Maelk on Evil Geniuses’ departure: “I know how hard it is to turn a ship around when it’s already heading toward the abyss.”

This saddens me immensely. However, it was inevitable. Despite all the efforts and good intentions of EG’s latest leadership, I’m afraid nothing could have repaired the damage done before they took over.

Organizations led by their founders face this problem time and time again, and it’s clear that in esports, there’s no playbook that offers a solution for preserving a brand’s identity, vision, and growth when the original founders leave.

Evil Geniuses was a brand for which I had the pleasure of both playing and working at the height of its success (2011–2013). I took immense pride in representing the blue team both in and out of the game, and I was surrounded by people who were just as passionately dedicated to the cause as I was. That’s a rarity.

When Alex, Colin [Alex Garfield—former CEO of Evil Geniuses; Colin “lectR”—concept and campaign creator at Evil Geniuses. — Ed.] and the rest of the company were forced to move on, that was already the beginning of the end. Phil [Philip Aram—former COO of Evil Geniuses. — Ed.] managed the shadow of former greatness as best he could with very limited resources, and when PEAK6 came in and started flaunting their financial muscle, with it came a level of arrogance that I’ve never seen before or since (which is ironic, since both the original EG and 100 Thieves were, to some extent, built on what I like to call “positive arrogance”).

The handover of power from Phil to Nicole [Nicole LaPoint Jameson—former CEO of Evil Geniuses. — Ed.] was the final death knell. Of course, she was smart and definitely tried to rely on various ways to restore the organization’s former glory, but the house of cards eventually collapsed and came crashing down on her, her team of accomplices, and, unfortunately, everyone around her who was simply playing, working, or supporting the organization.

I was fortunate to know Chris [Chris DeApollonio—the last CEO of Evil Geniuses. — Ed.] and some of his people, who did their very best to fix the situation and restore trust, but esports fans are fickle, and there’s little you can do when your holding company was the root cause of this whole mess to begin with. It saddens me that he and his team might be blamed for this outcome, as I firmly believe they are people of good faith who were dealt a bad hand.

I’ve seen esports organizations come and go; I’ve played a role in several of them, and I know how hard it is to turn a ship around once it’s already heading for the abyss. EG—the brand and legacy founded by Alex Garfield—deserved better. North American esports deserves to have the original Evil Geniuses at the forefront of competition.