99.99999% of us weren't even affected. It happened over the off season and nobody runs the client to pug or anything.

What they did was fucked, but they are replacing broken graphics cards, donated the amount and matched it to cancer, AND added the amount to the prize pot. While I wouldn't mind if somebody goes to jail for this, I'm not going to not play esports because of it, especially when it had absolutely no effect on me.

If they a broke state law would you stop typing in caps?

It's more like "we are cool with ESEA doing whatever the fuck they want as long as we can still play vidya games."

I'm not even going to try arguing on this forum about that one. If people are fine with being manipulated by a business as long as they can secure their own entertainment, that form of control is almost impossible to fight against.

Then again, you have to consider that ESEA didn't murder anyone; calling it stealing is a bit far-fetched. What you do have is inept management, which, in America, is so commonplace as to be completely forgivable and forgettable by the general populace. Children who fuck up do not get my money and they shouldn't get yours, but who am I to say what little Jimmy does with mom's cash.

'murca

Companies getting mismanagement doesn't only happen in America although your monologue about it sure was adorable. I may have to remind you that dealing with humans frequently results in mistakes and exploitation regardless of country or industry. If you were leading a company and one of your managers decided to take advantage of a situation and was caught by the public how would you like it to play out? Would you enjoy it if our society was such that because your manager fucked up your entire business is over? Do you really think it isn't acceptable for a user to respect the efforts the company made to make good on their blunder? Especially considering ESEA provides a lot of value for many people, and doesn't have a history of exploitation to this degree.

I would consider myself more against ESEA than most other tftv users, however I feel it's important to stay as objective as possible seeing as this is an infraction of the....

5.
Sit this season out
1 vote (2%)

i am the 2% :(

Heh... 69%

I'm not and have never been an ESEA subscriber, but I was considering joining a team sometime in the summer or spring. After this whole debacle, I cannot consider joining or supporting ESEA in good conscience. I cannot believe how quickly it seemed everyone gave up and stopped caring. If you want companies to feel they can just walk all over video game players and competitive communities, well you just sent that message loud and clear.

ESEA is making loads e' money on their leagues, but in spite of this I haven't seen Team Fortress or Counter Strike grow. Not in viewership, features, or quality. It's just been same ol', same ol' which is great if you want competitive FPS to go the way of the dodo. I'm going to be checking out IGL and helping out where I can so that league can get off the ground. After what ESEA did and didn't do, they deserve to fail.

This is a false statement. People do care, there just isn't a competing league to join. And TF2 has continued to grow season after season, with larger prize pots, better site features and streaming.

People didn't "give up" or "stop caring" what happened was ESEA responded to the issue and created solutions that made a majority of the community at peace with the situation. Again everyone is rightfully upset that this happened but that doesn't mean its a situation that can't be fixed.

If you want to get upset at something get upset about the fact that the amount of truthful information we got out of ESEA was directly proportional to the amount of upvotes their reddit post had. I wonder what information we would of got if the situation didn't explode the the mainstream gaming community. That's the facet of this story that concerns me the most; and why ESEA will not have the same level of trust as I once had for them.

"loads of money"
i mean we've been through this but the fact that they support tf2 is INCREDIBLE
they LOSE money on it but they do gain exposure for it, what company would continue spending money on something that doesn't give back as much as it takes in
and you're making the assumption that what happened was the fault of the entire company when it could easily have been the fault of only a few people

also what shwan said

Why would ESEA keep doing TF2 if they were loosing money or value on it? That makes no sense.

Because even though they don't profit directly, they gain exposure which is worth $$.

The reason everyone is not making a fuss about this at least in the tf2 community:

1. Very few tf2 players were affected (I don't even know of one).
2. ESEA does a lot for TF2 and, despite some problems, runs a quality league that achieves what it sets out to; quality competition and organization of esports.
3. They replaced everything that was broken and gave back much more than they ever took in the first place.
4. This was not a ESEA conspiracy to mine with your GPU, this was one admin making a bad choice (maliciously or not, doesn't really matter). ESEA as an organization is not at fault here, every company has employees that do bad things. These employees get punished (I hope whoever put the bitcoin stuff in the client gets fired for making such a huge mistake), but it is silly to suggest that the entire organization be punished for one man/woman's transgressions.

dude, someone HIRED by ESEA commited a crime, therefore, ESEA as a whole is responsible, not just that one person.

That's not loosing money then! If you're calling it that way they're trading liquid assets for valuation, which is still making them worth more.

3. I haven't heard any reports that they've actually gotten hardware to anyone yet. I'd be surprised if their turnaround was that quick.

4. Taking everything TorBull said at 100% face value is naive at best and stupid at worst, but that's besides the point. It doesn't matter if it was or wasn't an ESEA conspiracy. That's a non-issue. The fact of the matter is their software acted as a trojan. I work in the software industry. If we did that to our clients, our entire company would be fucked so fast we'd have whiplash. They haven't fired said employee, they haven't conducted a third party audit, they've given us weasel words and smoke and mirrors.

I can't imagine anyone having a shred of trust in them at this point.

I thought TronPaul made an honest mistake spelling "losing" like "loosing", but it has happened twice.

I agree, and it seems you have to work in the software industry to understand how horrific this entire situation was. There is a reason (besides media obsession with bitcoins) that this story blew up to international levels on tech news sites. lpkane claims to have written and tested the code himself, so he for sure should be held partially responsible. It is fishy as hell that they have still not identified which employee included the code into the production build.

My take on the situation is this. Unless they're living in the stone age, they're using a version control system for the source code of their anti-cheat software. They know for sure who put that code into the anti-cheat. They also have some sort of central server managing the responses the anti-cheat clients send them. They mention that the mining code was activated by that server, but we don't know that for certain. If that is the case however they should have logs (unless they're not smart) of who changed that setting on the anti-cheat server.

Realistically they have their man, but they're just not doing jack besides "making sure it doesn't happen again". Well I'm sure the next time you'll follow good business practices >.>

http://puu.sh/2NDof.png

shots_fired

But is it LiteCoin free?

Just a reminder that the legal definition of stealing involves depriving the previous owner of the object or commodity taken. Nobody was actually stolen from, even if bitcoins were a government regulated currency (which they're not).

The only case you can make against ESEA is for the potential damage to your GPU, and they've already opened tickets for people to settle that claim.

There's nothing else to be mad over.

actually if I do something outside our company policy and it causes damages I can be held personally liable.

wait, I just moved and am catching up on this thread, but Flippers is getting downvoted for this?

Flippers just laid down some truth. I definitely hold both of my businesses to the same degree. If someone does some shit under my watch at eXtv or Produce Row Cafe then it's my responsibility. If it's some seriously messed up shit, they get fired, and I do my hardest to repair the damage done, and correct what led to the mistake in the first place.

They are doing that at ESEA, giving freemium to people who paid premium in april, paying the money to cancer charity, matching the donation, and increasing season rewards, all while paying for damaged GPU's. I would assume whoever did this is going to be fired.
And what is the point of complaining about minusfrags?

Of course ESEA is responsible. That's why they are expected to (and supposedly are) replacing any damaged hardware, as well as giving all the money back (and more) to the prize pot and charity.

I would prefer the person responsible be fired too but I'm not holding my breath.

Keep in mind that if they severe ties with the people responsible in a negative manner, who know so much about the code and client, the potential damages they could create by selling them out to hack producers, using backdoors and whatnot could be really really devastating.

Giving the money to cancer charity and matching that on paper sounds good, but keep in mind that they can take that receipt and use it to keep that same money in the business come tax day.

It's not a "good thing" it's not "excusable" it doesn't make up for ANYTHING because that money essentially never leaves their hands!

I haven't heard of any successful GPU replacements, myself. So I'm not going to assume that's happening, merely because people were told to "open a ticket." Only time will tell.

Increasing the season awards is a nice gesture, it helps them a bit but its not like it will make a huge difference in new players coming in because the prize pot went up. In that respect its a little selfless.

I have huge respect for duder for saying it in plain terms, although a few people may have taken his exaggerations a bit off.

These laws are there for a very good reason, it really is a serious issue to break them, and mocking the people who are rightfully outraged about it is a very poor choice, as is jumping on someone for using a somewhat sensationalist example of what we should be able to agree on.

Using other people or their property for your own gain, to their own detriment is very wrong.
It shouldn't be appeased by a collection of mostly self serving acts (getting a tax write off.) With what comes very close to tangible change, relief, atonement, but still never breaks the barrier, "If we damaged your GPU tell us about it," "The unnamed and unidentified individual responsible will be dealt with."

If it upsets you, then don't play in the league. There's no real reason to continue this discussion.

I wish it were that easy, however people can still be upset, yet not really have that option.

It's right before a pretty interesting looking season, a lot of teams and players put a lot of effort, commitment, time and love into this game with their team and friends, as well as the community in general.

It's not as easy a choice to walk out on people who may be depending on you, especially if you put a lot of effort in already preparing for this next season, scrimming, trying people out, paying for a server, watching demos, building friendships.

Even if you feel really anxious, upset and betrayed, this company still has a monopoly on counter strike and TF2, and with no real comparable leagues, we have to treat this situation with as much care as possible to keep our sport alive, but without having to bend over backwards for the people who realize they have a monopoly to work with.

There is always reason to continue a discussion, if it is constructive and honest. I would take issue more with passively dismissing an entire dialogue, or side of a debate.

Some examples of continued ESEA 'shadyness' and the many hoops one must jump through to acquire a replaced card.

http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6g4zr.jpg

Claims Process Post:
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=forums&d=topic&id=493760&find_comment_number=1#n1

Message between a cs friend and torbull:

I suggest you try an RMA with them and say the card is overheating and see if you can get the issue resolved directly. With proper correspondence and documentation of your discussions with them, we would reimburse for any shipping costs incurred and for our mistake.

We have discovered that the Bitcoin mining activities were done on a limited basis and were done with many technical safeguards to prevent cards from overheating, such as an extended cool down cycle between processes and a monitor to cease mining if the card exceeded 90 degrees Celcius. The strain on the vast majority of users' machines / GPUs is no different than and similarly resource intensive as running a normal new game.

We have engaged the top computer repair shops, specializing in video games and internet technologies, and they have informed us that if you are experiencing issues then it likely IS due to the card being defective and not able to operate at that reasonable temperature.

Reddit post explaining the shady situation in depth:
http://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1dtl05/investigation_esea_caught_being_shaddy_again/

TLDR; the 'top computer repair' shops which they consult with have been working closely with ESEA for years. They also attempt to bully you into an RMA when able, or simply put you through the pain of shipping your whole computer to their "top technicians" which are practically affiliates of esea. 'Tisk 'tisk Torbull.

Why would you have to send the entire computer for only the video card?