Everyone was at a standstill when the news broke: World Elite’s Korean contingent was leaving the clan. After the initial surprise of ReMinD, SoJu and Lyn subsided, speculation quickly turned to where the three players would end up. Assumptions shuffled around teams such as Beijing Esport Team, eSTRO and SK Gaming.

A few days later, the latter announced that they had recruited ReMinD and Lyn, significantly boosting a ramshackle roster that had lost two of its top players.

SoJu (still without a team) and ReMinD joined World Elite early after its inception, having built their dominant reputations on the Kalimdor ladder as members of Clan Phoenix. Lyn joined the team a year later, recruited after steady wins at the weekly InCup tournaments.

The reason for the Koreans’ departure was quite clear— salary, specifically the lack of it. The organization behind World Elite, despite fostering a flourishing website and exuding an aura of prominence (the team has been one of the most successful clans in both WCGL and NGL play), still remains a Chinese-based corporation, where the cost of living is significantly lower than in South Korea and Europe, leaving World Elite struggling to meet the inflated (by Chinese standards) lifestyle of its Korean players.

A war of words then broke out between SoJu and World Elite owner, Zax Chou. During the dispute—which was broadcast on various WC3 community sites-- conflicting salary numbers were bandied about. One interesting factor raised by Chou was the newly minted contracts the Danish-based Meet Your Makers clan had drawn up for its Korean squad headed by Moon, Lucifer and Susiria.

MYM reportedly paid their Warcraft III players an exorbitant amount of money upon their contract renewal early this year, making them among the best paid Warcraft III players in the world. MYM had upped the ante significantly when the rumor mill went into overdrive about Moon and co. supposedly being wooed by another team. If so, MYM, as one of the elite WC3 clans, did the logical thing and slapped a number so high, it put it out of reach of potential competitors.
This radically raised the salary bar, primarily for South Koreans, where pro-gaming is viewed as a legitimate livelihood. It was one of the main reasons for the dissatisfaction harbored by Chou’s players upon learning how much their “peers” at MYM were earning.

SK Gaming, a European e-sport entity with money to burn, quickly pounced on Lyn and ReMinD to pump new blood into their ailing roster. This marked the return of Koreans to the German-based clan, which had earlier lost Sweet and Zacard to BeT.

Originally, Sweet and Zacard stayed with BeT, as part of a reciprocal partnership with SK Gaming but at the turn of the New Year, SK announced that it was dissolving the partnership and ultimately both players decided to remain with BeT exclusively.

BeT, which is a Korean organization routed through Beijing, has itself quickly become a major player in the WC3 scene by acquiring more Korean players en route to qualifying for the 12th Season of the WC3L , It was evident that BeT had deep pockets, judging by the players they were able to recruit, namely Ju Lee “Check” Hyung and Dae Hui “FoV” Cho, elbowing out other clans who tried to sign the Undead star upon his departure from wNv.

The increased salaries of MYM’s (and maybe even BeT’s) Koreans never affected other clans’ operations directly, but, like the World Elite players, gave them a sounding board to discuss and compare salaries, which may have sowed the seeds of dissent.

At the end of the day, we can’t blame teams like MYM, BeT or SK for picking up the best players money can buy, just as we can’t blame big market sports teams like the New York Yankees or Manchester United for using the free market system to their advantage. After all, they work hard to get sponsorships and endorsements to be able to run their team at such a high level. Meet Your Makers has been criticized for loosely using its money as a cynical lure but—really—what organization with the proper resources wouldn’t do everything it could to keep their players on their team? They certainly shouldn’t be vilified for that.

In the same regard, we can’t blame players for desiring better pay, pay that many of them work hard for to increase their worth to their team and literally pay the bills.