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All Games: Moe on unpaid CEVO prizes; "flawed" rules

By: Rich Daigle - Published February 13, 2009 at 2:23 AM EST - Writer Archive
Following the controversy surrounding allegations of a poorly ran tournament and unpaid prize money, Moe "MOE" Assad speaks out with his story.
Hello Moe, could you please give us a little background as to who you are?

Hello everyone, I'm Moe Assad I have been playing source professionally for the past 4 1/2 years.

What teams have you recently been involved with?

My most recent team was the San Francisco OPTX, a CGS franchise.

Its public information that you feel quite a bit went wrong with the CEVO Alienware tournament, could you please explain specifically what happened?

I'm going to be plain and honest about CEVO and Alienware. I believe that iGames (the people who ran the tournament) and mainly Ferguson - the only admin for the whole tournament - just had no idea what they were doing. That's right, over 15k in prize money with only one admin. There are so many details I can go into about how flawed the rules were, mainly because the rules were all meant for 1.6 and as anyone knows 1.6 and source are in many ways different.

What i don't understand is how Alienware would put this much money up for grabs in an online tournament, maybe they thought that CEVO, being the respected league it is, would be willing to help run it smoothly, but i can tell you first hand that CEVO did absolutely nothing to help the tournament. Celone himself told me "we cant do anything" about any rules or dispute, and that it was all up to the iGames guy who had no clue and openly admitted to having no clue about how to run the tourney.

How do you feel about the CEVO ACS system used in the tournament?

As far as how I feel about CEVO and there anti-cheat system: I think I made it pretty clear in my forum posts. I believe 100% in what I wrote, I feel that there are so many ways around CEVO's anti-cheat system, and that CEVO (Plitt especially) are ignorant about that fact.

Putting aside your feelings regarding that particular tournament, what is your assessment of the CEVO league itself? Tell us more about the situation surrounding your unpaid CEVO-Pro prize money.

Moe Assad
Without CEVO, eSports wouldn't be where it is today, but like any other league it has flaws. For example, as many people have seen or heard I recently won CEVO-Pro with team Cyber Revolution about a week before Alienware started. Basically I sent in my forms with 2 other guys on the team (chewbacca, dazed), while clown and frozt sent in the forms the night we won. So naturally they got their money first.

Around that time is when the whole Alienware thing blew up.That pretty much put a hold on all the prize winnings, so about 2 1/2 weeks after we won CEVO-Pro, dazed and I entered a public IRC channel and asked Celone if CEVO had received our forms, and he assured us that they have all our paper work and are processing them. More time goes by and all of a sudden dazed receives his money 3 weeks after winning CEVO-P, after having a "talk" with Plitt.

So I was beginning to get frustrated and started hearing rumors that CEVO isn't going to pay me my money. So I connect to the CEVO vent and request to talk to Plitt. I get dragged down to the admins channel where it was Plitt and around 6 other admins sitting in vent as if to "scare me" and Plitt starts asking how he could help. I tell him my problem and he goes on to say that there was probably a mix up in the paperwork and for me to resend it, I wasn't buying his "mix up" talk but I told him I would resend my information.

So when you told him you weren't buying this mix up, but that you would resend the information what happened then?

I have been waiting 8 days since I last sent in my forms and received the confirmation that it has been processed. I connected to the CEVO vent and asked to talk to the head of accounting, Plitt again drags me down this time with 2 other admins in the channel, and says "how can I help you". I ask him if he knows anyone that can help me with my situation, and he says "I'm the only one who knows whats going on, I talk to accounting every day". I then ask him "Then do you know if any checks are going out?". He replied "yep, checks are going out, but not yours".

He went on to tell me that he has my check ready but he has not nor does he have any intentions on signing off on it, I told him if this is really how he wants to play it then I'm OK with that. I went on to say, "if you weren't bothered by anything I said about CEVO then you wouldn't of gone this far". So here I am a month after winning CEVO-p with no prize winnings of any kind.

In my eyes CEVO shouldn't be able to do these kinds of things especially when I paid to be in the league, but Plitt sees it differently. He has told me and I quote "we can do what ever we want to do". Now the $700+ dollars doesn't mean that much, but I wanted everyone in eSports and anyone who is a veteran or a rookie of CEVO to be weary before entering a league that has a leader running his league like what most would call a dictatorship.

Did Plitt or any other CEVO admin give you any reason as to why you wouldn't be receiving your check?

He stated that the only reason they haven't given me my money is because of the opinion I expressed publically about CEVO and CMN.

Do you think that clown and devour being caught cheating in the Alienware tournament could have violated any terms and conditions that CEVO has which prevents you from getting your winnings from CEVO-Pro?

I think clown and devour getting caught cheating in the Alienware tournament shouldn't effect the past in anyway. Bottom line, prior to that tournament I had won CEVO-Pro meaning I am entitled to the prize regardless if anyone got caught cheating. Also clown received his money before he was caught cheating, and I don't think CEVO should of denied him his money afterwards either.

Now after all the issues that CEVO has had with you not getting your check, and the Alienware tournament, does this open the door for a league like CAL to get its luster back?

CAL is a league that I will be thankful for. Other leagues should be looking at CAL as for guidelines on how a league should be ran, but I don't think CAL or any other free league would really make a comeback unless CPL comes back. As for other leagues, I think the ESEA league looks very promising I have believed in ESEA anti-cheat for a long time and know a lot of people behind the scenes.

Any closing statements that you have Moe?

I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who stuck by clown and devour, and thank you to all the supporters who have been fans of all the teams I been on throughout my career, and a special thanks to the GotFrag staff for publishing this story, and finally to the readers and fans for listening to me.

User Comments

1
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esports and prizemoney somehow never ever really works fluently :>
The only limit is your own imagination
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ain't that the truth :[
;o
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Wait for CEVO's response.
4
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COMING SOON :)


good read btw ^_^

This comment was edited at 02/13/2009 2:23 AM


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Cevo never payed me either :(
With CMN being soo.. good.. it looks like esea will eventually take over (not that esea client is perfect either)
Your friendly neighbourhood Nagelbergman.
8
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cevo is bad and a waste of time for this very reason. idc what attitude the guy has in this interview. he earned the money and got ripped. end of story

It's like winning the lottery and not getting your reward. Your attitude shouldn't determine weather you get paid or not for something you truly deserve. What happend to America's "Freedom of Speech"?

Freedom of speech in the United States is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and by many state constitutions and state and federal laws. Criticism of the government and advocacy of unpopular ideas that people may find distasteful or against public policy, such as racism, are generally permitted

#5 Lets see what happens when u owe a booky a grand and you dont pay up. and I dont think Plitt feeds him.

This comment was edited at 02/13/2009 2:38 AM
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Yea, #5 and #6, even if he's complaining and whining, it doesn't change the underlying fact that he is entitled to that money. $600 is a good amount of money and I'm sure that if you were cheated out of it, you'd do as much as you could to get that money.
There's only one way to solve this problem: I'm right.

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Does cevo have some clause about defamation resulting in forfeit of earnings? Even if it does I'm pretty sure they are at least entitled to return his registration fee and simply ban him from the league, I could very well be wrong but nonetheless they should have a better PR team obviously.

Moe is a crybaby and a moron, but it still pretty underhanded what Plitt has done.
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GL Moe. Hope to someday see you play 1.6 professionally.
16
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Nice. ESL didn't pay us our money for 5,5 months and he complains after 1 month and gets an article :-/
17
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y iz cevo admin deleting my post, am i not allowed to express my opinion of what i think of diz league? cheats get by + they dont pay, DROP CEVO NOW, esea is better.
I troll at an exponential speed.
18
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any of you calling moe a crybaby would be doing the exact same thing if not more were you in the same situation as he. Its $600.. thats alot of money.. but more importantly, thats money that he WON, that he EARNT, and that he DESERVES.

as far as i can see, cevo are being a bunch of fkwits and are the bigger crybabys in this situation - not paying someone their well earnt prize money caus he said a few bad words (which theyve now shown to be correct) about them.

thats really pathetic cevo, real fkn bad by you.
#GUTS
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#17 This is the gotfrag forums, how would a CEVO admin delete your posts? Go back to school kid.
20
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#16 its not that he hasnt received his check "yet" it's that he's been told explicitly that he will NOT receive it at all.




if this is true, whether he's a crybaby or not, he deserves the money and cevo is wrong for withholding it.
26
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QUOTE:
cevo is horrible
LOL OK

#23 he didnt get banned for cheating... reading means nothing?
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I was on Cyber Revolution also and have yet to receive any money.

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#28 didn't you guys just win a few weeks ago. Assuming you weren't the most diligent person on the planet submitting your forms and also taking into account it takes 2 weeks from the time you submit your forms to the time you get paid, it makes logical sense you aren't paid yet. You will probably get your money within the next week or so.

It's halarious that all you kids suddenly jump on the moe bandwagon taking his word for gospel. CEVO has arguably the best track record paying players, and sometimes even after the 30 day window to submit forms. Furthermore, the notion that a player wouldn't get paid for publically talking against CEVO is rediculous. If CEVO actually didn't pay everyone who publically spoke ill of them then the entire CSS and most of the CS1.6 community would never get paid for all the crap I constantly read about people attacking CMN's effectiveness.

Common...this isn't the CPL now kids.
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BlueLaBomba you are f ucking annoying. GTFO of this thread.
I like big (.)(.)
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Yeah, there are many flaws in CEVO and one that sticks out the most is their anticheat, CMN3. It effects many people and sometimes lags their computer. Its very buggy and I wish they would use a simpler program like ACS. I know the chat program within the CMN3 could be useful but there's mirc as well.
Its disappointing to hear about unpaid CEVO prizes. I hope everything works out.
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karma. too bad moe.


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isn't it typical journal ethics to ask the defending party for comment prior to posting an article like this?

This comment was edited at 02/13/2009 4:13 AM
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Moe:
I don't think posting here or anywhere is a good means to further your case. At this point you need to check CEVO's language to ensure you're still entitled to your payment regardless of the league's whims; i.e. no deflimation clause or clause that allows for admin discression on payment.

With that established find the county in which CEVO is a registered LLC and take them to small claims court.

The issue with the efighting here is that you likely didn't record your conversation in CEVO's vent; otherwise you would have already issues said proof. Sans proof of your claims CEVO can either claim they did pay you and show proof on the books there of, or simply ignore you while it quietly goes away. At this point the burden of proof is on you and won't be established in a grass roots push against the league - all that will do is further cement CEVO's stance against you.
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hi #34 ^_^

cmw
quit trolling dug.
GUNIT~
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its the same interview on both site i only did one. And i plan on taking cevo to a smalls claim court if thet further deny me what i earned. this is about freedom of speech. cevo cannot deny me a prize because they dont like my opinion of them its that simple and as for proof i have multiple witnesses that have heard it straight from plitts mouth on what he intends to do with my check.


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SH1iiT its 700 bucks i would take that sh1tty league to court tooo

money is money and if u won it u should get it... not let some duumb nazi hitler ass foo named plit deny it..

plus here an LA.. n1gguh didnt pay me he would have broken legs...

atleast ESEA admins arent d1cks''' good league :D

This comment was edited at 02/13/2009 4:35 AM
45
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Obviously CEVO is making this a personal matter.... which is bad, they need to realize they're a professional league with professional responsibilities.
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#37, this is not a news article or editorial stating that any of this is true. This is an interview and the accusations are purely by the person being interviewed. No we don't inform leagues beforehand every time someone says something bad about them in an interview.

We do, however, always give both parties a chance to respond. CEVO was actually told about this interview before it was posted. They have also been offered a chance to respond and will do so soon I believe.
Marc Turner | Editor in Chief | www.GotFrag.com | #gotfrag
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It is very hard for me to believe that Charlie would deny money just because someone talks crap about his league/CMN. There is PROBABLY something missing from the story that would better explain it. They have been doing this for a long time, and I have never heard of something like that happening. I say everyone just needs to wait on CEVO's response towards the article; if they even show it merit. In the meantime, I wish the best of luck to you about getting your money. You earned it, so you deserve it unless I am missing something from the scenario.

P.S. Only thing I really don't like about this is how much you talk about Alienware and basically telling them it was a bad decision to go with an online tournament/CEVO. Comments like that are not exactly going to help your game get more sponsors. I can only hope to God that Alienware representatives do not read this/care. Great way to show appreciation to them.
Shag: When he teases me, it hurts.
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think amd made it clear that none of this matters

LoL@cs
dug~
GUNIT~
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Overall I think this interview of this feud is a result of the lack of news at this time of the year, but with that in mind it's a good reminder of the extreme importance of payment processing in esports and the need for organizations to proactively address payment issues. I just hope CEVO isn't misperceived on a large scale because of an exchanging of words and bad blood. I think this story could have been framed in a much better way.

CEVO has the best track record of consistent and timely pay out policies of any eSports entity in North America for sure. I speak from experience after dealing with at least 6 top three placements in CEVO events over the past 3 years.

You shouldn't read this interview and think that CEVO is out to cheat you. You SHOULD read this interview and get a better insight into how small problems can get blown out into the public's eye.

This comment was edited at 02/13/2009 8:24 AM
~Matt Marcou - Team EG, General Manager

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