Thread by @RLewisReports

OK. My decade in esports. A wild ride, highs and lows, insanity on all sides and the brutal reality of trying to balance being the conscience of a growing industry with no oversight while trying to make just enough money to survive. Let's kick this shit off and lose followers.

2010 was my first ever editor-in-chief job. After being a features editor for a while at Cadred, an esports website owned by @heavenmedia , the two staff members who ran the site basically didn't want to do it anymore. It was dead man's shoes but fuck it, it was real money.

@heavenmedia One staff member who left went on to become a great poker player. @max_silver was my boss for a few years, a good friend and someone who went through the CGS nightmare with me. He was a lovable goof back then. Had no idea he could even play snap let alone fucking poker.

@heavenmedia @max_silver The other guy above me wanted to run events. He's a great unsung hero of esports, one of those smart people in the background who are smart enough to stay there. @CorinCole . No idea what he does at the moment but he was a one time enemy turned good friend and confidant.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole A few things to know about Corin. We all used to laugh at him because he dressed like children did in the 1920s. You know, brogue shoes at esports events. He also had rosy red cheeks and was chubby so he looked like a cherub. He was a vicious little fucker when angry though.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole If you check him out now, he's so thin and stylish, it's unreal the transformation. I dread to think what his ego is like now he's proved he can literally do anything he wants, especially with me being a bloated old man. Still, those guys were the Cadred crew when I joined.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole Anyway, I'll throw this in as something up front. I was at Heaven Media for something like 6 years. It was stressful, we had ups and downs, I was nearly fired probably at least once a year but we muddled through and did some incredible work, both on the page and at events.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole I survived mostly due to the good graces of @MarkHeavenMedia and his brother James who were hands down the best bosses I have ever had in any line of work. They built the company and invested a lot into esports at a time when no-one knew just how smart an idea that was.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia Every time I published ANYTHING controversial because these guys were businessmen, they'd get the phone call from the offended entity. "Can't you shut Richard up?" they would ask. Mark / James would tell them "shutting him up would defeat the purpose of hiring him."

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia I cannot state this enough: if I had been at any other site I'd have almost certainly had my work censored and would have had to roll the dice on self-publishing on a much smaller platform. They shielded me from a lot of major players in the industry who wanted to fuck me over.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia It's very hard to find examples of the work from that time. Cadred is now @EsportsHeaven and recently they changed the site so a lot of work has disappeared. I have it all somewhere but obviously can't link to anything. Let's hope we don't have another GotFrag on our hands.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven Anyway, one such example was when ESL sent an email out to pro CS:S players telling them they couldn't get their prize money that was already delayed by months because they had to pay to get Starcraft players to attend their events and SC2 was the bigger game. Yeah. That happened

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven I was also trying to be a sports writer at the time but becoming EIC put paid to that. Fortunately I archived all my sports writing. This piece remains the most popular in circulation, an article about the murder of wrestler Frank “Bruiser Brody” Goodish.

rlewisreports.com/the-murder-of-…

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven Anyway, back at Cadred the plan was fairly simple. Transition away from being purely CS:S focused, hitch ourselves to the big esports at the time (SC2) and focus on the holy trinity of a good news site.

1) Breaking news stories
2) Investigative reporting
3) BIG Opinion pieces

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven I went out and recruited and trained dozens of young writers from across the world. I don't give a fuck if it sounds grandiose but the talent we discovered and nurtured at Cadred/Esports Heaven legitimately changed esports journalism forever. Sadly, many quit for other things.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven Take for example the piece @DanilaOtavin did on the mysterious "Arbalet," a multi-millionaire who was funding 1.6 tournaments. No one knew who he was. Danila found out and did a write-up on it. That type of expose was rare in esports. Danila is missed.

sk-gaming.com/content/29589-…

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin During this time I also started off my long proud tradition of taking in esports people that needed homes/jobs. One of my best friends @Michael_Mcghee came and lived with me in Birmingham and I made him my assistant editor. He remains a great writer and an even better human.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee Oh and one other thing about Heaven Media. Our marketing guy at the time was @vasroberts who is now at FACEIT. This man could sell you a glass of water if you were fucking drowning. Without his skills and vision I'd not have been able to pay our staff, something I insisted on.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts To give you an idea of how good Vas is, we consulted and did a promotion on a game you might remember called Brink. They apparently wanted to be a big esport but like a lot of developers didn't know what the fuck that meant. It was dead in a week. Money for old rope. Legend.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts Wasn't so great for me like, I had to play, review and then write articles about that dogshit. I remember in our first competitive game we got smashed some Quake players. It might even have been Stermy. Still, it was all done for a good cause; keeping the site alive.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts Right this hasn't been very spicy so far but I have to set the scene and introduce you to the characters. We're coming to the mad years very shortly. 2010-2011 honestly wasn't really the insane part of it. I was just grateful to have a job and work at a place I liked.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts Now, if there was one thing that was always going to make me unpopular it was me voicing my opinions about the business. I had a weekly column called "Gonzorreah" (a play on words of my old gamer handle Dr. Gonzo) where I'd just tee the fuck off. Man it made people angry.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts Despite what some other mainstream games journalists have claimed I have never been someone who was an esports evangelist. Well, maybe like one of those ones who only talk about sulfur, brimstone and damnation. Here's an article from 2011.

rlewisreports.com/this-is-e-spor…

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts This was just one piece and in it I said CLG came off like "greedy pricks," called the head of global marketing for SteelSeries a moron, said fnatic were pathetic for crying about player poaching and pointed out an mTw SC2 player had an oustanding arrest warrant. This is weekly.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts I didn't always get it right. I regret being so hostile towards crowdfunding. I eviscerated a colleague @HowellONeill for trying to crowdfund a website. Sure, he worded it clumsily, but everyone does that now. I apologize for that profusely.

rlewisreports.com/your-money-or-…

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill I was banging on actual unethical journalists before it was cool. Anyone thinking the problem started in 2014 really wasn't paying attention.

rlewisreports.com/hari-has-to-go…

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill The other thing we were having to focus on was video. There wasn't a lot of video content in esports at that time. I used to go to events all around the world and did long form interviews and what I called LAN tours. Here's one in a Danish bowling alley.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill I'll post some other notable interviews from this time so you can have a laugh at us when we were young and esports was barely a thing at all. This is my first on camera experience with the legend @GeT_RiGhT

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill @GeT_RiGhT First time interviewing @neo_fkubski at DreamHack

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill @GeT_RiGhT @neo_fkubski First time interviewing @FalleNCS at Copenhagen Games. This was wild because he was playing Source over 1.6. Fans lost their mind when he said he believed Source was "more tactical." Insane levels of Caralho. Loved Fallen ever since.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill @GeT_RiGhT @neo_fkubski @FalleNCS Another one with the Canadian great @JoshNissan

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill @GeT_RiGhT @neo_fkubski @FalleNCS @JoshNissan Anyway, you get the picture. That YT channel is a time capsule. Go check it out and watch me get balder and fatter with each successive video.

@heavenmedia @max_silver @CorinCole @MarkHeavenMedia @EsportsHeaven @DanilaOtavin @Michael_Mcghee @vasroberts @HowellONeill @GeT_RiGhT @neo_fkubski @FalleNCS @JoshNissan Right. I'll put a pin in it for tonight. We'll enter the Starcraft years next and that is pretty much where things actually get wild. The gentle art of making enemies.