Esports organization Orbit has found itself in hot water after returning from an almost three-year hiatus just last week. Many long-time esports fans remembered the company’s last endeavor, Red Reserve, which infamously delayed payments to and failed to pay its players amongst several other allegations, and expressed concern about its return. This worry has been made even larger by the discovery that Red Reserve’s former CEO, Patrick Andersson, was still a part of the new Orbit in some unknown capacity.

To give them a fair shake, our very own Jake Lucky sat down with Mr. Andersson to get his side of the story and find out what went down with Red Reserve and what exactly happened to the now-shuttered org. Below is a quick synopsis of the Red Reserve interview; if you’d like to see it in full, check out the video above.

The Red Reserve Interview

Starting out responding to the fan belief that Orbit owes a debt for Red Reserve’s failure to pay players and that the staff who were previously involved with the org need to be held accountable, Andersson discussed that those calling for this didn’t understand how companies really work, especially heading into bankruptcy.

“Companies go bankrupt every day,” he remarked, noting that just because a company goes bankrupt doesn’t mean that everyone involved is going to be able to get paid, though he wished it did, nor that old management owes money to those, like the players, who still hadn’t been paid.

He also revealed just how much he himself had lost being apart of the org, from his job to his home, his wife, and his family. He also claimed to have lost most if not all of his money as well, with $35,000-$40,000 on his own money put in in addition to all his personal losses, noting that he did what he could to keep the org going and the players paid as much as he could. He claimed he paid for the house the Call of Duty players were in for as long as he could before he told them they’d have to leave soon, which was taken the wrong way and led to the very public backlash early last year.

When it comes to the players, Andersson spoke extensively on how much he cared and fought for the players, noting he pushed the board of the company to sign contracts for the players that allowed them to leave if they didn’t get paid for their work, a move the board was heavily reluctant to do, as well as the above-mentioned payments for the house out of his own pocket. There was also clarification that he never said he would be late on payments because of his ongoing divorce, but that his communication would be slow because of it, and that the board was in charge of raising funds and paying them out.

On the board, Andersson mentioned how the board had promised to do another round of investment fundraising to keep the org going, which Andersson told the players, only for the board to pull out from the fundraising and declare bankruptcy at the last minute. With no shares in the company, even as CEO, Andersson was powerless to stop these decisions, though he eventually took the fall for everything that went down as Red Reserve fell apart.

Speaking on whether or not fans should blame him and who he thought they should blame, he stated that he was fine with fans blaming him for the collapse of the org, but asked for them to be upset “for the right reasons,” though shied away from going into detail on what those exact reasons would be.

Lastly, Andersson made clear that Orbit and Red Reserve were entirely separate in terms of business, and that he had a lot more confidence in the team running the revived org than with the Red Reserve crew, though noted that he needed to get his passion back before taking on a clear role in the new org.

Fan Thoughts

It’s not often we get to hear from a company’s former CEO about how it collapsed or on how it affected those who aren’t in the limelight as things break down, so thank you Mr. Andersson for taking the time to give us this extraordinary peek into the failure of Red Reserve.

For the full Red Reserve interview, again check out the video attached above, and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments.