Image courtesy of www.proesports.org
In this piece we will be looking at the developments in the recent PEA scandal involving several North American organisations and their respective CS:GO rosters.
Straight after the publication of the annual CS:GO GosuAwards, Twitter blew up with a scandal involving the PEA (Professional Esports Association) and seven North America-based organisations. The gist of the situation was that the PEA allegedly enforced exclusivity on the affiliated organisations (
Team SoloMid, Cloud9, Team Liquid, Counter Logic Gaming, 
Immortals, 
NRG eSports and compLexity Gaming), leading to a situation where they would be unable to compete in the ESL Pro League. Players from five of the organisation, namely Cloud9, CLG, Immortals, Team Liquid and Team SoloMid elected Scott "SirScoots" Smith as their representative, drafting a letter outlining concerns regarding the exclusive nature of the PEA and their discontent with the fact that the aforementioned may impact their participation at future events. The letter produced uproar within the community, with many referring to unacceptable treatment of players by organisations and communication gaps between the two parties.
Following the uproar, today Sean "seang@res" Gares, a CSGO player for TSM and one of the players to sign the letter, unexpectedly tweeted that he would allegedly be removed from the TSM roster, the same roster he only joined on December 14, due to his connection to the open letter. Additionally, Sean attached a log of a conversation with Founder of TSM - Andy "Reginald" Dinh, where it was apparent that the team owner was not content with the direction the situation had taken. Naturally, Dinh responded to the tweet, providing his own perspective on the situation and attached Skype logs of conversations with two TSM CS:GO members, Shahzeb "ShahZam" Khan and Hunter "SicK" Mims, both of which suggested that they had little understanding of the letter and had not studied it personally.
Chronology of events:
09:00 CET, Friday, December 23rd
James "hazed" Cobb posts a Twitlonger stating that "none of the owners in the PEA are in the right - including my own, HotshotGG", attached is an explanation as to why he felt they were in the wrong. Link
07:21 CET, Friday, December 23rd
Sean "seang@res" Gares replies to Andy "Reginald" Dinh in a Twitlonger post, outlining the fact that indeed there was communication between the two at lunch on Friday, December 9th post publication of the open letter by Scott "SirScoots" Smith. Link
05:00 CET, Friday, December 23rd
Andy "Reginald" Dinh provides a Twitlonger statement on reasons for the removal of Sean "seang@res" Gares from the core roster. In the Twitlonger statement Dinh provides screenshots of Skype conversations with TSM CS:GO team members Shahzeb "ShahZam" Khan and Hunter "SicK" Mims that stated they hadn't been fully aware of the nature of the movement or the contents of the open letter. Link
04:55 CET, Friday, December 23rd
Scott "SirScoots" Smith posts Twitlonger statement outlining that all player that signed the open letter published by himself on December 21st were informed of the tone and messaging and had the option to review it, adding that no single player had approached him with concerns regarding the letter. Link
03:00 CET, Friday, December 23rd
Sean "seang@res" Gares announced on Twitter that "TSM plan to replace him due to his connection to the #playersrights letter", coupled with a leak of the conversation between himself and TSM Founder, Andy "Reginald" Dinh. Link
21:15 CET, Thursday, December 22nd
Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner posts statement regarding the situation, outlining pros and cons of the PEA and their functioning. Link
23:32 CET, Wednesday, December 21st
Scott "SirScoots" Smith publishes open letter addressed to the PEA, affiliated organisations and the Counter-Strike community. Link
Headline image courtesy of Jason Lake's Twitter
If you feel that we have missed any information worth mentioning in this article, please don't hesitate to either comment below or send a message directly to Aleksei "Aleksei.L" Louchnikov for review.
Make sure to stay tuned to GosuGamers.net for further developments on the PEA scandal.
