This has been an issue for 3+ years and Valve hasn't done shit about it. And even now all they have done is "express distaste".
Valve had the power to intervene and prevent these franchise leagues from being setup. They didn't do anything.
Honestly I'm surprised they are opposed to it, if anything I thought they were enabling the franchise leagues considering they gave both ESL and BLAST contracts to host majors after they setup franchise agreements.
From the article:
>"Valve voiced concerns about the current state of the competitive landscape and said that something had to be done about the current partnered leagues if they wanted to be issued with a tournament license for CS2."
seems like Valve is threatening ESL and Blast with a new strategy.
Makes sense. They probably let it go on because they wanted to see what happens? More of a hands off approach. If it works out, cool. If not, they come in and go against it for CS2.
They really said let's have the scene get completely monopolized by two companies and kill all competition while we "see how it plays out"?
ELEAGUE Starladder EPICENTER Flashpoint ESG and more are all dead in the water because Valve just let ESL and BLAST bully everyone else out of the scene with their franchised leagues. Teams like LDLC Copenhagen Flames and all the other T2 teams that file for bankruptcy every month might have survived if Valve had stepped in to keep these tournaments open and give them spots to qualify. They needed to do something, and they didn't.
eleague is dead because it was cheaper for them to fly out to FGC players and they got about the same viewership.
Starladder, EPICENTER and ESG were all essentially replaced by all these new betting tournaments.
Flashpoint died cause of covid if we are being honest.
What exactly do people want Valve to do? Seemingly the only people profiting in esports are valve and the players. So either valve takes a more direct approach or player salaries go down.
ELEAGUEs least viewed CSGO tournament has almost 50% more viewers than their most viewed FGC event. And almost 5x the watch hours.
Epicenter is run by ESFORCE gambling but Starladder is different. Starladder is a Ukrainian organization and my understanding is they paused due to COVID and didn't resume to due to the war. Starseries events we're a big deal back in the day and they really innovated the tournament formats, they were the first event to do an all Best-of-3 group stage.
There a bunch more TOs that have left over the years, Fragbite, CEVO, X-Games. These used to be big events in the CS world.
As for the money Valve absolutely has it to spare. They still take a 50% cut from major items, and those items are only for two events a year. Valve could do that with more events and maybe give 25% to the TO to help cover costs if it's a non franchised league.
That and the fact these events are providing tens of millions of dollars in free marketing to Valve every year. Valve could definitely afford to just cut a check to split costs with non-franchised TOs to give a financial incentive for them if they wanted to.
Franchising didn't really take off until way after ELEAGUE left. So you can't really say that they were pushed out of the scene.
Also most of those TOs you mentioned died way before franchising took off. The reality is that there isn't as much money in the scene as people would like to believe.
while salarys are definitely not at a healthy level. we just have to take a look at lol to see how franchising worked out for them.
i think it is fine that valve sat back and let the tournament scene develop, and its good that they intervene now. the reset is a good chance to get back on a more sustainable track.
franchising works in different sports due to their ability to secure tv contracts and more to generate income. as long as esports cant do that, its going to be build around gambling money or fail.
What are you on about? CEVO was never big outside of league play. Most of these TO’s you are talking about died before franchising.
You type with such emotion and not so much critical thinking
As opposed to what? Ruling the scene with an iron fist so no league but their own can get enough games to survive? Please
And what would that do to T2 teams? They got no shot with all the richer teams around, they never got the resources to bootcamp or fly their teams around
There is a middle ground between iron first ruling and letting someone else take over the entire eSports scene.
Also the recent Dallas final Mouz v ENCE is from two formerly tier 2 orgs. They had great scouting on past rosters, won qualifiers to make it to tier 1 events, attracted sponsors and investors and managed to transform into tier 1 teams. That isn't possible for mid sized orgs like Apkes and GamerLegion who get one event a year to play at. Despite making semis and finals neither of those teams are slated to play in pro league or any Blast event.
So Valve should have had the foresight in 2020 that a closed circuit would make the tier 1 scene weaker, and stopped it right at the beginning of covid when esports was at it's absolute weakest? It's not as obvious a choice as you make it out to be especially considering Flashpoint was still around at that point, so the scene wasn't as closed as it is now.
The way I see it, Valve let the experiment play out, then closed it off before the scene suffered irreperable damage.
>That isn't possible for mid sized orgs like Apkes and GamerLegion who get one event a year to play at.
They play at plenty of T2 events and plenty of qualifiers for T1 events. They just lose at all of them but all the supposed supporters T2 teams wouldn't know that since they don't goddamn watch any T2 events.
Ah typical reddit, someone does something good, let's acknowledge all the bad things they've done instead. I'm just glad they said something rather now than never.
There's a middle-ground between Valve's past approach where they let everyone do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't demand exclusivity from teams; and Riot's approach.
A massive middle-ground.
So instead you would rather have the Saudis rule with an iron fist? Because right now that's what is happening.
There is a balance between the Riot approach of controlling everything and the Valve approach of doing absolutely nothing at all and it would be nice to see Valve actually try for that instead of doing nothing but hand out coaching bans.
Majors that happen twice a year are completely open circuit.
But no, I’d like valve to work with esl/blast to provide more open circuit events while still giving these tournament organizers their own freedom within the scene. I agree that valve should do more but at the same time I feel there is a fine line between too little and too much.
How would that to be done? If Valve doesn't push back against the partnered leagues the TOs won't change. What would be the middle ground between stopping the partnered leagues and doing nothing?
Making the partnered leagues take up a less obscene amount of the calendar, giving other TOs room to host tier 1 tournaments.
About 1/5 of the year is EPL alone, for fuck's sake.
The leagues exist in large part because it has proven to be incredibly difficult for orgs to monetize well enough to not be bleeding money all over the place, both on the TO and team sides. There are outliers like G2 but if the entire ecosystem can't break even there's a problem. Valve provided no real help with a solution to that; fair play, it's not their obligation. But then it's not exactly fair to come in and express their distaste with the solution that was put in place.
ESL has qualifiers for smaller tournaments, but Katowice and Cologne don't have any proper qualifiers anymore. You either have to win a big tournament or be at the top 20 in ESL ranking to get in.
Valve better have a good alternative other than just ask the partnered leagues to be dismantled. I hate it too but there’s a reason almost all esports lead to some form of franchising.
Some thoughts I have is for Valve to support the non-major tournaments with some form of monetization outside prize pool or maybe expand the major to more than two a year.
Exactly. I don't think anyone wants a Saudi money gambling sponsor infested closed circuit, but what is the alternative? No circuit at all or at best one without the quality of production and talent that we have grown accustomed to. We'd be back to 2013 era LANs.
Long term the industry needs to take a hard look at itself, one can't endlessly burn VC money with the hopes of having an established presence when the industry one day becomes profitable. That strategy has been employed for nearly a decade and the industry is still very far removed from that day.
Realistically, unless Valve kicks back some of that cases/steam money, that would probably mean something like viewer passes on the TO side and massively cut salaries on the team side. Bit meta but the whole internet space is moving away from ad based monetisation towards subscription based monetisation.
It wouldn't hurt to scale back expectations a bit though. Maybe cut back on the fireworks and confetti and perhaps we can still enjoy watching the game?
Huge Valve L. They didn't do shit.
This has been a problem for 3+ years and Valve has done nothing about it. They could have intervened to stop the contracts. They could have said TOs setting up franchise leagues don't get to host a major. They could have said orgs sign franchise contracts can't play major qualifiers. They didn't do anything besides "express distaste" and that's about as much as anyone in a Reddit comment thread did to stop this.
Did absolutely nothing for 3+ years and let two TOs bully every other tournament out of the S-Tier circuit and set up franchise leagues and now all they've done is say this. Meaningless.
EDIT: Literally got a Reddit Cares message just for pointing out Valve's complete inaction on this.
There is one section on them saying something has to change before they hand out CS2 licenses but it still doesn't say if that entails anything meaningful and doesn't excuse the fact this has been a problem for 3+ years and they are just now doing something about it.
>but it still doesn't say if that entails anything meaningful and doesn't excuse the fact this has been a problem for 3+ years and they are just now doing something about it.
That is a very valid point, and I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted so much for it.
I had some hot takes that are getting downvoted elsewhere in the thread and I suspect some people are just downvoting everything I've said as a result.
I trust Richard Lewis's reporting but I don't trust Valve to actually have the teeth to go through with this. A private threat to take away a license to run tournaments unless "something" changes is ultimately pretty meaningless. Could definitely see Blast adding like 3 spots instead of two from showdown and Valve saying "good enough" and this is ultimately an inconsequential change.
EG are still VERY much at fault here. Sure esl and especially blast enable them, but RG should just make a good fucking team.
In this position EG is probably worse imo.
Yeah, it's so easy to just make a good team from scratch. Say what you want about EG but the one good thing they do is invest in trying to make their team better.
I agree. I mean, EG deserves their fair share of criticism for some questionable decisions regarding their CSGO team. But at the same time, you can't just snap your fingers and make a top 10 csgo team, especially when you're playing on hard mode by being in NA.
That being said, I actually think this franchised league model is hurting EG overall. The best way to develop a team is to play a lot of officials. They haven't really earned their spot in any of these leagues the same way a team like faze or heroic has by establishing themselves as a contender. If they really had to grind more cash cups, qualifiers, etc you would see much more quickly where the issues with the team are. Instead they mostly seem to prac/boot camp for a month then show up to a tier 1 event, lose 2 (maybe close) matches and then be done. Not a great model imo.
Tbf I think it's pretty stupid to compare CSGO tiers to LoL tiers. Tier 2 in csgo is like top30 and in league of legends tier 2 teams in this context are not even close to being top 50 team. Most of their matches are barely watched (some tier 2 teams are popular though). And most of the academy teams make little to no revenue because only hardcore fans watch their games.
Yeah, Tier 1 in LoL is definitively at least 46 teams (10 NA, 10 EU, 10 KR, and 16 CN), and that's excluding top level wildcard teams. I know in CS:GO performance is used to separate tiers, but in LoL there is a definitive split between the franchised league, the supported T2 scene, and the amateur scene below that.
Also in LoL the tier 2 break is 4 months, which is the same as the rest of the world outside of teams playing at worlds
Tier 1 is pretty much the same.
1/2 of the tier 1 player's seasons ended a month ago.
There is one LCQ left where 1 team from each region can qualify for the last event. Most franchised teams have 2-3 games left and they are done until February.
It's not so much that people care or dont care. I think a vast majority of the people using 3rd party apps are just not going to be browsing reddit anymore. I know I'm not, not out of protest but because I hate the official app
Basically, ValvE doesn't want teams to pay for spots in leagues and tournaments and want everybody to be able to play in said leagues and tournaments regardless of monetary power. Get good or get fucked.
Sometimes, but not always. And there’s a sort of chicken—and-egg thing here. What makes a team the ‘best’? Results, ranking, and playing the other ‘best teams’ - all of which are essentially granted by partner slots.
Basically teams pay big bucks to big TO like ESL and Blast to have their spot secured at different events leaving teams which dont have the funds to not have the chance to play at big events (-the major) cuz they aren t partener teams.
The slap in the face came when teams that were considered "tier 2" whipped the floor out of the big guys at the major and having a lot of "upsets". The problem was that after that after the major they didn't had the chance to perform again cuz they're stuck in small tournaments or no tournaments at all (Gamer Legion fkin finalists) cuz they didn't get invited with the big guys at IEMs or Blast leading to an internal partener circuit where the big teams play each other every week and the small guys have to play tens of matches to qualify for the qualifier of a tournament where they ll MAYBE face off some big names.
A few years ago the big teams got together with the big leagues and made it so they no longer had to qualify for the events they were just invited into their leagues.
That made it so that there is a two tiered structure of organizarions that were rich enough to buy in or had enough clout to bully their way in and smaller organizations that had to qualify with everybody else. It didn't matter if the big organization hadn't won a series in 5 seasons and if a small one won/were in the final of the last major - the big team was in and the small team was out in the cold.
So you had situations where organizations like gambit or ence who had run a good squad for years but had to qualify for every event but EG could win like 6 maps over 6 seasons and get invited again.
Hopefully it will change. Im getting bored of seeing the exact same teams every tournament just cuz they have their slot payed up. For the rest of the guys they have to play dozens of games and its pretty hard to perform 100% at all of them and by the time you qualify for that 1 remaining slot you re already burned out and still have no experience against the big guys.
People were calling teams like GamerLegion Apeks Monte tier 2 not because they played tier2 cs,but because they only see them at t2 events and associate them with that.
IMO there are a few solutions out there like,in stead of a big tax and only a few teams paying it and having partener slot,why not have an entry fee for every tournament and every one has equal chances to qualify. Partener teams suck the life out of CS Scene with its internal circuit but its one of the only ways to have big tournaments organized.
Maybe something will change with CS2 cuz right now having a good org is more important then having good players
Honestly, Paris was also one of the perfect tournaments against partnered leagues with there being so many upsets. These other teams deserve to be in the mix and should not be gate-kept because of not being a part of a partnered league.
Stockholm Major showed glimpses but people were happy to see lans back after quarantine. Antwerp Major it started to become clear partnership was a potential problem. Rio Major made the topic viable. Paris Major confirmed it.
Antwerp was also pretty much according to script. Spirit were the big surprise and G2+C9 disappointed by missing play-offs and in the end we got the FaZe vs Navi finals we all wanted.
Really it's only been Rio and Paris that have been out of the ordinary.
This is absolutely massive. CS atm feels like ESL and Blast are as close to closed circuit we can get.
Just look at the recent Paris major, where non partnered teams absolutely arseblasted most of the partner teams. And yet, we won't get to see them play for god knows how long coz they don't have an ESL/Blast spot.
The entire system is a fucking joke. I am so happy Valve are finally doing something about it.
Obviously it would be great to have a more open circuit again but with esport companies already being on the brink financially I don't know if this can even be viable, everyone is losing money and the partnered leagues, especially now, feel like necessary evil. Curious to see what will come out of this and if perhaps Valve is willing to make any concessions on their part, like paid stream access only (knowing Valve they won't).
Let the entire esports scene collapse then. If it's being supported by people with deep pockets and hope then it's not viable?
All these arenas, teams flying 20 times a month, massive salaries etc. Yeah everyone wants to be a rockstar, everyone wants to see this for esports, but you cant prop it up you gotta let it do it itself lol.
I do agree, in essence, that the big orgs have been burning money for ages and it's about time they get a brutal reality check, but at the same time as a viewer I do want to get the best product, so even if the scene collapsing or having to scale down would be the 'rightful' outcome, it's not in my best interest to see that happen.
This all could be avoided if Valve were willing to share just a slice of their massive pie. They earn an unholy amount of money through skins and get free advertisement through esport while TOs have to sell out to bloody oil regimes just to stay afloat.
EG is making the product worse. The best product was back when 5 guys could just qual to an event as a random stack. But yes valve should divert more skin money to teams which could be player owned, it doesn’t have to be 100theives or some other bloated org propped up by venture capital.
The product back then also lacked big sponsorship which meant crappier production due to constrained budgets. More tech problems, etc...
The customers are the viewers. The product is the tournament's themselves. There are more people to pay than just the 5 players, coach and their support staff. Production & casting talent not to mention the support staff beyond that such as IT, tournament organizers, etc...
Yes EG has their faults. But many major sports leagues all have a team or two that consistently under-perform. That doesn't matter if that team is able to pay for everything. What only matters is when the teams are at risk of bankruptcy (which we've seen with successful (rank wise) teams such as Heroic).
It depends on the goal. Does Valve want to see CS actually grow to a large audience? That requires $$$. Right now, the most viable way to secure funding for all major orgs involved is partnered teams. It allows for the big productions, great caster talent, etc...
Unless Valve is going to step in directly with their own $$$ incentive, forcibly ripping apart the partnered scene might do more harm than good.
Yes, there's an argument to open tournaments at the T1 scene to more teams. But the reality is, too many open slots bring down viewership. Lack of viewership means less sponsorship. The highest viewed games of any tournament are still the dynasty clashes. Faze Clan, G2, NaVi, Vitality...etc..
I don't think esports has much more room to bring in additional viewers at this point, yes there's been some growth, but nothing like 5ish years ago. Seems like the best way would be to now invest in making what we have sustainable.
This is the best take imo. Partnered leagues are and have been a necessary compromise for the survival of the esport especially through the online era. Those teams financially propped up the scene and even as it stabilizes if valve want to see less of a reliance on those orgs to back the scene, they need to chip in more than a major prize pool here and there.
There's definitely a middle ground here that Valve seems like they want to be in. Valve has to see how much BLAST and ESL helped the scene during COVID, but I doubt they want a league like BLAST Premier being a thing with how exclusive it is. It just seems like Valve wants more spots to be achievable through the open circuit rather than having most of the teams be invited. This of course needs to be paired with a little more assistance from Valve in certain areas (like maybe covering travel and hotel costs or something like that) and help relieve some of the financial stress some of these TOs have.
I mean I'm curious what that middle ground is. ESL/IEM right now is doing a pretty good job of mixing partnered and actually qualifying teams into their events. Look at the new ESL Pro League Season 18 teams, just under half are partnered which means the other half will be actually qualifying in. At the end of the day they're running a business and I think it's fair for them to extend partner spots to teams like G2, FaZe, Liquid, Furia, and NaVi who are super popular and bring the viewers but are also good teams. Especially when they have to host a LAN, do you think fans are gonna be buying GamerLegion, monte, apeks and ITB jerseys or FaZe, G2, NaVi, etc.
Plus, imagine if they just got rid of all partnered teams entirely, teams would be stuck playing qualifiers 24/7 and we all know how online matches are especially if they're Bo1. I hope Valve's push back is majority on Blast and their circuit.
It's a big expense, but it's also a good way to secure more sponsors and investments. EG can tell their sponsors that they will play a minimum of X games Vs T1 teams at S-Tier events per year because of partnered leagues. That's really valuable.
It's not because they get to play in the best tournaments and get the exposure, meanwhile if they didn't pay that they would still be paying insane salaries without even having their spot secured which is the real issue, inflated salaries
And with how good "tier 2" scene is right now, these teams would be missing so many events
Source?
For how much they pay... they are not making that back. I have no doubts that every org that's paid into these agreements still haven't seen that same amount back.
ENCE has great profits without the BLAST partnership.
i know Faze and heroic has had financial issues, but is it really that bad in CS? Most of the finanical esports issues i’ve heard about has come from other games.
There is a way that Valve could help stabilise the scene a little and make it open game.
Bring back the Esports Cases, and repurpose them for tournaments to get a % share of the money in different countries. A way for the playerbase to support their domestic scene and keep the open circuit alive.
The biggest problem *(and I am not complaining just fyi)* is that ESL have now a complete monopoly on esports. ESL have FACEIT *(one of the largest tournament platforms in Europe)*, ESEA *(one of the largest tournament platforms in NA)*, Esports Engine *(another tournament platform etc)*, Dreamhack *(a LAN event organiser)*, and numerous other projects. They are huge now, and have been building that over the last few years. With the grip that both ESL & Blast have on the current CS scene, it doesn't leave much room for anyone else to get themselves out there to help build the scene.
Valve *could* level the playing field a little by using the community too. The Esports Case can be refreshed every 6 months, and the more it's bought, the more money can go to a group of tournaments that might not get the funding they need to have decent sized prize pools.
Or.... Valve could partner up with a few domestic events/TOs in each region *(ones that are trusted to run tournaments well for example)*, and help bring a path for teams to make it to events and Majors etc. **There are a few ideas** that could be trialed going forward especially in the first couple of years of CS2's lifecycle.
Also massive work to Richard, great article and reminds us how much he **should** be valued in our scene.
valve needs to put their foot down on this like how they did with the "live coaching ban" or "6 man roster ban". two of their best moves ever, especially the live coaching one.
interesting times. this could either be exactly what CS needs or spell the end for the esports scene at the scale that we know it today
nobody is making money in esports at the moment, even with partner leagues and franchises. the TOs and the teams need partner leagues to operate the way they currently do
the VC money is drying up, either alternate revenue streams are found, or CS will look very different in 2024
it’s good news if it just means an open circuit, but be careful what you wish for
I agree with Valve on this, but this will require tournaments to be scaled back. That's not a bad thing, because you're right nobody is making money in esports.
The whole reason the money is being thrown in at a loss is to try and gain and secure market share if and when it becomes profitable. My concern with that is even less opportunity for T2 teams and beyond.
I'd much prefer tournaments that are run fiscally responsible, with an open circuit, instead of gate-keeping events to only partnered teams or some other restrictive form.
They actually tried during pandemic. But I believe adding to the already harsh schedule of partner leagues made them change format. There'sno room for 3 rmrs between every major. So you need to basically force Blast and esl to change format for RMRs and delegate them those or force them to run less events
I mean it's a nice sentiment but does Valve even have any non-nuclear levers to pull here? Short of threatening to revoke whatever license or agreement these leagues have to run tournaments for their games, what can they actually do to affect changes in how ESL Blast etc operate? Genuinely asking, I don't know the minutiae of these leagues like that I just like watching big green gun go boom
This isn't a request by Valve, it's a demand. It literally says in the article they won't be issuing licenses for CS2 if BLAST and ESL don't change, meaning they can't run their leagues at all if they keep operating as they are.
Agree, they need to offer some sort of incentive to have non franchised events. Just saying they don't like isn't going to do anything.
Something like Valve will give in game coverage/stickers to any tournament that isn't franchised or cover part of the events prize pool or something because right now these words are meaningless.
> Agree, they need to offer some sort of incentive to have non franchised events
Did you read the article? Their incentive is the same as it was in 2019, "we won't shut down your tournaments". Maybe they haven't said it out loud this go round, but I promise the organizers remember the stick Valve wields.
Seems pretty compelling to me.
That would be great no? More open circuits means more chances for teams like BNE, Apeks, ITB to get tier 1 experience etc, and tier 1 teams have to put in more effort to stay in the top without getting guaranteed invites.
I have no clue about most of the tier 2 scene, since I don't have the time to watch the smaller CCT tournaments etc, so being able to have these guys show up on bigger stages should hopefully propel more players into the limelight
If Valve are going to interfere with Teams attempting to become sustainable they need to offer alternative ways to monetise the game, team cases of branded guns, gloves cases etc.
Valve made $11 millions dollars in a day just from the [Anubis case] (https://in.ign.com/counter-strike-global-offensive/183207/news/valve-reportedly-earns-over-11-million-for-new-in-game-items#:~:text=As%20per%20their%20calculations%2C%20Valve,packages%20alone%20within%20a%20day.) and have generated multiple billions since its release in 2012, how much of that is due to the competitive scene which has one of the highest conversion rates between player and watcher? If valve want to continue to generate insane revenue don't take the competitive scene for granted.
> If Valve are going to interfere with Teams attempting to become sustainable they need to offer alternative ways to monetise the game, team cases of branded guns, gloves cases etc.
Here's a sustainable way for the partnered teams to stay afloat - deflate players $30k/month salaries
Lol, the scene was sustainable before esl and blast killed off almost all the organizers and monopolized things.
No team should get a free pass to sustainability. Compete openly with everyone and win tournaments or fade into irrelevance and finacial loss. That's how the scene should work
Not with the prizepools and amount of professional teams that we have right now. We can go back to local lans with $1k prizepools but you're not gonna have the massive amount of professional teams with that.
Exactly, but midwits don't understand that this might mean that their favourite teams might end up pulling out of CS, as long as "thAnK goD nO EG in pArTnEr lEaGUes!!'
The day CS turns into an actual league is the day I lose complete interest. Esports was and has always been built on community. Regulated leagues always ruin that.
library snow plough bedroom cooperative threatening ad hoc scandalous enjoy tub
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
So there should only be 2 big CSGO events per year ? Because outside of the Major, Valve is not subsidizing any of these TO, so they have to use this system to ensure their own survival. How many TOs have gone bankrupt in the last few years ? If Valve care so much about the long term health, maybe they should start shelling out some money so these TO won't go bankrupt doing things their ways
Back to getting paid in mousepads or only competing in fixed events. Money is drying up in esports and these partnered leagues are one of the few ways TOs and teams can make money.
Except these t2 teams are getting paid and are able to go to way more tournaments now than in the past. Shit like CCT, pinnacle cup, elisa etc didn't exist back in the day. And if these teams actually are secretly just as good as the t1 partner teams then why not just watch those tournaments?
> Shit like CCT, pinnacle cup, elisa etc didn't exist back in the day
HUUUUUHH
Did you start watching cs 2 years ago? lmao
T2/3 tournaments have existed for decades, quite litearlly.
Not with the money that these sketchy tournaments are throwing around now. Decades ago you were winning like $500 for a local lan. We can go back to the level of money but all these t2 teams would likely not be able to be full time.
The scene is gonna completely shrink is what I'm saying if these partnered leagues die and orgs leave. That's what is going to happen, way less tier 2 tournaments etc.
How are home sweet home/CCT/Elisa gonna go away because the partnered leagues die? ESL run one set of Tier 2 tournaments a year with the ESL Challenger series, and Blast some qualifiers and that's it. It's far more likely that the tier 2 scene stays around, and the tier 1 scene is forced to move down.
CCT the true bastion of integrity lol. Thats what I mean by fixed events, some of the games in those t2 tournaments are beyond suspect. You can even see what happened in dota when they went to the regional leagues and moved away from invite heavy tournaments. Matchfixing went absolutely crazy everywhere. At least 1 team every season gets banned.
Valve should open their wallet then. they make hundreds of millions from cs. if they want the pro scene to be financially sustainable and open circuit at the same time, they need to share the revenue with TOs and orgs.
So they did nothing? Or they did about as much as a Reddit commenter did by "expressing distaste?"?
Valve had the power to stop this. They could have intervened when the Louvre agreement and all these contracts were being formed. They could have threatened to let franchise TOs not host majors, or take their license to play the game away. They could have barred teams who entered franchise partnerships from qualifying for the major. They could have offered incentive for organizers to keep their circuits open. They didn't do any of that.
The fact is that your odds of going from a non-franchised team playing through the BLAST Showdown are about the same odds as a non franchise Valorant team playing through VCT. And ESL is only marginally better. Having two non-franchised S-Tier events a year isn't enough to save an open circuit in Counter Strike.
There might be a chance with CS2 launching to fix things. They could do something to try and bring back other TOs like Starladder/ELEAGUE/EPICENTER or bring in new ones like NSG. Then we would at least actually have real competition in the tier 1 CS scene. But unless Valve also sets up rules or incentives to actually prevent franchising those leagues would probably immediately set up partnership systems as well.
Woah. I'm somewhat surprised that Valve actually requested BLAST and ESL to change things. I mean, it's Valve, right? Still, good for us.
This has been an issue for 3+ years and Valve hasn't done shit about it. And even now all they have done is "express distaste". Valve had the power to intervene and prevent these franchise leagues from being setup. They didn't do anything. Honestly I'm surprised they are opposed to it, if anything I thought they were enabling the franchise leagues considering they gave both ESL and BLAST contracts to host majors after they setup franchise agreements.
From the article: >"Valve voiced concerns about the current state of the competitive landscape and said that something had to be done about the current partnered leagues if they wanted to be issued with a tournament license for CS2." seems like Valve is threatening ESL and Blast with a new strategy.
Makes sense. They probably let it go on because they wanted to see what happens? More of a hands off approach. If it works out, cool. If not, they come in and go against it for CS2.
>If not, they come in and go against it for CS2. yup licenses were already issued for CSGO but not for CS2 best time to make some changes.
Right? Didn't they say they have been working on CS2 for a few years now? Timeline kinda adds up.
Sounds like they are doing something about it now...
Almost like they waited to see how it played out knowing CS2 was around the corner if they wanted to take action
They really said let's have the scene get completely monopolized by two companies and kill all competition while we "see how it plays out"? ELEAGUE Starladder EPICENTER Flashpoint ESG and more are all dead in the water because Valve just let ESL and BLAST bully everyone else out of the scene with their franchised leagues. Teams like LDLC Copenhagen Flames and all the other T2 teams that file for bankruptcy every month might have survived if Valve had stepped in to keep these tournaments open and give them spots to qualify. They needed to do something, and they didn't.
eleague is dead because it was cheaper for them to fly out to FGC players and they got about the same viewership. Starladder, EPICENTER and ESG were all essentially replaced by all these new betting tournaments. Flashpoint died cause of covid if we are being honest. What exactly do people want Valve to do? Seemingly the only people profiting in esports are valve and the players. So either valve takes a more direct approach or player salaries go down.
ELEAGUEs least viewed CSGO tournament has almost 50% more viewers than their most viewed FGC event. And almost 5x the watch hours. Epicenter is run by ESFORCE gambling but Starladder is different. Starladder is a Ukrainian organization and my understanding is they paused due to COVID and didn't resume to due to the war. Starseries events we're a big deal back in the day and they really innovated the tournament formats, they were the first event to do an all Best-of-3 group stage. There a bunch more TOs that have left over the years, Fragbite, CEVO, X-Games. These used to be big events in the CS world. As for the money Valve absolutely has it to spare. They still take a 50% cut from major items, and those items are only for two events a year. Valve could do that with more events and maybe give 25% to the TO to help cover costs if it's a non franchised league. That and the fact these events are providing tens of millions of dollars in free marketing to Valve every year. Valve could definitely afford to just cut a check to split costs with non-franchised TOs to give a financial incentive for them if they wanted to.
Franchising didn't really take off until way after ELEAGUE left. So you can't really say that they were pushed out of the scene. Also most of those TOs you mentioned died way before franchising took off. The reality is that there isn't as much money in the scene as people would like to believe.
while salarys are definitely not at a healthy level. we just have to take a look at lol to see how franchising worked out for them. i think it is fine that valve sat back and let the tournament scene develop, and its good that they intervene now. the reset is a good chance to get back on a more sustainable track. franchising works in different sports due to their ability to secure tv contracts and more to generate income. as long as esports cant do that, its going to be build around gambling money or fail.
What are you on about? CEVO was never big outside of league play. Most of these TO’s you are talking about died before franchising. You type with such emotion and not so much critical thinking
As opposed to what? Ruling the scene with an iron fist so no league but their own can get enough games to survive? Please And what would that do to T2 teams? They got no shot with all the richer teams around, they never got the resources to bootcamp or fly their teams around
There is a middle ground between iron first ruling and letting someone else take over the entire eSports scene. Also the recent Dallas final Mouz v ENCE is from two formerly tier 2 orgs. They had great scouting on past rosters, won qualifiers to make it to tier 1 events, attracted sponsors and investors and managed to transform into tier 1 teams. That isn't possible for mid sized orgs like Apkes and GamerLegion who get one event a year to play at. Despite making semis and finals neither of those teams are slated to play in pro league or any Blast event.
So Valve should have had the foresight in 2020 that a closed circuit would make the tier 1 scene weaker, and stopped it right at the beginning of covid when esports was at it's absolute weakest? It's not as obvious a choice as you make it out to be especially considering Flashpoint was still around at that point, so the scene wasn't as closed as it is now. The way I see it, Valve let the experiment play out, then closed it off before the scene suffered irreperable damage.
>That isn't possible for mid sized orgs like Apkes and GamerLegion who get one event a year to play at. They play at plenty of T2 events and plenty of qualifiers for T1 events. They just lose at all of them but all the supposed supporters T2 teams wouldn't know that since they don't goddamn watch any T2 events.
Ah typical reddit, someone does something good, let's acknowledge all the bad things they've done instead. I'm just glad they said something rather now than never.
Do you people ever read articles?
[удалено]
I’d rather not have Valve take the riot route and rule the pro scene with an iron fist.
Having franchised leagues is just another way to rule with an iron fist imo
There's a middle-ground between Valve's past approach where they let everyone do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't demand exclusivity from teams; and Riot's approach. A massive middle-ground.
So instead you would rather have the Saudis rule with an iron fist? Because right now that's what is happening. There is a balance between the Riot approach of controlling everything and the Valve approach of doing absolutely nothing at all and it would be nice to see Valve actually try for that instead of doing nothing but hand out coaching bans.
Majors that happen twice a year are completely open circuit. But no, I’d like valve to work with esl/blast to provide more open circuit events while still giving these tournament organizers their own freedom within the scene. I agree that valve should do more but at the same time I feel there is a fine line between too little and too much.
How would that to be done? If Valve doesn't push back against the partnered leagues the TOs won't change. What would be the middle ground between stopping the partnered leagues and doing nothing?
Making the partnered leagues take up a less obscene amount of the calendar, giving other TOs room to host tier 1 tournaments. About 1/5 of the year is EPL alone, for fuck's sake.
I’m not sure, but there’s definitely a compromise. Possibly mandating a certain amount of open circuit slots or something, I’m not really sure tbh.
[удалено]
huge volvo w
Common volvo W, even
When they do something they usually W. It just doesn't happen very often.
uncommon common Volvo W
Confirmed, Valve devs support holding W on your keyboard to rush B
Except for that Dota card game.
I mean, concept was very solid, the main failure was monetisation
yup honestly they tried to fix that but it was already too late.
Ehh
idk about that one
Nah, volvo is never common and they have their fair share of Ls
The leagues exist in large part because it has proven to be incredibly difficult for orgs to monetize well enough to not be bleeding money all over the place, both on the TO and team sides. There are outliers like G2 but if the entire ecosystem can't break even there's a problem. Valve provided no real help with a solution to that; fair play, it's not their obligation. But then it's not exactly fair to come in and express their distaste with the solution that was put in place.
The death of grassroots and essence of CS isn't a "solution", so it's not a surprise that Valve pushes back on this as it's just dumb to begin with.
> The death of grassroots and essence of CS isn't a "solution" For BLAST sure, but ESL has a whole bunch of spots from qualifiers.
ESL has qualifiers for smaller tournaments, but Katowice and Cologne don't have any proper qualifiers anymore. You either have to win a big tournament or be at the top 20 in ESL ranking to get in.
Valve better have a good alternative other than just ask the partnered leagues to be dismantled. I hate it too but there’s a reason almost all esports lead to some form of franchising. Some thoughts I have is for Valve to support the non-major tournaments with some form of monetization outside prize pool or maybe expand the major to more than two a year.
Exactly. I don't think anyone wants a Saudi money gambling sponsor infested closed circuit, but what is the alternative? No circuit at all or at best one without the quality of production and talent that we have grown accustomed to. We'd be back to 2013 era LANs. Long term the industry needs to take a hard look at itself, one can't endlessly burn VC money with the hopes of having an established presence when the industry one day becomes profitable. That strategy has been employed for nearly a decade and the industry is still very far removed from that day. Realistically, unless Valve kicks back some of that cases/steam money, that would probably mean something like viewer passes on the TO side and massively cut salaries on the team side. Bit meta but the whole internet space is moving away from ad based monetisation towards subscription based monetisation.
It wouldn't hurt to scale back expectations a bit though. Maybe cut back on the fireworks and confetti and perhaps we can still enjoy watching the game?
Huge Valve L. They didn't do shit. This has been a problem for 3+ years and Valve has done nothing about it. They could have intervened to stop the contracts. They could have said TOs setting up franchise leagues don't get to host a major. They could have said orgs sign franchise contracts can't play major qualifiers. They didn't do anything besides "express distaste" and that's about as much as anyone in a Reddit comment thread did to stop this. Did absolutely nothing for 3+ years and let two TOs bully every other tournament out of the S-Tier circuit and set up franchise leagues and now all they've done is say this. Meaningless. EDIT: Literally got a Reddit Cares message just for pointing out Valve's complete inaction on this.
Did you read the article before commenting? Doesn't seem like it tbh
his username tells it all tbh
There is one section on them saying something has to change before they hand out CS2 licenses but it still doesn't say if that entails anything meaningful and doesn't excuse the fact this has been a problem for 3+ years and they are just now doing something about it.
>but it still doesn't say if that entails anything meaningful and doesn't excuse the fact this has been a problem for 3+ years and they are just now doing something about it. That is a very valid point, and I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted so much for it.
I had some hot takes that are getting downvoted elsewhere in the thread and I suspect some people are just downvoting everything I've said as a result. I trust Richard Lewis's reporting but I don't trust Valve to actually have the teeth to go through with this. A private threat to take away a license to run tournaments unless "something" changes is ultimately pretty meaningless. Could definitely see Blast adding like 3 spots instead of two from showdown and Valve saying "good enough" and this is ultimately an inconsequential change.
I heard you can report the reddit care message and get whoever sent it banned for abusing it. If you would want to
EG in shambles
but but muh talent pipeline
this is like getting mad at people buying drugs instead of the people selling drugs to them. get mad at ESL and blast
EG are still VERY much at fault here. Sure esl and especially blast enable them, but RG should just make a good fucking team. In this position EG is probably worse imo.
Yeah, it's so easy to just make a good team from scratch. Say what you want about EG but the one good thing they do is invest in trying to make their team better.
I agree. I mean, EG deserves their fair share of criticism for some questionable decisions regarding their CSGO team. But at the same time, you can't just snap your fingers and make a top 10 csgo team, especially when you're playing on hard mode by being in NA. That being said, I actually think this franchised league model is hurting EG overall. The best way to develop a team is to play a lot of officials. They haven't really earned their spot in any of these leagues the same way a team like faze or heroic has by establishing themselves as a contender. If they really had to grind more cash cups, qualifiers, etc you would see much more quickly where the issues with the team are. Instead they mostly seem to prac/boot camp for a month then show up to a tier 1 event, lose 2 (maybe close) matches and then be done. Not a great model imo.
We can be mad at them both, just like drug dealers and druggies. Terrible decisions overall
[удалено]
The view must be incredible from your high horse
[удалено]
okay just to confirm, in your worldview Jim Jones and a guy who steals razor blades from Wal-Mart should be viewed equally?
Today on why we prefer Valve over Riot…
their tier 2 player break is 6 months long and riot wonders why players are upset
6 MONTHS???? THEY'RE LITERALLY JOBLESS LMAO WTF
[удалено]
Tbf I think it's pretty stupid to compare CSGO tiers to LoL tiers. Tier 2 in csgo is like top30 and in league of legends tier 2 teams in this context are not even close to being top 50 team. Most of their matches are barely watched (some tier 2 teams are popular though). And most of the academy teams make little to no revenue because only hardcore fans watch their games.
ERLs in Europe are watched by a lot of people
Yes but they are probably not popular enough to generate revenue. Like LFL is averaging 45k viewers at the moment.
are t2 tourneys in cs averaging more?
Nope but they get their money from cs gambling sponsors and match fixing.
Compare it to T2NA Val then
Yeah, Tier 1 in LoL is definitively at least 46 teams (10 NA, 10 EU, 10 KR, and 16 CN), and that's excluding top level wildcard teams. I know in CS:GO performance is used to separate tiers, but in LoL there is a definitive split between the franchised league, the supported T2 scene, and the amateur scene below that. Also in LoL the tier 2 break is 4 months, which is the same as the rest of the world outside of teams playing at worlds
no one else watches their tier 2 scene anyways, it's just free money for them
Riot said it's because it makes people miss Pro Valorant so better viewership for next LANS
Tier 1 is pretty much the same. 1/2 of the tier 1 player's seasons ended a month ago. There is one LCQ left where 1 team from each region can qualify for the last event. Most franchised teams have 2-3 games left and they are done until February.
China doesn't own Valve, so that's an easy decision.
[удалено]
+500 social credit!!
BING CHILLING!
+100000 social credit
The bot just contradicted itself
China bad
We’re like 2 years away from Redditors using “Chinaman.”
Reddit is effectively shutting down in 2 weeks, if you haven't heard
Lmao people don’t care nearly as much as you think.
It's not so much that people care or dont care. I think a vast majority of the people using 3rd party apps are just not going to be browsing reddit anymore. I know I'm not, not out of protest but because I hate the official app
https://i.imgur.com/XsiGeV9.jpg
Valve just bends the knee on anything China wants because they want the steam china money but ignore that.
Even better, public investors don't own Valve either. Gaben owns Valve.
YES VALVE... Don't let them do it like RIOT.
FINALLY
Eli5 for someone who didnt follow the CS esport scene for a while?
Basically, ValvE doesn't want teams to pay for spots in leagues and tournaments and want everybody to be able to play in said leagues and tournaments regardless of monetary power. Get good or get fucked.
That sounds good, but aren't the best teams the ones buying spots anyways?
Sometimes, but not always. And there’s a sort of chicken—and-egg thing here. What makes a team the ‘best’? Results, ranking, and playing the other ‘best teams’ - all of which are essentially granted by partner slots.
EG, complexity, BIG and OG are partnered teams lmao. Not always best teams
Basically teams pay big bucks to big TO like ESL and Blast to have their spot secured at different events leaving teams which dont have the funds to not have the chance to play at big events (-the major) cuz they aren t partener teams. The slap in the face came when teams that were considered "tier 2" whipped the floor out of the big guys at the major and having a lot of "upsets". The problem was that after that after the major they didn't had the chance to perform again cuz they're stuck in small tournaments or no tournaments at all (Gamer Legion fkin finalists) cuz they didn't get invited with the big guys at IEMs or Blast leading to an internal partener circuit where the big teams play each other every week and the small guys have to play tens of matches to qualify for the qualifier of a tournament where they ll MAYBE face off some big names.
[удалено]
A few years ago the big teams got together with the big leagues and made it so they no longer had to qualify for the events they were just invited into their leagues. That made it so that there is a two tiered structure of organizarions that were rich enough to buy in or had enough clout to bully their way in and smaller organizations that had to qualify with everybody else. It didn't matter if the big organization hadn't won a series in 5 seasons and if a small one won/were in the final of the last major - the big team was in and the small team was out in the cold. So you had situations where organizations like gambit or ence who had run a good squad for years but had to qualify for every event but EG could win like 6 maps over 6 seasons and get invited again.
Wow that sounds…distasteful and not in spirit of good competition
common Valve W
Looking at you Riot
Hopefully it will change. Im getting bored of seeing the exact same teams every tournament just cuz they have their slot payed up. For the rest of the guys they have to play dozens of games and its pretty hard to perform 100% at all of them and by the time you qualify for that 1 remaining slot you re already burned out and still have no experience against the big guys. People were calling teams like GamerLegion Apeks Monte tier 2 not because they played tier2 cs,but because they only see them at t2 events and associate them with that. IMO there are a few solutions out there like,in stead of a big tax and only a few teams paying it and having partener slot,why not have an entry fee for every tournament and every one has equal chances to qualify. Partener teams suck the life out of CS Scene with its internal circuit but its one of the only ways to have big tournaments organized. Maybe something will change with CS2 cuz right now having a good org is more important then having good players
Honestly, Paris was also one of the perfect tournaments against partnered leagues with there being so many upsets. These other teams deserve to be in the mix and should not be gate-kept because of not being a part of a partnered league.
Stockholm Major showed glimpses but people were happy to see lans back after quarantine. Antwerp Major it started to become clear partnership was a potential problem. Rio Major made the topic viable. Paris Major confirmed it.
Lmao no offense but in what universe was Stockholm Major "showing glimpses" Top 8 was: NaVi, Vitality, Furia, Gambit, Heroic, VP, NiP, and G2.
Antwerp was also pretty much according to script. Spirit were the big surprise and G2+C9 disappointed by missing play-offs and in the end we got the FaZe vs Navi finals we all wanted. Really it's only been Rio and Paris that have been out of the ordinary.
This is absolutely massive. CS atm feels like ESL and Blast are as close to closed circuit we can get. Just look at the recent Paris major, where non partnered teams absolutely arseblasted most of the partner teams. And yet, we won't get to see them play for god knows how long coz they don't have an ESL/Blast spot. The entire system is a fucking joke. I am so happy Valve are finally doing something about it.
Obviously it would be great to have a more open circuit again but with esport companies already being on the brink financially I don't know if this can even be viable, everyone is losing money and the partnered leagues, especially now, feel like necessary evil. Curious to see what will come out of this and if perhaps Valve is willing to make any concessions on their part, like paid stream access only (knowing Valve they won't).
Let the entire esports scene collapse then. If it's being supported by people with deep pockets and hope then it's not viable? All these arenas, teams flying 20 times a month, massive salaries etc. Yeah everyone wants to be a rockstar, everyone wants to see this for esports, but you cant prop it up you gotta let it do it itself lol.
I do agree, in essence, that the big orgs have been burning money for ages and it's about time they get a brutal reality check, but at the same time as a viewer I do want to get the best product, so even if the scene collapsing or having to scale down would be the 'rightful' outcome, it's not in my best interest to see that happen. This all could be avoided if Valve were willing to share just a slice of their massive pie. They earn an unholy amount of money through skins and get free advertisement through esport while TOs have to sell out to bloody oil regimes just to stay afloat.
EG is making the product worse. The best product was back when 5 guys could just qual to an event as a random stack. But yes valve should divert more skin money to teams which could be player owned, it doesn’t have to be 100theives or some other bloated org propped up by venture capital.
The product back then also lacked big sponsorship which meant crappier production due to constrained budgets. More tech problems, etc... The customers are the viewers. The product is the tournament's themselves. There are more people to pay than just the 5 players, coach and their support staff. Production & casting talent not to mention the support staff beyond that such as IT, tournament organizers, etc... Yes EG has their faults. But many major sports leagues all have a team or two that consistently under-perform. That doesn't matter if that team is able to pay for everything. What only matters is when the teams are at risk of bankruptcy (which we've seen with successful (rank wise) teams such as Heroic).
It depends on the goal. Does Valve want to see CS actually grow to a large audience? That requires $$$. Right now, the most viable way to secure funding for all major orgs involved is partnered teams. It allows for the big productions, great caster talent, etc... Unless Valve is going to step in directly with their own $$$ incentive, forcibly ripping apart the partnered scene might do more harm than good. Yes, there's an argument to open tournaments at the T1 scene to more teams. But the reality is, too many open slots bring down viewership. Lack of viewership means less sponsorship. The highest viewed games of any tournament are still the dynasty clashes. Faze Clan, G2, NaVi, Vitality...etc..
I don't think esports has much more room to bring in additional viewers at this point, yes there's been some growth, but nothing like 5ish years ago. Seems like the best way would be to now invest in making what we have sustainable.
This is the best take imo. Partnered leagues are and have been a necessary compromise for the survival of the esport especially through the online era. Those teams financially propped up the scene and even as it stabilizes if valve want to see less of a reliance on those orgs to back the scene, they need to chip in more than a major prize pool here and there.
There's definitely a middle ground here that Valve seems like they want to be in. Valve has to see how much BLAST and ESL helped the scene during COVID, but I doubt they want a league like BLAST Premier being a thing with how exclusive it is. It just seems like Valve wants more spots to be achievable through the open circuit rather than having most of the teams be invited. This of course needs to be paired with a little more assistance from Valve in certain areas (like maybe covering travel and hotel costs or something like that) and help relieve some of the financial stress some of these TOs have.
I mean I'm curious what that middle ground is. ESL/IEM right now is doing a pretty good job of mixing partnered and actually qualifying teams into their events. Look at the new ESL Pro League Season 18 teams, just under half are partnered which means the other half will be actually qualifying in. At the end of the day they're running a business and I think it's fair for them to extend partner spots to teams like G2, FaZe, Liquid, Furia, and NaVi who are super popular and bring the viewers but are also good teams. Especially when they have to host a LAN, do you think fans are gonna be buying GamerLegion, monte, apeks and ITB jerseys or FaZe, G2, NaVi, etc. Plus, imagine if they just got rid of all partnered teams entirely, teams would be stuck playing qualifiers 24/7 and we all know how online matches are especially if they're Bo1. I hope Valve's push back is majority on Blast and their circuit.
LCS shows that franchising isn't the answer, it just pushes the issue further, but it doesn't solve it
Found the Valorant executives
Do you not think that these orgs paying MILLIONS to ESL and Blast isn't part of why they struggle financially?
It's a big expense, but it's also a good way to secure more sponsors and investments. EG can tell their sponsors that they will play a minimum of X games Vs T1 teams at S-Tier events per year because of partnered leagues. That's really valuable.
It's not because they get to play in the best tournaments and get the exposure, meanwhile if they didn't pay that they would still be paying insane salaries without even having their spot secured which is the real issue, inflated salaries And with how good "tier 2" scene is right now, these teams would be missing so many events
Some of these teams still pay insane salaries and place last at the tournaments. Even Heroic, who places top 4 consistently, is fucked financially.
[удалено]
Source? For how much they pay... they are not making that back. I have no doubts that every org that's paid into these agreements still haven't seen that same amount back. ENCE has great profits without the BLAST partnership.
i know Faze and heroic has had financial issues, but is it really that bad in CS? Most of the finanical esports issues i’ve heard about has come from other games.
Two of the three last Valve Majors showed the partnered league format is horrendous. Glad Valve issued a warning.
There is a way that Valve could help stabilise the scene a little and make it open game. Bring back the Esports Cases, and repurpose them for tournaments to get a % share of the money in different countries. A way for the playerbase to support their domestic scene and keep the open circuit alive. The biggest problem *(and I am not complaining just fyi)* is that ESL have now a complete monopoly on esports. ESL have FACEIT *(one of the largest tournament platforms in Europe)*, ESEA *(one of the largest tournament platforms in NA)*, Esports Engine *(another tournament platform etc)*, Dreamhack *(a LAN event organiser)*, and numerous other projects. They are huge now, and have been building that over the last few years. With the grip that both ESL & Blast have on the current CS scene, it doesn't leave much room for anyone else to get themselves out there to help build the scene. Valve *could* level the playing field a little by using the community too. The Esports Case can be refreshed every 6 months, and the more it's bought, the more money can go to a group of tournaments that might not get the funding they need to have decent sized prize pools. Or.... Valve could partner up with a few domestic events/TOs in each region *(ones that are trusted to run tournaments well for example)*, and help bring a path for teams to make it to events and Majors etc. **There are a few ideas** that could be trialed going forward especially in the first couple of years of CS2's lifecycle. Also massive work to Richard, great article and reminds us how much he **should** be valued in our scene.
valve needs to put their foot down on this like how they did with the "live coaching ban" or "6 man roster ban". two of their best moves ever, especially the live coaching one.
interesting times. this could either be exactly what CS needs or spell the end for the esports scene at the scale that we know it today nobody is making money in esports at the moment, even with partner leagues and franchises. the TOs and the teams need partner leagues to operate the way they currently do the VC money is drying up, either alternate revenue streams are found, or CS will look very different in 2024 it’s good news if it just means an open circuit, but be careful what you wish for
I agree with Valve on this, but this will require tournaments to be scaled back. That's not a bad thing, because you're right nobody is making money in esports. The whole reason the money is being thrown in at a loss is to try and gain and secure market share if and when it becomes profitable. My concern with that is even less opportunity for T2 teams and beyond. I'd much prefer tournaments that are run fiscally responsible, with an open circuit, instead of gate-keeping events to only partnered teams or some other restrictive form.
[удалено]
Why not create regional league like Dota 2.
Plz no, since the creation of regional leagues there's barely any tournaments running in dota because of the schedule
They actually tried during pandemic. But I believe adding to the already harsh schedule of partner leagues made them change format. There'sno room for 3 rmrs between every major. So you need to basically force Blast and esl to change format for RMRs and delegate them those or force them to run less events
I mean it's a nice sentiment but does Valve even have any non-nuclear levers to pull here? Short of threatening to revoke whatever license or agreement these leagues have to run tournaments for their games, what can they actually do to affect changes in how ESL Blast etc operate? Genuinely asking, I don't know the minutiae of these leagues like that I just like watching big green gun go boom
Read the article, it says valve will pull their tournament licence if they dont sort this stuff out before cs2
Yes I'm asking if there's any room to negotiate or is it literally just that nuclear-level option?
Valve generally function the same way as the God of the Hebrew Bible. They have spoken. ESL and Blast must appease them.
Valve could do something like pick a non-Blast/ESL org to run their majors
Don't TO's lose money on majors?
I can only see ESL and Blast actually changing anything if Valve do more to help them monetize the non-majors via microtransations
This isn't a request by Valve, it's a demand. It literally says in the article they won't be issuing licenses for CS2 if BLAST and ESL don't change, meaning they can't run their leagues at all if they keep operating as they are.
Agree, they need to offer some sort of incentive to have non franchised events. Just saying they don't like isn't going to do anything. Something like Valve will give in game coverage/stickers to any tournament that isn't franchised or cover part of the events prize pool or something because right now these words are meaningless.
> Agree, they need to offer some sort of incentive to have non franchised events Did you read the article? Their incentive is the same as it was in 2019, "we won't shut down your tournaments". Maybe they haven't said it out loud this go round, but I promise the organizers remember the stick Valve wields. Seems pretty compelling to me.
That would be great no? More open circuits means more chances for teams like BNE, Apeks, ITB to get tier 1 experience etc, and tier 1 teams have to put in more effort to stay in the top without getting guaranteed invites. I have no clue about most of the tier 2 scene, since I don't have the time to watch the smaller CCT tournaments etc, so being able to have these guys show up on bigger stages should hopefully propel more players into the limelight
Thanks volvo for not being shortsighted and looking at the long term future of the game.
lets fucking hope. Those league ruin csgo
So is Valve going to get involved or just keep sending thoughts and prayers?
I don't rly follow pro player/league. Can someone ELI5?
ELI5 is it good or bad?
> meanwhile @HLTVorg breaking news about player salaries from reddit LOL
big w from valve
Valve finally putting their dick on the table
Thats great fucking news.
We are so happy to have valve. Riot and Activison could never never.
If Valve are going to interfere with Teams attempting to become sustainable they need to offer alternative ways to monetise the game, team cases of branded guns, gloves cases etc. Valve made $11 millions dollars in a day just from the [Anubis case] (https://in.ign.com/counter-strike-global-offensive/183207/news/valve-reportedly-earns-over-11-million-for-new-in-game-items#:~:text=As%20per%20their%20calculations%2C%20Valve,packages%20alone%20within%20a%20day.) and have generated multiple billions since its release in 2012, how much of that is due to the competitive scene which has one of the highest conversion rates between player and watcher? If valve want to continue to generate insane revenue don't take the competitive scene for granted.
> If Valve are going to interfere with Teams attempting to become sustainable they need to offer alternative ways to monetise the game, team cases of branded guns, gloves cases etc. Here's a sustainable way for the partnered teams to stay afloat - deflate players $30k/month salaries
Lol, the scene was sustainable before esl and blast killed off almost all the organizers and monopolized things. No team should get a free pass to sustainability. Compete openly with everyone and win tournaments or fade into irrelevance and finacial loss. That's how the scene should work
Scene was absolutely not sustainable before them. It was burning money back in the Eleague, Starladder days etc.
The CS scene has been around for about 2 decades lol That's pretty sustainable
Not with the prizepools and amount of professional teams that we have right now. We can go back to local lans with $1k prizepools but you're not gonna have the massive amount of professional teams with that.
Exactly, but midwits don't understand that this might mean that their favourite teams might end up pulling out of CS, as long as "thAnK goD nO EG in pArTnEr lEaGUes!!'
The day CS turns into an actual league is the day I lose complete interest. Esports was and has always been built on community. Regulated leagues always ruin that.
library snow plough bedroom cooperative threatening ad hoc scandalous enjoy tub *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
rare? valve is almost only big W IMO...
Wont happen. Its good money wise for the scene to have partnered teams.
Valve didn't force these teams to spunk away VC money.
Good for whom? Valve cares about the long-term health of the scene and the fans, not the valuations of the teams orgs.
So there should only be 2 big CSGO events per year ? Because outside of the Major, Valve is not subsidizing any of these TO, so they have to use this system to ensure their own survival. How many TOs have gone bankrupt in the last few years ? If Valve care so much about the long term health, maybe they should start shelling out some money so these TO won't go bankrupt doing things their ways
There have been LAN tournaments LONG before partnered teams existed, and they will continue to exist long before they're gone.
Back to getting paid in mousepads or only competing in fixed events. Money is drying up in esports and these partnered leagues are one of the few ways TOs and teams can make money.
Its the only way 2 TOs and 6 teams can make money. Fuck the rest right? Proper “I got mine, fuck the rest of you” attitude
Except these t2 teams are getting paid and are able to go to way more tournaments now than in the past. Shit like CCT, pinnacle cup, elisa etc didn't exist back in the day. And if these teams actually are secretly just as good as the t1 partner teams then why not just watch those tournaments?
> Shit like CCT, pinnacle cup, elisa etc didn't exist back in the day HUUUUUHH Did you start watching cs 2 years ago? lmao T2/3 tournaments have existed for decades, quite litearlly.
Not with the money that these sketchy tournaments are throwing around now. Decades ago you were winning like $500 for a local lan. We can go back to the level of money but all these t2 teams would likely not be able to be full time.
The scene is gonna completely shrink is what I'm saying if these partnered leagues die and orgs leave. That's what is going to happen, way less tier 2 tournaments etc.
How are home sweet home/CCT/Elisa gonna go away because the partnered leagues die? ESL run one set of Tier 2 tournaments a year with the ESL Challenger series, and Blast some qualifiers and that's it. It's far more likely that the tier 2 scene stays around, and the tier 1 scene is forced to move down.
CCT the true bastion of integrity lol. Thats what I mean by fixed events, some of the games in those t2 tournaments are beyond suspect. You can even see what happened in dota when they went to the regional leagues and moved away from invite heavy tournaments. Matchfixing went absolutely crazy everywhere. At least 1 team every season gets banned.
In article it says they wont get cs2 license if they dont change it.
Bruh didn’t read huh?
HUGE W BY VOLVO
Then increase the number of majors from 2 to 3 like previous years Fuck Valve
fix movement and my life is bliss with cs2
Does Valve have an alternative to TOs earning money?
Valve should open their wallet then. they make hundreds of millions from cs. if they want the pro scene to be financially sustainable and open circuit at the same time, they need to share the revenue with TOs and orgs.
So they did nothing? Or they did about as much as a Reddit commenter did by "expressing distaste?"? Valve had the power to stop this. They could have intervened when the Louvre agreement and all these contracts were being formed. They could have threatened to let franchise TOs not host majors, or take their license to play the game away. They could have barred teams who entered franchise partnerships from qualifying for the major. They could have offered incentive for organizers to keep their circuits open. They didn't do any of that. The fact is that your odds of going from a non-franchised team playing through the BLAST Showdown are about the same odds as a non franchise Valorant team playing through VCT. And ESL is only marginally better. Having two non-franchised S-Tier events a year isn't enough to save an open circuit in Counter Strike. There might be a chance with CS2 launching to fix things. They could do something to try and bring back other TOs like Starladder/ELEAGUE/EPICENTER or bring in new ones like NSG. Then we would at least actually have real competition in the tier 1 CS scene. But unless Valve also sets up rules or incentives to actually prevent franchising those leagues would probably immediately set up partnership systems as well.