As we come off that post-Major high, I want to talk about the idea of a Major in Brazil. The title may seem like a contrarian statement, I’m just someone who saw people like CaliberJacob tweet about how awesome the Rio Major was in CSGO and the various other tweets that shot off during R6’s Sweden Major and decided to take a different stance, just to be special. But no, I have legitimate concerns regarding Siege holding events in Brazil.
It’s a shame too, with LATAM having such a prominent presence in the scene. It’s been arguably the strongest region for the past year or two, 4 LATAM teams made the playoffs in Sweden, and the current stylistic meta of the game is attributed to LATAM. The region has been a major contributor to the scene. That said, a Major in Brazil is problematic and would not be in the best interests of Siege at the current moment.
Getting it out of the way, no, I do not think there can never be events held in Brazil and no, I do not think the CSGO scene is the same as the Siege scene. There were specific circumstances exasperating the problems at the Major, but that does not completely excuse the issues. I also do not doubt the passion the Brazilian scene has for the games. The energy of the crowd was undeniably amazing at Rio. Who wouldn’t want this kind of atmosphere for their biggest tournaments?
But to only look at the highs of an event is unfair. If that were the case there would be no room to discuss the poor seeding of the Rio Major, the situation regarding Sadokist’s outburst and subsequent removal, and other topics that I’ll be addressing later on. That’s like saying the Berlin Major was perfect in Siege. That’s like overlooking the poor stage design that gave VIP seats a poor view and the extreme heat just because the grand finals was a banger. Both the good and bad have to be acknowledged.
To start with, let’s address the elephant in the room. Or not in the room. Or sometimes in the room but sometimes out of the room, but it depends on if Gaules is in the arena or at the fanfest. Gaules, the Brazilian streamer/influencer/caster had an undue amount of influence on the way IEM Rio was run and the crowd itself. This is all thoroughly documented in Richard Lewis’s article and subsequent Major Recap. Most notably, Gaules seems to be the reason for the Fanfest, something new to ESL events, as well as leading the Brazilian crowd in the same way the pied piper led the rats of Hamelin.
But Gaules won’t be a problem in a Siege event. It isn’t his game and there’s no clear reason why he would be involved, especially after what ESL (Which is now FACEIT thanks to their merger in early 2022) learned after this event. Gaules was undoubtedly the X factor that made the problems at IEM Rio worse. With his absence some of these concerns will not be as relevant but still present. With that out of the way, let’s talk about the crowd itself.
As previously mentioned, the crowd was extremely passionate and it made for a great time. However, this was limited only to when Brazilian teams were on stage. Given that Furia was the only BR team to make it to playoffs, well, that crowd wasn’t getting a lot of on stage representation. Biased crowds are normal, no hate for that. Of course the crowd roots for the home team. But that doesn’t excuse the absolute lack of interest they had when teams from other regions played. The arena was typically empty when non-Brazilian teams were involved. There’s a number of factors that contributed to this beyond the crowd itself, so I won’t harp on it too much, but the end result was an empty looking arena.
An empty looking arena has some nasty ramifications on the show, but I don’t fault the crowd for this one. If there was a literal party with a beer truck outside a poorly designed arena showing the same matches for a cheaper price, I would be outside too. That lack of presence in the arena wasn’t the main problem. It was the lack of interest from the crowd.
A crowd that dies after a specific region goes out isn’t a good crowd. I’m sorry but it’s true. I don’t care if the arena is a 10/10 while Brazilian teams are playing if it’s a 2/10 for every other match. With 4 competitive regions there’s no reason to assume Brazilian teams will make a deep run in any given tournament. Gambling a whole event on a specific region doing well in order to have an amazing crowd is an unnecessary roll of the dice when Siege can consistently turn out 7/10 crowds for its events. That 10/10 isn’t worth the risk of a dead arena if teams underperform. What happens if the finals of the major are EU v EU, or NA v EU, or any combination of regions that doesn’t include LATAM teams, should we expect the crowd to sleep through the match? Add in flagrant disrespect of players, threats, cheating, and outright crime, and a lack of passion is the least of my concerns.
The crowd was openly disrespectful to non BR teams throughout the event to the point where it’s hard to consider them coincidences. Richard’s video highlights a number of instances from booing at undeserving moments to more major situations. A fan who got kicked out for threatening teams and admits he would have even after a warning, the crowd spitting on NaVi players between maps, cheering for Furia while they weren’t playing and more.
Almost none of these are minor. The booing was out of pocket at times, but comes with competition. Players getting grabbed while walking on the other hand? Not so much. Spitting on someone constitutes assault in many legal interpretations, or is at least viewed as aggravating someone into anger and I’ve never heard of anything like it happening at esports events. That cannot fly. How could I be on board for a Brazilian Major when these incidents, which haven’t occurred at other esports events in other locations, all happen at the same event? Of course the bias of the crowd extended beyond all this into actual cheating.
I’ve talked about the favoritism the crowd had for Brazilian teams, but they took it to a level that affected the integrity of the matches. Blatant cheating to help Brazilian teams to the point where the live feed in the arena had to lose x-ray and the map so as to prevent the crowd from giving away information.
Now Siege is a very different game to CS. That said, both are closed or imperfect information games. Unlike Chess, where you see all of the piece’s positions, tacFPS titles thrive on giving both teams imperfect information. You don’t know where everyone is. You don’t know what utility they have. You don’t know what’s behind that wall.
But what if someone gave you a hint? What if many someone’s yelled right when Nesk’s crosshair hovered over a specific wall? Well maybe he would fancy shooting through the wall and might accidentally kill a roamer. Just like that the crowd has cheated in favor of a specific team. Do we want to introduce that possibility into Siege events?
Brazilians aren’t the first to do this in recent memory, that despicable title goes to the Danes in the Royal Arena, but willingly holding an event at a location where the crowd has set a precedent of cheating is asking for competitive integrity to go up in smoke. I’m all for passionate crowds, but actively cheating goes too far. Other crowds have proven to be nonissues. You don’t see the crowds cheating for BIG at IEM Cologne. A cheating crowd is a big deal. It’s in everyone’s best interests to avoid letting such a situation arise. The CS community raised concerns about hosting events in Denmark after the Astralis fiasco and the same should be done for Brazil.
There’s also the stolen camera. Adela Sznajder’s camera was “lost” at the Rio Major. But if you read between the lines (it’s not very hard in this case) it’s unlikely that a professional esports photographer lost their camera in the press room so easily. As Thorin and Semmler point out in Revenge of By The Numbers, the fact that there is a 15% finders fee with no questions asked almost expressly means “please just return my stolen camera, I will pay you to get it back.”
This is once again, an incident I’ve never heard of occurring at big esports events. Sure, a member of the crowd will lose a phone or a backpack, but the industry professionals working in a pressroom? Never.
When you combine the stolen camera with the other events that the crowd brought on, the spitting and cheating, the lack of passion for non-Brazilian teams, it creates a very concerning account of the Brazilian crowd. I do not doubt the passion the Brazilians can bring. I want that kind of energy at a Siege event. But not if it comes with all these caveats. I do not want a crowd so passionate for a single region they fall asleep during the grand finals, so passionate they cheat. I do not want threats, theft, and assault normalized and commonplace at esports events. The highs of a passionate Brazilian crowd are amazing, but if it comes with all the lows IEM Rio showed, I don’t want a Major in Brazil.