China E-sports Interactive is an enterprise with investment sponsored by China Venture Labs and Turtle Entertainment. The Professional Gamer League, one of CEI’s flagship products, is renowned for its enormous prize pool.

However, under the current global recession, running such a high profile competition seems unrealistic for bankruptcy-threatened CEI. The enterprise has been in deep financial trouble since scrambling to host the PGL Season IV in early January this year, and the situation is nothing but worsened after ESL's latest move.

CEI is reported to have hit the stop button on all running operations, laid off the majority of its staff, and is struggling to maintain its existence. Should CEI receive no new funds in the near future to pay stacking debt, owed staff’s wages and deliver players’ prize money, it will lose its right to undertake PGL.