I have always been a big supporter of the local gaming scene, hell we supported the Alpacas through the last Agasa tournament and now sponsor mInt gaming as our local professional gaming team. So when I get an email in my inbox from Mind Sports South Africa announcing the death of AGASA I was quite saddened.
Then I get an email from AGASA saying they are alive and well, which just irritates me. Not that they are alive and well but at the obvious petty bickering that is going on behind the scenes and has now spilled out into the open.
So to try and find more information I headed on over to the two sites in question, MSSA (http://www.mssa-cgboc.org/) and AGASA (http://league.agasa.co.za/)
On the top of the MSSA page we see a news article re-itterating that AGASA has dissolved and anyone who wants to join in the new leagues will need to join a new club and they go on to tell us how to do that, however on the AGASA page there is no news of them dissolving or anything else to be honest. So I followed some links and cam across http://gaming.do.co.za/ which is apparently hosted by AGASA even though it is under Telkoms domain control?
They have a news story on that site stating that MSSA are the ones under pressure after AGASA decided to pull out and go it on their own.
So this is all as clear as mud isn’t it… from where I sit it appears that MSSA have all the legalities in their court. They are the ones who can hand out national colours and put forward teams for international competition, which is really the most important thing when we are looking at gaming as a sport.
However AGASA seem to have the bigger sponsors in their court which is also really important if we want professional gaming to have any chance in South Africa.
The way it is going at the moment however will just end in tears, sponsors don’t want their names dragged through the mud because of petty squabbling and gaming is never going to be taken seriously by the Olympic Committee if we can’t even organise a simple league.
South Africa is not big enough to have two professional gaming leagues and I am pleading with both sides to get together and sort this out, put your ego’s to the side or step aside., if you don’t have the gamers best interests at heart then you shouldn’t be getting involved.Â
Get it together people, and here’s a novel idea; why not invite the only match creation website in the country to help out for your league?
Last Updated: January 20, 2009
easy
January 20, 2009 at 12:53
this is typical of south african committee’s and governing bodies. they all glory mongers who need to feel they’ve made a change but always end up making things worse.
the only solution to it, is to have a consolidated committee.
koldFU5iON
January 20, 2009 at 12:54
“Get it together people, and here’s a novel idea; why not invite the only match creation website in the country to help out for your league?” – in the world 😉
Steve Whitford - Do Gaming editor
January 20, 2009 at 14:49
Given what was said by the MSSA I don’t think you can blame AGASA for responding or clarifying its position to the community, esspecially after all the responses they received.
Also, just a note to claify. http://gaming.do.co.za is a site owned and hosted by Telkom. The site was designed and is managed for Telkom. AGASA has no ownership of the site – it is Telkom’s news site for South African gamers.
William
January 20, 2009 at 15:52
as a member of the “comunity” having been through leagues hosted by all the “big boys” i can safely state that MSSA are light years behind AGASA in terms of running a tight comp.
MSSA just dont have it in them IMO to run a decent game league. they spread too wide. personaly i would think that a reasonable solution would be that MSSA lets AGASA run their gaming side. MSSA still governs the medal thing… but stays out of the actualy leagues.
to date… i dont know of a single MSSA league that people didnt have a bad taste in their mouth caused by bad setting up / running of the league.
you’re forgetting iGame in this article.. who also want a piece of the competative league pie.
from my side… i would rather play AGASA leagues and not get colours than go through another MSSA league. well… not till they sort out their act. im not alone on this stand point
Sean
January 20, 2009 at 16:13
Gaming is not a sport, and what MSSA is doing is retarded. They just want as much as power as they can get…
They arn’t helping the gaming in any way, while AGASA is doing wonders.
Gaming is not a sport, not yet atleast…
Gamers play for fun and for PRIZES, MSSA offers only national colours as prizes and nothing else…
LazySAGamer
January 20, 2009 at 21:53
The part which confuses me is that in the footer on your site you have the following “Powered by Gaming League Enterprises.” which links back to http://www.agasa.co.za so forgive us for being a little wary about that.
w1domaka
January 31, 2009 at 09:30
Currently, I play for miNt gaming which merc and I started up. We sat down to discuss this very same issue, and personally we want nothing to do with MSSA.
I played for one of the top Call Of Duty 4 teams before moving over to Counter-Strike again. I earned my National colours along with the rest of Pantheon Gaming’s CoD team, but what does that mean to us? Nothing. We can not do anything with them. Their league is one of the worst organized to date, with little to no communication between them and the community- besides spam emails and whatnot saying AGASA has “dissolved” and that they have taken over the industry in SA. We received our medals and certificates at rAge, which according to them is a “casual gamers” event, while playing in the DoGaming Comp, along with 31 other teams – they promised so much but cannot deliver. They made things worse for themselves by holding their NTT’s one week before rAge which only two dotA teams showed up to, meaning no “protea” cod4 team was selected.
AfriCon was another example of complete failure. They brought an international COUNTER-STRIKE team (skgaming) to the country, basically for a free holiday, to give us “experience”. One of the mix teams beat them 23-1. That says a lot. They wasted a large amount of money and time bringing over an international side while they should have been using it for prizes, drawing more teams.
Colin Webster and MSSA are EVIL!
February 12, 2009 at 12:54
I’d like to clarify something. You cannot register directly with the MSSA, you have to be a member of a “club” with a proper/formal club constitution. “AGASA” was registered as the club name to the MSSA. AGASA the organisation decided to change the club name they registered with the MSSA at the beginning of this year. The MSSA informed them that they couldn’t just change the name of the “club”, they had to disolve the club first, then register a completely new club with a new constitution. The MSSA sent that letter out right after AGASA – THE CLUB – was “disolved”. So in “their eyes”, the AGASA CLUB was disolved and they jumped on the opportunity to spread lies and misleading information to the community that “AGASA” has “died”. Because the club and the organisation have the same name but they ONLY see AGASA as a club, they completely disregard AGASA, to them, there is NO AGASA now, they live in a fantasy world where they are the greatest thing to happen to the community! This is the slippery underhanded way that the MSSA works. If you ask them about it, they’ll just point out that “AGASA” is just an MSSA club that was disolved or DIED. They don’t see AGASA as an organisation at all. To them, “AGASA” died. They are a malicious, caniving, underhanded sorry excuse for an “official sporting body” which spreads misleading information whenever it suits them! If that sorry excuse for a sporting body gets traction in the gaming community, this community has no idea of the kind of destruction they will cause! Think BEE for our National gaming team people!!!!! Skill won’t count at all! :devil:
Anon
February 12, 2009 at 13:03
The do Gaming portal is wholy owned by Telkom, including bandwidth and hosting. However, the ENGINE that runs the portal and content management system (CMS) is a custom designed engine written by the developers of the AGASA website. It’s the same as having a forum powered by PHPBB, vBuletin or something like that (Powered by vBuletin), it’s just a content engine. The journalists and editorial staff have nothing to do with AGASA or the leagues, except that they use an engine written by the developers of the AGASA website engine.
roskii
March 21, 2009 at 14:54
Next time you write an article, please do some actual research into the matter before you blurt an article which doesn’t satisfy any purpose. If you had looked into the matter properly, you would see how the community is backing AGASA as they can actually host professional and exciting leagues, compared to the MSSA who has just brought disappoint and despair to the scene. There is much much more to this, but here is just a starter for you.
LazySAGamer
March 21, 2009 at 23:40
In my experience AGASA are also not above criticism here. They have made a fair few mistakes in the past as well.
It doesn’t matter what side of the fence you sit on, this is a mess