Oh I need to put the work in, do I? You have no idea how much work I've put in. And now you want me to do it for ESL while ESL cashes the checks? IpKai and I casted ESL when there was no money involved. Now that Relic/SEGA is paying ESL, I'm not going to just work my ass off so Relic/SEGA/ESL can make money. I'm sorry, but I value my efforts more than a t-shirt and the "right to put ESL's logo on my channel." That kind of offering from Relic is just pathetic, to be frank.
It's like when Dr.Wachs put up $2k to sponsor last year's winter tourney (yes, $1k went to the prizepool and $1k went to coh2.org). We asked Relic if they wanted to come in on it, and after deliberating, they offered us one Ardennes Assault key to the winner of the tournament. A community member and supporter of the scene puts up two thousand dollars, and all Relic can muster is a $40 piece of DLC. This is another email from Relic that flabbergasted me so much that I couldn't even muster a response.
I'm happy to see Stormless, A_E, and Generals Gentlemen do ESL. It's great for them and I hope it's a success. They are all staff members here and there is cooperation still happening. I still hope one day to MC some kind of live event, as that has been a dream of mine for many years.
If you're relying on a company to give you money then yes, you do need to put work into it. A lot of it. It sucks, that's obvious but honestly dude? You got money
to cast video games. This means you gotta put some effort into a project with a return that's bigger than an average wage here. Do you think that it's easy for a company like Relic to pay other people disgusting amounts of money when the return on investment is that low? Do you honestly expect a company that wants to make a profit in the end of the year to just accept your proposal and "hope for the best"? If you wanted to grow the website, reinvest some of the money, give Jackas4life a bloody social media budget, get social media buttons on the website, make the site better for mobile users, make a bloody app, idk what countless people suggested to improve the website.
Why isn't this happening? Because you value your efforts more or because you only start working when there's monetized events coming? Leaving the rest of staff on their own for 3/4 of the time cuz you're burned out or can't be arsed? Short sightedness much ? I'd work my ass off for 3 months if I can rake in 5k without having to answer to anyone or even leave my house to do so.
How do you expect to succeed when you're working with passionate people who want nothing more but this game to succeed and your website to grow when your attitude towards change or improvement is so stubborn? Fucks sake man I thought I stopped caring for .org but reading your arguments just makes me cringe even more.
So what they only offer you Ardennes Assault for Dr.Wachs' tournament (nice job not telling everyone you took half of the prize pool btw), work with what you have. Relic owes you nothing in terms of prizes or financial support. If anything you owe them a big thank you for promoting .org whenever they did.
We got 500 UKF trail keys to promote the British faction. I won't even write what your opinion was on that "prize". Our social media boomed because we were able to give 500 people the chance to preview the British Forces. You reckoned it wasn't a proper prize because it weren't even full UKF codes. Sure, but in the 21st century, you can also grow a website or a game without tangible assets. Promotion you know, it works both ways.