Arturo Sanchez, Matcherino, and the Slow Heat Death of the FGC

AUTHOR’S NOTE: There has been an official update to this situation, which I have responded to. You can read that by clicking here. Some of the information in this blog was disproven, and if so, the text will be struck through like this. Thanks for reading.

If I had to find some sort of definition from the collected works of this little hobby of mine, it would be ‘correcting the record’. In today’s world it’s so, so incredibly easy to have to grasp around for truth, to painstakingly carve out a fraction of it from overwhelming noise and innuendo. But even then, who’s to say that fraction is objectively true? How can you trust it? Who’s saying it? What do they want? Who are they friends with?

Whether it be Infiltration, or Noble, or leverless controllers, I’ve done my best to try and drown out the noise in certain complex topics and see what the underlying facts of the matter were. I’m not always right – people are lying if they say they are – but the curiosity to at least strive for that goal drives me. If the only outcome is that communities are able to have better conversations about a topic because they could finally start arguing beyond the basic facts, then it’s worth the effort. I know full well from past experience that vague “official statements” and Twitter scuttlebutt has proven to be an almost-insurmountable harm to public discourse. Whoever turns out to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ will be up to public opinion, but it is always important to push back on popular narratives to see if they can stand up to scrutiny.

So then what to do about Arturo Sanchez? 

This is a decent summation of the issue from Eventhubs, but to be brief: Arturo “Nyc_Furby” Sanchez, a 20+ year veteran player and organizer in various fighting game spaces, was let go from his role as a community rep for Esports payment website Matcherino for “breaking Terms of Service” by “mishandling prize pool funds.”, which was announced publicly on December 30, 2022. Sanchez was one of the most prolific users of the website since its inception, having run over 1300 events on the platform as well as raising nearly $480,000 in prize pools for those tournaments. Matcherino also noted they “paid out the players affected” while asking that Sanchez “address what happened” with players and organizers. Here’s the original statement for posterity:

The fallout was immediate. Within days, Sanchez’ longtime collaborator and beloved FGC streaming personality Victor “Sp00ky” Fontanez cut all ties with him:

And major fighting game tournament East Coast Throwdown, a tournament Sanchez has been involved with since its inception, banned him indefinitely from their events:

Those in addition to dozens upon dozens of memes, quote tweets, and various waves of harassment all across social media descended down upon Arturo, who attempted to do a live stream to address the controversy after only posting this tweet in response on 12/30/22:

To say that stream, done on January 3, 2023, was poorly received is an understatement – many earnestly wondered if Arturo had unknowingly confessed to a crime due to his ill-prepared, flustered, and vague-sounding responses that did very little to clarify what exactly happened. The VOD was deleted, and for many that stream was the nail in the coffin for Arturo’s entire FGC legacy.

The weeks since have seen various different bits of information spill into the aether from certain parties, mostly from 3rd party sources that Arturo has been giving information to, and radio silence from Matcherino. Instead of trying to summarize every little info drop, I think it’s easier to look at the biggest claims that have been put into the public record, whether or not they have been proven or disproven, and what the origin of the claim is. I will do my best to merely present the facts as we know them while breaking down the claims, which will require the use of text messages and other images that are redacted to protect privacy. That will surely be criticized as it already has been, but I believe the presumption of good faith is imperative to getting to the bottom of this, so I kindly ask you respect that as we break down the claims against Sanchez.

A lot of the images are not mine originally – the vast majority of them will have been collected from either Twitch streamer and former FGC sponsored player Fanatiq or fellow longtime FGC affiliate Bluerei. This blog would not be possible without them quietly working with Arturo to get the facts straight, and I’d like to properly credit them for that work. You can watch Fanatiq’s videos here, and here’s Bluerei’s Twitter.


  1. Claim: Arturo Sanchez pocketed payouts from players for personal use, upwards of $5,000, and has been doing so for years

As of this moment, this is 100% unproven. Matcherino’s statement said that Sanchez had “mishandled prize pool funds,” but this does not mean theft. Mishandling of funds can also be:

  • Not maintaining proper accounting of funds
  • Commingling prize pool funds with personal funds
  • Not keeping funds in an account specifically designated for them

The suspicion is understandable, but correlation does not equal causation; no players have come forward claiming that their money was stolen and used for personal matters. Matcherino has also never directly said that players were being stolen from, but implications were clearly taken from their vague statement. 

A major piece of evidence for this claim is that a perusal of Arturo’s profile on the Matcherino website would show that for many tournaments, he listed himself as the winner in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, regardless of whether he played in the tournament or not, which meant he would get the payout:

If someone were to go through every Matcherino event that Arturo hosted, devoid of context, it would show that this happened many times throughout the years, going as far back as 2016. One claim has him pocketing, over a period of six months towards the end of 2022, over $5,000.  All in all, the total amount that is “unaccounted for” because it went to Sanchez’ account in lieu of the actual winners seems staggering: $144,154.43. 

But is this really what it seems? The truth seems a bit more complicated.

For those who don’t know, Matcherino’s website can transfer funds to a Matcherino account, but that’s just a number on a website. To get actual money, one must link either a Paypal or actual bank account to their profile and transfer the funds to one of those accounts. Not only that, but a “Matcherino” account is not a specific profile made with the website, but a linked account from another social media site. Here’s what happens if you press ‘login’ at the home page, for example:

And here’s what it looks like to have money in your Matcherino account. Take note that you can withdraw certain amounts at a time:

Further, it is not possible for an organizer to pay out, ‘finalize’, an event unless the entire prize pool is distributed via the payout parameters (Ex. 60/30/10) that the organizer set for it. Here is a breakdown of that from Matcherino’s FAQ on their website, and pay attention to the special note at the bottom;

The last wrinkle here is that, again according to the FAQ, an admin organizer can only assign winners via their Matcherino account ID being manually inputted, which admins can search for but only if there is an existing account, and it will show if a player has multiple because they’ve logged in via different methods. If they don’t have one, the admin has to manually create a temporary account by getting an email address from that winner, at which point an email on how to obtain and cash out the winnings is sent out:

That’s quite a few steps necessary to pay out a tournament and cash out winnings. The potential complications include but aren’t limited to:

  • Player has never ‘logged in’ to a Matcherino account or does not have the social media needed to create an account
  • Player is not from the US and cannot understand the website or even access it directly in order to be assigned winnings or cash out
  • Player does not have a bank account or Paypal account because they are under 18
  • Matcherino site is unable to log someone in so they make a separate account through a different social media, meaning one person may have multiple accounts that they are unaware of
  • Some players have a Matcherino account but others don’t, and requests for a proper email so a temporary account can be created go ignored

If any one of those conditions came about, there would need to be significant admin intervention, likely outside the bounds possible by the website. Matcherino’s Terms of Service is quite clear on both the the responsibly of the organizers to help release the funds to only prize pool recipients, not admins or organizer, as well that necessary flexibility for when things go awry:

Again, the special note in their FAQ:

The idea that an admin or organizer would need to pay themselves out and dole out winnings via a 3rd party service like Paypal, something Matcherino requests an authorization waiver for, seems to be pretty common. Here are a few examples of FGC tournament organizers confirming as much or doing that themselves:

In an ironic twist, here is Sanchez in 2021 defending Johnathan “Bum1six3” Farley, a fellow NY FGC TO and prolific user of Matcherino, for using the same method and why it needed to happen at times:

No one has ever accused either Bum or Mike Watson of stealing money for using this method, and it seems unreasonable to assume Sanchez did either, albeit he used the method far more frequently. Especially when there is testimony after testimony after testimony of people who have done business with him in the past and said they were paid, even with lots of money involved:

Sanchez even seemed to try and make players aware of how the process worked, including the fees that both Matcherino and Paypal would incur for cashing out. There’s also a plea for players to make Matcherino accounts in the future, as by taking the cashouts into his personal account, Sanchez was accruing taxes for money that was meant to go to other players:

There is a related claim that Arturo was ‘skimming’ funds away from players via collecting a small fee, 10%, on certain events’ Matcherino pots to help recoup costs that he could put towards the next event. The claim is that he did this without anyone’s knowledge, but Sanchez has gone on record saying that he could get many TO’s to vouch for him, and even showed a message with the TO of Frosty Faustings, ElvenShadow, confirming that there was knowledge:

Sanchez also ran a Matcherino for Battle of the Strongest 3, a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 event in 2020, and it was agreed upon prior that there was to be a split for staff, despite some involved with the event claiming there was skimming (later disproven)

This is also not unusual for Matcherino events, as another NY FGC group, Team Stickbug, has been doing the same thing to help pay for staff at their events, as listed on most of their Matcherino pages:

The ‘skimming’ in this sense was also approved by Matcherino, further proving that few of these things seemed to be done without their knowledge:

There is one other aspect to the ‘skimming’ claim that should be addressed. There was a particular example of monies owed to a player named MasterMike for this event, which was winner-take-all despite the description. That amount, clearly, was $305.63, and Arturo did pay that amount via Paypal. Here is a receipt for that payment:

There was a bit of to-do about this, as $270 is clearly not the same amount on the Matcherino. There appears to at least be a partial explanation, however: both Matcherino and Paypal take out fees anytime anyone cashes out from the website, as explained in the FAQ:

To break it down: 

  • Matcherino automatically takes 4%, so that’s roughly $12.23. 305.63 – 12.23 = 293.40
  • Paypal, according to their site, takes 3.49% + .49 cents for Paypal Checkout for merchants, or roughly 10.24 + .49 cents. $293.40 – 10.73 = $282.67

That leaves roughly $12.67 to account for. Arturo frequently cites that he “assumed tax liability” and lost money doing transactions through Paypal, as it would count as earned income that increased the taxes he’d been saddled with. This is hardly farfetched, as New York is infamous for its heavy taxes on anything gambling related, but it’s unclear if that applies in the form of an immediate state tax on cash out. If that is the case, the 4.5% NY state tax for earners in the $21,401-$80,650 range, which is a reasonable assumption of where Arturo is at, would take the total down into the $260 range. After that, Arturo transferring those monies via Paypal’s Friends and Family option would make it not taxable, and the tax liability claim would check out.

But is that all there is? Again, it’s not clear that if MasterMike were to cash out via Matcherino he’d assume the same state tax. Given Sanchez’s previous good standing with regards to paying out, this would seem like an odd exception. This is worth investigating and following up on, but in good faith and with the presumption that Arturo was not trying to short the player.

To recap, Arturo Sanchez was said to have been cut from Matcherino due to mishandling of funds, but as far as anyone can tell, that didn’t include willing theft for personal gain. Arturo’s habit of claiming himself as the prize placers for events to put funds in his Matcherino account that he could dole out later through Paypal looks shady, but in reality was just his preferred workaround method for the numerous complications that could arise in the process of paying players out through Matcherino. There is no evidence that he ever took all monies from his Matcherino account into his Paypal, just as there is zero proof that he ever used any of those prize pool funds for personal gain. 

Sanchez has a long history with the communities that make up the scene, and as such, many have vouched for his commitment to payment. It is highly unlikely that one could secretly pocket over five thousand dollars and no one would ever notice until now – if there’s one thing that should be abundantly clear, none of these communities play around when it comes to theft. Still, there are lingering questions regarding how exactly Arturo’s preference to put prize pool funds from his Matcherino account into Paypal would affect the fees on cash out, and whether or not Arturo was having to do a bit of funny math to get the totals accurate. But enough people have vouched for his accuracy prior to reasonably afford the benefit of the doubt as to the numbers being accurate but sometimes late, which leads to this next claim.


2. Claim: Arturo Sanchez was late on payments for Matcherino prize pools for months at a time

This claim is 100% proven, as stated by Arturo himself in his disastrous live stream as well as several players who were paid late. Here again is the receipt for the payment to Master Mike from this event on July 22, 2022, and look closely at the dates for the messages:

And here’s Arturo saying it in his live stream:

The MasterMike payment is any indication, there was at least a 20 day backlog on some of them at best, but the truth seems to stretch back farther than that. Here are some pages on the Matcherino website that were created and finalized on December 23, with payments going out to a bunch of different players in varying amounts going back to the Defend the North tournament in October and Can Opener events in August. Added up, the totals paid out here are in the range of $5,000 dollars, which might explain how that number was bandied about in the first claim. Matcherino ToS states that admins have a “sole responsibility” to pay out prize pot winners, and that is to be done “no later than thirty (30) days after the end of the event”:

Months-late payments are strictly against ToS, and if I were to speculate as to what the ToS violation and “mishandling of funds” that Matcherino fired Arturo for, I would wager this is it.

There’s really no way around it – late payments are no good and worth extreme scrutiny. Trust is a really big deal in these communities, and the quickest way to lose it is to play havoc with people’s money. Arturo has elaborated on this, citing burnout from a completely full schedule and private matters regarding family causing him to spend nights in a New York ER as to why he fell behind in payments. I imagine that is cold comfort to people who may have waited months for not small amounts of money.

Given that Sanchez has 1300 tournaments under his belt for Matcherino, it’s likely that almost every other day of the week was filled with streaming an online event and managing the Matcherino of that event in 2022. He was also playing in tournaments at that time, frequently appearing across multiple online weeklies as a player, and doing quite well for himself. He was also preparing to run big major events like Defend the North, which was heavily focused on specialized PC optimizations that he innovated for several games. A schedule like that is bound to run anybody down, especially if there are sick family members to care for as well in between. Arturo has no staff, the “NYC_Furby” name is not a team of people – he alone is responsible for all the payments of all the tournaments that he is running. That scenario was a ticking time bomb, and irresponsible to take on all by himself. While there are definitely disproven claims and rampant speculation about theft, the criticism that Sanchez was reckless and irresponsible in taking on all this responsibility onto himself still stands. 

Arturo’s work ethic – frequent long breaks, frequent lateness, leaving early – have been under fire, and I think that’s a fair criticism too. To add late payments on top of that is certainly reason enough to say that he “betrayed the trust of players”. There’s a conversation to be had that Sanchez should most assuredly dial back his schedule before he returns to tournaments, and that payments should be handled by a trusted third party rather than him. He claims to have been “off the grid”, but he still frequently showed up in online tournaments, and his timeline of when he was “off the grid” seems to vary wildly. Was he off the grind since August, or October? Anyone can be sympathetic to someone going through a hard time personally, but when people are waiting on money, there’s still some accountability that needs to be taken, and while it is harsh, late payments are something people get fired for in the real world.

Other organizers were aware of the issue, letting Arturo know that players were asking them for payment. Here’s Art saying he needed help via other admins because he was so behind:

Having said all that, there is a big difference between “late paying out” and “absconded with funds”, and it appears that many are conflating the two. As Matcherino said in their original post, and as the associated Matcherino pages from December suggest, all affected players were paid out – this would square up with Arturo’s Notes app statement that Matcherino had been “paid back in full”. 

That leads to the next claim.


3. Claim – Arturo embezzled donated Matcherino funds to buy plane tickets for players/himself

Absolutely 100% disproven. There were plans for a Virtua Fighter tournament, VF Global Showdown, that was going to feature Virtua Fighter 5 players from America, Japan, and Europe, but ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic issues have kept the finals from happening. At one point in 2021, Arturo and Harpooneer, a Virtua Fighter organizer, held fundraising to raise money that would fly players to the finals from Japan and Europe. Like a lot of other tournaments, Arturo cashed out all the payments to his Matcherino account, but this time he actually did take the full funds into his personal Paypal account because he was going to be the one to buy the plane tickets they fundraised for.  Because of the Pandemic, Arturo never ended up having to buy plane tickets, but the collected monies were not touched. These funds were given back to Matcherino as part of the process of clearing Arturo’s backlog, as evidenced by this conversation between Sanchez and Harpooneer:

Here is the receipt of Arturo sending money to Matcherino, something that would not be done normally, for that purpose:

The funds were never ‘embezzled’ – embezzlement would imply conversion of funds for use different from the will of the original owner, coerced or not, intentional or not. Both Arturo and Harpooneer raised money to be used for plane tickets for international players; there was never any difference in understanding as to how they would be used. That the event in question hasn’t happened yet meant the plane tickets were never bought, and the funds are still available and waiting for when their original purpose can finally be fulfilled, thus no conversion, therefore no embezzlement. I find it hard to believe that anything remotely unethical happened here, and believe once again that Arturo was telling the truth on his stream regarding this.


4. Claim: Matcherino paid out of pocket to make up for Arturo Sanchez’s late payments

This claim is unproven. Arturo has clarified that even before Matcherino tweeted out their announcement, he had squared up what was owed out to players with Matcherino and they had taken it from his account, who then dispersed the funds to affected players via the Matcherino site. Again, here are the pages that confirm this happened well before their announcement:

If it was paid out through the site, that means Matcherino was able to deposit the exact funds necessary into an admin account. It’s possible they have the ability to do that on their own through internal accounting, but remember, Arturo has clarified that he never took every bit of monies into his Paypal account, just that he would allocate amounts there from his Matcherino account in accordance with what was owed. Obviously he got way behind, but there’s no reason to believe the funds weren’t still on the site in his account as he stated. It stands to reason, then, that the PayPal payments shown earlier include both the Virtua Fighter donation drive mentioned previously, and the cashout from what remained in his Matcherino account:

In other words, the original Matcherino statement that all affected players had been paid out was accurate, but the wording of the statement uses the term ‘we’ to refer to who paid out, implying that it was solely Matcherino. We now know that that is only partially true – much like their ToS states, they got involved to help both parties get to where they were supposed to be. 

Left out, unfortunately, is the reality that Arturo did not, and does not, have anyone’s money in his personal Paypal account or otherwise, which Matcherino knew. There was a plan, at some point, to publicly acknowledge that Arturo had settled up everything he owed from his account to Matcherino, communicated to Sanchez over texts with Grant Farwell, the CEO and co-founder of Matcherino. Matcherino has yet to make that statement publicly:

Once again, Arturo’s statement that he put out on Twitter and reiterated on his stream seems to be confirmed: Matcherino had recovered the money owed to players, and they are (were?) planning to confirm that no money was missing or unaccounted for from his side, and that it had been paid back.

The simplest proof would of course be evidence from Arturo’s Matcherino account that he had the funds at all. Unfortunately, this is not possible – his main Twitch account was banned by Matcherino, which means there’s nothing to access. There’s no interest in having him regain access from Matcherino either, as these texts again with Farwell, in which show:


Those are the major claims against Arturo, and evidently there is only one of them that appears to pan out in reality or has a degree of evidence against it. It is also clear that the vast majority of these unproven, speculative claims came from a single source, which is this Twitter Spaces that was hosted by NY FGC TO’s Dnyce and Bifuteki the night that Matcherino released their initial statement.

The prevailing understanding amongst the general FGC public is that Arturo stole money, in excess of thousands of dollars, and that was why Matcherino fired him. This is just simply not true. This was not said by Matcherino, they never levied a claim that money was stolen or missing, and as evidenced by the texts here, there is a mutual understanding that Arturo paid everything back and settled up. Remember: mishandling funds does not mean stole out or pocketed or embezzled. The only people saying Arturo pocketed the money were Dnyce and Bifuteki, and later Bum.

It cannot be understated how damaging those claims were, combined with Matcherino’s vague statement, to Arturo. If he had been late paying people and been fired by Matcherino after settling up, the outpouring of condemnation and rage would not have been nearly as intense, and I believe that all goes back to Bifuteki, Dnyce, and Bum being incredibly reckless. Those three have good standing in the FGC for a good reason – like Arturo, they have been veterans of these communities for a long time and done a lot on both the production and organizing sides to help run events for players. People take them at their word, and their words were saying Arturo stole five thousand dollars and that ‘he’s a trash person, I’ve always felt he was a trash person…and he’s going to show his true colors’.

They didn’t even wait less than a few hours to get a Twitter Space together and start making wild claims about a situation that did not happen to them and that they only had second-hand and third-hand knowledge about. Dnyce claimed Arturo could go to jail for what he did. Bifu casually suggested that Arturo could possibly go to prison for two and a half years for what he did. Bum called what Arturo did larceny. Something there was zero proof of then, and zero proof of now, and it was being treated like it was a fact.

And make no mistake, that is what people believe. Again, these are people with a lot of respect and trust in the communities, and they used that standing to viciously drag someone over things they didn’t know anything about. Something that, mind you, he will never recover from. Whether you like him personally or not, what people need to understand is that Arturo will never be able to put aside these accusations. Once it’s out there, it’s out there permanently; the internet never forgets, and he won’t be able to play ranked mode in SFV without someone screenshotting it, firing off a humdinger about  theft, and directing a wave of harassment at him.

But that being said, there was a few true things that came out from all these streams:

This, honestly, is a waste of my time. Nothing I write, nothing Arturo could show, none of that will ever matter. Because Arturo cannot defend himself against a vague claim of theft and provide over six years of personal Paypal or bank statements to show that he never stole from anyone, the accusations may as well be true in most people’s eyes. There is no redemption, that everything was accounted for and no one is claiming money was stolen is irrelevant. Arturo Sanchez is a thief, a liar, and everything bad I ever thought about him is in fact true.

The last part there is really critical to understanding the mindset. I’ve never once spoken to Arturo Sanchez, I’ve only seen him post online for years. Like many, I, too, was weirded out by how intense and nasty the Twitter wars over monitors and input latency could get, and I thought he was really annoying about it particularly. I do believe that he would do anything to make fighting games his job, and sometimes that’s doing really silly things like spamming ads all throughout the grand finals of Defend the North.

But here’s what’s key: none of that matters.

Nothing about how I feel regarding Arturo’s idiosyncrasies or work ethic or Twitter likes or whatever has any bearing on the basic, underlying question: did he, knowingly or otherwise, rob people of money? And after looking at everything presented, I can say that I do not believe that he did that. I think he is irresponsible, reckless, and should never have done the things he did because it would get him in trouble at some point, but at no point do I see an instance as to where he had a choice of paying people or personally pocketing it to use elsewhere, and he chose the latter.

Something that really bothers me about all this is when I say nothing matters, I mean nothing. The fact that Arturo has spent over twenty years of his life (for not a ton of personal gain financially) running tournaments, helping players find revenue sources, or helping retro games have a presence and technology to be ran efficiently at tournaments mattered; as soon as one statement was made by a corporation most interested in protecting itself, the knives were out. East Coast Throwdown, a tournament he has been attending since its inception and helped run a lot of tournaments for, including this year, banned him for good the night the Matcherino statement dropped. They have not spoken with him about it, nothing was communicated personally, zip. Bum has blocked Arturo and not spoken to him personally despite doing over nine hours of streams about him, and defiantly stating that “Even if he is cleared, somehow, I wouldn’t believe it”. What the hell is this? Hasn’t he rightfully earned at least a moment’s grace to decipher what really happened?

I won’t throw stones from a glass house, I am not innocent. I am as guilty as anyone about making posts believing the speculations about Arturo, and believing that everything he said in his livestream was a lie. But eventually my curiosity came through, and I’ve spent weeks doing research. The only thing I can do is say to Arturo that I apologize; I talk a big game about waiting to know the facts, and I didn’t. I’ve talked a lot of shit about him regarding any number of things, but when it came to people saying he should go to jail and that he was a thief, I should have known better. But I didn’t. It’s a sickness of our time, and I’m sick too.

I’m pretty open about my opinion that “community” as a term is more or less dead with regard to these hobbies. No community of people that cares about its inhabitants’ well being would act so rashly, so quickly, and with zero accountability for the real harm that recklessness caused. Without even a word to that person privately, people will drag a person publicly, and continue to come up with reasons why that initial gut feeling was actually correct, even though they are wrong time after time again. I see the exact same thing playing out here.

For Bum especially, this is so disappointing. In 2020, he learned full well that vague accusations that don’t stand up to scrutiny can be so potentially damaging. At the time, he begged and pleaded for people to wait, to hear out both sides, and let him gather the necessary stories and information that would absolve him. Yet when Arturo was drowning and asked for the same, he threw him both ends of a rope.

That said, I’m not in the business of revenge. I believe everyone when they say that their dealings with Dnyce, Bum, and Bifuteki have been upstanding and good as much as I believe them about Arturo. I don’t think they’re bad people, and I don’t want them to go into the pillory over this. But at this point, I think Fanatiq is right – if you say something in public, it has to be finished in public too. Neither of these men have any proof that Arturo stole from the community but nevertheless stated it loudly and proudly, which has done a ton of reputational damage to Arturo and will for years. Again, I believe everyone who says people like Bum would give them the shirt off his back, that he looks out for young wayward men. That’s all admirable stuff. This isn’t. It’s ugly, it’s pernicious, and we will not survive it.

To finish, there are a lot of unanswered questions. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I know that at this point, the burden of proof is on those three men and Matcherino to prove that there was theft. Arturo can show all the bank statements he wants, but it’s clear that will never be good enough. Arturo should absolutely be criticized for his poor work ethic and inability to handle the responsibility given to him that resulted in late payments – it was a mistake. But looking at his longstanding good record, that’s all it was: a mistake. To all those who blatantly labeled him a criminal, that said he should be removed from the communities for safety reasons, all I ask is that you substantiate the claim. I’m reasonable, I’ll listen. Hell if my blog gets invalidated by evidence proving me wrong, I’ll own up to it. Until then, we’ve got nothing left to talk about.

Comments

22 responses to “Arturo Sanchez, Matcherino, and the Slow Heat Death of the FGC”

  1. Beast Slayer Avatar
    Beast Slayer

    Arturo has admitted to taking money off the top. Also this isn’t the first time he has been a part of shady dealings within the FGC. There’s a VOD of him admiting to rigging tournament brackets back in the mid 2000s. He’s not the good guy everyone thinks he is.

    Also if he really was innocent, he would have shown everything upfront. Screen shots could be edited. MS Excel spreadsheets could be made up.

    The people who said he paid them no issue are big name players who he knows.

    Clearly he did something shady if he’s getting in trouble but not Bum, for doing the same exact thing.

    Arturo is hiding something and because he’s been in the spotlight for the community, people don’t want to belive he’s guilty of wrongdoing

    Like

  2. Aelise (@tadanokakera) Avatar

    it’s unbelievably concerning seeing fanatiq’s name in here, given both his history and uhhhh what he’s doing nowadays https://twitter.com/honzogonzo/status/1616514603101597697

    Like

    1. ItsPatrick Avatar
      ItsPatrick

      Why is that relevant? What does it bring to the discussion? Does that information discredit anything Fanatiq brought to the table into this investigation?

      This is the sort of attitude that lead to this situation with Arturo. You have to listen to reason.

      Like

      1. J Avatar
        J

        It shows that the man “providing evidence” is clearly delusional so any information he provides has no rhyme or reason or would be even remotely deemed admissible if this were a courtroom. If one is innocent until proven guilty than any evidence they provide would have to be confirmed, something that the ramblings of Fanatiq will prevent. So without a lot of hearsay you can look at the history of the man in actual question, who clearly was moving money around he shouldn’t have.

        Like

      2. Beast Slayer Avatar
        Beast Slayer

        It’s relevant because you cannot trust the source it is coming from. Fanatiq has done nothing but shown screen shots that could be edited.

        In fact, alot of these screenshots are questionable honestly.

        Arturo gave himself an opportunity to show actual proof. Instead he kept running from questions and refused to show anyone anything. Even when a person he trusts asked for verification, Arturo refused then said at 11pm all of a sudden he had to go do family stuff.

        He deleted his VOD right after signing off. He kept repeating the same points up until RobTV got on Discord with him.

        Arturo refused to address his accuser when the chat asked him to put them on Discord.

        He’s definetly guilty if shady dealing and possible theft. Just because so much was paid out over time, does not mean that he wasn’t taking money here and there. He just finally got caught.

        Macherino isn’t going to say anything any time soon because they still have to do thier own investigating.

        Face it, he’s guilty.

        Like

  3. Tired of this Avatar
    Tired of this

    I dont think Art was stealing money or at least nothing with malicious intent.

    However I can’t help but think *maybe it is a bit malicious* thanks to the lengths he’s gone to avoid showing the receipts and stuff he was promising to even his friends and the defense squad he has literally acting as though Art couldn’t possibly do anything wrong cause he’s the FGC Jesus while having the worst and most bad faith replies/interpretations of anything you say that isn’t just them repeating how good Art had been.

    Yeah, this is all meaningless and whatnot, but also I feel if you’re not gonna be upfront with the money you’re handling and how it’s handled

    You probably shouldn’t be handling that money.

    Also you probably shouldn’t use your family’s health situation as an excuse to leave a stream and avoid answering the dude you brought on it. Like bruh, if the situation is so bad that they are ignoring visiting hour regulations but you still got 15 minutes to keep talking and then delete the vod before you go. That’s a little sus too.

    That’s… pretty low.

    Like

  4. kusogeotsu Avatar
    kusogeotsu

    There’s 100 people Art knows better than Fanatiq and the fact he chose that grifter to represent him does zero favors. Might as well bring in Gootecks.

    Also after having almost a decade of “so ignorant that it’s worse than malicious but it wasn’t malicious” I’m tired of letting that sort of thing fly.

    Like

  5. John Avatar
    John

    Given the evidence presented, I absolutely believe Arturo is innocent.

    However.

    “They didn’t even wait less than a few hours to get a Twitter Space together and start making wild claims about a situation that did not happen to them and that they only had second-hand and third-hand knowledge about.”

    Bluerei, a source of yours, has done this exact thing in creating a defense with/for Arturo. While the burden of proof absolutely lies with Matcherino, I find this context valuable.

    Since the incident, he’s taken to Twitter multiple times with unsubstantiated claims of Matcherino using Arturo’s firing as a cover up:https://twitter.com/bluerei/status/1615873318573473792?s=20

    Matcherino issuing further bans and potentially blacklisting tournaments that support Arturo:https://twitter.com/bluerei/status/1616340434875469825?s=20
    -To which he doubled down when questioned, also without providing evidence:https://twitter.com/bluerei/status/1616361127918833672?s=20

    RobTV having an ulterior motive when he gave Arturo a platform to defend himself: https://twitter.com/bluerei/status/1616237174923595776?s=20

    And RobTV somehow acting as Judge, Jury, Executioner in this situation:https://twitter.com/bluerei/status/1616369930349445123?s=20

    If these claims have receipts, I’d love to see them. Reliable witnesses, in this poster’s opinion, do not waste valuable time making political cartoons about their peers and placing conclusive evidence behind frosted glass.

    I am not making the argument that since Arturo’s testimony comes from people I dislike, we should discard it. The testimony itself is flawed. Plenty of TOs in the NYC area have gone to bat for Arturo, notably Brookyln VG and Harpooneer.

    Bluerei is not a reliable source.

    Like

  6. Shad Avatar
    Shad

    Hello Tanner, thank you for your effort.

    If I present a calm, non-troll, non-dismissal response, would you be willing to have an actual discussion about what you’ve provided?

    I just want to clarify before leaving a comment, I wouldn’t want to spend any more effort than I already invested in to this situation if it wouldn’t be worthy of the time spent.

    Thank you.

    Like

    1. Tanner J. Avatar

      I don’t moderate comments, you can say anything you want and I may respond if it’s worth discussing

      Like

      1. Shad Avatar
        Shad

        Thanks for the prompt reply.

        Okay, well with all the social media drama in gaming the last couple years, I too make it a hobby of looking at controversial cases like this. I try to primarily focus on keeping a critical eye on “what the evidence says” without bias as much as possible. So from that perspective, I’d like to share my thoughts on places that I do (and don’t) agree with what you’ve presented, in hopes that it might lead to some constructive discussion. And I will try to be reasonable with any responses to your perspective, as I accept that I may be wrong, although of course it’s completely acceptable to agree to disagree as well.

        – First piece of evidence the Matcherino accusation. I believe the most relevant parts are the broken ToS, betrayal of trust of players by mishandling prize pool funds, and that he takes the appropriate steps to address what happened.

        – In Arturo’s first tweet on Dec 30, what I believe the most relevant facts to be are that he stated he paid them back, that he states Matcherino will confirm that everything is paid back (after seemingly implying the reasoning for the message is that he was late), and that he will make a statement with reciepts.

        – I am in 100% agreement about the live stream.

        – On Claim #1 – the pocketed payouts, I am in agreement that it seems, for the most part, disproven. Although I do believe it’s a bit unprofessional to not have in-depth logs of where all the money went, including tax liability/etc. But this is nothing major to hold him accountable for.

        – Claim #2, I am in agreement here as well.

        – Claim #3 – Matcherino paying out of pocket, I am not sure this is what the evidence implies. The first major piece of evidence is logs that look to be from PayPal sent to Matcherino. But strangely, the dates and amounts are blocked out. This makes it impossible to confirm it was for the VF donation drive, or anything else. Practically, it can only prove that he paid them and unknown amount on an unknown date.

        I believe in cases like this, we also have to ask, is there a good will reason that these things would not be included? And I can not think of one. It wouldn’t break any confidentiality agreements to show the dates he paid them, nor the amounts. While on the other hand, it would clear his name if the dollar amount matched, so there’s reason for him to actually include the dates and amounts, while no clear reason to omit it. Especially if we’re to treat this as his “receipts” he is providing.

        Next is the text message evidence. Unfortunately, I can not agree with your conclusion. While he did not dispute the payment back, it cuts off in the middle of his statement. Meaning this message is currently taken out of context in what we can see. Unless we have full context of what was said, we can not treat this as evidence of what he is claiming. One hypothetical example could be that he said “We can say you paid everything back but you have not yet upheld your side of the agreement”. The evidence seems to suggest that there’s still a part of the allegation – be it context alone or not – that the public has not been made aware of, and strongly implies there may be a withstanding issue other than repayment alone.

        In conclusion, I believe you may be jumping the gun here. To sufficiently defend that Matcherino had not paid out of pocket, at the very least it would need to be shown that these payments were sent to Matcherino before they paid out the players. Right now, the evidence does not support that claim. Instead, it suggest there’s more to this case than only the repayment.

        – Claim #4 – Embezzlement of funds. The same payment evidence is shown to prove Arturo sent the funds to Matcherino for that purpose, but again we have no way to confirm this to be true based on this evidence. This is based on his words alone and not reflected in the evidence. And in this case, the amount is even more relevant to prove your defense of this claim as factual. Before coming to a conclusion on this claim, I need to mention one other.

        – Claim #4’s accusations are somewhat related to the original Matcherino allegation. If we look at the original claim made by Matcherino – “mishandling of funds” – in legal terms this is defined as misappropriation of funds. Distinct from embezzlement in a few key ways.

        Misappropriation of funds is reliant on being in control of the funds and use them for their own purpose in an act that was not a mistake or an error. There’s two important distinctions in the legalities here. First, you are still guilty even if you had intended to pay the money back later, so paying back has no bearing on this accusation. Second, upon being asked by the organization to return the funds, he must immediately have done so upon demand, and must not refuse or fail to deliver within a reasonable period of time.

        So I do not believe this evidence sufficiently defends the claim of “embezzlement”, or more appropriate, “misappropration”. In order to sufficiently defend such accusations, it would need to be proven that the money in his own account was not converted (or used for his own purpose), and it must be shown that he promptly had it available and had returned it upon being asked to do so by Matcherino.

        – Dnyce, Bifuteki, and Bum’s accusations I don’t believe are worth the effort as they are based upon hearsay only and not evidence.

        – One noticeable omission is the claims Arturo made during the live stream were not properly vetted. I’m aware that Arturo may not be the best speaker, so I am taking that in to consideration. But some of his claims were conflicting and honestly quite disturbing. One example I could think of is stating that all the money was on Matcherino and denied having it on PayPal, but then later on admitting that it was on PayPal. This is enough to suggest reasonable doubt upon his claims alone, and as mentioned above, some of your conclusions are based upon taking his word alone.

        – One other highly suggestive piece of evidence that was omitted in this post is the internal email that was released. It stated as follow:

        “Before moving any further we would need a full public written statement with a full apology with you admitting fault, what you did wrong, and stating that Matcherino was in no way responsible for what happened.”

        A time was shown in the email but not a date.

        Taking this evidence in to consideration, without a date shown, it’s quite damaging to Arturo’s case. If it happened at an earlier date than their announcement, it would suggest that they had made this request in advance of their public announcement and he did not follow through. If it were later, then it suggests there’s still an ongoing issue that has not been addressed.

        But most damning is this gives a clear explanation to Matcherino’s silence. Taking alongside the “but” in the text messages, it’s even more that implies there’s more to this case than simply being late.

        I know it has been suggested that this was sent to a wrong email, but taken in context of the other evidence, it only adds to the conclusion that Matcherino has shown a willingness to work with Arturo if he “apologizes for and admits fault for what he did wrong”, conditionally working with him. Which is also backed up by the aforementioned text that cuts off at the “but”. In both cases, they were openly willing to work with him upon conditions they presented, that were not shown to us in the evidence.

        – Now taking this evidence for what it’s worth, without dates on basically everything, we can not take any of the narratives provided on their behalf. Therefore it’s hard to declare them as factual.

        Looking through the other evidence, it stands out that the dates are not omitted from much of it, and often he had even underlined the dates. But the very most important pieces of evidence have the dates omitted and/or do not include a date. The PayPal receipts, the text to Grant, and the email.

        The evidence tells a very different story depending upon these dates. So they are integral to proving the accusations as false (or true).

        I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. If I missed any evidence, or any of my conclusions are off base, I’d love to correct them. These are just my thoughts as I try not to be bias and figure out the truth.

        Although now I’d like to share some personal thoughts. I think it’s very wrong for anyone to ban Arturo, especially as a competitor. He also did great work in his production value and I highly appreciate his optimization work. While I don’t know that I would personally put my own money in his hands until this is resolved (because let’s face it, even being late is a bit irresponsible) he has done great work and has put an incredible amount of effort in to the FGC an that should never be forgotten. If I were him, I’d hire someone else to oversee payment while he can still lead production and focus on doing what he does best, and still get his fair cut that will be declared beforehand. I highly doubt he had done anything intentional. He’s probably just not the best at handling money and lost track of things, something I think all of us have been guilty for at one time or another. I do wish him the best and hope the the rest of the unanswered questions get resolved as fast as possible because this is a dark cloud hanging over the FGC.

        I know this has been a very long post, but if anyone got here, thanks for reading.

        Like

      2. Tanner J. Avatar

        Hi, thanks for taking the time to send that. I’ll just respond to where I disagree, since it seems like we’re pretty eye-to-eye on a lot of things:

        -Regarding claim #3, I would agree that my wording and order was clumsy. What I should have led with is the PayPal statements. I agree that they are heavily redacted, but my counter to that would be two-fold: for 1, no one seems to dispute that by the 23rd of December everything was paid out, and on the 30th Arturo claimed that Matcherino had been paid back. If that’s the case, is the implication that these payments were done on that 13-day period between the dispursement and announcement, or did Art just lie in his own statement? Occams razor would lead me to believe that the funds were accounted for before they were dispursed. As for 2, I’m not sure why Matcherino would pay out of pocket before knowing they had money to give back. Arturo clearly sent them money, and I have no idea why, if we assume the PayPal statement is doctored, anyone would send money TO Matcherino. Clearly funds exchanged hands, and it would logically follow that Art gave money back via cashing out his Matcherino account and then paying via PayPal, therefore Matcherino could dispurse the funds.

        As for the text message, I don’t know who communicates by saying “I’m good to say you did this, but you didn’t, so I can’t!” I’m very skeptical that further context would reveal anything other than what is plainly stated – We know you paid it back, but we may have some conditions before we say that. If the condition was” you have to actually pay it first, ” that seems so obvious that I don’t know why the offer would even be on the table without that condition already being met. And if this was about making a statement, we know they made it on December 30, so this discussion could only have happened before that. I think that makes a decent bit of sense.

        -Regarding claim #4, I strongly disagree that ‘mishandling’ = ‘appropriation’, and that Matcherino chose their words carefully. There’s simply no evidence of conversion, and without that embezzlement and appropriation are off the table. It also seems like Arturo fully cooperated with Matcherino, as their are text messages where he asks how he can help with his account locked, implying he was doing his best to make it right.

        -I actually didn’t include that email for a reason: I think Matcherino was right to ask for that, contrary to what some others have said. Their ToS is pretty clear on the responsibility of admins and organizers to handle funds and they don’t take responsibility for mishandling. Arturo mishandled, and it sounds like they were saying they would let Art break the news that he was fired so long as he states Matcherino had nothing to do with it, which is true. I think you, in fact, are jumping the gun in assuming that there’s more nefarious plots at work. My guess is if he was under a true legal threat, Arturo would not risk the damage it would cause him; he’s even diligent about taxes, why would he suddenly perjure himself now?

        I really appreciate the thoughtful response, take care

        Like

      3. Shad Avatar
        Shad

        Replying here because it won’t let me reply to your other message for some reason.

        Thank you for sharing a reply to my post. Going to respond to the key areas here while taking your words in to consideration:

        – “no one seems to dispute that by the 23rd of December everything was paid out, and on the 30th Arturo claimed that Matcherino had been paid back.”

        I do believe things were mentioned to have been paid out in early-mid December, it’s correct that this doesn’t seem to be in dispute. And yes, Arturo did say they were paid back at the end of the month.

        One fact I think must keep in mind, that it was stated that the decision was made for removing Arturo from the team 2 or so weeks before they went public. And that seems to align with the time that the payouts were sent.

        I must stress that the timetable seems to state that Matcherino had paid the players back at the time that the decision was made to remove Arturo.

        Considering this timeframe, it definitely doesn’t appear to be out of the question that the removal was due to them having to pay the players back.

        Wouldn’t it be the most obvious reason as to why they would no longer work with him at the time that the players had got paid back?

        – “I’m not sure why Matcherino would pay out of pocket before knowing they had money to give back”

        Arturo had released a text where somebody was showing urgency about paying the people back, expressing that they know he’s “going through it”, but he needs to pay. This was clearly before any decision was made to remove Arturo from the team. So they were aware the money had not been paid back and made the request. Doesn’t this give them a valid reason for paying themselves and then requiring that he pays them back?

        – “I don’t know who communicates by saying “I’m good to say you did this, but you didn’t, so I can’t!” I’m very skeptical that further context would reveal anything other than what is plainly stated”

        The wording in my example is slightly out of context, my fault there.

        Rather than hypotheticals, I’ll explain what I mean within the actual text. The prior sentence does state that Andre can communicate on behalf of Matcherino. The next sentence (which is cut off) is the one that seems to be defining exactly what would be said by Matcherino. This definition is cut off.

        Isn’t it quite clear that whatever is following is defining what is allowed to be communicated?

        Here is an excerpt from your post with it cut off in a similar fashion:

        “I’ve talked a lot of shit about him regarding any number of things, but”

        Everything coming after the “but” is defining what you’re saying. If we take that “but” in to consideration, it seems likely that your next words would be regretful in this case, correct? What happens if we try to ignore that word and everything after it? It now becomes just a statement of talking a lot of shit.

        Wouldn’t it be wrong if someone tried to use that as evidence of wrongdoing on your part and said “ignore everything after the but it’s nothing important”? If you look back, that’s essentially what was being said by the people who released the texts.

        – Claim #3 conclusion response:

        The text, I don’t think specifically proves or disproves that the money was paid “on time”. Based on what I had described, it seems likely it does explain why they were not making any public statements. We just haven’t seen the full context.

        In regards to the claim itself, wouldn’t this be a factual statement to make: “Matcherino paying out of pocket or not is 100% reliant on the date he made the payment to them”?

        – “Regarding claim #4, I strongly disagree that ‘mishandling’ = ‘appropriation”

        Hmm, okay. Unfortunately in this case, there’s no legal precedent for “mishandling”. Which makes it a bit harder to figure out how to determine innocence or guilt.

        In regards to you mentioning that there’s no evidence of conversion, unfortunately since this isn’t a real court and it’s just a “court of public opinion”, there has been no discovery. So we don’t know what evidence is available, what evidence led to the Matcherino statement, and of course we’re not privy to it.

        It does seem through Arturo and Matcherino’s communications, they are cordial enough, and are attempting to work together. But it’s quite obvious that there’s something lingering. I don’t know that we have enough to claim he is “fully cooperating” as there’s something of the context we’re still unaware of. He’s cooperating, but I don’t know about fully, I wish I knew what the ongoing problem between them was.

        Based on the current defense of the actual Matcherino claim, we’re being led to believe they’re quiet because they’re maliciously trying to ruin his name to cover up their own mistake. Nothing in the evidence seems to imply this. It’s heavily implied that there’s still some ongoing issue and/or context that we’re unaware of. It may be evidence of wrongdoing, or it may be whatever was after the “but”. We certainly do not have the whole story, or enough to make a solid conclusion on this.

        – The email.

        I can agree with your interpretation.

        In response to thinking I am jumping the gun, hmm. I wouldn’t say that I think there’s something nefarious going on. I just think we shouldn’t be declaring guilt or innocence. There’s clearly still some type of ongoing issue between them, something we are missing in terms of pertinent information.

        – Final thoughts

        I’m glad you mentioned Occam’s Razor. Because, just being honest here, it seems to defy Occam’s Razor. The most direct way to prove innocence of these claims beyond a shadow of a doubt would have been through the information that was redacted. What would Occam’s Razor suggest when determining to redact the very information that would beyond the shadow of a doubt prove the accusations to be factual or not? It seems they were intentionally held back.

        Occam’s Razor also suggests that, as mentioned above, that him being removed from the company is directly related to them having to pay back the players, as it occurred in the same time period.

        Analyzing the strategy of defending him is important here too. At the beginning, this started with Matcherino’s announcement about Arturo. It wasn’t until after this that Bifu/Dynce made their public accusations. The live stream initially addressed Bifu/Dnyce and quickly moved past because they proved themselves to quite apparently have a personal vendetta. The majority of the live stream moved on to address the Matcherino accusations. It wasn’t until after the live stream that Bum had made his accusations.

        Afterwards, others had come out with information to defend Arturo, it seems they have shifted the focus to disproving Bifu/Dnyce/Bum in Art’s defense. And now that their (unsubstantiated to begin with) claims have been disproven, the stance is “All accusations have been disproven and he’s been found innocent unless there’s any more accusations with evidence”.

        I have to admit, this has been a brilliant defense strategy, and what it earned for Arturo is not at all undeserved (he should not be banned as mentioned in my last message).

        But it seems the defense is a textbook example of Occam’s Broom. Rather than using the direct route to prove his innocence to the core issue, we’re being told that the situation isn’t that simple, to look at everything surrounding the issue to support him being innocent rather than disclosing and addressing the core issue or it’s evidence directly. People seem to be convinced that everything has been resolved and he was 100% innocent from the allegations that were publicly made, and we still really don’t know what is going on with him and Matcherino, those allegations were never made public. There certainly are unanswered questions, but they’re being overlooked now that he has “proven himself innocent” from the unfounded accusations.

        The Matcherino allegations were the core of what this is really about, though. The rest were presumptuous allegations. Sufficient information hasn’t really been provided on what is happening between Matcherino and Arturo yet. The confusion, redactions, and clashing theories/accusations seem to be all circling around this accusation. Based upon the text messages of both Arturo trying to work things out, and Grant stating that he has spent a lot of time trying to help Matcherino, there is quite obviously some unresolved dispute despite both of their best efforts, one that in all likelihood we’re not aware of based on the surrounding evidence.

        I ask this:

        If Bifu/Dnyce/Bum had not said a word, would people be declaring Arturo innocent right now?

        I don’t believe they would. I think everyone would be looking forward to more information and learning what happened to “break up” Arturo and Matcherino.

        Arturo had to weather a storm of BS he didn’t deserve, but Bifu/Dnyce/Bum had ironically ended up helping Arturo in the end by generating bias in his favor, though the claims of Matcherino are still unverified and inconclusive in either direction.

        Again, I’m not suggesting there’s anything nefarious, or any action should be taken against him. Quite the opposite. I only think that it’s a bit misguided to declare him “completely innocent” when the subject that started this entire thing is still in an unresolved status. Clearing his name “from the unfounded accusations” and “whatever is going on between him and Matcherino” are two different issues, but they’re no longer being treated as one. That defense is valid for the unfounded accusations, but not for the Matcherino issue, for the reasons stated above.

        Like

  7. hmmm.... Avatar
    hmmm….

    1- why was Art telling players it could take up to 30 days for them to get paid when Bum was paying them within hours – 2 days?
    2- why during the time that Art was supposed to be busy with his family we could see him online, playing SFV and hosting other events but wasn’t able to pay the players?
    3- why Art never said he has 2 Matcherino accounts, I assume one of them is the organizer and the 2nd one is a normal one, he used the normal one to sign in earlier on his stream (https://gyazo.com/189ef290fed23ebecaf6a39eb42987ca) but then attempted with his banned account when Rob asked him to sign in again, also he knew it was banned before he even attempted
    proof of Art 2 accounts (https://gyazo.com/c28a4c3490c37089faae9a70e5f709f1 and https://gyazo.com/f56da0fcf47a9e75978b6257691118d1)
    4- why can’t Art speak for himself and asked you people to speak for him?
    5- why was Art the only one who got fired?
    6- why did Matcherino have to pay the players? you say it was “disproven” but you used words like “that likely means” which means it is an assumption and not proof of any sort
    7- how is attacking Bum helping Art? just because he also did it (maybe 2 or 3 times) doesn’t mean it was ok for Art to do it (according to you he did it way too many times)

    you are right nothing you will say can help Art, he had a chance to clear his name but he chose to use “I gotta go now to see my family” excuse when it was midnight. it was on him going live unprepared to answer the obvious question “where are the receipts?”. even RobTV tried to help him by telling him “show them to me in private” and Art said “I will talk to you off stream” but that talk apparently never happened

    Art could do what Bum did but he didn’t and I think everyone knows why
    https://gyazo.com/83c7fdd8f32cdb1627c15aea5a623f8c

    Like

  8. Beast Slayer Avatar
    Beast Slayer

    People assume Arturo has been this “good guy” within the community for over 20 years. That is not the case.

    He has only been “a good guy” for at most the last 5 years. He was ALWAYS trying to hustle someone or something.

    Just because he picked up the slack when Spooky could not, does not make Art some kind of Saint or hero for the community.

    98% of the people who say they “know him”, only know what they see. Alot of the truly old school NYC guys, can tell you that he used to be scummy. Most of the NYC guys were pretty scummy honestly.

    Art took the money and used it for whatever he needed, then when he could, he replaced it.

    There is too much questionable evidence. Even if he is a terrible public speaker, he still never provided proof to anyone who was trying to defend him. Everything is cut off and blocked out. He deleted his VOD minutes after he shut the stream down, and that was after he ran from hard questions

    People should accept this already.
    Should he be banned from competing? No, of course not. However he should not be allowed to stream,run brackets or handle funds in any way, ever again.

    Like

  9. Raul Avatar
    Raul

    Great writeup. There’s a screenshot with the CEO of Matcherino that gets cutoff. What does it say fully?

    “I still stand by we can say you paid everything back but ”

    Then it cuts off. What is the “but” about?

    Like

  10. FGC NEWS: SF6 Blanka vs JP, Capcom Cup on PC?! Updates on Arturo #FREEARTURO, SAMSHO ROLLBACK BETA TEST – Perfect Legend Avatar

    […] More have spoken out for Arturo. KingHippo recently posted in his blog a very detailed layout of everything that happened cross referencing from multiple angles. You can read it all here […]

    Like

  11. Shad Avatar
    Shad

    Any thoughts about the updated information showing that some of the possibilities I mentioned seem to indeed be the fact, and the receipts from Matcherino showing they weren’t paid back until Dec 30?

    Like

    1. Tanner J. Avatar

      Hi Shad,

      I definitely agree that your claim that there was more going on was correct, although it appears that it was still mostly relegated to the late payments. While it does seem they were doing a long audit, no one is disputing that everything is square. I will say that I think Matcherino has a valid claim in saying they did not want to say everything was clear until they were 100% sure everything was set, but at the same time, it seems like that reluctance was fueled by rampant speculation about theft more than certifiable info. Still can’t defend Arturo on the lateness of the payments, and the stuff about the email regarding legality seems really murky.

      But ultimately, yes, I think that the new info has cleared up a few things, including that there was a few more complications than we could see with the public evidence we got. I once again want to thank you for giving your opinion in a reasoned and intelligent manner.

      Like

      1. kusogeotsu Avatar
        kusogeotsu

        I’m really relieved and disappointed, truly. All those claims about theft and skimming were just that, made up embellishments.
        The fact that his professional work ethic and conduct got to a point where people who would call him a friend of 20 years would believe those claims, not so great either. But at least I feel we’re past the mud.

        Like

      2. Shad Avatar
        Shad

        While it does seem it’s not disputed that he paid back, the receipts shown do change the outcome of Claim #3 and possibly #4.

        For Claim #3, Matcherino did indeed have to pay out of pocket, and have shown the receipts that he did not pay them back until after the public statement was made.

        We can also clearly see now what the “but” was in the context of the text message.

        And we see why the payment date was redacted.

        For Claim #4, it does seem the funds were not available to pay back at the time Matcherino asked for them and that’s the reason he was let go.

        I do 100% think Matcherino only fueled the fire in this debacle by not coming out with this earlier. I think it led to a worse situation for everyone by not saying anything for a month.

        But it does seem the defenses of Arturo were not accurate narratives. The ToS violation was reduced to “putting money in his account” or “just being late” when in truth the mishandling did actually fit the definition of misappropriation (considering it was not available to pay back until weeks later and they did need to pay out of pocket).

        Like

      3. Shad Avatar
        Shad

        Apologies, reading over it seems I mixed up which claims #3 and #4 were, so please take that in to consideration and reverse them if necessary lol.

        Like

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