ESFI World

In an era where e-sports has witnessed exponential growth, one force is moving the trend in the opposite direction. He goes by the name of Gus “AZK.WitchDoc” Ledesma. Ledesma is the founder and CEO/Manager of Team AZK, a pro-gaming team in the Philippines. His respectable title, however, has little to do with the integrity that he brings to the e-sports community.

Ledesma began advertising the Philippine Pro Starcraft League (PPSL) in grassroots fashion on teamliquid.net with its promotion dating as early as June 2011. The event's legitimacy was questionable from the start, with its publicity severely lacking. Promotional materials published on teamliquid.net were poorly written. Anyone could sign up for this event, and to do so, one would simply have to email Ledesma with the league that they were currently in¹. Furthermore, the information that was released regarding the event was scarce, yet it seemed to change with each coming week. Team AZK bolstered that many well-respected Koreans would be attending this event, which would feature infamous casting duo "Tastosis".

Before we begin talking about the mishaps of the event itself, it is important to shed light on the unethical behavior and unprofessionalism that took place before the PPSL got underway. In early September, Ledesma contacted Derek “Dox” Reball with the offer to invite two Australian gamers to join the PPSL through an extensive qualifying series; the discussion between both parties is marred with communication issues on Team AZK’s end, often resulting in long delays and non-responses. It was decided that two players from Reball’s Australian qualifying series would be flown out by Team AZK to take a part in the PPSL held in Manila.

In the Australian Qualifiers, David “Rossi” Rossi took first place with Kristoffer “TargA” Marthinsen finishing as the runner up. TargA indicated he was unable to attend the Pacific Qualifiers, which meant that his seat would be given to the 3^rd place finalist, Yoon “YoonYJ” Yo Jun. Ledesma seemed to have no intention, however, of keeping his end of the agreement. In late October, Ledesma instead approached Australian player Andrew “mOOnGLaDe” Pender and offered him the second qualifying spot on the condition that mOOnGLaDe joins Ledesma’s own team, Team AZK. Only when Pender refused the offer did Ledesma then announce that YoonYJ would be taking the second qualifier vacancy. In a story told by YoonYJ himself, he describes how Ledesma failed to uphold his end of a signed contract, never being flown to Manila to compete.

For all those who watched the PPSL and noticed a few familiar names on Team AZK’s roster, namely Sickness from Team NEX, one can only assume as to how AZK, a largely unknown team outside of the Philippines, acquired such a talented player.

However, YoonYJ wasn’t the only one cheated out of Team AZK’s operations. As the PPSL's first day began, viewers worldwide were turned off to the lack of professionalism that took place on the screen.

The IGN Pro League (IPL) would not only help sponsor the event, but also use the PPSL as host to the IPL4 pacific qualifiers, offering a spot to be seeded in the now well-respected league's events in 2012. To IPL’s shock and dismay, the PPSL was severely unorganized and in no way, shape, or form suitable to stream on IPL’s channel. A disaster ensued, unfortunately highlighted by start time delay of 9 hours, mediocre stream quality, computers that were even unable to run StarCraft 2, a lack of soundproof booths for the players, over 30 minutes of delays in between each match and terrible sound quality that consistently cut out throughout the broadcast.

IPL responded by removing the stream from their channel completely and writing an apology³ to the viewers via Teamliquid.net where they addressed their concerns with the Philippine Pro Starcraft League. Furthermore, possible match fixing may have occurred in the round of 16. The matches that were initially released by Team AZK had changed and coincidentally, the revised bracket placed Team AZK members more spread throughout the Round of 16 matches while they were initially clustered to one portion of the bracket⁴. There may be sufficient reason to change the bracket; however, this new bracket gives Team AZK a greater chance of progressing through the tournament. Lastly, many spectators at the event paid up to $12 for VIP tickets that literally had no value. Seats were not reserved for VIP ticket holders and anyone could enter the venue to spectate.

Out of everyone involved with the event, IPL should be the last to apologize as their only aim was to support the growth of e-sports in the Philippines. We still await a response from Ledesma and Team AZK regarding the mishaps of the event but more importantly a response as to where all the money went. This includes the funding from all the sponsors of the PPSL and the money that should have been used to fly YoonYJ to the Philippines. Alongside the PPSL, Team AZK announced that they would also simultaneously be hosting a Heroes of Newerth tournament in the same vicinity. Needless to say, this event never happened. The tournament had not been officially postponed until the post was made by Ledesma on Teamliquid.net after the event had already concluded. Players were turned away and the location of sponsorship money from S2 and the $2,000 prize money is currently up in the air. As the event continued, Ledesma was nowhere to be found and the frantic staff of Team AZK had to deal with the issues that were then inherited from their missing leader.

Gus Ledesma (crouching), the man taking the heat behind the PPSL debacle (Source: Twitter)

The e-sports community has learned a lot from this mishap, most notably:

1. While e-sports is on the rise and the community consists of honest fans and
contributors, there are people who would take advantage of this integrity.

2. The e-sports community is largely supportive of each other. Many replies to IPL’s apology letter are ones of sympathy. Posts on reddit and Team AZK facebook wall represent the opinion of many fans angered at the injustices done to the community. Negative posts published on Team AZK's Facebook wall have been quickly removed from the page's administrator.

For those who want to see the initial fiasco that was streamed before removal from IPL’s channel, you can view it at http://www.justin.tv/ignproleague/b/299383660.

Ledesma offered his own personal response to the events that happened at PPSL, including apologies to everyone who attended and made the event possible, in a post published on Teamliquid.net Wednesday. His words have been largely rejected by the community. To boot, a Tweet posted Wednesday morning by the PPSLTV account added to the enragement:

IPL's Alex Conn also made a follow-up announcement after having spent some time reviewing the situation. Conn answers questions in regards to why IGN selected PPSL to run the IPL4 qualifier in the first place, if IGN will ever go back to the Philippines again and what this means for the future of IPL regionals.