Update: More staff are beginning to get paid what they’re owed some two months after the tournament was halted.
We’ve also published a separate article to reflect further information we received from sources about some suspicious betting activity being made during a couple of matches in the HCG Masters.
Later, in June 2022, organisers sent an update to staff saying more investment is on the way, which will be used to pay winnings and freelance staff. They will then consider their options whether to complete HCG Masters Season 1 or call it off.
Original article (published April 12th 2022):
Several esports casters, production staff and other talent have been left unpaid after a new CSGO tournament was suddenly postponed halfway through proceedings.
Season 1 of the Hardcore Gaming Masters (HCG), a new tournament with a supposed €180,000 prize pool, was indefinitely postponed over funding issues.
The LAN finals, due to take place in Portugal, were cancelled and organisers hope to play these out online at some point. However, esports talent have been left unpaid, frustrated and looking for other work after booking the LAN final dates into their diaries.
The situation is up in the air right now. The organisers of the tournament, esports newcomers and Austrian company Hardcore Gaming GmbH, told Esports News UK they were left out of pocket after an investor dropped out of the project.
HCG had apparently requested more money from their investor, after a sponsor dropped out. The investor wanted more equity in return. HCG refused, leaving them – and their staff – out of pocket.
Executive director Ferenc Kern said he has put his own property as collateral for loans in order to get staff paid and that ‘the process is underway’. He reiterated that the event has not been cancelled.
Ferenc also said that a new investor has been secured, who will allegedly invest €300,000 in June, and that the company will ‘soon’ have a new Seed A funding round and other partners, but that this isn’t happening ‘so fast as we thought’. HCG’s current partners include nutrition drink Pl4zmacom and crypto broker Coinmotion.
You can see more of his comments at the bottom of this article.
Esports talent frustrated by lack of pay, poor communication and contracts
For some esports talent, they are frustrated after being met with excuse after excuse around payment in the HCG team Discord, and just want to get paid for their work.
The HCG Masters featured UK casters GrimyRannarr, BDog, Jammer, JohnPee, Dutch casters Vearless and Dutchboy and more. Some talent are not listed on the HCG Masters Liquipedia page.
Others were mentioned on the HCG website, like Legday and ReTr00, but we understand they didn’t actually feature in the broadcasts and appear to have pulled out.
There are around 49 staff working on this project as casters, observers and production staff, and Esports News UK understands at least one caster has been paid (minus their late collection charge) at the moment, and one member of the production team has been paid.
Overall, staff are owed tens of thousands of euros.
Talent due to appear at the playoffs in Portugal were given a run of show and accomodation info, then the next day they heard the live event was cancelled.
Ferenc’s son, and event manager, Atilla ‘SiCKB’ Ferenc Kern, has also been updating staff on the situation and has said that payment is coming soon – on multiple occasions. He apparently told staff he’s sorry about what happened and will do his best to sort it.
Bradley ‘Peak’ Beal, a freelance producer, replay op and observer based in the UK, was one member of staff who spoke publicly about the event in a now-deleted tweet:
Esports News UK also understands some talent received unprofessional or sarcastic messages from HCG. Others were told they had been paid, when they hadn’t, and some were told payment was late due to bank/tax issues.
Some talent were disappointed with being offered €25 per map, though Ferenc says this was originally supposed to be €30 before a change was made (explained in more detail in his comment at the bottom of the article). Talent were supposed to be paid half upfront and half at the end of the tournament, and many still haven’t received the first half.
Update: Following the publication of this article, staff have been told they will now receive €35 per map retroactively for the first season, but will need to submit a new invoice to HCG.
HCG said they “had not received any invoices to pay 50% before the event starts, but we offered this possibility. At this time, we had enough resources to do that”.
Others were left dumbounded after open qualifiers started for the second season, before the first season had concluded.
Casters pulled out after refusing to sign a contract they were passed some time after working on several broadcasts. One described it as ‘really weird’.
“It looked like a template from Google,” they said. “And why did I need a contract at that point? I already had a written agreement with them.”
Organisers had apparently told esports talent they needed the contracts signed in order to adhere to Austrian law. However, that’s despite the fact that written and oral agreements and usual invoices are generally accepted in the country as proof for tax purposes.
Urim Bajrami, an Austrian esports attorney, partner with Stadler Völkel, former Hearthstone semi-pro player and head of the legal board at the ESVÖ, the Austrian Esports Association, told Esports News UK: “I can confirm that contracts generally do not need to be in written form, but an invoice will do. With regard to employment agreements employers have to provide at least a so called note of service (“Dienstzettel”) containing the essential provisions of the contract (e.g. salary, term of the contract). However, this note of service does not need to be signed by an employee and exists merely as evidence of the individual provisions of the contract.”
What about the teams taking part in HCG Masters?
In terms of teams, Esports News UK understands they are still awaiting payment too. Some teams were supposed to receive winnings based on reaching certain positions, and those in the playoffs will of course be wanting to finish the tournament so they can get paid based on final placements.
The HCG Masters also featured UK teams/organisations Coalesce and Royals, as well as Singularity, who play in several other UK-centric tournaments like the NLC.
At least one team in the tournament will no longer be taking part.
The top prize in Season 1 of the HCG Masters, according to Liquipedia, is €60,000, second place is €30,000 and third €18,000.
Esports News UK also understands that the likes of CSGO news site HLTV and esports resource Liquipedia were apprehensive to cover the tournament due the uncertainty of the organiser’s credibility, and several esports organisations declined to get involved for the same reason.
HCG publicly said they were talking to teams such as Godsent and Fnatic about taking part.
More info on HCG’s team, future plans and planned crowdfunding campaigns offering ‘premium hugs’
Hardcore Gaming says it has plans to have 300 employees in the future and run tournaments in other games, including some with million-euro prize pools.
HCG asked for €1m in a seed round here and hoped to raise £200,000 in this crowdfunding bid on Indiegogo, which HCG said they had planned to properly launch but decided not to in the end.
In this defunct Indiegogo page, HCG revealed plans to open a physical Battlezone Esports Bar.
The initial crowdfunding plan was to offer ‘premium hugs’ to backers who invested €10, as well as a €500 option promising free beer for a year, and a €2,500 option for a backer to have a meal named after them.
What the organisers say – ‘it’s not been a good start but we don’t want to give up’
Hardcore Gaming GmbH executive director, Ferenc Kern, sent Esports News UK a lengthy comment.
We have decided to publish this in full, for full transparency.
“Everything would have been fine until I met up again with an old business associate, from whom I had high hopes,” Ferenc said. “At that point, I dropped an existing funding and he was in last minute talks with the league’s chief organiser to get on board and do the LAN event in Portugal.
“However, for the last day meeting, he told us terms that we were out of the question to accept. It would also have meant losing control of our own business, meaning we would have had to give up more than 50% for nothing. On that day we announced the cancellation of the LAN event and from that day on we will keep you updated.
“I decided to put up my own property as collateral for a loan, the process is currently underway. In addition to these, collateral is/was obtained from the bank to pay the freelancers, but this will be done in several phases. The total amount for this is €20,000, out of which the Regional Swiss Stage salaries will be paid. Several people have already been paid, this means that we didn’t screw anything up, just unexpected events came up that made the organisation difficult and crossed our plans.
“All concerned people have been updated on the progress. I will certainly publish a new update later today – but tomorrow at the latest – about the payment date for the teams and for freelancers.”
On the price per map offered to casters and the contract situation, Ferenc added: “In the beginning – when I was looking for the casters (BDog, Rannarr) – I offered €30 per map, then they offered me an admin: Benz. Benz took control of the whole thing, and the contract was necessary – because in Austria if you are not buying but doing some work, it is necessary to have a contract of engagement with the invoice, which can be requested by the tax authorities and any other organisation at any time.” (note, Esports News UK understands a contract is not in fact necessary by law; an invoice will suffice – see comments from Urim Bajrami, an Austrian esports attorney, further above in the article).
“Several people have already been paid, this means that we didn’t screw anything up, just unexpected events came up that made the organisation difficult and crossed our plans.”
Ferenc Kern, Hardcore Gaming GmbH
“The contract was not drawn up by me and I never printed out any paperwork on it that I signed. I had my signature stored in a PNG file which was always available for one person to use.
“We made the decision together, after she wrote me how much it will cost and she said (we didn’t have any experiences) it should fit our budget for it. To be honest, I thought it will be easy, I need only 4-5 casters and observers. The whole procedure for the tournament was planned in a different way (more small qualifiers, I can send you the original plan which has been made by me) and than came Benz to help us, to recreate the whole league.
“Yes, in that case we lowered the price with an option to offer full-time job for the best casters with a good salary option. It is our first tournament and it comes not good out that we faced this problem. I wouldn’t like to say, who made a fail in the contracts or something like that because the biggest mistake was that, that we hadn’t done any safety actions to secure our position in the “investment” what our partner made. It caused every disaster which came after the event cancellation. We are working on it to figure it out and have everything for the best solution.
“What we already have: We have our new investor – but he will able to pay his investment in June 2022. We talk about €300.000. We will have a Seed A round soon, we have already new partners which are helping us to get out of the hole. But it isn’t so fast as we thought, also the first solution will be the loan of the bank.
“It helps us a lot, maybe we will be able to clear our name, because it wasn’t a good start and to be honest we wouldn’t like to give it up.
“We are focusing on one thing at the moment, and that is to resolve all the negative problems that have affected the project and to make sure that everyone can say that yes, HCG kept its word.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
