Real Gaming Open Letter to Gaming Community

Warren Scrimgeour from Real Gaming has sent Do Gaming an open letter to the gaming community addressing concerns raised by gamers for alleged non-payment of prize money after Real Gaming's Call of Duty 4 tournament in July.

Scrimgeour has asked the community to respond.

To set the scene, Scrimgeour told Do Gaming that 20 teams were invited to the tournament which featured a high division and lower division. He adds that only nine teams arrived.

The prize pool was broken down between the teams as follows:

Higher Division

1. R10 000
2. R6000
3. R3000
4. R1500
5. R500

Lower division

1. R2250
2. R2000
3. R750

Scrimgeour was responding to an email sent by a participant in the tournament and included Do Gaming and several other people in his response. The gamer’s email said the following:

"We have been waiting for two months now to get our prizes which was promised. We have not received any updates or any news, its [sic] seems like your organization have stolen our money and ran.

I am checking with my lawyers to see if we have any sort of case against your company. A verbal agreement was made and I urge you to uphold your agreement.

If I do not get any response to this email I will take this matter forward."

Below is Scrimgeour's open letter published as-is.

"Your email is just a bleak reminder of why the South African gaming industry is in the state that it is currently in. I guess this is why the international community considers South Africa to be a joke in the international gaming community.

There are a couple of points that I want to bring to your attention that you may have missed.

1. If you would like to compare us to the international community where the average turnaround time for tournament payout is 5 months. We have paid out 54% of the winning within 2 months which I would say is not bad compared to international standards.

2. You have stated that I have stolen from you, the total income generated from the event was R 14 365.27, the total cost of the event excluding the Accruals for the venue was R 29 826.47. Who has stolen from who.

3. There was no verbal agreement entered into by yourself and I guarantee when the tournament winnings would be paid so do not waste your time or money with legal cost because you will end up paying mine and yours.

4. To date I have met with a large portion of the gaming industry and they all tell me the same thing “They are in it for the benefit of the community”. This is quiet a interesting statement reason being that 90% of gamers are there for the community and 10% for the money but the latter seems to be more beneficial.

5. Realgaming took the time to put together a event that was both professional and well managed for the “benefit of the community”. What I find strange is that everyone has been very quick to raise the negatives but very few talk about the positive.

6. 90% of gamers in South Africa claim to be professional gamers but yet they come to a event and behave like they have never been out in public, please choose you cannot have the best of both worlds.

7. I pose one question to you and would really appreciate an answer, what have you really done for the South African gaming community other then run it into the ground.

In closing I would like to say that the 10% of the so called community that make the noise cause 90% of the problems.

Please post this Email on as many gaming forums and websites as possible in the hope that one day the south African gaming community will wake up and understand what they are missing.

I await your response."

Scrimgeour confirmed the gamer concerned was paid today and that the 54 percent of prize money was paid out on 9 September.

He has asked the gaming community to comment and has said he will respond in a few days. Please post your comments below.