Game On: Cash

After a long period of inactivity, Game On is back. This time with a person who's very known throughout the whole ET community. He has done everything you can within the game and is currently writing interviews and articles for GGL. He made a
profession out of his hobby and is currently on the payroll of GGL.
Of course I'm talking about Remao "Cash" Tummers.

- Cash. Tell me; what are you doing at the moment?

Actually, I do a lot of everything. Of course I am still a University-student doing Business administration (successfully), but I hardly spend time on it. However, the majority of my time still goes into gaming. Ever since I left the ClanBase ET crew in October 2005, I have been working as a News Correspondent/Coverage writer for the Global Gaming League. The fun part about it is that I get to go to various eSports events throughout the entire world, downside is that instead of gaming at night, now I have to work by writing news and articles. But it pays well to have it as a job next to my studies. Meanwhile, TosspoT and I found each other to work together on the Crossfire events. The first one was quite a success. It instantly tasted for more. Hence, why we are working hard on the next one at the moment. Other than that, I am working on some other eSports projects, which I cannot undisclose. I always keep track of the ET scene, play some cod2 with friends and enjoy myself most of the time.

- You said something about the Clanbase ET Crew. Was there a particular reason you left Clanbase?

There were a couple of reasons. With the new job at hand, I had to work every night, which was killing the time I could spend on ClanBase. I tried to make it work for a month, because I hated leaving the awesome crew that we had back then. The synergy with Angrykid, DoneX, Luna, Mrozu, Adacore was simply beautiful, so I really tried sticking. But I noticed that sooner or later my reduced dedication would hurt the team and possibly the ET scene. Also in the back of my mind, I felt it was a nice moment to quit. For those past months, we tried hard rebuilding the reputation of for example the ET EC, we held the nicest (imo) NC in ET ever and ETTV.org was built up by mostly AK. It was a nice moment to close that chapter in my life and move on for new challenges. I hate ending up in routines, which being a supervisor does become at some point. I love taking on new challenges, so it felt time to move on.

- How did you experience the change from being a supervisor to being a news correspondent / coverage writer?

The writing job is much more consistent and I can plan the time I spend on it ahead. As a supervisor, you sometimes could predict when busy nights were coming up. But you never knew if two top teams would get into a match dispute, which you would have to solve throughout the rest of the night. There were times where I had 47 message windows open of people that needed something from me. I actually liked those exciting parts when I was a supervisor. You never knew what would be thrown at you, ET players have been very creative in finding holes in the rule sets. The rifle bug dispute with Junk52, the hitbox issue with Holz, a EC final between u96d and Parodia which was THAT close to not happening. Writing nowadays is much more relaxing, I just brainstorm on what I want to do; interview, a column or just news. And then I just do it. The job is pretty nice, but I cannot imagine myself doing this on the long run. I love organizing events for example, so if it would be up to me there will be more Crossfire events.

- I hope so! Talking about Crossfire, what do you think of the "evolution" Crossfire went through last months?

By looking at the statistics, Crossfire has never grown so rapidly. It is great that basically the ET community is all at one place together. CoD2's community is more spread out over various other websites, which kinda makes it hard to really attract users to be as active as the ET players are. Growth always results in new opportunities, but also challenges. At the moment all seems fine, but as this is a community site which people consider as their "home", Crossfire.nu's growth should not jeopardize it. I think that will become one of the main challenges in the near future. TosspoT is looking forward every single day to improve it, so I am sure he will come up with some news things. (For the record, I am only involved to organize the events, not the website). The events are one of the new things. We both agree on the fact that the LAN events should have the community feel next to the competitive edge of the prize money and seriousness behind it. Not many event organizers do that at this time, so perhaps we can built a successful business model to increase the incentives and lower the barriers of ET fans and players to come and still let the prize purse grow for example. It is hard to get this done within one or two events, it is a painstaking process of years normally, so we have to be patient.

- What do you think will be your next challenge? Apart from organizing succesfull LAN's with TosspoT.

The next challenge for me will be setting something in the Netherlands, which is not related to ET at this time. It is supposed to take off somewhere in April as well, so that will be a very busy period for me, but I am looking forward to it. I cannot tell you what it is as certain companies prefer their anonymity for the time being.

- Oeoeoeh Cash has secret plans :P Well, let's go back to the start of your gaming career. What was the first game you played?

Offline i think it was Giana Sisters on the Commodore 64. But my real addiction to gaming started when I played RtCW for the first time online. I had to pick my name and i listened to a song of Johnny Cash, so that is the name I took and stood by ever since. RtCW has given me the best gaming experience ever. In eXcellence we had so much fun playing that game, that I really miss these moments nowadays. But to me, all good things have to end at some point, so you can cherish them for life. :)

- What did you think of ET when you first heard of it?

I actually had much adverse feelings about the game. RtCW was my game, my passion and ET was about to kill what was left of RtCW. I didn't install the game on principle, because I didn't want RtCW to die and it was way too much fun. At some point, my clanmates started changing and I had to give it a shot. As a player I never really enjoyed it. The action was slower, the aiming was less skilled and it was less action packed when you are playing. Too many lame things could happen when you were playing, mines, mortars etc, that it simply got too annoying for me to play. On the other hand, watching it is just perfect for me. I love the game as a spectator and I like the community. But I will not play it anymore.

- So you became the ET supervisor for Clanbase without playing the game very often?

Basically yes. Of course I watched enough demos to study the current game play of the matches, played it occasionally and spend many hours testing various stuff to keep my knowledge of ET up. So I kinda knew what I was talking about when I became an ET sup. I don't think I really made any major fuck ups. One thing I did learn about the ET community is that when you made a decision as an admin and you got only mild whine, you did one hell of a job. ET, as like any gaming community, has its whiners or people that disagree, so mild whine is close to being carried on hands over the Champs d'Elysee.
Back on topic, also with running an EC for example, you hardly had time to play.

- What is your opinion on the 5on5 vs. 6on6 issue?

Haha, that has been an interesting topic. I am still a very tiny little bit involved in the ClanBase ET crew. I didn't really have the time to investigate the in-game pros and cons of 5v5, but I think someone had to try it at some point, when the support of the community was significant. However when the NC was about to start, it showed that 6v6 was the way to go as most competitive players seemed to like it. There is a difference in being right about the fact that 5v5 or 6v6 would be the way to go and what most people want. The CB guys tried to find out the second, not the first. In the end, the test failed. I was asked to advise what they should do. In ten minutes we made a decision... Personally, I don't know and I don't care if 5v5 or 6v6 is better. From my years of experience as an admin, the community is a very important factor to take into account. Although, listening to all the conflicting responses and feedback from the community can make your job very tough. The 5v5/6v6 issue was one of them. Being an admin is so ambiguous that it is REALLY hard to be good at it and have a flawless run without any mistakes. And bottomline, you cannot please all.

- Did you care about all the criticism Clanbase got as a result of their, and partially your, actions?

Tough question. Criticism is a good thing in my normal rulebook. It can be constructive and can give you very important information or point of views to decide on a matter. Being open to the community as I tried to be many times, provoked people to give criticism. I always knew 70% is mostly unfounded and ignorant stuff, which I tended to ignore. However, the word ClanBase is always so easy to attack and mock. When my fellow admins were and still are being attacked, that is when I do care to sometimes set things right. Caring about criticism is not really applicable to me, I care about the admins that try to do their job and lose motivation when they get another "beating" online; especially when it is unjust. Most people do not see the harm they cause, when they flame towards admins. People make mistakes and there have been cases where people from the community have made valid points on what admins have done wrong. But there are many other ways to get your point across instead of humiliating admins . That is my 2 cents. But hey, whine is part of gaming and sometimes it is fun. I just hope people sometimes think twice before they flame at something; regardless if they are right or wrong.

- Do you think the huge amount of flamers is ruining the community?

Nah, people keep playing nonetheless. And flaming on journals is probably for 40% the success of Crossfire.nu It just kills the motivation for those that try to contribute to the game. This should be encouraged and awarded in my opinion, not puked on. Other than that, this community is fine and the game is fun (to watch).

- Something else; give me the first thing that comes to your mind when I say these words or names:
The Netherlands

Lol the first thing that came to mind was cheese. But thinking of it actually a lot comes to mind. Regroup, Grubby, the many good parties I had. My mind works in mysterious ways some times.

TosspoT

Haha, the many retarded videos and pictures I have from him. I have a video of him singing Totally Ecliple of my heart at a high pitched voice when he was utterly drunk in a diner in NYC. I have him snoring after partying at the EC LAN finals in Holland, two years ago.

McDonald's

Fuck that shit. That is my first thought. I never go there, because I know what kind of shit they put in it. My mom is a dietitian, so when you heard what is all in there you would rather eat just plain bread for diner than that shit.

Karaoke

Great balls of Fire. Perfect song to karaoke. I am a pilot (yes, a real one) so I like the Top Gun movie (except for the gay showerscene) where that song is sang. I have sang it a few times with my friends at parties. Hence these four words.

Ducktape

My little brother who went as a "Ducktape" to a Carnival party one times. He was fully wrapped into ducktape...his entire body. It was a priceless sight

Walk the line

Haha, to be quite frank. I have never seen the movie. I ain't that much of a Johnny Cash fan actually. I just took his name in an oblivion of my thoughts when I went to play my very first RtCW game.

Ikea

If they would make their beds sex proof I would be a very happy man. Because their "high"sleepers utterly suck in that field. I don't have one though, but other female companions did and banging the bed against the wall, so every single housemate hears it aint that much fun.

Christmas Tree

The presents beneath it. Who cares about the tree, it is what lies under the tree that is important.

That's it. Thank you for your time and Game On!

No problem. It was fun!

I hope you all enjoyed reading the interview. Personally I want to say it feels good to be back! :) As for Cash, we now know that he once had a hard time with Ikea beds ;).