Major Drama at the DOTA 2 Shanghai Majors

Post by KostaAndreadis @ 03:19pm 29/02/16 | 23 Comments

Which basically boils down to two things, Valve firing host James "2GD" Harding after a day or so of questionable commentary, and the fact that a lot people had problems streaming the event without continuous dropouts and all-round poor quality. And to cap it all off Valve head honcho Gabe "Where's Half Life 3!" Newell took to Reddit, not to apologise to fans or take any sort of responsibility, but to vent. Like some sort of pipe. Or, valve.

Two things:

1) James. We've had issues with James at previous events. Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake. James is an ass, and we won't be working with him again.

2) As long as we're firing people, we are also firing the production company that we've been working with on the Shanghai Major. They will be replaced, and we hope to get this turned around before the main event.

So what did this James person do that was so bad as to be compared to a 'not-a-horse'? Well, apparently he said a bunch of questionable things and use a string of taboo words that start with 'c'. Plus, apparently he also looked into the wrong camera. Which is something they teach on the first day of "TV Presenting 101".

As for James, his lengthy response can be found here, but has noted briefly when the news broke that Valve told him to 'be himself'.

What does this mean for the future of the DOTA 2 Majors? Probably nothing more than a small blip, but an interesting blip none the less.

dota 2 valve shanghai major drama controversy

Latest Comments

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Khel
Posted 04:09pm 29/2/16

Really, it makes Gabe Newell look like more of an ass to me. Sure the shoutcaster guy comes accross as douchey, but thats his schtick. It'd be like hiring Ricky Gervais then getting upset when he says something offensive, or hiring Kevin Smith and getting upset because he made too many d*** jokes and talked about pot.

Valve and Gabe just come out of this looking and sounding like they're completely out of touch and are just arrogant a*******

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fpot
Posted 04:29pm 29/2/16

Was this James guy actually funny though? Because Ricky Gervais was actually funny.

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Crash
Posted 04:34pm 29/2/16

Hes a good host, Valve f***ed up. But it doesn't surprise me with the way they handle the community a lot of the time.

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FSCB
Posted 06:57pm 29/2/16

After reading his reply, this bloke seems a tad full of himself.
Oh well, in the end, he apparently doesn't suit Valve's ie Gabe Newell's style.
Maybe valve just want to legitimise eSports more by making it appear professional and NOT have commentary by an adult who behaves like an angry 15 year old.

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d^
Posted 08:45pm 29/2/16

Here's the video of the segment before he got the can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-7GmWF4cmQ He pretty much called it himself that he's done after the event so I don't see this as a surprise.

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Imperial
Posted 09:49pm 29/2/16

2GD used to regularly cast Quake Live "Majors" aswell and has always been a bit of a douche. Needless to say he doesn't cast quake any more :)

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infi
Posted 10:42pm 29/2/16

Really, it makes Gabe Newell look like more of an ass to me. Sure the shoutcaster guy comes accross as douchey, but thats his schtick. It'd be like hiring Ricky Gervais then getting upset when he says something offensive, or hiring Kevin Smith and getting upset because he made too many d*** jokes and talked about pot.

Valve and Gabe just come out of this looking and sounding like they're completely out of touch and are just arrogant a*******

unless he went off script, which is like taking a dump on the owner's product.

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reload!
Posted 12:11am 01/3/16

It'd be like hiring Ricky Gervais then getting upset when he says something offensive, or hiring Kevin Smith and getting upset because he made too many d*** jokes and talked about pot.

agreed. and he rly only went ricky, not full chris rock.

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Viper119
Posted 01:50am 01/3/16

Not familiar with any of it, started watching d^'s link, couldn't do more than 5 minutes, the host was boring af and the whole thing rather uninteresting.

I started reading the host's letter, but his poor grammar, and the fact it's clearly devolving into a war of perspectives, has put me off finishing it I'm afraid. I got as far as the opening porn joke, it wasn't funny and a bit s***! He seems like a douchebag tbh.

imo you can only really do controversial or offensive stuff if you have the right to talk about it, are artfully making fun of or drawing attention to an issue, and/or are genuinely funny - all of which Chris Rock and Ricky do very well. It also obviously needs to be appropriate for the context (know your audience!) - you wouldn't go dropping c-bombs at a family event.

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Insom
Posted 07:36am 01/3/16

ha... I can't believe the guy actually made a 17-page rebuttal to his sacking as if it were some kind of misunderstanding

he carried on like a complete pork chop and now he's gone

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Eorl
Posted 09:50am 01/3/16

He called the viewers of DOTA autistic and made fun of someone on the crew who had an autistic family member. To me that's beyond douchey and just plain c***.

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 10:07am 01/3/16

I stand with Gabe on this one, the commentator was an idiot and it sets a standard for other's.

You can be abbrasive and a bit rude, to a point. If that's your gimmick then it's OK. When it is actually insulting people deeply, that rightfully crosses the line.

The 17 page rebuttle indicates this guy is far from a normal dude with a gimmick. He has issues.

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Khel
Posted 11:28am 01/3/16

This was all known before they hired him though, he'd done it before, he'd done it before on things they'd even hired him for previously even, so what did they expect? Why hire the guy in the first place and tell him to just be himself when you know exactly what you're going to get, then get all pissy when that is exactly what you get? Either they don't give a s***, or they're woefully out of touch.

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Insom
Posted 01:50pm 01/3/16

yeah well, if this unreconstructed asshat has learned anything (I doubt it) it's to not s*** where you eat

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Sir Redhat
Posted 08:14pm 01/3/16

The stream was unwatchable on the weekend, I figured it was optus being s***.

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Gung-ho
Posted 09:16am 02/3/16

Why hire this fella again? Clearly he had friends at Valve who vouched and convinced the Valve powers that be that he was worth another shot.

From Valve's perspective it's all win if it succeeded or not.
Cheap host if it goes well.
Relatively cheap publicity if goes awry.

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trog
Posted 12:37pm 02/3/16

You only have to look at his support on Twitter to see why he acts the way he [apparently, allegedly] does. There are a bunch of people that have supported him. I don't know if I've ever seen him; I've watched a few of the Dota events but I tend to ignore most of the commentary because (like most sport commentary) it is often vapid, annoying, and boring.

In his defence - based on his giant response letter, which I read in its entirety - it sounds like several times he was stuck in the position where he had to "entertain" for several hours off-script because of delays in the competition (something that I can completely believe).

I mean the headline could be "Gamer is surprised that acting to cater to juvenile gamers doesn't resonate well with corporate benefactor that is trying to take a new industry to the main mainstream" but I guess that is kind of long and doesn't flow off the tongue.

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notgreazy
Posted 01:22pm 02/3/16

commentary is dumb, why not have a some form of user comments on a feed on the side so you can see the reactions and the chatter at the same time.

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trog
Posted 02:51pm 02/3/16

commentary is dumb, why not have a some form of user comments on a feed on the side so you can see the reactions and the chatter at the same time.

have you ever seen one of those that wasn't literally like a documentary of the cesspool of humanity?

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Insom
Posted 07:32pm 02/3/16

^ basically this

normal person + anonymity + audience = s***c***

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Sir Redhat
Posted 08:29am 03/3/16

Just have russian commentary maybe.

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notgreazy
Posted 11:47am 03/3/16

have you ever seen one of those that wasn't literally like a documentary of the cesspool of humanity?

^ basically this

normal person + anonymity + audience = s***c***

Still better than the one or two tards commentating live imo

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trog
Posted 06:50pm 04/3/16

Still better than the one or two tards commentating live imo

I agree that pro gaming commentary has some way to go before it's as polished as sport but literally nothing is worse than the commentary provided by the average Internet citizen on almost anything

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