The CEO of their e-sports organization “Evil Geniuses”, Nicole LaPointe Jameson, is stepping down. It was a tough year for the e-sports teams of her organization. A promising young roster in League of Legends collapsed after star player Danny withdrew for health reasons. An experiment also failed in CS:GO.
What kind of team is that?
- Evil Geniuses is one of the most well-known e-sports organizations in the world. They have teams in DOTA 2, CS:GO, League of Legends, Valorant, and Rocket League – all major e-sports titles.
- The team is known for its aggressive presence on social media: Evil Geniuses is big on things like “trash talk”. They see themselves as the “evil” team that outsmarts and tricks other teams. There is also a lot of winking involved. For the past few years, they have also presented themselves as a distinctly “female” team.
- In May 2019, businesswoman Nicole La Pointe Jameson (29) became the CEO of Evil Genius: She was the first African-American woman to lead a major e-sports organization.
Allegations that the organization “burned out” a huge talent in LoL
What kind of problems did EG face last year?
Especially in League of Legends, the team has gone through a negative development. In 2022, they had a successful team together and with Danny an outstanding young bot laner who had led the team to the top of the LCS.
But suddenly there were problems with Danny: Due to health issues, he withdrew from the team in 2022 and ended his career.
It later emerged that Danny is autistic. There were allegations against the organization for not taking enough consideration for him and for having “burned” him due to their success by overloading him without granting him the breaks he desired.
There was also criticism of the organization’s policy in the area of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. An experiment with a 15-man roster failed there.
Evil Geniuses seemed thin-skinned regarding criticism in CS:GO: They were annoyed in March 2023 that ESL made jokes about their terrible team.
The CEO says that the victory in Valorant is the perfect time to step down:
CEO says: There’s nothing she needs to apologize for
This is what the CEO says: In an interview, the outgoing CEO denies that she is stepping down because of investigations related to Danny. Neither she nor EG received any concrete complaints from Danny or his family. Danny himself posted on Twitter that he was not mistreated:
I know there’s a rift. I know people are calling for an apology. But, at the moment, I have nothing to apologize for.
Why is she leaving then? In the interview (via digiday), she says that she came to EG to turn around a non-functioning business and to restore the brand’s reputation. She has accomplished that. Now she is happy to hand the project over to her long-time right-hand person, the “revenue brain”: Chris DeAppolonio.
Self-critically, she says she was naive when she came into the job. She hadn’t expected to be the public face of the company. Fans, in particular, expected direct communication and access to her. She did not expect that, but she learned a lot.
Former intern says CEO has severely harmed “a generation of gamers”
This is a current controversy: Even if the CEO sees it differently, she is haunted by the “Danny” story.
On Twitter , a former intern made allegations against her: LaPointe has caused “irreparable damage” to a generation of players. E-sports would mercilessly exploit the hunger of young talents.
He also had to work 70 hours a week and has no interest in continuing to work in the field now.
Indeed, LoL seems to have lost a talent in Danny that could have shaped North American e-sports in League of Legends for years. To what extent the CEO is responsible for that is not clear:
LoL: Team is criticized for not supporting an autistic teenager enough – He ended his career at 19
