To what extent is ethics swallowed by sheer profit? Recent reports with the Saudi Arabia owned Savvy Gaming Group (SSG) buying ESL and Faceit for $1.5B, together with the partnership of the United Arab Emirates owned ADGaming (ADG) and Blast suggest otherwise. With these deals, green dollar bills have turned red as blood money seeps into the esports ecosystem which could be devastating to both the faces, the fans and the sponsors within it, where the political message broadcasted might not be in line with the message esports itself and its actors are trying to send. The hypocrisy alone of having ESL running their female tournament, ESL Impact, is a duality of ethics that is hard to swallow.
Savvy Marketing of Geopolitical Agendas
When ESL and Faceit were bought by SSG the community reaction was disappointing to say the least. There was one example, where the reaction was satisfactory, we’ll come back to that. When it comes to the Saudi involvement in esports, there are a number of concerns from a western perspective, namely the practice of Sharia Law, which alone is a massive red flag.
Saudi Arabia has a group of volunteers called Muttawa’s, who are upholding the Sharia Law in practice, where their subjective viewpoint and interpretation is enforced upon the people visiting their country.
The Muttawa are likely to cause problems for any woman they deem to be wearing too much makeup or showing too much flesh. This rule of enforcement differs depending on which legislative part of a country you are visiting in the Middle-East. Furthermore,in Saudi Arabia LGBT+ relations are illegal, which can lead to flogging, jail and death (Source). However, they describe it as such:
“LGBTQ travelers are unlikely to experience any problems in the country as long as they act discreet and respect local laws and customs” (Source)
Tightening the screw even further, it is strictly forbidden to show public displays of affection and on public beaches, women are forbidden from swimming in front of men (Source). This implicates the difficulty for women and members of the LGBT+-community to express themselves as they would in the west, and makes their attendance to esports events a potential risk to their lives.
When it comes to Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations, the country imposes bans on travel, public speaking, resumption of human rights work and use of social media. This violates their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the country and freedom of movement outside the country (Source).
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia abstained from the United Nations vote adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, saying it contradicted Sharia Law (Source). Though they say they are working on making the country more accomedable for tourists, there are still outdated laws that travellers, in this case professionals, talent and fans, have to be aware of.
With all these restrictions on women in Saudi Arabia, they are still upholding the initiative of ESL Impact, the Counter-Strike women only competition. This begs the question, are they going to have events in Saudi Arabia for this competition, and are they honestly asking women to abandon their human rights and safety as the price of competing?
Be Prepared to Leave Your Values At Home in the New Era of Esports
Recently, another partnership has been established, where a known name will make its appearance again: Blast.
Blast announced a 3-year long partnership with ADG, an initiative funded by the Abu Dhabi government with the goal of creating an esports and gaming ecosystem in the region.
In the announcement Blast mentioned that as the first step in the partnership, they will hold their Blast Premier World Finals in Abu Dhabi in December of 2022 (Source).
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an authoritarian state, enforcing Sharia Law. They have been described by Jim Krane (2009) in his book City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism, as a “tribal autocracy” where the seven constituent monarchies are led by tribal rulers in an autocratic fashion. Since ADG is governmentally funded, the laws differ as to which constituent you find yourself in.
This means that the laws upheld in Abu Dhabi or Dubai might be different from other parts of the country. This also concerns the working conditions of the people within the country and the guest workers, who are subjected to slave-like coniditions.
Workers are living in cramped, dirty and unsafe environments and get threatened if they complain about their working conditions or seek help. We are truly taken back in time, where entertainment is paid by the blood of people unfortunate enough to have to risk their life to feed their families. Though Qatar has legistately made changes, that might not be enforced to its fullest extent (Source).
LGBT+ relationships are officially illegal, where depending on which constituent you are in, the treatment of these people may vary, “the law does not state outright that they incur the death penalty”, though generally discretion is advised (Source).
When Blast announced their partnership with UAE, it wasn’t a thundering shock to some members of the LGBT+ community:
oW, former pro player and member of the LGBT+ community : “I am obviously not surprised, I don’t think it has any significance for the CS scene in any way, when it already is LGBT+ hostile. There is a long way yet and we are talking, sadly, several years before we see a significant change.”
All-in-all there are quite a lot of concerns for westerners entering these countries. This time, so far, the money from the liquid gold from the Middle-East has entered Blast’s finances on their second try.
Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Esports organisations are in a situation of having to compete in tournaments, which are partnered with or owned by controversial entities. The partnership and ownership of these tournament organisers have come through faustian bargains, where the money that comes in overshadows the ethics of the deals. This leaves esports organisations in a position, in some cases, if they want to survive they have to compete, or turn the key on their CS:GO projects.
You might ask, why wouldn’t they just compete in other tournaments? Well, Blast and ESL are by far the biggest tournament organisers in CS:GO, with the biggest prestige, prize money and viewing numbers. The eyeballs watching their team is the main selling point to their sponsors, and sponsors are the main revenue income for these teams. The predicament rises, if the sponsors don’t want their names associated with teams competing in the tournaments from these tournament organisers, which is a deadly spiral, that without interference could mean the death of CS:GO esports as we know it.
Even with this predicament in mind, Kenneth Cortsen, PhD and sports economist comments:
“As we have seen with other sports, several countries have also started investing in esport. Here, of course, sports organisations need to think about where the money comes from and what they want to be associated with, because sport has become a platform through which certain countries nurture geopolitical interests and use soft power sponsorships. Sport has thus become the subject of sportswashing, where the image of these countries are ‘polished’ with the help of the sport’s popularity”
Natus Vincere, Astralis, Faze Clan, Heroic, and Apeks do not wish to comment at this time.
With all this said, there is still a Yemen-sized elephant in the room.
The War In Yemen
Entering the geopolitical scene of economics, we can no longer ignore the national conflicts of the countries involved, whereto the horrible war in Yemen takes precedence. There are two actors in the Yemen war, the Shi’a north against a Sunni south. The north is more prosperous, whereas the south isn’t, but the leaders decided to unite the two, as they believed they were stronger together than apart. The President of the new Yemen is from the south, and the former northern President has become the Vice President. With a unification of different people, tensions are unavoidable. These tensions started the downfall of the Yemeni project, which led to the north declaring its independence.
This started the brutal fighting between the two regions, where the Shi’a north is supported by Iran and Russia. The Sunni south is supported by Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA and more. The south had allegedly made secret deals with Al-Qaeda, where Al-Qaeda was asked to leave key cities and towns, let others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation from The Associated Press has found (Source 1, 2, 3). During this bloody war, the UN has verified that more than 10.200 children have been killed or injured, where the actual number is likely much higher (Source). 233.000 people have died since 2015, where an estimated 131.000 are the result of food insecurity and lack of health services (Source).
Money coming into the esports industry is from the same people who also fund a civil war that has lasted since 2015 with more than a quarter of a million people dead, which includes 10.200 children.
NEOM Failed At The Hand of the Community
The day NEOM announced their sponsorship with the LEC, there was an immediate outrage from fans, players, and talent, where the community took a stance when it would come to controversial sponsorships, forcing the LEC to end the sponsorship. Shortly after Blast also announced NEOM as a sponsor, and the noise from League of Legends fans, talent and players bled into the CS:GO space, which later forced Blast to end the sponsorship. To understand why NEOM was a controversial sponsor, a little background information, NEOM, who has Mohammed Bin Salmen as chairman, is a:
“New community that will be the home and workplace for more than a million citizens from around the world who want to be part of building a new model for sustainable living, working, and prospering in Saudi Arabia.” (LoL Esports)
Although their ambitions are large, the way this ambition is reached could be within the wrong execution, and fit under the age old saying; the end doesn’t justify the means. One factor was the land NEOM would be built on, the desolate terrain between the Red Sea coast and the mountainous Jordanian border, where the Bedouin Huwaitat tribe were already living. As for the promise of NEOM to “create jobs and generate wealth in this underdeveloped region” (Source). What happened to the Bedouin Huwaitat tribe was a different story. Two towns and 20.000 of the Huwaitat tribe were forcefully removed, without adequate compensation. The question might arise, what happens if they didn’t want to move? This happened to Abdulrahim al-Huwaiti, who in April 2020 refused to be evicted from his home in Tabuk and began posting videos online. A few days later, he was shot by Saudi security forces (Source). Mohamed Bin Salmen the owner of NEOM and SSG did this, who is a part of esports now, whether we like it or not.
This example shows how NEOM tried to wash their blood money within the esports space and failed.
The reaction from the community, talent, and players show, if they stand together, they can overcome faustian bargains made between business people behind the scenes. This is not the case with other industries, as McLaren Formula 1 Team announced NEOM as a proud sponsor of their team on June 27th 2022 saying “NEOM is an accelerator of human progress and a vision of what a New Future might look like.” (Source).
It is worth considering that esports is in the unique situation where there is a lot of communication and interaction between the fans, the organisations, tournament organisers, and the commercial entities, there is a real impact to be made. The situation is different in traditional sports, where there is a natural wall between the fans, the commercial and professional entities. This is the superpower esports has over the other entertainment and sports industries.
Esports has defied a controversial sponsor coming in with blood money once, so why is it it didn’t happen this time around?
What Happened To Ethics In Esports?
These are the people, who our industry is making faustian deals with. People who have restrictive rules and humanitarian violations, war crimes and alleged association with Al-Qaeda, but that oil money sure tastes good, doesn’t it?
This leads to the question of the previously mentioned superpower esports has over other entertainment and sports industries, is it lost? Why has the reaction been so underwhelming, when just a couple of years back, the industry was outraged by the same money entering the space?
This time the strategy from SGG and ADG was to start in Counter-Strike, as their reaction wasn’t on par with that of the League of Legends community in the previously mentioned NEOM deal. The Counter-Strike fans went along with the bandwagon after the League of Legends community sparked the outrage.
As long as the fans can watch their favourite players shoot heads in video games, it doesn’t matter where the money comes from, right?
With the vast amount of controversial money being washed in these deals, it all leads back to the title, and is a proof of why profits is the only language spoken in esports, where you can have ethics if you can afford it.
When did we start not to care? We did it before — we can do it again, and should so because we owe it to those whose lives have been wronged by these people. We owe it to our community.
We owe it to esports.
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