Won’t be happy being underpaid either 
They took a bad offer, and cry about it. That’s just not really the behaviour of a devoted freelancer.
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If coaching was a thing, then do what they do in dota, and allow coaching, where the person does not play, but watches in real time.
Supply and demand. Sucks but it’s reality.
The only reason it requires so much practice is because everyone tries cheating/breaking ToS to enable making a living off of it.
If they weren’t they wouldn’t be playing 10+ hours a day - they’d be working. Like everyone else.
It’s called unfair competition.
“Coaching” = “RMT carry” - which is against ToS, for good reason.
It should never be allowed.
Are you seriously trying to argue that we shouldn’t punish people breaking agreements and contracts because “they might kill themselves”.
This is quite possibly the most dishonest line of argumentation I’ve ever heard.
Moreover, if you really want to bring in a tragic suicide into this then Reckful clearly didn’t commit suicide because he got banned on WoW. If that was the case (which it wasn’t) then it’s a vast over reaction to which there is a simple solution: Just. Don’t. Break. ToS.
Same here. Does that give me a free-pass to break the rules of the game and ruin it for everyone else? No.
Wait, you realize that basically everyone is doing that in life, right? Everyone.
These e-sport players are just acting like spoiled man babies instead of handling it just like everyone else - by getting a job and understanding that we’re living in reality, not fairyland.
They’re not “coaching” people. That’s just cheat-speak for “paid carry” i.e. paid boosting.
They’re playing games, carrying them to titles, for real money. If you can’t understand how that is bad for the game then that’s on you.
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Creating open arena servers with all gear and talents available for testing and 3rd party tournaments is already huge for the scene. It means people can make their own competitions and then the income from being pro grows with low investment.
Proper spectator mode would do miracles. Right now you can only spectate Wargames and Blizzard said it’s due to coding.
Somehow AT private server was able to create their own spectator mode using Wrath code. It was based on released spirit you become after you die in arena. Basically people could join the game and walk like released spirit and watch other’s games being invisible to the players actually fighting.
I hadn’t realised they were basically selling boosts. If that’s the case then fair enough
There’s still the major issue that gold boosting is legal and because there’s a legal market for trading gold into real money, it equates to real money trading. And yet Blizzard are ok with that since it translates to revenue for them. That is one massive piss take
Yeah tokens suck, for sure.
But a minor difference with tokens is that there’s no incentive to do gold boosts forever (for the people selling boosts).
You can live of RMT but you can’t live off of WoW gold (without breaking ToS by selling the gold for $$$).
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While I don’t deny you are right. I’d like Blizzard to show pro-player stance not corporal one. Banning these players is curing the symptom not the root cause. The reason why boosting business is bigger than ever is PvE loot problem and hard gating gear in PvP. They caused this havoc not players.
Also if players have to earn money in such practices to afford living while being pro-WoW player then build environment for them to do it. Create clear rules for what is allowed as “coaching” and in what form they can charge for it so they can get extra source of income. Maybe let them create new fresh 60 chars with basic gear to play with coached person. Maybe create a platform controlled by Blizzard where people pay players for real coaching (so Blizzard can take a fee and still earn on it) not boosting. Just help these people to afford their living.
The only reasons I was watching AWC was being able to see Zeepeye and Swapxy play. To see how good can someone be if he plays my specs at full potential. Since they are banned I cba watching Arms/Ret and Arms/Fire mirrors in both EU and NA.
This whole situation can be easily solved if Blizzard would ask them to apologize to the community and by creating a proper way for them to coach people to become better players. To make it happen though there must be pro-customer will from Blizzard instead of just poor corporal stance.
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The amount of mental gymnastics going on in this thread trying to defend RMT boosters is hilarious. They made tens of thousands of euros boosting in BfA last season alone. Get these rats out of here. No one will miss them.
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It’s also hilarious to see that people feel they are entitled to make a living off a videogame, just because said game is their passion.
They broke the rules, they got justifiably banned. Shame it’s not a permaban.
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That’s the opposite of how it works…
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It’s a meme. It didn’t really carry the same punchline if I called them immoral people who don’t hesitate to violate the terms of service repeatedly, with no regard for how their actions affect the game or the other people who play it.
I couldn’t really fit all that into the picture. Cheaters will do. Y’all know what I mean.
But this is beneficial for both sides. Zeepeye is the reason why many people even play Ele in PvP. Banning him is really poor move. Just give him opportunity to live from playing WoW by creating a coaching platform where he can coach but not boost and that you can earn money from as well. Both sides are beneficial.
Good example is people didn’t want to buy every single album to listen to them on their mobile phones so they put pirate MP3 files on them. Someone invented spotify so you pay monthly sub and you can listen to whatever you want for a price of one album while artists earn per amount of times the song was played.
And this is called knowing how to make business.
Look at someone like Pika, Preach or Ashmon, they do it already. He apparently started quite late in the Twitch environment I heard, and that takes time to build, grow and establish in. It takes actually more than being good in the game.
If you want to live of WoW, you can, without breaking the rules.
He broke the rules on purpose because…because…he lacked a business plan and the charizma to actually attract many viewers.
Yes, he did participate in the AWC and he may inspire some players to play certain specs. But that is irrelevant. They knew the prize money, which isn’t even a guaranteed full payout.
If all the AWC players considered the prize pool too low; they should have all boycotted it. AWC without Whaaz’s team, Hydra, Cdew is no AWC and then Blizzard had to do something…
Breaking the rules was an idiotic move. And expectinf Blizzard to give you a freelance oppertunity is not much better…
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They could get a part-time job. It’s not up to Blizzard to make tournament fees high if they don’t want to. Nothing you can say will justify them boosting for rmx.
It’s a bit silly to compare <20 y.o. Pika who lives in Sacramento with parents when he doesn’t pay for rent to 24 y.o. Zeepeye who is living in Sweden on his own. Life in Sweden is very expensive if you didn’t know.
Actually Zeepeye is one of the biggest EU PvP streamers currently but being WoW streamer will never be a proper source of income unless you are Asmon or what Soda/Reckful once were. If they’d switch to Fortnite they might live from streaming but streaming WoW isn’t that prominent as you think.
It’s not about making prize pools bigger but create a platform for players to provide coaching for money that isn’t boosting so they can have extra source of income to support their pro WoW career.
Also perma hardware ban for Loony is way to harsh. That AWC rule that if you are banned for more than 48 hours you can’t compete for a year after ban expires is also stupid. The fact their WoW accounts are banned should be enough. I’d love Blizzard to allow them to apologize to at least get their AWC participation permitted.
Don’t some of them work for skillcapped? They are most likely getting paid for pvp guides there. (I’m not really sure how it works since I’ve never visited their site)
What those pro players will do when age will kick in and reaction time will decline? Go,go go MC Donald?
They are paid % from skill-capped website income. Considering how small PvP scene is I don’t believe that any content creator would earn more than few hundred euros a month.
They will take casual 9-5 job probably. Mystic is the owner of skill-capped so he can make it a proper esports org in the future and compete in other games but others I don’t think they earned enough to open their own business. Some pros like Talbadar became Blizzard employees and some like Azael became casters. Azael switched game to League and now he is one of the best paid casters world.
There are some opportunities but their future is far from bright I’d say.
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That ship has left a long time ago. Unfortunately.
Supply and demand. WoW competitive PvP is a hobby that doesn’t generate enough profit to warrant investing more in.
Partly true for sure.
But as others have pointed out - these players made 20K+ euro last season alone (per player), and that’s before the gear changes that made PvP rating extremely important (mostly to PvErs).
You can calculate how many boosts that comes out to yourself.
The problem isn’t just the gear, at the R1 level I think the problem is really that the Gladiator title and mount is so juicy to people and that’s where they get their big buck. Should they nerf that? I don’t think so.
The rules are fairly clear. You are not allowed to offer an ingame service for real life money. I see no reason to change that.
If they want to coach anyway they can be creative and use VoDs and discord. I’ve seen that kind of coaching used successfully in other games like LoL and SC2. That’s already allowed.
Absolutely not. This game doesn’t need more RMT interactions (token is too much already). Can’t believe people would suggest things like this.
Don’t you see what the consequences of this would be? Titles wouldn’t be acquired by skill - they’d be based off of who has the most money to pay the boosters.
No? Why should they ever be allowed to do this? Why should these players be entitled to new characters to do what they would do (against ToS) anyway?
This doesn’t make any sense, sorry.
There are proper ways for people to coach in a “legal” manner (in the true meaning of the word, not the cheat-speak version).
VODs, discord play-by-play feedback, talent reviews etc.
That’s a horrible analogy!
I also live in Sweden. Where is my free-pass to break the ToS because “I live in an expensive country” and “WoW is my passion”?
Play by the rules or don’t play at all.
No. We don’t want “coaching” (read: boosting) in this game.
No it isn’t. Blizzard is allowed to deal punishments to players as they wish. If the player isn’t stopping with RMT boosting no matter how many times they get account banned then they apparently need to be HW banned.
PS: I’m not even sure he’s HW banned. Where did you get that?
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