A Sip of Learning Tea

NOV 18 | EDITION #125
Hello everyone, hope you’re having a great day so far, we deserve it, sometimes. Hey, all the crew from XL Esports and OS Studios, welcome aboard. Let's see whats good...

This week:

TSM is the same TSM from 8 years ago.
META makes the first move.
Halo teaching other games how it's done.
Roblox steps into education.

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🍺 Beer Talk

💅 A Sip of Learning Tea

We’re often surrounded by the everlasting, money-making, delicious drama. Especially in gaming, a fairly young industry where most people at the top are still children in power.

I don’t cover drama because honestly, I don’t usually give a fuck about it. However, if drama is covered differently — as a quick cheat sheet with a fun moral of a fable, now I’m interested.

Let’s give it a go.

A Clown Fiesta
TSM built a name for themselves thanks to being early in esports and having a lot of success with the pro players they hired. The best investors, sponsors and staff looked at TSM as THE esports team to be part of.

So, TSM kept these talented people who still drive their business and content strategies to this day. But, all shiny startups have a kid who can’t stop messing shit up. Enter TSM’s CEO and founder: TSM Reginald (Andy Dinh).

This guy is known for being hella toxic and immature with people he works with. His latest episode:

Former TSM LoL player but still TSM member, Doublelift (Peter), said he hates Andy because the players who gave him everything have now been treated like garbage. The same example as how FC Barcelona treated Messi, Suarez and Neymar and now the club is in trouble.
He also said: "I don't have to like them to have a mutually beneficial situation", "It wasn't my choice to retire". Well, not very smart to stay that, you just laid a red carpet for them to fire you.
Then, Andy comes with a Reddit post. "He is really challenging to work with". A lot of ‘we said this, he said that’ type of bullshit. A post that could be right or wrong, but PR as it gets, and the opposite of how he sounds in real life. Andy’s Reddit username is u/reginaldBRO...
Here is where we get a third person involved, and oh my god get ready for this one. Leena, President of Esports at TSM, who’s also Andy’s ex-girlfriend and Peter’s current girlfriend, publicly gave her thoughts on Discord — “They both have unmanageable egos”. Excuse me, are we in a fucking elementary school playground right now? Like, damn. Can any grown ups at TSM do something?
Right after that, Peter doubles down on Andy saying that people came forward but still there's a lot who won’t talk because TSM is a viable option to work at. So players are still good with the idea of being harassed by Andy as long as they are part of TSM. Interesting.

Bottom Line
I don’t care if Andy is the Ellen DeGeneres of gaming, who looks all happy on camera but would get easily stabbed in the back. I care about the industry:

FTX recently signed a $210M naming rights deal with TSM. With how cancel culture and social media work right now, are TSM board members or investors not worried at all of having a bombshell instead of a CEO?
One of esports’ main brands is led by a person who can't change his ways of treating people. Are we losing credibility as a whole?
I think the real question is if the new reality of companies will be around the idea of having a conflictive and more public owner, leveraging from an engagement perspective because people like behind-the-scenes drama? Or are we still in a young industry where children like Andy will be removed soon?

💣 New Games & Trailers
POKEMON BRILLIANT DIAMOND / SHINING PEARL — Trailer
MARVEL’S AVENGERS: SPIDER-MAN — Trailer
RAINBOW SIX EXTRACTION — Spotlight
20 YEARS OF XBOX — New Games
FAR CRY 6 — Spotlight

📖 Read of the Week
The Things We Love are the Real Fountain of Youth, by Eric Pierce.
Full Time Fan, by Blake Robbins.

🏆 Esports Highlights

MKLeo with a nasty clutch to win Smash Bros. Mainstage.
League of Legends: all roster changes so far.
FaZe Clan wins Rainbow Six Sweden Major.
CDL: all roster changes so far.

❓ Honest Question to Reddit
/esports reddit, are you good? Look, not sure if covering drama today made me feel extra feisty, but come on now… if you go to r/esports 80% of the links are from GinxTV and the other 20% from Esportz, why?

Whenever I post a Weekly edition in there, it does really well for an hour and all of the sudden mods block it because “it’s not related to gaming”. The fuck you mean not related to gaming? r/esports main publication right now is a GinxTV article about Activision’s sexual assault allegations. If somebody knows who is in charge of this mafia can you let me know please? I’ve heard major news outlets and teams complaining about this before, maybe I’m just late to Al Capone’s party.

🐦 Thread of the Week
Twitter acquired Threader, because of that, let’s bring back juicy threads:

Why do game studios have Montreal as the #1 place to go?, by Daniel Ahmad.
Game companies and innovative business thinking belief is wrong, by Mitch Lasky. Interested to know your thoughts on this one.

🥇 Events’ News
Everything revealed at Riot Forge Presentation.
All nominees at the Game Awards 2021.

🧤 Meta’s First Move
In a few words: no one below the age of 48 was using Facebook, so when Zuckerberg saw the concept of the Metaverse coming to life, he decided to ditch Facebook’s branding real quick and rebrand it to Meta.

First move? VR Gloves that make you feel sensations when you touch stuff digitally. Pretty much the same concept as the VR Suit that you saw on Ready Player One. The glove has been in the works for 7 years.

🔌 Marketing Pieces

🎒 Gaming x Education
We’ve seen several gaming companies trying to bridge gaming and education, but I think Roblox will take the lead on this one soon.

🔫 Big Boy is Back
All gaming OGs, and everyone salty at current FPS buggy games were very excited with the Halo Infinite surprise release (complete video). To be aware of:

🔦 Spotlight of the Week
Fortiche is the production and animation company who worked on Riot’s Arcane. I’m in love with this group of talented people.