When we speak of professionalism, we look towards the stars that this illustrous industry has produced:  Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen immediately springs to mind as he has always been an adoring fan favorite and will forever be remembered as one of the legendary E-sports icons of all time, transcending his prior success in Warcraft III. As Jonas 'The1Crow' Gebhardt told me, Schenkhuizen was once named by Marc Olbertz, Community Manager of Blizzard, as maybe the "only full true professional eSports athlete that we have those days".

Yet, in order for E-sports to grow, it is not Grubby that will be the key driving factor, but the rest of the progaming community. Individuals, no matter how godly, cannot directly influence which direction E-sports will go if the masses themselves do not realize the significance of their own contributions.

Professionalism - what it means

For one, signing contracts is a notion that should be taken very seriously by every player; it demonstrates committment and responsibility, and not just putting pen to paper. It also represents an opportunity, and more often than not gamers do not realize how fortunate they are, neglecting the importance of their contracts. By respecting and honoring their agreement, players can prevent disappointing the sponsors and organizations that choose to place their faith in them, in turn creating a stable and competitive base foundation for gamers to compete in their respective organizations.

Unfortunately, there has been many examples of unprofessionalism in the past, such as cases of players jumping on the bandwagon when there was a better deal stacked on the table, or leaving their present organizations for the most mundane of reasons.

What is the problem with professionalism?

The most recent example (no offence intended), would be the saga and controversy revolving around the  Fnatic DotA team. The situation could definitely have been handled a lot better without controversy and certain misunderstandings could have been avoided, but as always disagreements and conflicts in ideology are unavoidable and should always be discussed strictly within the premises of the organization. In the event that both parties are unable to come to a mutual agreement, that is when further alternatives can and should be explored, such as leaving for greener pastures that can fulfill their ambitions. However, that should always be contemplated only as a last resort, especially if the players in question have signed contracts for the long term.The problem is, some progamers are unable to weigh the consequences of their actions and how it would affect the community and scene in general.

Even if the fans are appeased as they just want to see their favourite players in action, the ones with the money won’t be. And that is where the bridge between success and failure lies, because the powers behind E-sports are not seeing and getting their money's worth. To put this into context, imagine if  Loda and co. had decided to leave Fnatic for  Aeon. While Aeon would undoubtedly be pleased with the accquisition of a world-class team, Fnatic would be left reeling from the team's departure, and it is fair to say that after experiencing so many inherent struggles and difficulties with the DotA scene (including their previous stint with the ex-XcN team), who knows, they might decide to move on and not waste anymore of their resources by halting investment into DotA. Even without mentioning the importance of Fnatic's popular branding and what it could do for the scene, we would be losing yet another potential avenue for DotA to develop. This concept similarly applies for the other respective gaming scenes as well.

Other side of the coin

Besides gamers being unable to fulfill the agreements made with their sponsors, there is also the vice versa which is a common occurence in the E-sports scene today. It is hard to pinpoint which one takes precedence over the other, but for the most part the manner in which they occur are identical. Firstly, there is the issue of organizers never paying the winners their prizes on time or not paying them at all; a prime example would be the Electronic Sports World Championship (ESWC), after going into liquidation failed to payout the prize money owed to teams who had won the championship in previous times, and mTw's counter-strike (CS) team who are still yet to receive $90,000 in prize money up to now. Furthermore, there has also been numerous reports of teams not getting paid their due salaries by their organizations. The ex-MYM CS team encountered this problem, as well as several others that have claimed incidents of unpaid salary for months.

What does this mean? Does this mean the ones with the money have the right to be unprofessional? It is their money afterall, so they have the right to invest in the most profitable ventures. This begs the question of whether sponsoring players are lucrative and commercially viable. Big-name organizations, such as Intel would most likely have no problem, having set aside a large marketing budget, but what about the smaller ones? Can they afford to splash cash on something that does not promise a substantial return on investment (ROI) in return for that bit of brand awareness and publicity? Not to mention the intangibleness of it, adopting such an approach will most likely see companies losing more money than they can afford.

This brings us back to the question of professionalism. This is step one, and everything successful must stem from this concept; if you are a professional, people will sit up and notice you, communities will respect you, fans will revere you, and most importantly companies will feel more secure with their investments when they know it is going the right way. 

So does professionalism exist?

Professionalism does exist, but it is hardly enough for the E-sports industry to truly break free of society's perception that gamers are lazy and unbred creatures. It must be understood that progamers are not just representing their organizations, even more so representing the face of E-sports, which will be what everyone will have their eyes on, especially companies looking to sponsor new organizations. A genuine lack of professionalism, as highlighted above, will justify what our critics have been saying all along: that E-sports is not professional enough to be a business, and not a worthy investment. This situation, if uncorrected, will eventually cause a vicious cycle of more and more sponsors/organizations being reluctant to enter the scene after witnessing what their predecessors have gone through. Both sides will be left lost and neither side will stand to benefit. Ultimately, the players are the ones who will suffer.