Interview with Natus Vincere company's CEO, Alexander "ZeroGravity" Kohanovskyy
Hello. How do you do? And what’s new?
I’m doing fine. Everything is great. Though the winter is not very inspiring season. I’d prefer summer sun. It got colder.
Apart from this, everything is great. I go to gym. I train. I’m in a great mood, ready to fight and to win.
Can you tell us how the decisions are made in Na`Vi? Do you take into consideration the opinion of the fans?
First, the decisions were very hard, for the company is developing now. It’s not possible to control everything all the time.
Delegation is the main function of management. That is why we are now searching for the people we can delegate functions.
We need people that can perform the tasks and make decisions independently. As concerns the question related to the fan base my answer is yes.
When it comes to the roster we take into consideration the desires of our fans to see particular players in the squads.
When it comes to the office staff, we try to be more conservative and make decisions within the company.
What changes have Na`Vi office and the staff undergone lately?
We’ve hired many new people: Creative Director, Marketing Direcotr. We are now hiring the heads of the departments to facilitate the work in particular aspects,
to make more interesting content, to develop the organization, to demonstrate a very different level of e-sports.
Dota squad has undergone changes twice for the past 8 months. What is the main reason of it?
I think the team needs time to achieve a teamplay. For the past 8 months, we’ve ben lost some tournaments, we’ve won other.
However, the previous squad could not exist for personal reasons. Kuroky and Puppey are great players. I wish them happiness and luck.
As concerns personal qualities, there are more conflicting people there are less conflicting people.
The squad has undergone changes solely due to the personal relations.
You can’t hold the players or people, that can’t reach a compromise, if the other person don’t want to meet the half way.
The current changes are related to our wish to achieve the previous level of performance. I am sure we’ll manage to do it.
We are planning to it by the end of the winter. I am sure that Na`Vi will show their true face in February.
The squad will perform a great teamplay and a fair performance, if not defeat all the rivals. We’ll see what will be afterwards.
What do you think about the return of Goblak in the squad? Has he changed substantially since 2011, when he first played with Na`Vi?
Arthur has changed substantially. He has positive changes. I haven’t spotted any negative changes yet. Yet.
One thing I can tell you, people who claim that everything is possible without the captain are wrong.
Practically nothing can be achieved without the captain, without the leader of the team. Everything is destroyed.
The team has no playing discipline and no training discipline. I’ve read many comments by various people.
They write that I should not pay the salary to the players. If I don’t pay or if I acquire other players, it won’t work anyway.
They need a tough core, the team should base on. The team had cores in the past. First, it was Ivan “ArtStyle” Antonov, then Klement “Puppey” Ivanov.
Now, we’ve hired Arthur. We hope he’ll become the third core of our team, its management and gaming process.
Have you ever considered ArtStyle to become the captain of Na`Vi?
Yes, I have. I was desperate.
Why have you lost the voting for the quota at The Summit?
I still don’t understand it quite well. I think the team deserves to go there. We’re prepared. Lately the team has shown poor results, it influencing the voting.
Additionally, there were many players from EG and Secret, who agitated against us and for Cloud 9. They fear us. They do not want us to go there.
However, I am very grateful to those fans of ours who stay with us till the end. I can assure you that we’ll impress you in the nearest future.
Na`Vi.US hasn’t shown due result over the past 6 months of its existence. Have you expected it? Will there be any changes in the squad?
The team that shows no due results can’t help changing. People can’t be satisfied if they lose all the time. Defeat impacts moral drastically.
It’s true for all Na`Vi squads, including the main ones. It is bad when the team is defeated. It impacts the moral and the relations of the players.
It’s hard to say what will happen with Na`Vi.US, we’ll make a decision on the next week.
Recently Versuta left Na`Vi project. Why was he fired?
We couldn’t come to an understanding with Aren concerning his behavior. I do not have other claims to him.
Do you miss the time when you accompanied the squads in their trips, stood behind their backs and supported them to increase the team spirit?
Frankly speaking, I did miss that time for a while. However as per moment I have travelled a lot, had many flights.
And I feel that I do not want to go anywhere. I want to stay in Kyiv and somehow relax here.
I do want to travel with squads to support them sometimes. However I do understand we have managers, general manager, COO.
They provide all the necessary things to the players, so it is their right.
Summarize the year of 2014 for Na`Vi. What was good? What was bad?
I think that business development was good. I think we’ve created many cool things, we’ve established our own video production.
We will launch it soon. Na`Vi have created a competitive company in the market of the tournaments. I mean Dreamz Media.
By the end of the year we will have launched the broadcasting studio of popular games. We will announce it on this week.
We’ve opened a regional division Na`Vi.US. It might have not been as successful, but it was a nice start.
Therefore, regarding the growth and business development we’ve performed well.
I consider our results not to be good. Surely we aim to achieve the best and we know how to do it.
Regarding the positioning in the market, Na`Vi has begun to gain new markets, new territories, and new fans.
We travel to various countries and it influences our fan base and people who live there.
I am most happy to see people who are glad to welcome the players in their country. This deserves respect.
People support us, like what we do. They support players with all their hearts.
You had an idea to create an E-Sports association. Are you still working on that?
The idea is still alive. We are working on it. So everyone will soon find out the details.
E-Sports is now experiencing an extensive growth. Many tournaments and leagues have emerged. What will happen next? Will this growth remain extensive?
I think that differentiation will take place in the future. I mean that top leagues will develop and grow even greater,
while middle leagues will remain on the same level. Minor leagues will try to make something for amateurs.
I think such differentiation must exist. Na`Vi team can’t play 30 matches per month. This is nonsense.
Will you watch matches of Barcelona FK if they played every day? Nobody would be interested in it.
Top matches of top teams must have zest. So our priority for the next year is top tournaments: ESL, Dreamhack, Starladder.
Maybe MLG if they have content for Dota and Counter Strike, they planned. Participation in other tournaments is under the question.
Participating in the tournament provides an exposure to the organization and the experience for the team, these 2 things being the most important.
They also need good conditions and equipment, etc. Mere playing online is not interesting. It is not a due level anymore.
Teams that do not understand it are from another Universe.
What are the plans of Na`Vi for the year of 2015? Will you have new squads?
We watch the League of Legends. Though we’ve been watching it for such a long time that I am tired of it.
Riot company changes the rules every year. It is hard to adapt to it. We wanted to do something previous year, but they introduced some restriction.
Now the situation has changed, but they have introduced a new restriction. It is hard for us to orientate.
We need to communicate with people all the time, to ask the experts to give an advice, what we should do.
As concerns Na`Vi.US we want to add several squads, but we haven’t decided for which games.
Have you ever thought you’ll get to the pages of Forbes magazine?
Forbes is good, cool and pleasant. I think that we bring e-sports in public. We tell people how cool it is, what kind of phenomenon it is,
how big it will grow in the proceeding 5 years. It will be greater than many other kinds of sport.
The more we speak about it the more fans and the more potential investments we get.
More companies want to enter this market. We foster the development of this market.
You can address to your friends, fans and players…
First, I want to express my gratitude to our partners. They have stayed with us and supported us for a very long time.
SteelSeries, Tesoro, HyperX, G2A, AOC. You are great! Thank you very much. But for you, we won’t have achieved it.
Greetings to our fans. I read our website and social networks from time to time. I see many interesting and clever people.
It is my pleasure to read you. Thank you very much. I’m very pleased that you support us in our bad times.
You see what we’ve built. Thank you very much for that. We’ve worked really hard to built it.
Greetings to all the teams and the guys, who will match this interview. You are very important to me. We all do one great deed. We’ll make it!