Warcraft 3 is by no means a dead game, the competitions are exciting as always and the Warcraft 3 Champions League is one of the most important events in the game to have a presence in. However, WC3 teams are being dissolved rather than built.

One can always say that this is because the teams have no money. But how do you explain it when a solvent team unloads their Warcraft 3 team because they choose to?

Having an entire Warcraft 3 team in your ranks that would compete for the top spots is simply not worth it. Not with StarCraft 2 about to bring everything to ground zero. And especially not with the inflated player salaries.

The monthly wages that players want to receive are between $500 for players that never win anything and above $5,000 for the good ones. If you want to have the absolute superstar team, then you need to be prepared to pay over $15,000 each month. Or closer to $30,000 if you are willing to believe the crazier rumours that go around.

For what? For two seasons of the WC3L a year where the team can win $7,500 for first place?

This is why Warcraft 3 teams dissolve their squads. To put things into perspective, Jang "Moon" JaeHo's wage alone can support the world's number one Counter-Strike squad (and you will still have money left over). Such a team goes to six events every year with a prize purse larger than that of the WC3L.

The inflation in Warcraft 3 player wages has hurt the industry. Organisations will prefer to focus on solo players. Teams in Warcraft 3 will keep getting weaker and the team competitions will become less interesting.

The WC3L is already suffering from it. Now it has two scenarios ahead of it. One is that it will implode altogether. The other is that it will become a predominantly Chinese league because that is where it will still be possible to assemble a competitive team cheaply.

But what was it that actually got the pendulum swinging?

A team whose name I will not mention. Let's call it The Unnamed Team (TUT). They came in with a plan to bring trophies from the most important events as quickly as possible. Not only that, but with the intention of getting a monopoly. That means they did not make any compromises - they attracted top players with wages the scene had never seen before.

The only reason why they were able to do so was because they were spending much more money than was actually coming in from sponsors. Those are the benefits of having rich investors and not having to balance the books for a year. Or three years.

Whether intentionally or not (take your pick), TUT caused the salaries in the entire Warcraft 3 scene to rise. Players comparable to TUT's stars began asking the question: "Why am I not getting as much as they are?"

You know the rest of the story. TUT made sure they had the best players and that no other organisation would want to pay the upkeep of a team that could challenge theirs. Now they are the only kid left on the playground. They achieved invincibility. But at what expense?

At the expense of destroying the trophy they were after in the first place. Bravo.

BRAVO!

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In loving memory of all the WC3L teams that have decided not to go on.