What About That: dignitas ODEE

I tested your patience long enough now. I know you wanted to start talking about your team from the first minute we got going so here is your first chance: “What, in your opinion, makes Team Dignitas different and unique in comparison to other professional gaming organisations out there ?”
I would say straight off the top of my head that we are different and unique to other teams because of the way we manage our organisation. You could say that we are more like a big family than a team as our squads actually interact with each other keeping the very important fun element alive. Our managers have all played at the highest level in certain games so we feel we have a very good sense of what our players are after.

Another major factor is that we do not bullshit, we do not promise things we cannot do and we tell our players exactly what is going on. So many teams bullshit their players and it is unforgivable, we had this when we first started in Battlefield. We were promised a trip to a doomed LAN in Las Vegas that never happened, after that experience I would not do that to anyone.
We try to stick to our game plan and our goal of getting players to events, it is working very well so far. I must also say organisations like Tek-9 and Cadre I admire as they have similar views on eSports to us. We try to help everyone we come across in the scene as it is important for eSports to grow and not to become monopolised at this early stage.


How do you succeed in that task because I mean keeping the peace and interaction alive is not always that easy because in the case of Dignitas, a clan with a lot of members, you have so many different nationalities, cultures and personalities to deal with before you can get that sort of atmosphere breathing through your organisation ?
Well when players join they are told exactly what we expect of them playing, training and getting involved. If players do not interact or be part of the team well then their time is limited as one of our teams found out last year. Our managers also get involved and we find out what each squad is doing, in our organisation there are no superstars each player is special, that is why they are in Team Dignitas.


... and that team was your Counterstrike Source team if I am not mistaking ? What happened ?
Yes unfortunately it was, they had their goals and ideas and apart from winning tournaments that is pretty much as far as the similarities went. I hope they do well in Attax because they are a fantastic team but as I said all players in Dignitas are equal and all will be given a chance to do their thing. There are no free dinners I think the saying is :).


While talking about Counterstrike Source. It seems to become a hype that several big teams are switching over to Source instead of 1.6. What is your opinion on the split between CS 1.6 (CPL and ESWC so far) and the Source of DirecTV and probably some more organisers making some kind of breakthrough ?
Well it was our view that Source would eventually start to get bigger tournaments at some point and we had a source team from day 1. We kind of sit on the fence a bit with our view as I cannot see CS1.6 dying instantly. The DirecTV is massive and of course it is main stream TV so it is good for gaming but there are luckily other organisations that will use 1.6. We will just have to wait and see because for us CS and CSS is not absolutely everything. Our Battlefield, Racing and Call of Duty teams are extremely important right now. But if you think about CS:Source you need a powerful system with very good hardware to play it. The main sponsors of most events are pushing their latest hardware which obviously enables CS:Source to run better. From the sponsors point of view I am sure they would be happy with the tournaments being CS:Source rather than 1.6. We will however continue to look for a CSS squad for Team Dignitas and more.


In your first answer of the eSports paragraph you also said that it is important and a major factor for your organisation not to bullshit your players and promise them nothing else then what you can actually offer them. Do you feel that is still a great factor for teams leaving their organisation and what do you think about the management of such “failing” organisations ?
Well most teams leave other organisations because they receive better offers. I think the worst offers I hear about are the empty promises, a maybe is better than an empty yes. There is no doubt though gaining sponsorship is not easy at all and I believe some teams need help. I do not like people that bend the truth and claim to be what they are not, what is the point ? Teams with money will get the better players that will never change but the larger teams should look at ways of supporting the smaller teams growth as in the long run it will help them too. The more professional teams there are the better and eSports development will continue securely.


In what sort of way should a powerhouse like SK Gaming for example support smaller teams to grow in your opinion ?
I think SK are the premier organisation, I feel that they are supporting the whole of eSports already and that stretches beyond what people can see online.


In what terms do you feel SK is already supporting the little fish in this community?
The way SK conduct their business is a role model and teams already copy that business model. Their professionalism is innovative and what they have built should be admired not looked at jealously. SK's existence helps all eSports teams in my opinion.


So if SK is already doing a good job, then who of the other professional organisations do you feel should step up a notch to do what SK is already doing (without pointing fingers at them of course) or are there other organisations who are doing a great job like SK ?
Ok, well apologies now if I don't mention them :) but on a global scale of course Fnatic have done a great job building so quickly. On a smaller scale as I mentioned before Tek9 and Cadre and Excello in Portugal are doing good things.


Without taking any credit away from Fnatic in any way but everybody knows that they got boosted into the sky with their sponsorships of companies such as Intel and nVidia in the early stages and mostly due to an incredible performing Sander “Vo0” Kaasjager. Don’t you think that Fnatic had in some way a bit of luck with that pickup which allowed them to grow that fast ?
Of course it was lucky but our original deal was also lucky, it was a case of being in the right place at the right time. I think since then the skill of the teams with sponsors is hanging onto them and understanding their sponsors needs and objectives. We work with all our sponsors as closely as we can and this is something we (Dignitas) are extremely good at.


Getting back to your team do you feel that Team-Dignitas has supported the smaller teams as well and if so in what way mostly ?
I think we support smaller teams pretty well as we have hosted quite a few cups and tournaments in the past few years. I think everyone knows that we have many so called "Smaller Games" and we try our best to keep in touch with the communities of those games. Games such as Call of Duty, Battlefield and FIFA have massive communities so we have a wide reach.


It is indeed remarkable that a big home like Dignitas invests in “smaller games” such as Trackmania and so on while the other giants stick to games such as Counterstrike, Warcraft 3 and Quake ? The question that keeps a lot of us busy is: “Does it pay off to invest in such smaller games and if so in what way mostly ?
Well, we started in Battlefield 1942 and part of our original plan was to continue with this kind of games plus also give opportunities to other teams in other games that do not usually get the attention. We now have Counterstrike also but we stayed away from it purposely for three years before we eventually took a team. We are investing in our future as an organisation and the players we work with now I hope we will work with them 5 to 1 down the line. If you mean if it pays it pays off financially for us as an organisation right now, well the answer is no. But we hope we have built a secure and stable organisation that eventually will be rewarded for our efforts and that is now starting to happen financially. But again we will invest in the teams and players we have, maybe add some more but continue to build on what we have achieved all round the organisation. So to answer your question: yes it has paid off investing in the so called "smaller Games" :).


So the reason why you invest in the smaller games in mainly to work on your future and try to get motivated,dedicated and overall good people attached to your organisation ?
No only partly, the main reason is that it is where we came from and we agreed at the start to continue fighting for the smaller games to get some recognition. This ultimately leads to the motivation, dedication and good reputation that we have on the scene.


What I personally find very remarkable and what deserves a plus for your organisation is that Team Dignitas or at least one of its members appears in the media “every single month”. FIFA player “vnX”, who I interviewed just before you, got an awful lot of media-attention after the FIWC tournament, then you have the Portuguese “Tiger” who is more like a TV personality then a gamer and now I still forget about 75 percent of your members. How do you obtain this massive amount of media attention ? Do you, as their manager, arrange those interviews, do players themselves fix it or is it all just a coincidence that people want to have you and your troops in front of their camera ?
That is a long question with I hope a simple answer :). Our FIFA team had an outstanding 2006 media-wise and luckily there were quite a few main stream events going on. Tiger and dr_jivagos won the XBOX Cup in Berlin and this was broadcast live all day on cable TV. I don’t think that has happened for CS or Quake yet. It was also World Cup year and football is football everyone understands it, we were lucky to have such outstanding players in the competitions. As for vnX well he was the local favourite at FIWC and it was a media frenzy TV interview radio newspaper it was nice to watch. The Portuguese had three TV crews with them at that event :D. Some interviews we have setup but the good thing is that most the media have come to us and the players directly. I wish this happened everyday for the big eSport games but it has not got to that on this scale yet. If I did this job full time I think we would get even more media attention because I could go out and pimp our players more :).


Talking about FIFA, you do have one of the best FIFA players and team playing under the Dignitas flag but then again there is that mighty SK Gaming with those twins who still manage to overcome each and every one of the competition. Don't you think you still miss something that has "just that little bit of extra" like Styla and Hero ?
Yes of course but thats where again money comes into play the twins are fantastic and are respected by all our players. I think with them they have shown amazing consistancy through each year but getting paid to play helps just a bit. It’s a bit like buying a Ferrari: everyone wants one but most of the people will buy something a lot cheaper, that is how we got IstvaN our Danish player :).


Money is indeed a great issue in eSports and as we just came about this subject it is worth to continue asking some evil questions about it. It is obvious that with both ABIT and Creative backing your organisation up as head sponsors and Qpad and the others supporting as well, that Dignitas is doing quite good. Are we going to see more sponsorsignings in the near future for Team-Dignitas ? Are there any ongoing talks or plans to approach certain companies with the new year well under way and exhibition such as CeBIT happening in the near future ?
We are in the final stages of a deal that will secure some major sponsors, I hope in the next week or two we can announce them. Obviously I will not say who but we are very excited about the possibilities we will have with the extra financial support. We are always talking to companies and I would advise every other team to do the same. We will be at CeBIT also working with ABIT and hopefully one of the new sponsors.


Will it be another head sponsor that you will be announcing ? Is it an eSports related company or a more main stream one ?
All I can say is they are all major sponsors :), major head sponsors.


We are talking about plural new head sponsors coming up as we speak then ?
Yes.