“The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.”

Bob Dylan – Times they are a changin’

This is a difficult time for esports’ fans. Yes, say hello to Captain Obvious, but a column about such a complicated story felt like it needed a simple beginning.

ESWC, my own personal favourite esports tournament, is dead. It joins the not so elite ranks of CPL, WSVG and even CXG. People may be forgiven for looking around, wondering who’s next. But perhaps more important is that other organisations learn something from these failed experiments.

Failed Experiments

For experiments they surely were. ESWC in particular gave the appearance of a bunch of friends making things up as they went along. There were mistakes, of course, but they did it for the love of the game. It was exciting and refreshing in an industry that has grown up all too quickly into another money-spinning form of light entertainment.

On that note, one has to wonder if the players have any blame in this… “situation” (I hesitate to use the word “crisis” for reasons mentioned here yesterday.). It saddened me in a way to see players like Lurppis and Luq complaining about prize money as if it was the only thing worth playing for:


“’We have to go back to the time when CS teams were happy with LAN support and as much alcohol they could drink for the weekend.’ - after reading that im even more frustrated and about to blow up if u want to go back to that point in gaming you should just call it casual gaming instead of ESPORT” - Luq

Is esports without the money just casual gaming? I would like to think otherwise. The dollar signs in players eyes genuinely upset me. But, at the same time, they were promised something that never came. If you replace money with trophies, you wonder if they would be quite so annoyed, but the fact still remains: these people put a lot of time and effort into their game and rewards they were promised (note that word ‘promised’ again) have not materialised.

The Blame Game

But none of this answers the question ‘why is this happening?’ For that, you have to look squarely at the tournament organisers themselves. I loved ESWC as a spectacle, but the flaws in their system – and many others, by the way – are glaring. Hindsight, as the say, is a wonderful thing.

Esports has always been reliant on sponsors, but some tournaments are more reliant than others. ESWC was one of them. In a time where the global financial crisis is starting to hit home, it seems kind of obvious now that tournaments like ESWC would suffer.

Whether or not they will be the last victim is a genuine concern. To say that the financial crisis had no effect is nonsense, but perhaps companies like CPL and Game Services could have planned better for the future. The sponsorship model is sustainable – just look at football – but it needs a more solid foundation. When the ladder is pulled out from underneath you, you need to have a safety chord attached, and ESWC seemingly forgot that.

The other issue is the constant raising of prize money. This was more-or-less inevitable I’m afraid but it has caused so many problems down the years. CS players don’t get out of bed for a tournament with less than $30,000 first place. The fact that tournament organisers were always writing cheques with money they didn’t yet own seemed to pass people by, myself included.

Looking back, wouldn’t it have been much better to reduce the prize money, but make sure it was actually paid? It seems so obvious now. Would you rather get $10,000 for a tournament but have it paid immediately, or $50,000 that you might not see for a year or two? The former is not only better for the players, who are less frustrated, but the organisations don’t have to be constantly running in the red. Their reputation grows and the inflation of prize money is much slower – meaning tournaments can continue to pay out amounts which they can actually afford.

The problem now, however, is that we have gone too far down the other road. How many players would agree to go to a tournament that barely covers the cost of travel? This was one of the many problems CPL’s World Tour faced way back in 2006. Teams travelling to the UK stop practically had to win just to cover their air-fare. That just clearly wasn’t going to work.

Interesting Times

There is a curse that goes something like this: “may you live in interesting times.” The future of esports is nothing if not interesting. Where we go from here is really up in the air, but esports – in one form or another – will survive. We might see a mass retirement of older players in the next 12 months. We might even see other tournaments joining ESWC and CPL on the scrapheap. But something will endure. It may be barely recognisable from the esports we know and love today, but then isn’t today’s esports barely recognisable from a couple of years ago?

There are too many people involved, too many fans and players (and writers) who are passionate about professional gaming to let it die, but the times they are a-changin’.

The world’s first weekly esports column, The Zechs Files, will not be changing, however. It returns next Tuesday.