Counter-Strike: North America’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Skill

In the Wild Wild West that we call North American Counter-Strike, drama seems to be their only constant. Aforementioned “confusion, disparity, rage and even distrust to those who were affected” in today’s article, we will focus on the seemingly-never-ending-drama that plagues our nations worst – and best players.

For years I remember signing in, playing a match and remembering that one guy who would always insult another for no apparent reason and I would always ignore it, try to help them out but to no avail. I figured “it’s the internet, lets move on” in which I did — all the time. I continued, “It’s the internet and that’s how it works”. No one is exempt from manipulative and oppressive subjugation because people are trolls and you can’t help it.

In addition to these insults, there came the drama. Online quarrels with real life friends or people you play video games with mutually. I’ve had my share of these during my time of running teams on a semi-professional level. There were always those heated moments where people would say regrettable things later on and apologize a day later, then we’d move on to playing the game we loved, laughing and enjoying the experience.

My favorite game growing up in the youthful console era, was Call of Duty 4, an amazing game even to today’s standards, but it wasn’t excluded from trolls and drama queens. If you think about it online harassment and lets say conundrums. That was and is still a growing problem today. Anonymity for the most part is the main reason why people say disgusting and brutally subjective things. They don’t know you, they don’t care if you feel sad or “salty” after their lashings.

To be fair North America isn’t the only country to deal with this plague-like behavior, it’s international. Now what apparently feels like it does only occur are the endless disputes between professional players, their organizations and teammates in what seem rampantly isolated in our nation. Weeks of fall out after the “NA Shuffle” we have this. Players hating other players, organizations hating players, and organizations hating other organizations.

None have made it more public than Counter Logic Gaming which some members have gone out and publicly stated their feelings toward specific ex-teammate, Peter “ptr” Gurney. What interests me isn’t the fact that he was “benched” or “cut” but the organization, but the problematic incidents of drama that I mentioned earlier on this report. When does one air dirty laundry if ever? Is it okay to publicly ridicule your teammates current or former to a certain extent?

             (Peter “ptr” Gurney pictured far right with former team, CLG)

That stories reveal will be left for another day. I’m simply uninterested in drama, yes, I’m not willing or wanting to report on the troubles of a team.. I’m tired of it. I’d like to go over the larger, grander problem that is resonating with our peers in North America. The problems of drama, professionalism, integrity, and respect. If we don’t respect these concepts, what else does one have to fall back on?

Our GEO location for eSports has some of the best talented youth currently holding seat under some of the greatest eSport banners in the USA. We shouldn’t have our professionals running around hissy fitting and arguing with a player or even a community. What ever happened to embodying the notion of a true professional? Be professional, bite your tongue if you feel like you’ll do or say something terrible.

NA CS isn’t the first or the last when it comes up to eSport incidents, LoL, Smash, and other professionals have gotten fired or worse, unhirable after making offensive, disgusting, racist remarks but here, it seems like organizations don’t care for accountability. The PR teams are asleep — constantly, no apologies are issued and nobody ever recognizes the issue. I said this before, but how can we win a major when we can’t even keep a secret.

North America is ridiculed and stereotyped all over the forum boards, Reddit, HLTV — the minute they catch on to some drama it will blow up on everyone’s face just to die out and re-emerge or a new drama-filled story comes out which tarnishes the reputation of the whole continent. This is a contributing factor to what has become of the represented mass of players who become arrogant, cocky, and don’t care about the ramifications of their actions.

In addition to what seems like another growing problem are the reasons for their inevitable losses at the hands of our European overlords counterparts are the lack of transparency. We’ve seen our members give up, or not try hard enough, not try new things and when a spectator comments on their performance and voices feedback, they lash out or simply oust them as a traitor for their following to rip them apart.

Now again, I’m not saying NA are the only ones. EU has had its fair share of problems with integral incidents but it’s more common to hit the limelight here in the time where we mostly need solidarity in our lives. We as spectators and fans can only hope for the best and we with or without their approval will always be there to voice our feedback in the times where they may not want it.

I made a video regarding a subject on my personal channel in a podcast-esque commentary style to voice my opinions. It’s something I feel like everyone should do as fans. We reserve that right to be subjective and constructive toward the people who will represent us in the main stage at major international championships. For North America to succeed there needs to be several changes, including these incidents of he said she said.

It’s time to grow up American prospects. If you won’t be accountable for your actions by your organizations, the players will continue to.