posted by Blue_Knight,
Earlier this week, the DotA community witnessed what was one of the most stable and promising competitive teams, Quantic Gaming, unexpectedly and abruptly up sticks to join the previously unheard of French organisation Eclypsia.
Eclypsia no more... miGGel, team captain
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'Link' Hoelgaard – suddenly replacing him with Amel 'PlaymatE' Barudzija instead – and that rumours pertaining to different developments within the team had been previously circulating anyway, only served to arouse suspicion further.Now, with an apologetic announcement to his supporters made only this morning on PlaymatE's official Facebook fan page, we have learned that the team has broken their brief ties with Eclypsia, declaring that the sponsor “was just empty talk” and that there was actually “nothing” in the offer they received.
Now in a bid to shed some light on the developments, the manager of the all Danish team, Gaëlle 'MystresS' Pavillon has granted joinDOTA an exclusive interview in an attempt to clear up the mystery.
So to begin with, can you explain to us when Eclypsia approached your team, and how their offer came about?
Eclypsia works with Dota2-Europe.com and one of their staff approached me last Friday [April 27th] and proposed a salary of € 7500 per month for the whole team, 100% of the earnings for 10 hours of streaming per player, per week. Of course I contacted the players right away and told them about it, of course we were all very exited about since that would mean more time to concentrate on practising.
I started to discuss [the offer] with the CEO of Eclypsia and his League of Legends coordinator [Alban 'Semrodia' Chaubert]. They then told us their offer was originally meant for Na'Vi, so they would tone down the offer to € 5500 per month for the whole team, with 20% of earnings taken.
Your agreement with Eclypsia was only made public on Sunday [April 29th] though. Were any legally-binding contracts actually signed by your team?
No, they were not. Contracts were promised after a few weeks, but we never saw any form of contract or written agreements. The whole weekend Eclypsia was dealing with Quantic Gaming about our contract releases.
And what about the transfer dealings with Quantic? We've heard that they were very displeased, and not just for suddenly losing their Dota 2 squad. What else about the deal displeased them?
Quantic asked for a transfer fee from Eclypsia; Eclypsia refused to pay the transfer fee, saying the contract was not legal for some reasons. The players and myself did not like that, we never had any problem with Quantic Gaming and wanted to part on good terms, so we then took the decision to pay the transfer fee ourselves, but Eclypsia threatened to drop us if we were not doing exactly what they were saying. We felt trapped and without a choice. So our contracts with Quantic are still pretty much in order. No release was ever signed as of today.
So you and the team are still a part of Quantic and remain on good terms with them?
Not really, we are on paper, but our future with Quantic or another organisation is still uncertain as of today. We will take our time to find the most stable organisation.
PlaymatE said in his Facebook announcement that Eclypsia were "just empty talk". Was it merely that their terms were too restrictive, or is there more about the breakdown between your team and the organisation to expand on?
Well, when we first agreed to join Eclypsia, they wanted all the players to stream from 10am to 10pm everyday. But the players did not have strong enough computers to do so, so Eclypsia told them they would get new computers, and they should be sent on Monday and received in under five working days. The players choose their PCs on a Danish website, and were ready to commit to whatever the organisation needed. They understood they needed to work hard in order to get salaries such as those.
Eclypsia then started to change their original offer... They wanted the players to generate 5000 viewers on the stream, forbid the players the use of IRC, and every time I tried to defend my players, explaining that it was impossible for them to have this many viewers in such a short time, I was threatened not to get paid... And this went on and on for three days.
They then asked of me to find sponsors for Eclypsia, big sponsors such as Razer or SteelSeries... which is absolutely not my job. My role is to make sure the players can concentrate on playing while I take care of organising them at LAN events, tournaments etc.
We then realised that Eclypsia had no idea at all about how eSports work; that everything needs time and effort, and that no team could magically do all that they had asked.
Understandably, these sudden and unexpected developments have caused and will continue to cause a lot of controversy within the DotA community, and the fans' opinions are split. In light of the team moving between three different sponsors (SK Gaming, Quantic Gaming, and now Eclypsia) in a matter of months, apparently in search of better conditions each time, some have labelled the team as "greedy". What is your response to this?
I understand completely. And I know myself how this looks, but we are all adults, some of us have family, it would make no sense if we were to ignore such offers without any considerations.
With SK, the problem was not money, far from it, but more a question of commitment that SK were not ready to make at the time as they prioritized other games at the time. With Quantic Gaming we had no problem at all, it is a great organisation, they care about the players and they always have had an exemplary attitude about everything.
The choice to go to Eclypsia was like a dream come true; being able to make a living out of what you love to do is everyone's dream. I hope the fans and the community will understand that we have learned our lesson and will not fall for empty talks again. There is a lot the community does not know about what goes on with organisations and they are quick to judge the players who only try to have the best conditions for themselves as possible.
And how would do you respond to those who have specifically accused you of being solely at fault, and alleged that you have mismanaged the team in this instance?
I understand that "someone" needs to be at fault, and better me than the players, so its fine. I think that those people who are talking and pointing fingers have absolutely no idea of what really happened and therefore it doesn't bother me. I think the players can say that I have always looked out for their best interests and that I will continue to do so. At least until a stable sponsor is found, and then I will retire from gaming all together and be supportive of my beloved boyfriend Martin 'AngeL' Olsen in his gaming career.
Speaking of your relationship with AngeL, rumours had been circulating in recent weeks that you both had left the team, as opposed to Link, and that certain players other than PlaymatE were in line to replace your partner. Can you tell us what really happened; if there was any truth to the rumours and a change of plans?
AngeL and I moved to a new apartment in Denmark, causing AngeL to have no internet for a few weeks. That caused tension within the team as they lacked practice and the results suffered because of that. AngeL and myself left the team for a while as we were "the cause" of the bad results. The rest of the team tried other players and AngeL tried another team with PlaymatE, but miGGel and Angel have been playing together for years; they knew they needed a change and they needed the roles to be changed.
AngeL has always been playing the carry/solo roles in the past and wanted to get back to it. Being more versatile than Link on that matter, it was decided by the team that he was the one who would be replaced. In any case, we parted ways with him on good terms; there was no fight or drama. Sometimes, in order to succeed, a team needs to change a player or two to get motivation again. We do hope that Link will find a team that suits him better and wish him the best.
joinDOTA has attempted to contact the other parties involved for their perspectives, and will update you as soon as there are any further developments.
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