Some time ago I was told about Dignitas Call of Duty star 'Mick' being offered a contract with a Greek clan. The deal was that he'd get paid for every official he played for them, one rumour even had him getting paid per frag! I brushed the thought aside that Greece would harbour a financially backed gaming team, let alone one that would back CoD but it turns out I was wrong...
With 900 members the Greek Operational Forces are the first team out there to pay their Quakewars team to play for them. Yes its not Sondac at Dignitas nor Numse at Copenhagen but Baldrick and co at the Greek Operational Forces who according to sources received 400 Euros (for the team) to join up with the organisation.
When I first heard about this I was shocked in all honesty, I've been around the salaried players for a long time and they've all got one thing in common, they dont play Quakewars , ET or RTCW! After finding this out I contacted Mick to find out if his offer was true and the details of his offer turned out to be;
The average pro-gaming salary for Quakers and CounterStrike players is understood to be around 1000 Euro a month. If Mick were able to play and win 2 officials a week (quite possible in the European ladder) he could be netting 400 a month and thus be almost half way to a CS'rs salary. Not life changing, but not bad never the less.
After finding out that the Quakewars team received money to join, Mick's offer didnt shock me more than the last line that suggests (unconfirmed) that the battlefield and AA squads get paid also! I decided to contact the organisation. The first response on iRC was a little cold as are all things to do with money, but I contacted the owner via email and got the following interview with Aris "Olympus" Broumas;
What is your business model?
Greek Operation Forces has been running for 4 years and is the largest clan in Greece, if not the world. At the beginning of June we recruited out first professional player, Baldrick, for Battlefield 2. Since then we have been expanding into a larger team for Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, America's Army and Day of Defeat: Source where we play with a mix of professional European players and Greek players. This is financed by our sponsors; Smith and Stwart, Abnorr Cleaning, Jonathan Clyde Beckham Security and K@ppa Computers. Our plan is to expand into a fully professional European multi-gaming team in the near future in a seperate organization, with Greek Operation Forces remaining as a community for Greek players.
What do you aim to achieve from supporting teams financially?
All the companies who sponsor us are promoted due to their association with us and gain a great deal of publicity due to this, for example we are attending the Digital Technology Expo. in Athens at the end of this month, and will be attending LAN events throughout Europe. However the main reason we have decided to do this is due to our love for eSports, rather than for any long term financial gain.
Where do you see gaming going for organisations like yourself?
Gaming is one of the fastest growing entertainment mediums, and we can only see things improving. Hopefuly we will be at the forefront of this and it would not surprise me to see more organizations taking the action that we are doing by paying our players and supporting them for LAN events.
My dream to see all e-sports Community under one big Goverment Suported Organisation.I give all my strength to support this project.
Do not mistake surprise for critiscm, I am all for financially backed organisations putting money into the 'smaller' games, however it does seem surprising that if they're willing to back their teams that they've not gone out and secured the champions of any of those games mentioned. However arise the one proffesional team in Quakewars, GR-OF
interesting
Nice organisation but i would change the name i were them:)
Would also be fun to get an overview of the pay the quakewars and battlefield team receives, just out of curiosity :)
But none the less, I would gladly hire Baldrick as my personal pro bf2 player if I had such sponsors - he was like midskilled after all, so why not? :D
Well I might not get the ideas behind GROF or understand how "Abnorr cleaning" (:D:D:D) can pay kids around Europe to play games, but I guess they could have been using their money on other things I would care less about.
Why we go for this strategy? Because after playing with them for some months now, its more than just picking up a team that never speaks to any of the members for the sake of having a successful team. Look at what I did for GROF BF2 and then see why the trust between myself, Aris and the rest of GROF is there. It's more than just turning up to play a match and leaving again like some players tried to do.
Picking up a full team wasn't done because grof are actively searching for full-teams, but after some discussions between myself and Aris, think of it as more we have a good relationship and so things are a lot more open there.
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i wanna get paid for playing aswell ;/
#ox rising cod pro team, you can pay us.
If real Madrid or Chelsea started buying med players I guess the world would be quite surprised and stunned by disbelief as well.
gl Baldrick, Hentai, Sin
(Any of the others i know and missed out)
I think Baldrick should persuade them to let me make a TF2 team for them :D
but i cant imagine that the sport grows so far that a payment is "normal", and i dont hope. pc-player as a mainjob is nolife imo :O
idd, its more than just turning up to play the matches...a few of our 2142 players did that, so out they went.
it requires time, and for me it's about training the other greek players as well.