The pulled video, rehosted on YouTube. (CLG / Dylan Ley YouTube)

As a result, CLG’s video struck many in the esports community as overly revealing—a gratuitous look at one of the lowest moments an esports professional can face.

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“Unless you’re making a Breaking Point [documentary]-style piece and this is the trailer, you’re going too far,” LCS commentator Alberto Rengifo said of the video on Twitter. “No one looks the better because of this. Consider taking this down CLG.”

“Can’t even make fun of this,” wrote G2 Esports head coach Fabian “GrabbZ” Lohmann. “Showing this is just wrong.”

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Others pointed out that players still have time to right the ship, but not if a video like this tanks their morale even more, while fans embraced the idea of transparency, but argued that there has to be “a better way to do it.” After all, what did CLG even communicate here? That some players might get cut? All anybody learned from this video is that players now have to live with the uncertainty of a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

Kotaku reached out to CLG, Bud Light, Lee, and every player on CLG’s current LCS roster for more details about how the video came to be, as well as whether or not Lee and players knew footage was going to be used in this particular context. As of this publishing, they did not reply.

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Ultimately, CLG elected to take the video down.

“This morning we published a short post-game video giving a look behind the scenes of our current season,” CLG wrote yesterday on its official Twitter account. “Our goal was to share an authentic moment with our fans and be as transparent as possible leading up to potential changes that may occur this week. We recognize the negative light that it brings to our players, and for that we apologize and have taken down the video.”

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The apology has not been well-received.

“Apologize to your players,” Tien Ho, head of marketing for esports organization Rogue (for which current CLG player Wiestål previously competed), said in response. “Might as well film the apology and release it.”

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