All Work All Play Page #4

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All of the teams are sponsored

by major corporate entities.

There are coaches who have been

in the scene for a decade,

who know how to make champions.

The infrastructure in Korea

is just significantly better.

Do you know why count Von count

from "sesame street" counts?

In traditional vampire folklore,

one way to escape a vampire

was to throw out a group

of like objects on the ground,

because vampires would be

compelled to count them.

Vampire ocd.

And that's why

count Von count counts.

We'll see what happens.

Here we go, game one.

Samsung versus g.E. Tigers.

Let's get in the game.

The g.E. Tigers.

What a phenomenon from Korea.

They're a brand-new

organization,

which is unusual in Korea,

because Korea has been dominated

by massive corporate-run teams.

They were composed

of either players

who were on break

from the professional scene,

and then a bunch

of other players

who were really not at the top

of their game,

who had been cut

from other rosters previously.

So when we came into this season

as this is their first year,

really, of competitive playing,

they looked

like they might be okay,

but nowhere

near a top-level team.

I don't think the team itself

knew that they were going

to be as good as they are in

the Korean league, in champions.

They are actually undefeated,

and miles ahead

of even the second-place team.

And definitely the favorites

going into

the I.E.M. World championships.

It's still fascinating to me now.

Sometimes I think about where

i am and it's unbelievable.

They have this amazing energy

and this amazing synergy

that just kind

of exudes from them.

One of the reasons I like our team

is that no one has an ego.

We all work together to form

the perfect unit.

I think that's what makes

our team the best.

And our uniforms...

Our uniforms help.

What the hell am I looking at?

Cat ears?

I don't know what's going on.

They're constantly

changing uniforms.

Most team uniforms are boring

because they all look the same...

So our team decided

to set ourselves apart.

I always change my uniform

every single day.

I think our fans like them.

The getigers are the best team

in the world.

We will easily win at iem.

Good morning,

good afternoon, good evening.

A time-zone friendly welcome

to you,

wherever you are in the world.

Building excitement today

for the intel extreme masters

at the s.A.P. Arena in San Jose.

I can't wait to get there.

The intel extreme masters

has always had a territory

that they wanted to break into,

which was north America.

Esports has existed in America

for a really long time,

and some would argue

that it started in America.

But the problem there was always

that the people

running these companies

ran around like chickens

with their heads cut off.

North America's had

a shady past,

I think it's safe to say,

with events.

They've always been hit or miss,

and generally,

they've been miss.

L.A., are you ready?

Ready, set...

We've seen multiple times

investment-funded companies

put up events

that the community was always

very enthusiastic about,

but they were burning money.

They were losing lots

and lots of money.

Competitive gaming faced a blow

today as it has lost

one of its biggest names.

The world series of video games

has officially shut down.

The organizers claim that the

cost of producing live events

is just too high,

and instead,

they'll focus on the web.

There's a lot

of potential in America,

but we need to rebuild a lot

of stuff

and almost build stuff

from scratch.

There's a lot on the line.

Just the word "San Jose" makes

my stomach turn right now.

Esports in America

has come a long way.

We've seen some big events.

Developers and publishers have

all done these events

themselves.

But I think the success

of companies like esl

is the real measuring stick

that shows you

how healthy esports really is.

We have the challenge

of always having to break even.

And if we're in business

for 10 years, for 12 years,

for 15 years, that means

esports is a viable thing.

For legitimacy of esports,

we need a big, big event

to work really, really well

in the United States.

We've waited, crouched,

to a moment where the world

woke up to esports.

We could have tried

to rent out an arena in the U.S.

Three years ago, and we

would have failed miserably.

Because it wasn't

the right time.

This is basically nine years

of development,

building up to this one event.

We're gonna head to San Jose

towards the end of the year,

and we're gonna try and do

something that we've never

done before in north America.

For us, it's life or death,

and I mean it.

Life and death, literally,

because we just

don't know right now.

We really don't know

whether we can fill that place.

It's just a little different

orientation that we have here.

- 'Cause we have two games,

- right...

Two independent shows,

essentially.

Yeah, essentially, one has

a significantly

bigger audience than the other.

- Yeah.

- And that's why we have to

maximize the...

"League of legends"?

Yeah, exactly.

There you go.

I know.

- And then...

- What my kids tell me.

This is the stage.

We've got "starcraft"

going that way,

"league of legends"

going that way.

And the showcase over there...

Far, far end.

Just being around here

just gets me excited,

'cause I'm imagining

all the great things.

Where thousands of people

just screaming and making noise

and just creating

that atmosphere.

I'm already in it, to be honest.

The consequences of not filling

it would be scary,

but it's not the time

to be afraid.

It's time to be bold, I think.

The "league of legends" bracket

at I.E.M. San Jose

will feature six teams.

Team solomid and alliance,

currently the top teams

from north America and Europe,

have been invited,

and will have a bye.

Battling out to face them will

be the two Latin American teams

that qualified

through online matches,

and one north American team

and one European team

that will be determined

by a fan vote.

Every day, I wake up realizing

that this could all go away

very quickly.

This perception that cloud9 is

this big company... we're not.

We're a very small,

very scrappy organization.

I have no idea

where this is all going.

I mean, we don't have any grand

master plan for a year from now,

for even six months from now.

In a blink of an eye,

this could all go away.

When I.E.M. San Jose was

announced,

I knew I had to be a part

of this event.

I immediately got my video teams

making videos,

got the word out

through Twitter,

Facebook... every social media

that I could get,

like, "please support us, please

get us to I.E.M. San Jose.

This is so important for us

to be a part of this event."

I grew up in the bay area.

My dad spent his whole career

as an attorney

working in San Jose.

I founded cloud9 in San Jose.

So this was like, for me,

I'm like, "this is not an option

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