Conventional wisdom says there isn’t too much transparency, but like most proverbs, this one comes with asterisks. Yesterday, the eSports organization CLG demonstrated this by posting a video showing the CEO of his League of Legends Team, Daniel “Tafokints” Lee, told the downtrodden players that their days in the squad are probably numbered. The video was received so poorly by the eSports community that CLG removed it hours later.
The CLG team is currently in last place in the overall ranking of the League Championship Series and is in last place in its own league in the current summer tournament (via Point sports). CLGs now removed video, released as part of the organization’s blatantly branded Bud Light Gaming cooldown series, featured a moment when Lee openly sat down with CLG’s LCS roster.
“I’ll be upfront: I’m thinking about swapping squads,” Lee said in the video about the team. “It’s been two months; We haven’t really made any headway so there will very likely be changes this week. I’m looking for options, so this may be the last time we have this list of five players. “
This is just a cruel esports reality at times, but the question here is whether anyone actually benefits from benefits See it – especially as part of a sponsored promotional video. It doesn’t help that blatant failure occurs at CLG after several players on the current squad have seen career highs elsewhere. Finn “Finn” Wiestål and Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen made waves in European teams before joining CLG late last year, and Jason “WildTurtle” Tran, who played as part of another team called FlyQuest, took part in several Tournaments in 2020 part finals. The players asked interview questions about what went wrong at CLG appear dejected and lost.
As a result, CLG’s video seemed too revealing to many in the esports community – an unnecessary glimpse at one of the lowest moments an esports professional can experience.
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“Unless you do one Breaking point [documentary]-Style piece and that’s the trailer, you’re going too far, ”LCS commentator Alberto Rengifo said about the video on twitter. “Nobody looks better that way. Consider shutting down this CLG. “
“Can’t even make fun of it” wrote G2 Esports head coach Fabian “GrabbZ” Lohmann. “It’s just wrong to show that.”
Others have pointed this out Players still have time to level the shipbut not if a video like this boosts their morale even further, while fans welcomed the idea of transparency but argued that there has to be one “A better way to do it.” After all, what was CLG communicating here? That some player Makes get cut? All that everyone has learned from this video is that players now have to live with the uncertainty of a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
Kotaku reached out to CLG, Bud Light, Lee, and each player on CLG’s current LCS list for more details on how the video was made and whether Lee and the players knew that footage would be used in that particular context . At the time of this writing, they have not responded.
Ultimately, CLG decided to remove the video.
“This morning we released a short post-game video that gives a behind-the-scenes look at our current season,” CLG said wrote yesterday on his official Twitter account. “Our goal was to share an authentic moment with our fans and be as transparent as possible about potential changes this week. We recognize the negative light it brings on our players and for that we apologize and have removed the video. “
The apology did not arrive well.
“Apologize to your players”, Tien Ho, Marketing Director of the eSports organization Rogue (for which the current CLG player Wiestål previously competed), said in response. “Might as well film and post the apology.”
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