that Wong and Champ go to tournaments in order to promote their brand. Revelations is not their brand and I’m sure both EG and Col would steer away from such a shady brand. No one asks players to hype up events unless organizers and players are friends (see the cross counter bar fights).
I’m sorry but your argument is invalid, Justin and Champ advertised this tournament and neither EG nor Complexity have nothing to do with this.
That that’s fine and all, but in that case let’s not pretend that the “Fighting Game Community” is a thing that exists, or if it does that these guys are a positive influence on it. If we’re a community then these are sociopathic actions. If their hand was forced by their sponsors, then they were forced into sociopathic actions.
Since this has’t been posted, there was a discussion of Max awhile ago. Not sure how relevant it is now, but whatever. They dropped this on twitter
One scumbag organizer interviewing another. Could be a classic.
I don’t see how it is their responsibility to tell people what to and not to support. They’re players just like everyone else and free to make their own decisions.
You might not like Keits as a person but he’s by all accounts an excellent TO.
I agree with this for the most part, the fact they are top players does NOT mean they have a duty or responsibility to tell others what to do, just because they are good at they do that doenst mean they owe anyone anything.
HOWEVER, the problem here is more along the lines of why did they promote the event, just like saying that because they are very good players we expect them to tell us what to do would be akin to going up to a great player in your local arcade and demanding he taught you, people questioning their promotion of the event is akin to being told by an acquaintance to go to a shady event.
It has nothing to do with them owing people anything, or having a responsibility to tell others what to do, but it is about being accountable for their actions, in this case promoting a shady event. They may not have a responsibility towards others just for being good players, but the moment they go out and explicitly tell people to attend or trust a particular event they become accountable for that action, if the event in question turns out to be shady then people have the right to ask why they were told to attend it or trust it.
JN doesn’t fear horrible decisions and tournament management, he welcomes it. His punishment must be more…severe.