Things took a turn when Minacov was said to have paid to fly some of the site's employees to Malta where he reportedly procured 'cocaine and strippers'
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Both have work still published on the site. Heerema received a contract seen by Insider, promising him around $200 per month. Hossam told Insider he was tasked with writing roster moves, match recaps, and "anything to do with Valorant esports" and agreed to a rate of $500 a month without a contract. Esports writer Mostafa Hossam said he joined in June 2020 and Shawn "Germanicus" Heerema said he joined in May. He added that he started "coding the site from scratch" and took care of a lot of the day-to-day maintenance, like taking care of servers and checking to see when writers are posting stories. Josef Orland, who goes by hex4MT online and is the current interim CEO of THESPIKE.GG, told Insider that he had left his previous job as a "Dev Team Lead in an IT company" after Minacov had promised him a six-month contract to work on the site.
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When asked for documentation of this, Minacov did not return a request for comment. Minacov said he invested $400,000 of his own money on the site with no investors and spent $20,000 a month on servers. CSGO esports has evolved into a massive industry, with worldwide competitions watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers and a collective prize pool of tournaments of nearly $22 million in 2019.Īccording to Minacov in Twitter Spaces, he thought Valorant had similar esports potential and there was a niche in the market. The site, Minacov said on a May 14 Twitter Spaces, where users can host Clubhouse-like discussion rooms, was inspired by HLTV, a decades-old website cataloging the stats, games, and stories of the CSGO esports scene. The following year, he admitted to Dot Esports to not paying the EnVision esports team thousands of dollars in late payments, though in April 2021, former EnVision player William Hernandez told Dot Esports that "he believes players were 'eventually' paid by Minacov." Hernandez didn't return Insider's request for comment.īut any previous allegations didn't stop the creation of THESPIKE.GG in April 2020 by Minacov and a group of developers and writers passionate about esports.
Valorant spent money professional#
In 2017, Minacov left the company to found EnVision esports, a professional Overwatch team that lasted for one year.
Valorant spent money skin#
In 2014, Minacov founded OPSkins, a popular skin trading platform for "Counter Strike: Global Offensive" that closed dramatically in 2018. Prior to THESPIKE.GG, Minacov had a history of supposed payment issues. THESPIKE.GG started off as a promising Valorant fan website despite Minacov's previous professional issues Insider spoke to 3 current and former workers for the company who told their stories. Though the site is still running, it currently has no writers after they departed amid the payment controversy and an interim CEO says that he is still waiting to get paid.
![valorant spent money valorant spent money](https://gameriv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/valorant-review-1-1068x601.jpg)
Though the scene is small, it is growing and the site has amassed nearly 15,000 Twitter followers and a devoted readership. Since the site launched in mid-2020, THESPIKE has become a central hub for fans who want to learn about the stats, matches, and breakdowns of Valorant esports. Valorant is a shooter video game developed by Riot Games, where players take control of agents with unique abilities, inspired heavily by Valve's Counter Strike Global Offensive (CSGO), a game released in 2012. Two former writers of the news site THESPIKE.GG, which is known for covering a video game called Valorant, have come forward on Twitter in the past week claiming they and others who worked on the site are owed over $40,000 in total back pay from owner Artur Minacov.