GotFrag Article Regarding the CPL

[CSN NewsBot]

Tony "Doc" Yousif has written a very interesting article for Gotfrag called: Doc's Prescription: Has CPL been faithful to us? It is a very good look at the amount of money that the CPL is giving back to the community and where all their income is from. I suggest anyone who is interested in the pro-gaming scene to give it a read. Here is a tidbit:

CS has become almost a full-time job now, taking just online hours into consideration, you would think all that time should get someone at least $40,000 per year or more. But Doc, you might ask, how is CPL going to pay for a $500,000 prize just for the top clan? Then, after all the hard work and dedication, a team that places in the low brackets takes home hundreds of dollars?

The rest of the article can be found here.

[FLeK0]

CPL owns any other lan events

eSportsPro is cool too.

[aeakos]

Thanks for the heads up on that one.

[alfuh]

Edited by [user="47791"] @ [time="1045162913"]

I think that the CPL should ditch the whole "sports" angle and get that P out of their names as it seems to have mislead lots of individuals into thinking that players can just play CS and make a living off of it. The only pros that I know of are those in the CS division of SK, and this is because they signed contracts and recieve a salary for playing. This (among other things) is what would make CS considered a sport, but due to many factors it will never come to pass.



In order to be a professional sport, CS clans cannot be organized the way they are ... in my opinion there would have to be a league with a set amount of teams and a draft with contracts and salaries much like any other professional sport. Each team would have a general managers in charge of their efforts and one organization running the entire league (CPL?).



Unfortunately due to the fact that many of the top competing players in CS are still students they cannot commit to a CS team with contracts, paying salaries etc. This is just not feasible to 16-17 year olds who have many other real life responsibilities.



For all of these reasons CS will remain a game that holds tournaments and nothing more. The changes that are necessary for the CPL to bring CS from a game and passtime into a sport cannot possibly take place due to the limitations of the players.



Well that was my first long comment ... I am sure there are lots of typos and holes in my argument and I am also sure that each and every one will be brought to my attention.



I am stealing someone named gibs' comment off of gotfrag as it supports my argument in a much more sensible way:



gibs wrote:

1. I believe, as some others have said, that draft league is the best route for this game to take. You need a black and white line between owners of teams and players. If not your going to run into the loyalty issue.



2. After these teams are formed you need contracts for those players. This money has to come from sponsors as well as investors in a given team. The problem I see in this is, ok so we can get online and watch HLTV for free and see 3D take on zEx. No one is getting any money for this. We can have a plethra of tournaments, but how do you distribute the money, and is it enough to support 100's of players. These are all serious problems when dealing with profit sharing and this is why I really dont think this game will take off in a "professional live off your winnings" type of way. In CS you have a game in place that has been set up to be counter-productive in a business sense, its cheap to purchase, easily enjoyable and the "pro" games as far as cal i and most tournaments can be seen for free or at little charge.



3. Serious rules, serious refs, and more importantly serious players. This is very important for the game to live on. No cheaters, no silly bs talk, no disrespecting other teams or league officals and so on. Most people on the outside see our community as a bunch of kids whinning and crying in a virtual environment while we fiddle around on $2000 machines and internet connections paid for by our parents. That has to stop or we will not get respect from outsiders as well as sponsers.



4. Dedicated sponsorship and fan base. Without both of these their is no pro. Pro gamers have to take measure just like suggestion 3 to act professional in order to keep these.

^again, all gibs' words

[Alchemist]

I play roller hockey. Its a sport. I am not getting rich off it wtf !!!!!!!

[aeakos]

I agree with gibs (alpha)...the scene has to stabilize. EOS.

[Lestat]

yeah, no joke. all the clans recently that have been switching around (and have always have, since the beginning of cs, and before), and there are people that think they should be paid full time to play cs? lol. If they want to get paid, they should get sponsors. Its not the CPL's responsibility to make sure clans can pay the rent. Its no where near that kind of popularity, and I doubt it ever will be.



I think the question doc should be asking is, why is the <two finger quotes> sport </two finger quotes> so unstable, greedy, and immature?

[Gpig]

FLeK0 wrote..

CPL owns any other lan events

eSportsPro is cool too.

Flek0, I thought you lived in another country or something. Well I guess I'm not going to esports then~

[angel]

You may have a point there Alpha :)

[Exo]

Alpha convinced Angel. So Angel what'd you get me for vday?

[tuckneverlasting]

It really doesn't surprise me that there is this slow wave of community backlash directed to-wards the CPL. I think people are moving out of the "Holy Shit! You mean I can get paid to play video games!?" phase into a more professional one. The only problem is that the CPL is the only game in town, so as soon as any itsy bitsy thing goes wrong people run off miffed. Right now the CPL has no incentive to change it's business model. There is no competition, there is no unified players voice (and no, I don't advocate a "players union" or anything like that). Sure Angel and the boys can say 'We listen to the players' or 'We value your input.' but at the end of the day do they really seriously sit down and scrutinize their business model and say "Player X thinks we should do such and such", I doubt it. They have a captive audience, the CPL is making money (but I doubt it is as much as Doc thinks). Why should they change? It seems to me that the community is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this matter. Either conform to the CPL, or be shut out of the whole thing.

[gluestick]

dont get greedy

play it for the game

[alikzam13]

I run a league (#UGL unitedgamingleague.net ) and i hear lots about how a league needs to have contracted teams, etc to be a 'sport' etc, etc. I dont see how anybody belives this could be possible AT ALL. If all the people who said that would pay $10 a month to get the pw to join all the hltv servers, read reviews, and enter themselves into a monthly prize then it would be possible ( 10 x 500ppl= $5,000 ) And thats only 500people. I KNOW there is alot more than that who like CS and read about the invite matches. But who is really willing to pay for something that as it stands right now, get for free? We dont even have sponsors who are willing to provide the league with anual hardware prizes for some of the top clans. This is a huge target market for advertisers and yet they see it as "Just A Game" when there IS a market. Its basicly the ONLY thing CS has going for it in the way of a business ( or practicle usage in a business model ).



I think that all made sence?