Redeye walks away from the esports scene

Paul “Redeye” Chaloner, founder figure of the esports world and one of the biggest role models of so many generations of tournament hosts and commentators, announced his sudden retirement in the midst of several allegations of anger management issues and abuse of power behind the scenes.

Redeye’s career goes back to 2002 and it all started with Unreal Tournament, but his big debut, however, came with Quake 3. During his almost 20 years long tenure, Redeye has commentated and hosted tournaments in StarCraft, Counter-Strike and Dota 2. He joined the Dota 2 scene in 2014 and soon after he became The International stage host for four years. He hosted more than 30 tournaments for Dota 2 in the last few years. Besides his continuous work behind the scenes and continuous efforts to elevate the esports broadcast productions, Redeye is also the figure who fought the hardest for standardization of how we spell the industry name and from e-Sports/E-Sports and all other kinds of variation, the industry goes now by Esports.

Earlier this year he released a book titled “This Is Esports (and how to spell it)”  which mainly covers the broadcast area.

Redeye’s long esports career comes to a sudden end after former employees of his at Gfinity and broadcast colleagues came forward with allegations against his behaviour behind the scenes. Accused of being a ruthless boss, a person who would go that far as to punch an employee, and someone who acts as a gatekeeper in the casting branch of the broadcast scene, the allegations exposed past events from his personal life.

The full documents with allegations against Redeye were published in two parts by CS:GO commentator, host and interviewer James Banks.

After defending himself right after the first document was published, Redeye announced his retirement when the scandal touched his personal life.

“Like many, my mental health has not been great during the lockdown but the onslaught of accusations towards my character and the unwarranted involvement of my family has taken this to new depths. I have come very close in the last 24 hours to taking my own life and feel that stepping away to deal with my issues is the only way I am going to survive. I am utterly broken right now.

I will no longer be hosting esports events or continuing a public life within esports. I have resigned as Managing Director of Code Red with immediate effect […]

I have loved my time in esports and would like to thank all the fans who have ever supported me. This is obviously not how I thought it would end for me in esports, but I am truly grateful for everything and proud to have been there to watch the industry grow and share the last 18 years of my life with you” – Paul “Redeye” Chaloner

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