It's "free" as in "you are the product, you dum dum". By the same guy pouring at other "free money" scams like Celsius or FTX. But I'm sure this totally legit sponsor is completely different.
It's a rewards scheme. It's legit, but works the same way other reward schemes do. It gives the store offering a reward more of your data. Honey works the same way. Is it something I'd use? Nah. Is it remotely comparable to FTX and Luna? No lmao. And I have no interest defending this channel, I think like 60% of the voice over is roughly right and the other 40 is riddled with basic errors about finance, business, names, companies, investing and so on.
I have no idea how SPACs are legal... It's the stock market equivalent of buying an iPhone online and receiving a sealed iPhone box with a rock inside.
Your metaphor works better for Chinese ADR's. It's all just garbage in the end, so you're right about that lol. Special Purpose Acquisition Companies are just a way of cutting through a lot of the red tape (time and financial statements) for listing the acquired company publicly. SPAC's do get vetted the traditional way, but since all they really are is just a pile of cash there's not much to do except rubber stamp them.
@4:03 I want to meet the eye candy in the tank top and distressed jeans in the background. With looks like that, I think she did OK out of this whole SPAC mess.
Good video! However as someone whos followed this dumpster fire for several years i found that you missed out several parts of the story. For instance, Snoopdog being appointed to the board and being hired as a face of the brand only to make like one appearance for them and dumping his stock as soon as legally possible. Faze's connection to Illegal online gambling operations, aswell as some of their members pumping and dumping NFTs (I know NFTs was in the pitch but Faze members have rugged plenty before that) aswell as the coin (which you should have specified was supposed to be a charity for sick children). The Faze rabbithole goes even deeper. Terrible terrible conpany.
You would have to be stupid or desperate to hire Snoop dogg. And he only accepted because he's a sellout. It's disgusting to see a corporation and an individual who have more than enough money be this desperate seemingly having no dignity whatsoever.
I think Faze Clan signing Grace Van Dien (Blue Fille) straight off her popularity from Stranger Things and then absolutely messing it up because several of their veteran members couldnt just not be sexist towards her sums up why their company failed. They finally sign a rising star who actually streams (unlike prior celebrity signings) and wouldve brought them a new audience and alot of good will, but because none of them have any professionalism they blew it up
these kinds of businesses already have a corporate overlord, its amazon(twitch) and google(youtube). Adding an additional middleman just leads to increasingly diminished returns
@@KenjaTimu I see a pattern that will probably happen in Hololive just like what happened in Faze. hopefully Hololive won't suffer such atrocity. becoming to big to get sponsorships.
Faze clan has literally been a meme since (at least) 2012. Nobody who knows anything about anything would think this is a good idea. Machinima failed and it had 1,000x the potential of Faze for success.
People still fall for crypto scams despite it regularly happening for a decade, so just something regularly failing before doesn't seem to be a reason to not invest in something
@@tomlxyzthat sentiment rings to mind one of my favorite (alleged) Mark Twain quotes. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.”
Funny little story about all of this. When FaZe's share prices tanked under 1 dollar, one of the main founding members ended up having to sell his 992 911 GT3 with a dealership I am very familiar with. The car was completely wrapped in the gaudy FaZe Clan wrap and it sat on the dealership floor for a while before the dealership finally took the car and got that wrap removed completely. When the wrap was finally removed, the GT3 was sold immediately and no one was the wiser. Should show you how unknown FaZe is outside of a small circle of people. I even explained to the dealership General Sales Manager who FaZe Clan is (as I roughly know the gaming scene) and he had no idea who they were. I couldn't help but laugh because I knew that car would not sell with that stupid FaZe wrap on it. No one outside of gaming circle would touch FaZe and their brand with a 10 foot pole. Especially with the OG FaZe members keep running their mouths like they know business. They absolutely don't. They are dumb enough to run Grace Van Dien out the door, when they desperately needed something positive, the OG members managed to somehow screw that up too. Nadeshot and 100 Thieves at least know what they are doing, FaZe Clan is just pretending to know what they are doing.
Yeah, seeing them dunk on Grace for the stuff out of her control was just sad. They are attacking everyone. If you listen to the behind scenes story of their corporate management, it's clear they never knew what they were doing from the start. They were just a stupid boys club that gained fame and they fumbled their way to riches. They need someone who can put the big boy pants on and get the shit together, but who wants to work for a group of man children who want to dictate everything?
The funny thing is: I am a long time Starcraft and League fan, I have cursory knowledge about CS:GO, Hearthstone etc. Even though I lost interest in it some time ago I would consider myself as somebody who is quite knowledgeable about e-sports but I know next to nothing about this team and their achievements, they have no discernable image in my mind, even though I have probably heard about them in non-finance related contexts. Either way, they are not a household name. If I was offered to invest into Team Liquid or C9 or even as you said, 100 Thieves, I would know what to expect and their brands would spur in me some kind of trust - with FaZe I have no such feeling.
To this day I still have no idea who FaZe is. I mean I think they have something to do with gaming and watching a garbage fire is always fun but I still don't know crap about them. How they ever thought they were relevant is amazing to me. Maybe I'm an outlier because gaming outside of Fromsoft isn't really all that interesting to me.
I've been saying this on loop with every FaZe drama video I stumble across with. The only thing OG members know how to do is get clout, nothing else. They've been self sabotaging the day the sold the brand. And been whining endlessly about how bad the management is when it's their fault for selling out.
You can't really short a SPAC. You buy it, then redeem your shares during despac. If you're an insider and got in early enough, you probably get to keep the associated warrants. Effectively you make FFR for the lockup period plus the value of the warrants. SPACs are a scam and anyone can tell just by reading the terms of any particular one.
In order to short an asset, the security must first be borrowed on margin and then sold in the market, to be bought back at a later date. IF there's anyone willing to sit at the other end of that trade, that person will ask for a fee. And like Vikram Krishnan said, the market capitalization is low, imo it's MICROSCOPIC, 17,5M USD, so anyone with a little bit of spare change can make you eat your shorts. Imagine how little money a billionaire would have to drop in this asset to make your shorts lose 50+% of value.
One other thing wanted to add - they tried to add a woman game player Grace Van Dien and then Faze Rain insulted her appearance and skills saying she was not welcome. Then she responded insulting his former drug habit/OD and then he made this horrible video showcasing him yelling at her until she cried and left the room (apparently he can decide when something is offensive and when insults like the ones he made against her should just be taken as a joke). Then all his fans made death threats against her. What kind of group is this?
"(apparently he can decide when something is offensive and when insults like the ones he made against her should just be taken as a joke)" Isn't that what literally every chicks thinks tho? And if a guy cried, you wouldn't feel bad for him.
Tried to reply and post link to video before but it did not take. Can google it and go to 19:00 to watch end where he is telling her not to be upset about the insults but what she said to him was not ok. I honestly have not seen this kind of situation happen too much and hard to know for sure but think if I did see it happen where another person insulted a man until he cried, I think I would feel for the man.
This reminds me of the multi channel network debacles that came to a head a few years ago. Predatory taking advantage of creators, large cut of revenue, horrible contracts, and eventual bankruptcy, it’s all there. The next step in this dance will be creators going public about not getting paid, if it hasn’t happened already.
I’m an investor and not a gamer, heard about this when the SPAC was announced. Took me about 5 seconds to figure out it was a complete joke. No one on Wall Street took this company seriously. Even the SPAC sponsors who took this public were borderline trolling with that presentation. No matter what happens, they make a killing, zero fks given about investors, fans, and the company.
Faze, or any esports org, is more of a clout thing than a legitimate commercial enterprise. All the game genres that are available to an individual streamer that esports competitive gaming doesn't cover, like simulation, role-playing, action-adventure, puzzles, sandbox and horror games, not to mention poker and casino games, are just as lucrative to stream and partner with.
I think of "clout" as having actual power. Like getting arrested for DUI with a pocket full of narcotics and making the whole thing go away with one phone call. Or showing up at a trendy restaurant with no reservation and the owner personally escorting you right to a table. Having thousands of children who like to watch you play Call of Duty isn't clout in my mind.
I don't know the answer to that but i do know that on average SPACs have made a major loss for investors. Just thinking about how SPACs are supposed to work, how can anyone expect it to go differently?
Of course. Ardagh Metal Packaging, for example. They pay a solid 11% dividends. Pretty much none of the resource-oriented SPACs (gas/oil/gold etc) been a scam.
One of the fundamental problems with corporate America is the belief that as long as we have investors/shareholders(i.e. capital) the business(model) will work..... ANY business. And that's just NOT the case. I have worked in the moving industry for over 12years and have seen how corporate America particularly TECH companies create apps that are suppose to make moving simple and YES moving is NOT that complicated. The problem? Corporate america didn't understand(and LEARN) that moving customers are NOTORIOUSLY CHEAP and no matter how much 💵 tech/corporate america put behind the apps.... they loss LOTS of 💵 and just didn't work. This is the same pitfall that happened with faze. If the initial investors took the time to LEARN the CULTURE of faze, They could have seen THIS was more of a SMALL HOBBY enthusiasts community rather than the HOPE of a profitable business model and putting CASH behind won't work
Would have taken an extremely lean corp structure, realistic valuation ($500 mill, not 750 mill), no NFT scams or other screwups, signing high count streamers on the most popular platforms (in other words, people who don't need Faze), and taking 10%, not 20%, then...maybe.
Despite the huge decline in the market cap, whoever put these shares out into the public still got away with tens or hundreds of millions. They still beat whoever invested in them even though they may get delisted.
A general rule is there is never a lot of money in selling things to children. It must be a freemium service to get any business at all. You will get limited amount of money from merch sales and sponsorships because parents are buying this stuff, not kids. You must constantly acquire new customers as old ones will inevitably lose interest in a few years or months. And there are zero barriers for entry so there's constant competition from a sea of persons. Also, kids don't like souless corporations and will devote most of their attention to people they want to be friends with. This is why Minecraft servers rarely make it to the 10 year mark. People just simply stop playing, and the less money comes in the poorer quality the server will be which will in turn drive more kids out.
@@YoungGirlz8463 Not very much. People play games progressively less as they get older and boys play far more games than girls. That's why all videogames target teenaged boys as those are the ones spending 100% of disposable income on games.
I'm a browser extension developer and was pitched the exact idea for Kudos when looking for a new startup 1.5 years ago. I thought the idea seemed both impossible and kind of silly. Boy, was I clearly wrong! That was definitely a trip to see this ad in a WSM video of all places. Pretty neat, guess that guy was on to something.
My favourite part of FaZe clan were the original founders complaining on twitter about how FaZe is ran present day, after they *checks notes* completely sold out for a cash grab.
Great video. I wish you would have included something about Faze paying Snoop and Nickmercs millions and in no way integrating their brands into the bigger Faze brand.
FaZe clan is grandfathered into esports to such a degree it doesn't matter how poor of a company they are. Built off the back of shady at best business practices, and continuing through to present day.
I had no idea FaZe was a publicially traded company lmao. I love video games but I do not get the appeal of e sports or video game streaming at all. Seems like a dumb idea for an IPO with all the overpriced clothing nonsense and lack of regulation for their streamers , they should have regulated content and as a software engineer I think they should make their own indie video games and have their streamers promote their own video game brand but i'm an arm chair CEO , FaZe CEO knows better than me
Esports in general are bound to die. It's a very niche market, and even though video games in general is a gigantic market, the people who love video games enough to sit and watch people play professionally is absurdly small. All that investor money and sponsorships are going away, and a lot of tournaments and teams are shutting things down. The fact that people really thought watching nerds sit around playing super smash brothers was going to rival professional sports leagues was comically absurd.
E-Sports and video game streaming under a company doesn’t work in the west, in Japan amongst other Asian countries where the agency model is widespread in general you also see this model for streamers, with multiple agencies trading on the stock market as well.
and making cheater wallhacks videos of Swagg into bot lobbies... put them on wall street market like stocks..idiots..they think players are stupid so they can be easily cheated..
I think WSM just keeps nailing it over and over. Why they're not at 500k by now just shows the soapdish level of IQ of the YT algo. Keep it coming WSM team!
Even other pro gamers say it's almost impossible to make money in esports. The investors saw the made up numbers and jumped at it without doing their proper research.
The problem with investors and businesses os the idea of hoping with the trends! Remember that trends are just trend, over time their hype and interest will fade away, as new trends will rise to replace previous trend. Instead of focusing with trend, focus on a more viable business idea that truly solves real world problems or an idea that bolts itself over a passion! Of course using some technical stuff are also important, such as doing a more dynamic business model that adopts to changes while maintaining the initial idea!
Betr has to win the spac prize for 'speed run to penny stock'. Pretty wild. At one point I remember selling 20+ strike faze calls for premium obv higher than the current stock price. The collective intelligence of the market has gone full Idiocracy in the past 3-4 years (arguably before that but 2021 was bonkers)
No any level support for own members, that is cold blooded business management. Training, education, specialized services, even loan for equipment could help any of members. Ok, everyone was own team but there was not any synergy
As someone doing competitive gaming back in 2003: I take great offense to you calling Faze one of the OGs. They never even showed up for CAL/CPL. Even I'm not one of the OGs because I didn't do Doom2, Quake, or Unreal competitive gaming. I was only there for half life death match and CS1.6/Source. Y'all could do a bit of basic research. This isn't even counting the long standing Korean star craft scene, which is what inspired CAL/CPL
@@cryptocsguy9282 Yeah the old Twin Galaxies days, but a lot of those records are widely disputed now. We've no idea how many are real after Todd Rodgers was found out to be faking his initial Dragster score, and more. Walter was kind of just handing out rewards to people he liked, but none the less they did have a group traveling around the US to play games competitively.
@@cryptocsguy9282 I just remembered. It goes back further than Atari. There were traveling pinball groups who would compete in pinball tournaments. International travel.
They were in the big league, remember the Jontron video making fun of their new concrete bunker? They had the soda pop up through the desk, such style.
This whole mess is a good example of letting the clout and popularity go to your head. There is an established scumbag pattern of “influencers” and “streamers” exploiting their fans for a quick buck. And whoever thought that this was going to be a sustainable money maker needs to be fired and have whatever licenses and credentials stripped of them. Also them using a spac was already a giant “do not enter” sign from the get go. These guys at one time held a solid spot in the gaming world but even at their plateau it still wasn’t at the very top. There’s a video you can find of one of their members going into a GameStop and announcing himself to the whole store and expecting everyone to swarm him for pics and autographs but absolutely no one knew who he was. 😂😂😂 Honestly at this point these guys aren’t really taken as seriously as they once were. And in a business sense these are a bunch of ppl who really didn’t know what they were doing. Whenever I see any clips from their members now it’s just cringe.
To be clear..Teeqo is the only one of the save the kids coin guys that did nothing wrong. He actually lost money and never sold a single coin. Hes a good dude
7:20 talks about how unreliable TH-cam sub count is in regards to popularity and true size of a channel 9:35 then proceed to talk about how popular a TH-camr was by referring to, and only, their sub count
Are you aware that watching people who are experts at certain things allow the viewer to learn a lot and improve their own skills? Do you even game at all? Lol
@ ~6mins in; think you've misunderstood the point of doing this. It's to show investors who have zero knowledge of games, the potential of the space. Not to say "we did this", but to show the environment they're looking to expand into. If millions are willing to watch a virtual concert in a game it demonstrates an audience and appetite
From Sports Business Journal- FaZe Holdings Inc., the “struggling video game-influencer” with 512M followers across social media, is being acquired by GameSquare, Cowboy owner Jerry Jones and Crescent Real Estate co-founder John Goff’s gaming company, in a deal worth about $17M.
I would agree that part of the problem with Faze Clan, is what is the capital used for? Esports streaming is a very capital light business. Maybe high end computing power is necessary, but that's not really all that expensive. As the video points out: anyone can do it. So what can a corporation offer to its employees to make them more efficient compared to a solo artist? If the only product is the people and the labor, then how can they generate a return to pay investors?
A documentary about a stupid investment sponsored by a company that helps you "save money" when you buy shit with a credit card. Great irony, well done.
I don't know why people would invest in individual content creators. The general rule online is that to make any real money you need to have a ginormous platform with millions of users. The individual content creators are glorified freelancers. If they're good they can make enough to sustain themselves and maybe a handful of employees but they'll never grow large enough that it's worthwhile to make a publicly-traded company out of it. Then you put all the issues that gamers have on top of that (young, male, low-income, offensive) and you see how a SPAC turns into a dumpster fire in short order.
Sounds like it's currently operates like a talent agency with franchise mechanics, when it should be ran like a record label with 360 deals and target up and coming e sports teams. But, i do see a market for an esport's ESPN.
Actual athletes get good at the sports they are playing because they train and push themselves to a level very few are willing to do. Esport athletes get good at video games because they are hooked and can leave the house.
How is a smart financial channel sleeping at night promoting an ad for a company that obviously must themselves be a scam? There is no way this browser plugin that monitors all your purchases isn’t selling all of your data.
Why does this guy sound eerily similar to the guy who does the Logically Answered videos (just sans the extra Asiatic accent) ? Or do y'all just hire the same audio and voice over artist?
Correction: a lot of the investors were lazy and stupid people. Age has nothing to do with not doing any due dilligence before investing in a company. And that categoricaly means ignoring any marketing presentations they put out, and simply checking the news and sentiments and such around the web. Yes, some young people are already aware of it because it intersects with their normal interests, but many are not. Faze has so mjch ovcious problems around it, a 3 hour search and readup would leave anyone with serious doubt that they are worth more than lowest double digit millions.
Sorry. Touting “viewer numbers” and calling e-sports an "expanding market" is a huge joke. The numbers were always view-botted like crazy and are completely unreliable. Everybody knows it. The e-sports scene has already contracted massively. The actual viewers that aren’t bots have proven to be a very hard group to monetize. They might watch a stream, but the conversation rate to cash-in-hand consumers that will actually PAY MONEY for event tickets and team merch is terrible compared to fans of other major sports. That isn’t an “expanding market.” It’s a total struggle show largely funded by “money marks,” speculation wolves, and the increasingly-rare (because most have already been burned) out-of-touch boomer companies and politicians desperately seeking connections with the youth markets.
It always cracks me up when people like me (57, doctor) try to invest in some trendy “Internet thing”. Even *I* know that Faze are a bunch of asshat corporate shills.
Why did they even become Public? Their target audience are teens with no access to investments and they've been known to scam their audience. Ohhhh I get it.. This IPO was actually a pump and dump scam. Yeah this makes sense for their brand.
💰 Use code "WSM" to get Kudos for FREE and double your rewards ▸ joinkudos.com/wsm 💰
Another scam ad.
Are they generating revenue from selling consumer data? Wondering how they pay out 3% cash back when the service is free..
skammerz
It's "free" as in "you are the product, you dum dum".
By the same guy pouring at other "free money" scams like Celsius or FTX. But I'm sure this totally legit sponsor is completely different.
It's a rewards scheme. It's legit, but works the same way other reward schemes do. It gives the store offering a reward more of your data. Honey works the same way.
Is it something I'd use? Nah. Is it remotely comparable to FTX and Luna? No lmao.
And I have no interest defending this channel, I think like 60% of the voice over is roughly right and the other 40 is riddled with basic errors about finance, business, names, companies, investing and so on.
I have no idea how SPACs are legal... It's the stock market equivalent of buying an iPhone online and receiving a sealed iPhone box with a rock inside.
What a perfect description.
Because every .000999% of the time, that rock is a diamond.
They're sorta in a grey zone
Chaimath Pilhapatiya is going to curse you
(I do not mean to misspell his name it's my fault)
Your metaphor works better for Chinese ADR's. It's all just garbage in the end, so you're right about that lol.
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies are just a way of cutting through a lot of the red tape (time and financial statements) for listing the acquired company publicly. SPAC's do get vetted the traditional way, but since all they really are is just a pile of cash there's not much to do except rubber stamp them.
I want to meet the analyst that made this deck, he has some skills
@4:03 I want to meet the eye candy in the tank top and distressed jeans in the background. With looks like that, I think she did OK out of this whole SPAC mess.
Nah, all of the SPAC are just scam frauds. SPAC didn’t have to disclose revenues.
@@blastingoff I've got a partner. You getting some? Peace! Piece of azz!
Has there been any smart SPAC so far?
I want to befriend that analyst and dump all my work on them
Good video! However as someone whos followed this dumpster fire for several years i found that you missed out several parts of the story. For instance, Snoopdog being appointed to the board and being hired as a face of the brand only to make like one appearance for them and dumping his stock as soon as legally possible. Faze's connection to Illegal online gambling operations, aswell as some of their members pumping and dumping NFTs (I know NFTs was in the pitch but Faze members have rugged plenty before that) aswell as the coin (which you should have specified was supposed to be a charity for sick children). The Faze rabbithole goes even deeper. Terrible terrible conpany.
You would have to be stupid or desperate to hire Snoop dogg. And he only accepted because he's a sellout. It's disgusting to see a corporation and an individual who have more than enough money be this desperate seemingly having no dignity whatsoever.
Jesus
Lol the Snoop Dogg bit is jokes. Would make sense because he can't really play fast paced games while stoned out his mind 24/7.
The joke is your lies.
Snoop a G
I think Faze Clan signing Grace Van Dien (Blue Fille) straight off her popularity from Stranger Things and then absolutely messing it up because several of their veteran members couldnt just not be sexist towards her sums up why their company failed. They finally sign a rising star who actually streams (unlike prior celebrity signings) and wouldve brought them a new audience and alot of good will, but because none of them have any professionalism they blew it up
these kinds of businesses already have a corporate overlord, its amazon(twitch) and google(youtube). Adding an additional middleman just leads to increasingly diminished returns
Hololive is doing great. Faze is just bad.
@@KenjaTimu I see a pattern that will probably happen in Hololive just like what happened in Faze. hopefully Hololive won't suffer such atrocity. becoming to big to get sponsorships.
Faze clan has literally been a meme since (at least) 2012. Nobody who knows anything about anything would think this is a good idea. Machinima failed and it had 1,000x the potential of Faze for success.
People still fall for crypto scams despite it regularly happening for a decade, so just something regularly failing before doesn't seem to be a reason to not invest in something
@@tomlxyzthat sentiment rings to mind one of my favorite (alleged) Mark Twain quotes. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.”
@@Dugpasttenseofdigone bizarre thing is that many people who fall for a scam have been falling for scams a couple of times before
Machinima never had any potential, cause it was so widely mismanaged.
Funny little story about all of this. When FaZe's share prices tanked under 1 dollar, one of the main founding members ended up having to sell his 992 911 GT3 with a dealership I am very familiar with. The car was completely wrapped in the gaudy FaZe Clan wrap and it sat on the dealership floor for a while before the dealership finally took the car and got that wrap removed completely. When the wrap was finally removed, the GT3 was sold immediately and no one was the wiser.
Should show you how unknown FaZe is outside of a small circle of people. I even explained to the dealership General Sales Manager who FaZe Clan is (as I roughly know the gaming scene) and he had no idea who they were. I couldn't help but laugh because I knew that car would not sell with that stupid FaZe wrap on it. No one outside of gaming circle would touch FaZe and their brand with a 10 foot pole. Especially with the OG FaZe members keep running their mouths like they know business. They absolutely don't. They are dumb enough to run Grace Van Dien out the door, when they desperately needed something positive, the OG members managed to somehow screw that up too.
Nadeshot and 100 Thieves at least know what they are doing, FaZe Clan is just pretending to know what they are doing.
Yeah, seeing them dunk on Grace for the stuff out of her control was just sad. They are attacking everyone.
If you listen to the behind scenes story of their corporate management, it's clear they never knew what they were doing from the start. They were just a stupid boys club that gained fame and they fumbled their way to riches.
They need someone who can put the big boy pants on and get the shit together, but who wants to work for a group of man children who want to dictate everything?
The funny thing is: I am a long time Starcraft and League fan, I have cursory knowledge about CS:GO, Hearthstone etc. Even though I lost interest in it some time ago I would consider myself as somebody who is quite knowledgeable about e-sports but I know next to nothing about this team and their achievements, they have no discernable image in my mind, even though I have probably heard about them in non-finance related contexts. Either way, they are not a household name. If I was offered to invest into Team Liquid or C9 or even as you said, 100 Thieves, I would know what to expect and their brands would spur in me some kind of trust - with FaZe I have no such feeling.
To this day I still have no idea who FaZe is. I mean I think they have something to do with gaming and watching a garbage fire is always fun but I still don't know crap about them.
How they ever thought they were relevant is amazing to me. Maybe I'm an outlier because gaming outside of Fromsoft isn't really all that interesting to me.
I've been saying this on loop with every FaZe drama video I stumble across with. The only thing OG members know how to do is get clout, nothing else.
They've been self sabotaging the day the sold the brand. And been whining endlessly about how bad the management is when it's their fault for selling out.
the OG members are big dumbasses lmao. "u cant even do a 360 noscope" mf's still think its 2010.
Shorting SPACs is looking to be the guaranteed money maker of our time.
Shorts cost money and SPACs are volatile.
You can't really short a SPAC. You buy it, then redeem your shares during despac. If you're an insider and got in early enough, you probably get to keep the associated warrants. Effectively you make FFR for the lockup period plus the value of the warrants.
SPACs are a scam and anyone can tell just by reading the terms of any particular one.
Given the low market cap, you could get easily squeezed
Guaranteed money maker? There is no such thing. Do you think you are the only 200 IQ big brain that has thought of this?
In order to short an asset, the security must first be borrowed on margin and then sold in the market, to be bought back at a later date.
IF there's anyone willing to sit at the other end of that trade, that person will ask for a fee. And like Vikram Krishnan said, the market capitalization is low, imo it's MICROSCOPIC, 17,5M USD, so anyone with a little bit of spare change can make you eat your shorts. Imagine how little money a billionaire would have to drop in this asset to make your shorts lose 50+% of value.
One other thing wanted to add - they tried to add a woman game player Grace Van Dien and then Faze Rain insulted her appearance and skills saying she was not welcome. Then she responded insulting his former drug habit/OD and then he made this horrible video showcasing him yelling at her until she cried and left the room (apparently he can decide when something is offensive and when insults like the ones he made against her should just be taken as a joke). Then all his fans made death threats against her. What kind of group is this?
most of his fans are middle/highschoolers, so literal children.
Faze Rain really is toxic
"(apparently he can decide when something is offensive and when insults like the ones he made against her should just be taken as a joke)"
Isn't that what literally every chicks thinks tho? And if a guy cried, you wouldn't feel bad for him.
@@kaczan3 How to say "I hate women" without using those precise words.
Tried to reply and post link to video before but it did not take. Can google it and go to 19:00 to watch end where he is telling her not to be upset about the insults but what she said to him was not ok. I honestly have not seen this kind of situation happen too much and hard to know for sure but think if I did see it happen where another person insulted a man until he cried, I think I would feel for the man.
" The World's Dumbest SPAC". To quote Pulp Fiction, that's a bold claim. there's a deep bench of contenders.
These are the kids that rob middle schoolers and laugh about it
Middle schoolers are a bunch of little shits, though.
This reminds me of the multi channel network debacles that came to a head a few years ago. Predatory taking advantage of creators, large cut of revenue, horrible contracts, and eventual bankruptcy, it’s all there. The next step in this dance will be creators going public about not getting paid, if it hasn’t happened already.
The idea of an E Sports team being made into a publicly traded company is as stupid as BuzzFeed thinking they are more valuable
I’m an investor and not a gamer, heard about this when the SPAC was announced. Took me about 5 seconds to figure out it was a complete joke. No one on Wall Street took this company seriously. Even the SPAC sponsors who took this public were borderline trolling with that presentation. No matter what happens, they make a killing, zero fks given about investors, fans, and the company.
Faze, or any esports org, is more of a clout thing than a legitimate commercial enterprise. All the game genres that are available to an individual streamer that esports competitive gaming doesn't cover, like simulation, role-playing, action-adventure, puzzles, sandbox and horror games, not to mention poker and casino games, are just as lucrative to stream and partner with.
$FaZe
Some people like to see good skills,not some guy that does whatever
Esports is all about the commercial enterprise to the guys in polo shirts in the back of the room who have never played a game besides Wall St.
@@obsidianjane4413 true ,what he said sounds like some MBA logic
I think of "clout" as having actual power. Like getting arrested for DUI with a pocket full of narcotics and making the whole thing go away with one phone call. Or showing up at a trendy restaurant with no reservation and the owner personally escorting you right to a table. Having thousands of children who like to watch you play Call of Duty isn't clout in my mind.
Has there ever been a SPAC that wasn't a scam or bubble?
I don't know the answer to that but i do know that on average SPACs have made a major loss for investors. Just thinking about how SPACs are supposed to work, how can anyone expect it to go differently?
Of course. Ardagh Metal Packaging, for example. They pay a solid 11% dividends. Pretty much none of the resource-oriented SPACs (gas/oil/gold etc) been a scam.
UTZ, MP, and a bunch more. However, like 95% of them are total garbage
Yes: the one i am trying to sell you right now. All the other SPACs are fake. Would i lie to you?
There are some. Not many, but a few are good.
One of the fundamental problems with corporate America is the belief that as long as we have investors/shareholders(i.e. capital) the business(model) will work..... ANY business.
And that's just NOT the case.
I have worked in the moving industry for over 12years and have seen how corporate America particularly TECH companies create apps that are suppose to make moving simple and YES moving is NOT that complicated.
The problem?
Corporate america didn't understand(and LEARN) that moving customers are NOTORIOUSLY CHEAP and no matter how much 💵 tech/corporate america put behind the apps.... they loss LOTS of 💵 and just didn't work.
This is the same pitfall that happened with faze.
If the initial investors took the time to LEARN the CULTURE of faze,
They could have seen THIS was more of a SMALL HOBBY enthusiasts community rather than the HOPE of a profitable business model and putting CASH behind won't work
Would have taken an extremely lean corp structure, realistic valuation ($500 mill, not 750 mill), no NFT scams or other screwups, signing high count streamers on the most popular platforms (in other words, people who don't need Faze), and taking 10%, not 20%, then...maybe.
Despite the huge decline in the market cap, whoever put these shares out into the public still got away with tens or hundreds of millions. They still beat whoever invested in them even though they may get delisted.
The one redeeming factor is that anyone investing deserved to lose their money, being stupid is expensive.
@@jpt4409brah, I bet they're using their parents money
A general rule is there is never a lot of money in selling things to children. It must be a freemium service to get any business at all. You will get limited amount of money from merch sales and sponsorships because parents are buying this stuff, not kids. You must constantly acquire new customers as old ones will inevitably lose interest in a few years or months. And there are zero barriers for entry so there's constant competition from a sea of persons. Also, kids don't like souless corporations and will devote most of their attention to people they want to be friends with.
This is why Minecraft servers rarely make it to the 10 year mark. People just simply stop playing, and the less money comes in the poorer quality the server will be which will in turn drive more kids out.
Why you trying to make it about children? Even god plays video games.
@@YoungGirlz8463 Not very much. People play games progressively less as they get older and boys play far more games than girls. That's why all videogames target teenaged boys as those are the ones spending 100% of disposable income on games.
@@samsonsoturian6013 but god is billions of years old and he plays video games!
@@titanicisshit1647 what?
@@samsonsoturian6013 didn't you know that god likes to play video games?,proprietary curez told you
Yo! Someone finally did a video on this! Thank you! This SPAC has been such a dumpster fire! Great video
I mean I know a bunch of people who’ve talked about this before and after this went down
Save the kids!
I'm a browser extension developer and was pitched the exact idea for Kudos when looking for a new startup 1.5 years ago. I thought the idea seemed both impossible and kind of silly.
Boy, was I clearly wrong! That was definitely a trip to see this ad in a WSM video of all places. Pretty neat, guess that guy was on to something.
Faze clan in 2022:"Lets have a profitable year"
Coffeezila:"I am gonna end this mob's entire career"
My favourite part of FaZe clan were the original founders complaining on twitter about how FaZe is ran present day, after they *checks notes* completely sold out for a cash grab.
Great video. I wish you would have included something about Faze paying Snoop and Nickmercs millions and in no way integrating their brands into the bigger Faze brand.
How are you going to include Snoop Dogg into an esports brand? What part of getting high all day seems professional or sporty to you?
Oh no, we already had the failed Snoop Lion, I can’t imagine FaZe Snoop.
Faze was coming into the sphere when I left it; and I thought it was a joke back then.
Ten years later and I was right
FaZe clan is grandfathered into esports to such a degree it doesn't matter how poor of a company they are. Built off the back of shady at best business practices, and continuing through to present day.
They are ran and created by uneducated incels.
The first time I heard of Faze was from Coffeezilla’s takedown of some of their members’ involvement in pump and dump schemes.
FaZe has been crooked from day one and their failure will only be a good thing.
Can we all just agree that without internet drama, FaZe was nothing?
Never heard of it until the Save the kids thing
they were absolutely something in a specific niche of early 2010s call of duty youtube. outside of that they are nothing
@@brother-calmthey are and have consistently been a top contender in the Counter-Strike scene
always good to see a stock chart that is fundamentally identical to a rugpulled coin named, idk, ball$ack or something.
The insiders cashed out (or they better have) and that's all there is to know about this SPAC.
I had no idea FaZe was a publicially traded company lmao. I love video games but I do not get the appeal of e sports or video game streaming at all. Seems like a dumb idea for an IPO with all the overpriced clothing nonsense and lack of regulation for their streamers , they should have regulated content and as a software engineer I think they should make their own indie video games and have their streamers promote their own video game brand but i'm an arm chair CEO , FaZe CEO knows better than me
thats the cancer side of online gaming for ya. I wish online games never existed so we wouldnt have to deal with this junk.
Esports in general are bound to die. It's a very niche market, and even though video games in general is a gigantic market, the people who love video games enough to sit and watch people play professionally is absurdly small. All that investor money and sponsorships are going away, and a lot of tournaments and teams are shutting things down. The fact that people really thought watching nerds sit around playing super smash brothers was going to rival professional sports leagues was comically absurd.
didn't coffeezilla do a series about them?
A gang of Faze affiliated players became professional crypto scammers. It didn't reflect on corporate
He literally talks about that in the video, fairly early on, even brings up the title card/name of the video up...
@@reappermen At about 09:50 minutes.
@@reappermen in my defense, i made the comment before watching the video all the through.
good videos and production value ..think u need a better mic thou
With very few exception and they don't really live with the competitive scene part, eSports is just a money pit.
Lmfao seriously who the hell invested in this?
Anyone?
If so, please respond to this comment and explain WHY you wasted money on them.
But some puts, has worked very well for me.
very freaking rich kids who had too little braincells
The term SPAC sounds like a slur, and I'm loving it
E-Sports and video game streaming under a company doesn’t work in the west, in Japan amongst other Asian countries where the agency model is widespread in general you also see this model for streamers, with multiple agencies trading on the stock market as well.
Like hololive?
They thought they can turn 360-quick-scope videos into a publicly traded company.
and making cheater wallhacks videos of Swagg into bot lobbies... put them on wall street market like stocks..idiots..they think players are stupid so they can be easily cheated..
"Ethical considerations aside, they seemed to be doing pretty well."
Why does that sentence always come before people start not doing well.
I think WSM just keeps nailing it over and over. Why they're not at 500k by now just shows the soapdish level of IQ of the YT algo. Keep it coming WSM team!
Every time I see Faze clan tags on Call of Duty still I end up laughing
I love how it starts so positive the boom! It’s actually a disaster 😂
Even other pro gamers say it's almost impossible to make money in esports. The investors saw the made up numbers and jumped at it without doing their proper research.
The problem with investors and businesses os the idea of hoping with the trends! Remember that trends are just trend, over time their hype and interest will fade away, as new trends will rise to replace previous trend. Instead of focusing with trend, focus on a more viable business idea that truly solves real world problems or an idea that bolts itself over a passion! Of course using some technical stuff are also important, such as doing a more dynamic business model that adopts to changes while maintaining the initial idea!
I love how it starts so positive then boom! It’s actually a disaster 😂
Anyone who thought this would end well, should have there head examined.
Betr has to win the spac prize for 'speed run to penny stock'. Pretty wild. At one point I remember selling 20+ strike faze calls for premium obv higher than the current stock price. The collective intelligence of the market has gone full Idiocracy in the past 3-4 years (arguably before that but 2021 was bonkers)
No any level support for own members, that is cold blooded business management. Training, education, specialized services, even loan for equipment could help any of members. Ok, everyone was own team but there was not any synergy
As someone doing competitive gaming back in 2003: I take great offense to you calling Faze one of the OGs. They never even showed up for CAL/CPL. Even I'm not one of the OGs because I didn't do Doom2, Quake, or Unreal competitive gaming. I was only there for half life death match and CS1.6/Source.
Y'all could do a bit of basic research. This isn't even counting the long standing Korean star craft scene, which is what inspired CAL/CPL
@backlogbuddies e sports has been around since Atari was making arcade machines
@@cryptocsguy9282 Yeah the old Twin Galaxies days, but a lot of those records are widely disputed now. We've no idea how many are real after Todd Rodgers was found out to be faking his initial Dragster score, and more. Walter was kind of just handing out rewards to people he liked, but none the less they did have a group traveling around the US to play games competitively.
@@cryptocsguy9282 I just remembered. It goes back further than Atari. There were traveling pinball groups who would compete in pinball tournaments. International travel.
Where can I find their pitch deck? Using this for a case study
8:14 damn chill man, that was soul crushing🤣
They were in the big league, remember the Jontron video making fun of their new concrete bunker? They had the soda pop up through the desk, such style.
Should’ve said “kudos to kudos for sponsoring this video”
This whole mess is a good example of letting the clout and popularity go to your head.
There is an established scumbag pattern of “influencers” and “streamers” exploiting their fans for a quick buck. And whoever thought that this was going to be a sustainable money maker needs to be fired and have whatever licenses and credentials stripped of them. Also them using a spac was already a giant “do not enter” sign from the get go.
These guys at one time held a solid spot in the gaming world but even at their plateau it still wasn’t at the very top. There’s a video you can find of one of their members going into a GameStop and announcing himself to the whole store and expecting everyone to swarm him for pics and autographs but absolutely no one knew who he was. 😂😂😂
Honestly at this point these guys aren’t really taken as seriously as they once were. And in a business sense these are a bunch of ppl who really didn’t know what they were doing. Whenever I see any clips from their members now it’s just cringe.
To be clear..Teeqo is the only one of the save the kids coin guys that did nothing wrong. He actually lost money and never sold a single coin. Hes a good dude
7:20 talks about how unreliable TH-cam sub count is in regards to popularity and true size of a channel
9:35 then proceed to talk about how popular a TH-camr was by referring to, and only, their sub count
Well, it is an indication that they were popular at some point.
Does anyone remember montage videos?
they were just....FaZed....away
“One of the best ways to save money is by using credit cards for your purchases” Is a wile statement at any level.
It’s crazy how a cod trickshotting clan made it this far. Someone made a shit ton of money
"Despite his blistering criticisms of the company, [Teeqo] is still a member."
I guess he was right, the corpos DO need him more than he needs them.
I've never understood why anyone would want to watch someone else play a video game. Maybe I'm too old to get it 🤔
Same reason why people watch sports game.
Are you aware that watching people who are experts at certain things allow the viewer to learn a lot and improve their own skills? Do you even game at all? Lol
@@RealBoiJare ummmm no. I don't game. I have a job. But thanks for asking
Just for research purposes, whos the girl at 4.05?
@ ~6mins in; think you've misunderstood the point of doing this. It's to show investors who have zero knowledge of games, the potential of the space. Not to say "we did this", but to show the environment they're looking to expand into. If millions are willing to watch a virtual concert in a game it demonstrates an audience and appetite
SPACs should be illegal. Going public is supposed to be hard for a reason. If you can't meet those criteria you shouldn't have a workaround.
From Sports Business Journal- FaZe Holdings Inc., the “struggling video game-influencer” with 512M followers across social media, is being acquired by GameSquare, Cowboy owner Jerry Jones and Crescent Real Estate co-founder John Goff’s gaming company, in a deal worth about $17M.
I would agree that part of the problem with Faze Clan, is what is the capital used for? Esports streaming is a very capital light business. Maybe high end computing power is necessary, but that's not really all that expensive. As the video points out: anyone can do it. So what can a corporation offer to its employees to make them more efficient compared to a solo artist? If the only product is the people and the labor, then how can they generate a return to pay investors?
A documentary about a stupid investment sponsored by a company that helps you "save money" when you buy shit with a credit card. Great irony, well done.
Faze Clan vs. Face Plant
This SPAC was so insanely dumb I'm shocked it wasn't put together by the con-man Scamath "The SPAC King" Palihapitiya
I don't know why people would invest in individual content creators. The general rule online is that to make any real money you need to have a ginormous platform with millions of users. The individual content creators are glorified freelancers. If they're good they can make enough to sustain themselves and maybe a handful of employees but they'll never grow large enough that it's worthwhile to make a publicly-traded company out of it. Then you put all the issues that gamers have on top of that (young, male, low-income, offensive) and you see how a SPAC turns into a dumpster fire in short order.
The only person who made any money from SPACs is the person who started this TH-cam Channel.
I live in Atlanta, am a FaZe Fan, and knew nothing about Atlanta FaZe. Shows a lot
As a fan, how do you feel about you being the main source of revenue for these idiots?
Brother, you make the best, most researched videos on the planet!
Jesus Christ
How is this even a company?! Wow just wow
Sounds like it's currently operates like a talent agency with franchise mechanics, when it should be ran like a record label with 360 deals and target up and coming e sports teams. But, i do see a market for an esport's ESPN.
God damn man if I knew faze was valued at 700 million dollars I woulda put options down
Mee too.
Actual athletes get good at the sports they are playing because they train and push themselves to a level very few are willing to do. Esport athletes get good at video games because they are hooked and can leave the house.
How is a smart financial channel sleeping at night promoting an ad for a company that obviously must themselves be a scam? There is no way this browser plugin that monitors all your purchases isn’t selling all of your data.
Why does this guy sound eerily similar to the guy who does the Logically Answered videos (just sans the extra Asiatic accent) ? Or do y'all just hire the same audio and voice over artist?
Do you think with rising interest rates that these type of nonsense businesses will disappear?
Lol Kudos is not only free but it gives you more money back and points? The irony of that promo on a video about making terrible financial decisions.
A lot of the early investors were old people. No need to investigate more
Correction: a lot of the investors were lazy and stupid people.
Age has nothing to do with not doing any due dilligence before investing in a company. And that categoricaly means ignoring any marketing presentations they put out, and simply checking the news and sentiments and such around the web. Yes, some young people are already aware of it because it intersects with their normal interests, but many are not. Faze has so mjch ovcious problems around it, a 3 hour search and readup would leave anyone with serious doubt that they are worth more than lowest double digit millions.
Sorry. Touting “viewer numbers” and calling e-sports an "expanding market" is a huge joke. The numbers were always view-botted like crazy and are completely unreliable. Everybody knows it. The e-sports scene has already contracted massively. The actual viewers that aren’t bots have proven to be a very hard group to monetize. They might watch a stream, but the conversation rate to cash-in-hand consumers that will actually PAY MONEY for event tickets and team merch is terrible compared to fans of other major sports.
That isn’t an “expanding market.” It’s a total struggle show largely funded by “money marks,” speculation wolves, and the increasingly-rare (because most have already been burned) out-of-touch boomer companies and politicians desperately seeking connections with the youth markets.
They also pretty much stole the logo from Return To Castle Wolfenstein. It's nearly identical, even the colors.
They should hire me to be the CEO. They dropped the ball with this one.
How how I would turn around the brand. Let the streamers focus on streaming and then use money to perfect all other aspects of their brand. Thats all.
great video mate!
It always cracks me up when people like me (57, doctor) try to invest in some trendy “Internet thing”. Even *I* know that Faze are a bunch of asshat corporate shills.
Took the company public? See they selling something, providing a service, what? Eish, wall street, not everything that glitters is gold
How many spacs actually provided value to their investors as opposed to the investment bank setting them up?
This is why we need a market correction.
Why did they even become Public? Their target audience are teens with no access to investments and they've been known to scam their audience. Ohhhh I get it.. This IPO was actually a pump and dump scam. Yeah this makes sense for their brand.
tqo seems like the most down to earth faze member in the clan
Nothing better than watching a network collapse. It's always a good time
talk about VINFAST and INEOS grenadier cars
In the uk, faze fits the urban definition of a spac perfectly