Huge match-fixing scandal rocks world of South Korean StarCraft

I don't know about sAvior but Jaedong is definitely the highest or second highest ranked player at the moment. Only other person I could think of would be Flash.

Thanks.

I'm going to PM AznLiquid for more details ... Neo's resident StarCraft expert...

Unofficial sources say Savior has made $2,000,000 from match fixing over the years.

This whole situation just disgusts me as a loyal fan, but it's not surprising at all. Progaming has been hit by numerous scandals in the past but I won't get into those if you don't already know them.

But why would they do this?
The simple answer is that they live in absolutely terrible conditions and are making huge sacrifices for little reward in the long run. An average progamers' career span is 5 years and make less than $20,000 per year (top players make ~150-250k) and are basically giving up time that would be spent on post-secondary education. Let's take Savior for example. He was the most dominant player of all time during late 2005-early 2007 but he wasn't on a 'rich' team and was probably making less than $100k/year. So in his situation, why not make the money you feel you deserve by betting against yourself? These guys are incredibly young, live in a dorm with 20 other guys, practice 12+ hours per day and have little free time. Until it evolves into a 'real' sport with better organization and better playing conditions, this is going to keep happening.

With all that said, I really hope the community can recover from this. I believe in e-sports being the future of gaming in general. But damn, Starcraft II cannot come any quicker. Blizzard wants to govern all progaming when it hits and I cannot see KeSPA putting much resistance now, considering they knew about this gambling situation a long time ago.

2m! Whew . That's a lot of cheddar.

Thanks for you comment. As you just laid it out, I can totally see how that sort of life style / situation would be open to shady shenanigans.

Also, the fact that 3 SK Telecom players (fantasy, bisu, best) are on the list is a bit shocking. If they really are guilty, Boxer must be pissed beyond belief to have that shit pulled off on his own team. Boxer is the man who invented e-sports and plays every game with 100% dedication and appreciation for all the fans. If he hasn't already, I'd like to see him make an official statement on this messy situation.

And I've been a fan of Bisu for years, I really hope those guys are clean.

What iv heard is that we might have to pay monthly fees to play SC2 online.... i know its confirmed for our russian counter parts!
I really hope this does not spread to the rest of the world or i will be giving SC2 a skip.

on topic, always a sad note when people are caught cheating, match fixing is a big bummer for all fans and supporters! Now its up to them to gain the publics trust back, im sure it wont be any easy feat!

quote Looter

What iv heard is that we might have to pay monthly fees to play SC2 online.... i know its confirmed for our russian counter parts!

Not true. Blizzard has confirmed Battle.net 2.0 being free many times already.

quote Blizzard

Players who purchase either edition will be able to play online for no additional fee through the new version of Battle.net®, the premier online gaming destination for Blizzard Entertainment gamers.

Blizzard Press Release

thats very good news
Thanks for clearing things up

How long will that really last though? Activision is already talking about a monthly fee to play MW2...

quote Northern49

How long will that really last though? Activision is already talking about a monthly fee to play MW2...

All I have to say to that is if developers begin to jump on this bandwagon they're going to be digging themselves an early grave. It's about time they make something worth buying rather then start charging for the garbage (MW2) that's already out there to try and keep themselves afloat.

The game has two different sale models in Russia for a very specific reason- full price games are basically totally worthless in the Russian market.

So Russian players can either buy the EU version for full price, or they can buy a Russian version for $30 (half price) which comes with 120 days of playtime on Battlenet and requires an upgrade to the full version after that period in order to keep playing.

This is actually the model released by the local distributor in Russia and a lot of games there operate on this model.

All the big team sponsors are now attempting to cover this whole thing up. It's likely we will never officially know which players on that list were truly guilty.