messioso: "Whether Valve and I would be a great fit for each other, I don't know, but I'd be more than willing to try"
In case you missed it, former Complexity's CS General Manager Graham "messioso" Pitt just made his debut as a temporary HLTV reporter, filmmaker, and photographer today, August 29th, at DraculaN Season 1. Curiously, he got to watch his former COL players lose to Monte in their Passion UA debut.
As much as messioso is enjoying the experience of attending an "old-school LAN," he wants to get back into his line of work, or even better, land a job at Valve and help the developer with the esports side of CS2, he revealed in an interview to Dust2.us today.
"I never outright said it, but I did have thoughts that Valve would probably be the one place where my loyalty to Jason [Lake] and Complexity might waver," messioso said.
The issues are plenty, from the way that the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) work to Valve's classic lack of communication with the community. A lot of people, from mere fans to those who work in the industry, think messioso could help fix these issues—and he's "more than willing" to try it.
You can read messioso's complete interview below:
Anyone who has been following CS esports in these past years has noticed that you've been a jack of all trades. You worked behind the scenes in many CS:GO tournaments until taking managerial roles in RFRSH (which involved Astralis, HEROIC, GODSENT, and BLAST), then North and Complexity. Now, you're taking photos, shooting videos, and interviewing players at DraculaN Season 1 for HLTV. What are you thinking of this experience so far, and would you consider doing it more often?
It's kind of nice to be at an event without any direct responsibilities for once, but I couldn't do this forever, and I'm definitely itching to get straight back into some real work. Not that it's not a great experience or anything, I'm loving the old school LAN vibes—it reminds me of when I used to attend LANs as a player back in the mid/late 2000s!
So maybe it's just making me feel young again. The kind of thing I'm doing, I've been doing a little bit of for the past few years anyway, I've always had my camera equipment with me, taking photos and filming content with the Complexity guys whenever we've needed something, and it's not worth sending a dedicated person for it. I prefer to think of myself as a Swiss army knife rather than a jack of all trades. I try and fill gaps where I can to the best of my ability. I'll never claim to be a photographer or anything, but if I can take just a few that help out, then it's worth it.
We know how things ended in Complexity and that you're open to working with a team or TOs again. Are you open to offers across all regions?
Yeah, a very sad ending, but ultimately the best for pretty much everyone involved, except I guess for Cxzi and me. But I'm sure we will both bounce back. I'm honestly open and ready to work on anything, whether it be on the TO side, where I obviously have a wealth of experience with ESL/BLAST, or on the team side, or something completely different.
I love to learn new areas of the business, so I welcome any left-field options that might come my way to pivot into something new. Regarding the region, I'd say I'm not desperate to start moving my life around again. I've already moved from the UK to Germany, and then to Denmark, where I am now. But if there are remote options, then I'd work with companies all over the globe—it's already worked out very well with Complexity despite being on a seven-hour time difference for most of the year.
Many people wish that you'd work for Valve as a sort of VRS consultant, one that could bridge the communication between Valve and the community. First, do you think this is necessary, and is this something that you'd be interested in?
Yeah, my X notifications have had a lot of @CounterStrike these past weeks. I never outright said it, but I did have thoughts that Valve would probably be the one place where my loyalty to Jason and Complexity might waver. For the greater good, right? I absolutely think Valve need a bridge between their development team and the community, at least on the esports side of things.
The lack of communication is almost more concerning to me because it leaves so many questions unanswered. It's one of the things I've always preached in a team environment that we can't have secrets and have to be open to each other, because once you get a negative thought in your mind and nobody is there to squish it, it festers and it grows and warps, and all of a sudden it's probably far worse than it originally was. I think that is something that Valve is struggling with right now, the lack of understanding from our side is causing issues to warp out of control, and some simple communication or their decision making in a timely fashion would nullify it very quickly.
Whether Valve and I would be a great fit for each other, I don't know, but I'd be more than willing to try. I'd make the argument that you'd need someone with a bit more haste to be in that role for it to make sense. If the person continues the "Valve time" pace, then it might not really fill the hole that is missing. The person would also need to be willing—and Valve also allow—to take full ownership over the VRS product/ecosystem.
I think Valve is missing a lot more than just a community manager type, but also someone who is going to drive real change, help develop systems to manage the whole product, for example, taking the data sourcing in-house rather than via HLTV, potentially even taking the invite system in-house and making it public for more transparency too. Maybe I should write a manifesto.
Whether messioso's interview will be enough to convince Valve that they need reinforcements, even if it isn't him, we don't know. But it's not every day that Valve will find someone who has his credentials and is open to work.
For now, all there's left is to follow messioso's on-site coverage of DraculaN Season 1, which you can find on HLTV. And, if you want to know more about messioso, you can watch our Best of Five episode with him below:
