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A writer on Mineski.net has an important announcement: He does not play Dota 2 professionally. Please do not flame his work.
Mineski.net writer Izo “IZOID” Lopez released a frustrated editorial about a common mistake made by both Filipino and foreign fans. It seems the editorial team at Mineski.net, the news site owned by the Mineski brand, is getting a lot of flak about the esports teams, Mineski Pro Teams, also owned by the brand.
The main problem? They have nothing to do with each other.
“We get it, you hate [Mineski Pro Teams player] Mushi and Mineski sucks,” Lopez observed. “We feel bad because some of us are friends of the managers and pro players and they honestly don't deserve the amount of vitriol they get, but you know we're the news team right?”
Philippines is known to push its love for social media and technology to its limits where available, using sites such as Facebook for just about everything. One current site estimates that half the population of the country uses the Internet, and similar numbers have access to Facebook.
On top of that, the Philippines has the fourth-highest number of players of any country in Dota 2, accounting for nearly 11% of the game’s active player base, according to SteamSpy. (There are more Filipino players than those in the United States. Seriously.) For that reason, it’s extremely easy to feel their presence on Dota 2 sites and fan pages, including that for the Dota 2 game itself.
Of course, with any large population, that means there’ll be both the good and bad users. With Mineski’s acquisition of Dota 2 legend Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung, who was awkwardly characterized in Valve’s documentary series True Sight, Filipino fans were bound to try to find an outlet for their concern.
Except, as Lopez says, the news site has nothing to do with the team, which means it has nothing to do with that acquisition, either.
He goes on to outline the various roles of each of the brand’s unique divisions:
- Mineski Pro Teams, actual esports teams
- Mineski.net, editorial
- Mineski Infinity, cybercafes
- Mineski Events Team, event production team (see: Manila Masters)
- MineskiTV, another event team (casting at The International, etc)
- Mineski Gear, peripherals company
And yes, that means the only reasonable place to regularly rant about the professional lineup under the Mineski brand would be, reliably, the Mineski Pro Teams divison. In fact, the whole Mineski operation started with the Mineski Events Team, meaning the editorial team has even less to do with the success, or lack thereof, of the esports divison.
“Though the website started as more of a community forums and mouthpiece for MET's event announcements,” he explains, “slowly the Mineski.net brand has grown to include esports news primarily for the Philippines but occasionally for Southeast Asia as well.”
He also expresses his disappointment with the myopic discussion of, exclusively, the Dota 2 squad.
“Mineski-LoL and Mineski-CS:GO are doing pretty well in their scenes actually, and they deserve some recognition for it, not disrespect,” he says.
With the upcoming Southeast Asia qualifiers for The International 7, perhaps this announcement was well-timed, as the vitriol will only intensify over the fierce SEA competition. Hopefully this will help Mineski fans simmer down—or at least boil over in the proper outlets.
[NOTE: A previous version of this article misnamed an event run by Mineski.]