Since the beginning, this year has been unfavourable for e-sports. The last few days of 2008 saw the downfall of mighty CGS, which brought an end to one of the most anticipated e-sport projects. Though a large community took it as victory of 1.6 over source, but what I think is that it was big defeat for professional gaming.
Then came 2009, with the winds of recession, which led to backing-off of sponsors, as they planned to cut their un-necessary expenses to prepare themselves for recession. With the calendar loosing its few first events, and surely more events could be cancelled. No doubt e-sports is all about sponsors. No sponsors means no e-sports. In the beginning of this year AMD declared it will no longer finance MTW , which used to be a very old alliance. NVIDIA showed its inability in supporting ESWC, Samsung reduced funds for WCG, due to which company refused to organize European Cyber Games this year, these all are a blow to this industry.
On April 5th, ESWC announced that the Commercial Court of Paris had approved a motion to liquidate its business. The company has ceased all operations . Although Games-Services has confirmed it is ready to “organize the potential trade-in or resale of the company’s assets”, the ESWC is most likely - 99,9% to be precise - dead. The company has collected huge debts worth over a thousand euros and that cools down interest from any possible purchaser. That means ESWC is History.
And even the ESL - touted by many as the main pillar of e-Sports nowadays - seems to be suffering the effects of the financial climate. In fact, the ESL has yet to pay the prize money of the European Nations Championship and the Extreme Masters Global Challenges.
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the EPS Scandinavia Finals have been postponed because of "unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances." A rearranged date has yet to be announced.
When looking at the seven members that compose the G7 federation, one can see that three of them - Meet Your Makers, mousesports and Evil Geniuses - proudly exhibit Intel as partner.
In fact, the U.S. company is also the ESL's head sponsor. So can imagine what would happen to today's e-Sports if Intel - which announced last week it would cut up to 6,000 jobs – takes back all financial support from these organizations.
MYM…around end of February ES Nation which is the funding agency of MYM, fired its 21 employees and then after a fortnight, on 17 march came the press releases stating that ES Nation has ceased all its operation, leaving few of the best e-athletes homeless. It didn’t even pay the last two month salary to its player before ceasing its operation. This has discouraged a large community to step back from professional gaming. Even professional like Lucifer of MYM Warcraft team, lurppis from crack clan retiring stating that there is no more stability in this business.
All these mark the beginning of a dark age for professional gaming, where the battle is not for growth but for survival. E-sports today may be weaker when compared to two years ago because of the financial climate. However, if the involved parties are able to cope with the current crisis and find new ways to do business, then tomorrow will only bring a stronger e-Sports.
Then came 2009, with the winds of recession, which led to backing-off of sponsors, as they planned to cut their un-necessary expenses to prepare themselves for recession. With the calendar loosing its few first events, and surely more events could be cancelled. No doubt e-sports is all about sponsors. No sponsors means no e-sports. In the beginning of this year AMD declared it will no longer finance MTW , which used to be a very old alliance. NVIDIA showed its inability in supporting ESWC, Samsung reduced funds for WCG, due to which company refused to organize European Cyber Games this year, these all are a blow to this industry.
On April 5th, ESWC announced that the Commercial Court of Paris had approved a motion to liquidate its business. The company has ceased all operations . Although Games-Services has confirmed it is ready to “organize the potential trade-in or resale of the company’s assets”, the ESWC is most likely - 99,9% to be precise - dead. The company has collected huge debts worth over a thousand euros and that cools down interest from any possible purchaser. That means ESWC is History.
And even the ESL - touted by many as the main pillar of e-Sports nowadays - seems to be suffering the effects of the financial climate. In fact, the ESL has yet to pay the prize money of the European Nations Championship and the Extreme Masters Global Challenges.
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the EPS Scandinavia Finals have been postponed because of "unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances." A rearranged date has yet to be announced.
When looking at the seven members that compose the G7 federation, one can see that three of them - Meet Your Makers, mousesports and Evil Geniuses - proudly exhibit Intel as partner.
In fact, the U.S. company is also the ESL's head sponsor. So can imagine what would happen to today's e-Sports if Intel - which announced last week it would cut up to 6,000 jobs – takes back all financial support from these organizations.
MYM…around end of February ES Nation which is the funding agency of MYM, fired its 21 employees and then after a fortnight, on 17 march came the press releases stating that ES Nation has ceased all its operation, leaving few of the best e-athletes homeless. It didn’t even pay the last two month salary to its player before ceasing its operation. This has discouraged a large community to step back from professional gaming. Even professional like Lucifer of MYM Warcraft team, lurppis from crack clan retiring stating that there is no more stability in this business.
All these mark the beginning of a dark age for professional gaming, where the battle is not for growth but for survival. E-sports today may be weaker when compared to two years ago because of the financial climate. However, if the involved parties are able to cope with the current crisis and find new ways to do business, then tomorrow will only bring a stronger e-Sports.
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