SA gaming community rejects MSSA

So has their been any formal communication between the entities to see if they can find a solution or is this just too late for diplomatic ways?
 
Well I signed. I can honestly say though that I do not know too much about the situation except that which I heard from friends and bits that I read on the internet.
 
The gaming community has tried countless times to talk sense into the MSSA. Everytime they have been met with stiff opposition, and the community will not take it any longer.
 
Played in the BF2 comp they held two year ago for NTTs. Was a shambles. Our guild placed second, due to the other teams leaving cause the comp was running late there was only two teams left. Was supposed to get provicial colours....... didn't happen.

I have signed the petition.
 
Ok I'm not quite clued up on the whole story here but what I could pick out from this article is that gamers have been unhappy for some reason? what is this dislike where did it stem from?

I'm going to play defense here and please note this is all a matter of my own opinion.

With regards to the Console side of things i've been chatting with MSSA and the reason they haven't done such a thorough look into it is due to the fact that there's no-one who is profiecent in the inner workings of the console community Gamerlobby are currently in talks to change this and will have further news on this when the time comes.

Boycotting an organization that's trying to bring change to gaming in SA and make it internationally recognized is not the way to do it.

"While there is a computer gaming board of control (CGBOC), there is only one gamer represented on the two higher committees above the CGBOC, being the management board and the executive, which shows that the community has no influence in the MSSA." as i understand this gamers from community's can elect themselves to be apart of the board? has anyone done so? I know that a few gaming heads have been approached but have had to gracefully turn it down due to time constraints.

I can speak from personal experience that most of the time when there are complaints about how a tournament runs it normally never reaches the person who is running the tournament, often we find that the complaint is nested on the forum somewhere and by the time it is brought to light it is too late. If complaints are brought to attention immediately they can be addressed.

I'm not quite sure why there's a new board being created by the gamers for the gamers? What is this board going to achieve? If there's one thing I've learnt from tournaments it's that there will always be at least 1 person who is unhappy with the rules or the setup as it doesn't play to that persons "advantage" or doesn't make sense, rules are there for a common control so that everyone is on a level playing field, and rules can be changed if enough evidence is brought forward to warrant such a change.

Gamers seem to be living in a world where they expect the unreachable... all I hear is I want money, and I want to go and compete overseas sure but until you're taken seriously by (the people that matter) government and other private sponsors. You're not going to get there in a day and by splitting the organisation that's trying to make it happen, you're going to slow the entire process down and set us all back by another 10 years. Baby steps people it takes time to build an empire.

I'm very unsure of what issues you've been having with the MSSA or what sort of communications have transpired but from my experiences with the MSSA it's been a pleasure to work with them and I'm looking forward to dealing with them in the future. And I applaud them for taking the time and money out of their days, weekends, and holidays to support SA Amateur Gaming.

It also seems to me that the only clans with issues here is the COD4 community? am I wrong?

So to end off create your gaming association but don't go against MSSA go with them since we're all aiming for the same goals here. Maybe you can do it better but if we're not doing it together then we're going to fall on our faces.

I may be putting myself on the line here but I just feel that this is a very one sided argument. And I will proudly stand by the MSSA because I want to see gaming in South Africa Take off and I believe that MSSA has the potential to reach that goal, maybe not tomorrow but definitely in the near future. With co-operation and communication by the communities involved, we can have an excellent gaming Culture. Everyone makes mistakes, but it's the mistakes we learn from that make us great.

Flame me if you want but like I said this is purely a matter of opinion and I haven't experienced the negativity that you guys have apparently had? maybe TinMan can get MSSA to respond?
 
That's a very informative post koldFu5ion and it makes me feel bad that I signed the petition before knowing the whole story. I should have known better than to just jump in the fire.
 
I promise you now that if you knew the entire story, you would not even think twice about signing this petition.

One of the main problems that the community has with the MSSA is that they want EVERYONE to be affliated under them. This means gamers, their organizations (teams), even LAN's. You will have to pay a fee to be part of them without any serious benefits from the organization itself. Combine this with the fact the MSSA is incompetent in its own workings, and have ulterior motives to what is stated in their constitution.

It may seem to you like the gamers are just looking for 'money' or 'overseas trips' but its not. The issue is gamers don't want to be regulated by a body that self-selected themselves, and have no experience whatsoever in dealing with a gaming community. The only community that is regulated is in South Korea, but that's between it is a multi-million dollar industry. Even Germany, who is known to be one of the most proficient esports communities in the world, have no regulation of such.

On the issue of which communities issued this petition, it was endorsed by members of Call of Duty 4, Counter-Strike: Source, DotA, Battlefield 2, and Team Fortress 2, all of the largest gaming communities in SA. It's just that this was headed up by members of the CoD4 community, but did get the go ahead from the rest.

This is only just a small bit of the entire story, but hopefully it clears some things up :D
 
But how much will this fee be, would it not be good to be associated under one body and participate to improve the state of gaming as a sport in this country?
 
roskii said:
One of the main problems that the community has with the MSSA is that they want EVERYONE to be affliated under them. This means gamers, their organizations (teams), even LAN's. You will have to pay a fee to be part of them without any serious benefits from the organization itself. Combine this with the fact the MSSA is incompetent in its own workings, and have ulterior motives to what is stated in their constitution.
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Ok I am doing quite a bit of research on what the MSSA is all about and I will be meeting with them at some point to clarify certain things but from what I understand is this.

MSSA is the governing body for Mind Sports within SA, just like there's a governing body for Cricket/Soccer/Swimming/etc. There is only 1 governing body for these sports or a unified body that encompasses all of these "clubs". Now if you want to have your club/clan registered as an officially recognised clan in South Africa you will need to register under the MSSA Body. there is a fee attached of course i believe the fee for Clubs to register is R100 per annum, and a member's fee is I think R50/R60 per annum. These fees are purely admin to have you registered in as an official Representative of a South African Sports (Mind Sports). I don't think they'd be able to turn much of a profit with that kind of cash.

MSSA is a non-profit organisation as it is run under the government and as such cannot profit from any of it's events or ventures and as such cannot associate with any profiting organizations that stand to gain from any of MSSA's events.

It also makes sense that MSSA would want all of those communities that wish to be recognised with South African colours and to represent South Africa in any Professional tournament overseas to be registered through 1 port of call. Therefore creating less confusion and frustration, i.e. We have only 1 South African Cricket/Rugby/Soccer team we don't have 2 of the same team competing against eachother.

I think the actual understanding of what MSSA really is has been misconstrued somewhat, and assumptions have been made unjustly.

"Combine this with the fact the MSSA is incompetent in its own workings, and have ulterior motives to what is stated in their constitution."
I have met with Colin (President of the MSSA) and I have to say these ulterior motives are nowhere to be seen? the man took money out of his own back pocket to bring SK from Sweden to compete against South African Players in DOTA and COD4.

But besides that I don't see anyone offering a hand in helping these guys? sure they may be a little bit lost but handing them off like they've done nothing is just a slap in the face.

roskii said:
It may seem to you like the gamers are just looking for 'money' or 'overseas trips' but its not. The issue is gamers don't want to be regulated by a body that self-selected themselves, and have no experience whatsoever in dealing with a gaming community. The only community that is regulated is in South Korea, but that's between it is a multi-million dollar industry. Even Germany, who is known to be one of the most proficient esports communities in the world, have no regulation of such.
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I have to disagree with you here, there are regulations for every officially recognised sport otherwise there would be chaos and there wouldn't be unified rules or regulations when reaching an international level.

Country's would be coming together and saying... "We don't play like this" and we'd never get anything done.

roskii said:
On the issue of which communities issued this petition, it was endorsed by members of Call of Duty 4, Counter-Strike: Source, DotA, Battlefield 2, and Team Fortress 2, all of the largest gaming communities in SA. It's just that this was headed up by members of the CoD4 community, but did get the go ahead from the rest.

This is only just a small bit of the entire story, but hopefully it clears some things up :D
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I would like to find out more about this, what has transpired cause I think you guys are sending out a very "factless" message to a group of people that may/may not know the full story. I'm one of these people, I don't know what's happening so I can only speak on my experiences. That's why I'm asking so please don't take this the wrong way.
 
Hmmm... Well it is a worldwide thing isn't it? There are organisations for all or most countries who will compete in such comps, no?
 
I have met with Colin (President of the MSSA) and I have to say these ulterior motives are nowhere to be seen? the man took money out of his own back pocket to bring SK from Sweden to compete against South African Players in DOTA and COD4.
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He didn't take a cent outta his own back pocket. Telkom funded the entire event and brought the players out.

I respect your views koldFU5iON and I am glad you have taken your own time to delve deeper into this issue. I am not trying to persuade you with false facts, its just I have been in the esports community since 2002, and I have seen how things have progressed. Take my word or leave it, I really don't mind.

Here is a post from a mate of mine on the war3.co.za/forums, it pretty much sums up one of the main issues concerning the MSSA. Excuse the bits of flaming, he does not have a particular liking for MSSA's representative 'Cyrus' :P

Gr|dL0cK Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:52 pm

For those of you not signing the petition because you are a casual gamer, think before you just ignore it. MSSA tried to infiltrate OC in Cape Town and utterly failed because their representative at the meeting has the charismatic traits of a wet paper towel. They wanted to impliment fees on players, so they were FORCED to join the MSSA before competing at OC in the DotA competition.

The long and short of it, is that Gaming in SA has had multiple competitions such as ESWC, rAge, WCG and Kode5 that were run internationally. We had no NEED for "fair governance" of Gaming because Arena77 made everything run smoothly and sent teams overseas. MSSA is trying to GOVERN this now by making everything in Gaming run through them. They want their stamp of approval on each and every team that goes overseas to represent gaming in SA. They are doing this by infiltrating LAN's.

So to sum it all up, if you want to go through life in your gaming career, professional or casual, by paying money over to an organisation every year and conforming to ridiculous bylaws, then don't sign the petition. If you would like to get back to the situation where we have a company that hosts internationally recognised competitions with awesome prizes, then sign the petition. MSSA has no constitutional right to be there and they will never get the support of the gaming community. In 2 days, the petition has received 4 times the amount of people that are entered in their online league registrations which were open for 3 months.
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I am just trying to provide you guys with as much information as possible.

Link to thread: http://www.war3.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25383&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=f15d91f946d935f11c27219c79f6a7f1
 
Yeah I see where you guys a coming from. Its fine to have a membership and a governing body but one shouldn't be forced into it if they can do the same thing without the membership.
 
ok I think I'm getting a better understanding... but from what I can see this all boils down to a break down in communication whether it came from inside MSSA or when the LAN's were approached.

As far as I understand it you can participate in your own leagues privately the only thing you can't do is participate on behalf of South Africa, as it needs to go through MSSA. MSSA's presence is merely their to facilitate a South African presence in the regional and international levels.

mcryan said:
Yeah I see where you guys a coming from. Its fine to have a membership and a governing body but one shouldn't be forced into it if they can do the same thing without the membership.
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I don't like the idea that people are being forced to join and it doesn't sound right to me as I've received different communications on this.

And just to prove a point on the Arena77 stuff I believe that a couple of gamers have been left disgruntled due to the fact that even tho the competitions/tournaments were run successfully there was a lack of a following through on promises? but I've only heard dribs and draps. What I'm really trying to say is that at the moment there's no perfect organisation out there and it's always going to be hard to find one that is out for our needs... my vote however still remains with MSSA, and it's only with communities acting together with the MSSA that things are going to work out better for us all.

I will check up on that Money you claim came from Telkom cause as far as I know Telkom had nothing to do with that tournament I was at the event and saw no evidence of Telkom's presence, which seems strange if they sponsored the event. I do know however that Telkom is supporting AGASA but that's another can of worms.

Basically at the end of the day it boils down to a matter of opinion, and I don't feel that this is the right way to do things on the other hand I could be competely wrong for me I'm about uniting communities and would like to see all community's working together (even if opposed in tournaments) to bring a greater experience to the South African Gaming scene.

I will still have my meeting with MSSA and I will find out as much info on the subject as possible before I make my final decision but I believe that working with MSSA will be to me and my community's benefit (I'm talking mainly consoles) of course I will be offering to different leagues those for players who wish to gain "professional/amatuer" status within the community and those who just enjoy playing for the fun of it. This I've already clarified with MSSA is something they have no problem with, which is why the "forcing" of communities to join doesn't fit right??

I'm still convinced that this is a break down in communication as well as an underlying story that hasn't been told... but I wasn't at that particular event to experience it.
 
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