http://www.dailydot.com/esports/ko-hyun-simon-boudreault-quantic-gaming-lawyer-sue/
http://www.dailydot.com/esports/simon-boudreault-quantic-gaming-disappear-collapse/
What a strange situation.
Patrick Howell O'Neill said:Three months had passed since Ko Hyun received his last paycheck, and he was upset. The Korean StarCraft 2 star conducted most of his business with his Canadian boss online, communicating on Skype and receiving payments via PayPal.
So it's almost understandable that he would let the owner, Simon Boudreault, know about his unhappiness over the payment situation with a simple emoticon: ;'(
Now, the 25-year-old Hyun realizes he should have sent a letter from a lawyer instead.
Boudreault, the 23-year-old CEO of the Quantic Gaming eSports team, has been missing since Dec. 17, during which time his company has largely broken apart. Hyun, the teams biggest StarCraft 2 talent, says Boudreault owes him about $23,000 in salary and prize money that has gone unpaid for months. He wants to sue Boudreault for lost payif he can find him first.
Simon has gone off the map, and there is no one to be held responsible, Hyun wrote in an open letter after the Daily Dot broke the story of Boudreaults disappearance.
"I'm regretting the year I spent taking countless flights, and I'm so stressed out I'm wondering why I spent eight years as a gamer. I don't know what to do, and it's been a while since I've played since I just can't bring myself to. If someone can't help me out, I might have to quit. (Translation via Team Liquid.)
No one knows where Boudreault is.
Staffers on Quantic havent spoken to him in weeks. Kalle Nilsson, who runs Quantics media division, says Boudreault owes him hundreds of dollars. That didnt stop over 50 people from sending Nilsson hate mail after the news broke, Nilsson said. The angry fans assumed Nilsson was also responsible for the money owed to Hyun.
In fact, Hyun told the Daily Dot he holds no grudges against anyone in Quantic other than Simon Boudreault.
The other staff is not bad people, he wrote. Except Simon.
In addition to the $23,000 allegedly owed to Hyun, Bernie "Fujikura" Catalan, Quantics Chief Operating Officer says he is owed $4,000; Paul Icewulf Lampron, the teams Marketing Director, says he is owed $8,000; and John Clark, who also worked in marketing for Quantic, says he is owed $5,000.
The team was such a mess, Clark told the Daily Dot.
Had no real marketing deck, no hierarchy, no real marketing materials. Then the League of Legends team fell apart and that is when Simon disappeared.
That adds up to at least $40,000 Boudreault allegedly owes his staff. Several other ex-Quantic employees, who have asked not be identified say Boudreault has owed them hundreds of dollars.
I know he was very busy and did have some health problems, Clark said. But in the end I think he just gave up. I reached out to him almost daily, offered to take a pay cut or just partial payment to help float Quantic until we could build things up. But he never responded.
http://www.dailydot.com/esports/simon-boudreault-quantic-gaming-disappear-collapse/
Patrick Howell O'Neill said:Quantic Gaming, a North American eSports team with squads in League of Legends and StarCraft 2, appears to be breaking apart. The team's CEO went missing two weeks ago. Well before that, he'd stopped paying his players.
Simon Boudreault, Quantics 23-year-old Canadian owner, has not been in contact with Bernie Catalan, the teams chief operating officer, since an instant message on Dec. 13. The last time he spoke to anyone in his company was a brief conversation with the teams media manager on Dec. 17.
Prior to disappearing, Boudreault told friends and associates in the eSports industry that he was going to get a biopsy on a lump on his lung. A source close to Boudreault says he quoted doctors as saying there was a double digit percentage that the found matter would be cancerous. The Daily Dot was unable to independently confirm this. Repeated calls to Boudreaults office at his familys IT company, as well as his former employer, Sustema, were not returned.
Boudreault inherited his wealth when his father, who owned the Canadian IT firm Sustema, passed away several years ago and left the company to his sons. In 2011, Boudreault bought a minor team called 4Not. He purchased the Quantic Gaming brand in February of this year.
Boudreault is said to have spent most of his salaryas much as $200,000 according to Quantic stafferson eSports. Recently, the cash has not flowed easily.
Ko "HyuN" Seok Hyun, a Korean StarCraft 2 player on the Quantic roster, has not received his salary of about $2,200 per month for several months, according to several Quantic staffers. Although Hyun had been talking with Boudreault about recouping lost pay, the two have since lost contact.
Earlier this year, StarCraft 2 player Harry "MaSsan" Cheong accused Boudreault of mistreating and mismanaging him. He left the team in October, shortly after receiving the money Boudreault owed him.
In May, rumors were already swirling that Quantic was about to go out of business.
"Quantic Gaming is far from going under, Boudreault wrote at the time. We have seen more activity in the month of May than we ever had since the revival. Our teams, activity and results are stronger than they ever been."
In August, Quantic sold its Counter-Strike team to Complexity Gaming, a decade-old American eSports team.
With Hyun on the way out and the Counter-Strike squad sold off, the League of Legends team was Quantics last. Now its left the organization as well.
Signs of trouble have been visible throughout the year. Quantic brought its team, composed entirely of South Koreans, to America to attempt to qualify for the League Championship Series, the games highest competition. The visas secured by Quantic, however, weren't good for the entirety of the tournament, expiring a day before potential tiebreakers. That flub might have cost the team a spot in eSports biggest leagueif Quantic hadn't lost its games in a series of upsets and left the tournament early anyway. Boudreault tweeted about those losses on Dec. 7:
Hopes got crushed. Broken Dreams & what ever.
Simon Boudreault (@QuanticSamBuca) December 8, 2013
Boudreault later insisted he would have brought the team back to America if need be, flights that would have cost thousands of dollars for each player on the five-person team.
Earlier this week, Jeong "Apple" Cheol-woo, one of the team's stars, left Quantic for Korean squad Incredible Miracle. For a team that was already on the edge of destruction after underperforming throughout this year, that departure pulled the power cord.
The players decided not to stay together, said Catalan, the team's COO. Apples move de-motivated the rest to find a fifth.
Catalan says the rest of the players team will not return to Quantic.
This isnt the first time Boudreault has gone missing in action. Hes disappeared before for days and weeks at a time without notifying staffers.
We didnt know even then what happened, Catalan told the Daily Dot. He has a habit of ignoring people.
When Boudreault did eventually return, there was no explanation given for his absence.
This time, Quantic staffers aren't sure if Boudreault will ever return. Two weeks ago, Catalan entered into negotiations with various eSports organizations in an attempt to give his players a new home.
Although Catalan reached out to major teams like Liquid and NaVi, only three returned his calls: Optic, a major Call of Duty team aiming to branch out into new games; Complexity, a multi-gaming organization that purchased a Counter-Strike squad from Quantic in August; and Roccat, a hardware company interested in directly sponsoring an eSports team.
When Quantics League of Legends squad called it quits, negotiations came to an end. The League team was what had attracted sponsors in the first place.
What a strange situation.
