DEAR READER - PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS ARTICLE IS A HOSTED PIECE AND THEREFORE THE CONTENT DOES NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS AND OR OPINIONS OF MYM IN ANY WAY. ALL CONTENTS AND VIEWS ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHOR.

As an editor I am seeing news and scandals in esports nearly every week. Mostly it is about smaller organisations not paying prize money, amateur teams breaking up or coming back, but never was a professional team in so many scandals and issues at once lately as SK-Gaming. This made me curious, which is why I have done some research and gathered information that was accesible to me and which I am about to present in my first personal column hosted on the MYM website.

In the past few weeks, SK-Gaming has been in a number of incidents concerning their Counter-Strike team and their Russian Warcraft III player Deadman. These 'conflicts' have not brought the greatest publicity to the team, and many fans have demanded a change in management in the SK organization. For those of you who don't know about these incidents, I will look at three of them.

SK @ WSVG Louisville

This all started at the WSVG Louisville event where SK were up against the American team of Check-Six. The map was de_train and check6 was leading with 5-3, when everything went downhill as a random server restart took place. This lead to both parties trying to work out where they would begin the match from once again.

x6 stated that SK had no money to buy weapons as they were on a save round, SK however denied this and after much debate, the decision was overruled and SK received a large amount of money to buy. The match went on, and SK came out with the victory with a score of 16-12. The American players were deeply disappointed as after checking demos, SK had supposedly lied about their money situation, and thus in a general sense, most likely changed the outcome of the match in their favour.

SK Gaming went onto place 2nd in the event in which the pride and reputation of the top American teams who were able to get to the event were eliminated.

SK @ WC3L Finals

The second incident concerns the Russian Warcraft III player Deadman. Now this story has different explanations from both parties, and in the end we cannot know the full and exact details, but we can draw a picture from this truly remarkable conflict.

It all began with Deadman lightning up a cigarette in a car while the team manager ownitsch did not approve of this. This lead to a boxing match between these two people, and after much conflict, Deadman was told to go home, and not to represent his team at the WC3L finals.

The real problem comes in as Deadman has been told that he will remain under his SK contract, but will not be able to participate in any events until it ends. He has also been kicked from the Starwars IV competition, and thus having a detrimental affect on his career.

Many people have said that the real problem is SK's Warcraft III manager, ownitsch. They believe his actions, and his personal feelings towards Deadman took over in which he has made the wrong decisions. Overall, ownitsch might of saved his team from a potentially much bigger situation, and we can thank him for that, but in the end, this could have gone any way and the real facts are still unknown.

A conclusion to this matter could also come down to which manager is the best on the social front for SK. Their inactive manager Enrique could have been more approachable to the situation, as he was the person who got Deadman into SK in the first place - knowing about the troubles that come with handling him - and could of taken Deadman's actions in a less serious manner, enabling the team to avoid such problems. This conflict is part Deadman's fault, part ownitsch, and was just not handled correctly.

The main lesson to be learned from this would be that a manager is not a manager just like that. It is crucial that the players are looked after. Avoiding this incident would have saved SK one of the biggest scandals in their Warcraft 3 history, and might have saved them from ending up last in the WC3L Finals.

The last point I can think of is that before the WC3L Finals, a series of interviews were conducted with the SK Players. This includes one of Deadman, who mentioned that he is indeed a huge DotA fan and would like to get involved in the game. While the other players were rather pessimistic about getting the championship, I saw a highly motivated Deadman who was eager to take the first place with his team, and who was also very excited about playing DotA with his mates. Could this of also been a reason for his actions that lead to this conflict? We can only wonder.

SK @ Dreamhack Summer 2007

In the final incident, we look at a blog done by the SK representative gosey, who has been known to be a tad arrogant, and has now taken it to another level. The blog however was removed from the SK frontpage under the HOT Blogs section, where after receiving countless views and over 400 comments, the heat seemed to be far too much. TheSLasH and bds tried to back up gosey's claims, but it seems their efforts were not enough for the onslaught of disapproving comments.

The blog concerns the recent Swedish ESWC qualifiers where fnatic and Begrip qualified, but NiP and SK-Gaming did not. This however did not phase NiP as they have received an invite to the event as two teams have cancelled their trips. Now, SK|gosey has fought this decision as he believes his teams performance this year should be enough to let them receive the invite rather than NiP.

If we look at the situation with one blind eye, we can see that NiP and EvilZone placed a respective 3-4th at the qualifiers, while SK placed 5th-6th. This clearly states that either NiP or EvilZone should be picked, and not SK. The ESWC commitee based this decision on pure rules, and it must be respected. He however believes his teams group stage was much harder than NiP's, and also his teams performance this year, are good enough reasons to receive an ESWC berth. In the end, this is the ESWC competition, not a competition that includes every other tournament as its partners.

Some bold statements were also made by gosey such as "Well, as you can see, there is nothing logic nor fair in inviting NiP to ESWC instead of SK." and "Everyone also knows that SK can't afford missing ESWC and ESWC can't afford missing SK." These words represent a person who believes his team is holier than thou, but we all know that this is the year 2007, not 2003. The level of Counter-Strike has risen over the years, and the competition is fierce. This must also be respected as the former titans of the game are now mere rivals with these rising teams.

In the end, SK-Gaming is probably the most iconic and well-known gaming organization out there. But with these incidents, and bold words, how can the fans and spectators of these respective games believe in their 'heroes' if such things happen. This is truly a case of arrogance and jealousy as people believe that their past can be used to manipulate the present, but in our world today, this is not the way. Just accept defeat and move on with life.

It is the 10th year of SK-Gaming, and it seems to me that their teams aren't focusing enough on the results, but rather on the headlines.