The general dislike for Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) amongst members of SA’s competitive gaming community is quite well known.

The MSSA is the official national body that governs competitive gaming in SA at a national level. They are the only organization that can award national colours and put together an official national team. This means that any top gamers with aspirations to travel overseas and compete under the SA banner need to do so through the MSSA.

The problem is that there is a widespread dislike for the MSSA amidst many of SA’s top gaming clans. This means that as things stand now, it is difficult for SA to put together the best possible teams. This greatly hampers SA’s ability to compete on an international level. Only ten players showed up for CoD 4 National Team trials in 2008, where the previous year saw 143.

This general dislike has finally culminated in a petition being put online, campaigning for the right of SA’s local competitive gaming community to form a self regulating organisation independent of MSSA.

The petition was conceived of when a discussion was held between some of SA’s top competitive gaming clans.

Apparently, the thoughts and ideas expressed in the original discussion where then relayed to the broader competitive gaming community, where they found a solid support base of gamers desiring to be disassociated with MSSA.

Expert from original document:

The need for self regulation:

Gamers have a desire to self regulate because there is no body or federation in South Africa where their voice is heard or where they have influence over the direction that gaming takes as a sport.
The MSSA’s administration of computer, console and mobile gaming is problematic for the following reasons:

 1)   The MSSA is recognized by the International Wargames Federation (IWF). However, the IWF does not oversee computer, console or mobile gaming and has no program in place to administer or grow gaming on these platforms globally.
 There is no mention of computer, PC or Console gaming in the IWF constitution.

 2)   The computer, console and mobile gaming community has no ability to resolve disputes in the MSSA. The reason for this is that:

a.    The vote is diluted. The MSSA overseas three main disciplines:
                                    i.    Board gaming (including: Backgammon, Draughts, Morabaraba etc.)
ii.   Figure Gaming (including: Ancients, World War II etc.)
                                    iii.  Computing Gaming including:
 

1.    DotA (online)
2.    CoD4 (online)
3.    TrackMania (online)
4.    Quake III (online)
5.    Starcraft (online)
6.    Counterstrike 1.6 (online)

No console or mobile gaming online leagues are currently being administered by the MSSA
Board Gaming and Figure Gaming effectively dilutes computing, console and mobile gaming’s vote within the MSSA. This means that even if 100 percent of gamers decide to institute change within the MSSA, their vote would be ineffective in doing so.

b.   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.

c.   Even when the broader gaming community has had representation on the CGBOC and the CGBOC has made recommendations to the management board, these are generally totally disregarded. 

 3)   MSSA boycott.

The MSSA is being boycotted by the Call of Duty 4 (CoD4) players online, which is the largest league of computer gamers in this country. This saw the MSSA CoD4 league drop from 20 teams in 2008 to seven teams in 2009. Furthermore, MSSA league numbers have almost halved from 2008 to 134 players in 2009. Its national team trials dropped from 143 players in 2007 to 10 players in 2008.
Many clans are now boycotting planned MSSA LANs and LAN organisations which are choosing to associate with the MSSA.

 4)   Association already in the works

The gaming community is currently forming its own association that is run by gamers, for gamers.. Along with the initial meeting of top online clans, there have been meetings organised in various parts of the country where gamers have got together to discuss forming an association governed by gamers.
The process of creating The Association is already underway and The Association once formed will look for the most appropriate body to affiliate to internationally.
Once The Association’s structure has been put in place, details will be posted on this site and gamers will have the chance to nominate and vote for the first committee which will govern The Association.
 
The association will then work to better the online and LAN environments in South Africa as well as grow the number of competitive and casual gamers within South Africa across computer, console and mobile gaming platforms.

The petition basically aims to

1)    Have the competitive gaming community removed from MSSA’s jurisdiction.
2)    Have a new self regulation competitive gaming association established.

As of now the petition has 336 confirmed signatories. The full petition can be found here.

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