On Aug. 23, The Esports Advocate reported that gaming and esports professional Victor Davila had been arrested by Logan City, Utah Police and charged with two felonies for allegedly soliciting an undercover police officer—posing as an 13-year-old girl—for sex. He was later charged with one count of attempted rape of a child (a first-degree felony) and one count of enticing a minor (a second-degree felony), and currently remains incarcerated in the Cache County Jail awaiting a hearing, as of this writing.
Many in the community were surprised when we mentioned Davila’s past associations with companies such as Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. (MSI) and Tampa Never Sleeps, but this particular paragraph (which is based on information in Davilla’s LinkedIn profile) bothered several people:
“Davila, who was at EVO last month (likely promoting his clients), is well-known in the fighting game community due to his time at MSI working on events and partnerships. In July he was let go from the company after more than two years. During his time there, he served in multiple roles including events and partnerships manager and as a retail merchandising manager. In his role as an events and partnerships manager, he worked with partners, influencers, and more to promote the MSI brand, and helped create a presence for the company at events in the United States such as CES, Dreamhack, PAX, E3, and more, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also served as a liaison between MSI and the collegiate esports space and played a pivotal role in MSI’s sponsorship of Combo Breaker 2022 and Offline TV. “
We noted these associations mainly because Davila made a point of highlighting them himself in his LinkedIn profile. Very few people pushed back on Davila’s associations (Tampa Never Sleeps ended its relationship with him shortly after the publication of our story in late August), but Christine Fan, who currently serves as the EDU program manager at MSI, takes umbrage with the fact that Davila claims he was her direct manager while at the company, and that he takes credit for many of the events, activations, and activities at major gaming events that she was actually responsible for.
In a post published Tuesday on both LinkedIn and Twitter, Fan says that Davila was taking credit for events he never actually worked on such as CES, Dreamhack, PAX, E3, etc. (in other words, her work). Further, she notes he was never part of MSI’s student program, was never her direct manager or supervisor, and therefore didn’t have any exposure to young people through the company:
“This is my first post, but I wanted to share as it’s been incredibly devastating. I learned recently that Victor Davila (https://lnkd.in/gNTsXYgu – who you may have seen news about on Twitter – if not, google Victor Davila Utah) was sharing outside the company that he was my direct manager and oversaw all my work, as well as took credit for everything I do with my program. I want to clarify that was never the case. I am only doing so because of the news that came out a couple weeks ago on him, as I work with students.
“He never oversaw anything of the MSI Student program, never participated in anything that I didn’t approve of / wasn’t supervising. Please be assured that he had absolutely no influence or direct contact with any students that I was not watching. I’m incredibly furious that this even happened. If you have any questions, please reach out to me.”
TEA reached out to Fan for further comment on Tuesday evening, but she has not responded as of this writing. Other sources tell TEA that Davila was fired in July due to poor performance.
Fan’s public post is important because it highlights that Davila has exaggerated/taken credit for other people’s accomplishments and—given the charges he faces—that he was not working within the MSI student program and therefore had no access/exposure to young people through the company, at least according to Fan.
