Everything began on June 14th, when gamer Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng (real name Nguyễn Đức Bình) unexpectedly announced that he would give up his Fanpage with 1.3 million followers to move to a “new home.” At the same time, he confirmed that this would be the official and only Fanpage of Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng.
This means that the number one AoE gamer in Vietnam no longer owns the Fanpage with 1.3 million followers built over many years and has to start over from scratch.
The fact that Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng has to set up a new Fanpage occurred just half a month after this gamer announced his departure from Ego Media to establish his own company and AoE team. Named Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Studio Joint Stock Company, with a charter capital of 14 billion VND, where Director Nguyễn Đức Bình contributes 11.2 billion VND, and Ms. Nguyễn Thị Khuyến and Ms. Phùng Mỹ Hằng each contribute 1.4 billion VND.
Notably, on the same day, June 14th, after Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng announced the establishment of the new Fanpage, Ego Media’s president, Mr. Nguyễn Tuấn Hưng, personally spoke out to clarify the situation. Mr. Hưng stated that in 2019, when leaving Game TV, Ego Media had spent a large sum of money to regain the Page/Group/YouTube of gamers, specifically the Game TV team and commentators. After working with Ego Media for more than a year, Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng wanted to have his own direction and proposed to the company to let a few gamers (Anh Huy, Văn Hưởng) and commentators (Hải Mario) separate to work independently. According to Mr. Hưng, Ego Media fully supports this despite facing many difficulties due to the pandemic, especially as Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng’s departure from Ego Media adds to the challenges.
Regarding the Fanpage and YouTube channel of CSDN, to harmonize the rights of the partners previously signed and the purpose of maintaining the development of the AoE community, both sides have agreed on a cooperation agreement for a period of 12 months from the time Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng separates from Ego Media starting June 1, 2021. After 12 months, Ego Media will return to Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng the related assets such as the Page and YouTube channel, while the Group will be for both sides to build and develop the community together. However, after both sides signed the agreement, when Ego Media handed over the rights to Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Studio to operate independently, Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Studio did not fulfill the commitments and requested to sign the agreement again; otherwise, they would not accept the execution of any content, whether old or new contracts. Therefore, Ego Media was forced to withdraw the management rights of the Fanpage and YouTube from June 14, 2021, to resolve the situation.
The incident continued to draw the audience’s attention when gamer Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng revealed that Ego Media imposed a condition to return the ownership of the Fanpage and YouTube channel only if he shared all related revenue for 12 months. Additionally, this gamer would also have to execute the business contracts pushed by Ego Media with an extremely low percentage of the contract value. Below is the full statement from gamer Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng:
“Hello everyone!
Personally, after publicly announcing my new Fanpage, I had no intention of discussing this issue much; I simply aim to operate with the goal of developing the community. However, perhaps there are many negative thoughts at this time, so I feel compelled to speak out.
1. The story began when the entire GameTV Team and staff left GTV. This matter has never been mentioned, but the truth is that the whole team (Chim Sẻ, Mạnh Hào, U98, Bùi Phương Nam, Hải Mario, Kami) at that time did not have anyone who had conflicts or felt unfair with the treatment policies of GTV.
All activities and strategies were directed and arranged by Mr. Hưng and the leadership. Of course, the brothers who followed Mr. Hưng did so entirely voluntarily, but the story everyone understands as the Team leaving the company when still under contract and then being sued while Mr. Hưng extends a helping hand is incorrect. In reality, at that time, GTV still had tournaments, invested in community development… My relationship with GTV, including Mr. Nguyễn Hoàng Kiên, from the time of departure to now remains completely normal.
2. Regarding the cooperation agreement within 12 months as Mr. Hưng publicly stated, I would like to share as follows:
– Ego Media will return all rights to the Fanpage and YouTube channel to me under the condition of sharing all related revenues within 12 months, including:
+ Sharing revenues related to the Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Fanpage, the Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Official YouTube channel.
+ Sharing my business revenues.
+ Business contracts pushed by Ego Media, I will execute and receive a very low percentage of the contract value. The specific number here I cannot disclose, but all terms are very beneficial for Ego Media.
+ In addition, I have to support the betting for each gamer under Ego every month from 10 to 15 hours.
During the implementation of the cooperation agreement, the following issues arose:
– The Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Fanpage at that time lost its monetization function (according to investigations by the parties, this was due to issues with the management account of Ego Media), and the loss of this function directly affected the cooperation ability according to the agreement from both sides.
– The signing date of the agreement was May 15, 2021, but on May 14, 2021, Ego Media did not have any announcements or discussions with me and proactively signed a very large and long-term contract.
If I agreed to implement according to this contract and the requests from Ego Media, I and my team would have to work continuously for 2 months full time, but Ego Media did not agree to pay any expenses. This meant that my entire team had to work without compensation.
My side has suggested that the company reconsider to harmonize both sides, but the company did not agree. On the very first day of the cooperation, both sides did not achieve mutual consent, and I personally did not feel comfortable (after this phase of work, Ego Media has contacted to negotiate again, but of course, the story has gone beyond).
– On June 2, 2021, after inquiring about the remaining payments due to me during my time working at Ego, the representative of Ego Media replied that they would not pay me for the May revenue from the Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng Fanpage.
– After that, Ego Media contacted and requested to negotiate again but included an annex demanding that I not cooperate with over 40 units within a year (While this is a year that will determine my future development and my company’s survival, I truly cannot accept this).
My side, with a spirit of goodwill, also proposed many solutions for both sides to continue cooperating. However, the negotiation process did not yield the desired results.
– On June 13, 2021, Ego company withdrew all management rights from me on the Fanpage and YouTube channels.
– On June 14, 2021, I decided to publicly announce my new Fanpage, leaving without taking any assets that had been built with the company over time.
I personally always know my gratitude, thanks to Mr. Hưng and the leaders in the community, I was able to achieve success like today, and the new community exists as it does now. However, this community is declining significantly, and I hope all parties will operate independently and cooperate to support each other. Let me contribute to the development of the community when I separate, but please do not let us fall into a situation of merely maintaining together.
Personally, I now understand my responsibility in the development of the community. AOE is an inseparable part of my life, and this community is like brothers who have been together for many years. I will do my utmost to create another empire.”
As of now, the newly established Fanpage of Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng has attracted about 46,000 followers, while the old Fanpage of Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng with a blue tick and 1.3 million followers has had no new activity for the past 4 days.
What do you think about the above incident? Please leave your comments!