(Rumor)Turtle Entertainment sold. This company owns IEM and they currently Operate WCS as well.
gosugamers.net/dota2/news/30937-turtle-entert...
gosugamers.netPosted May 11, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC
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gosugamers.netMight be true, coinciding with Carmac's tweets that he's leaving etc.
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source?
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May is going to be my last month in Germany.
^This ^message ^was ^created ^by ^a ^bot
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Could be anywhere and still be with esl.
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GOOD GOD i hope he is not leaving esl. Would be weird too since he is such a veteran in the business and helped to make the thing this big.
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He tweeted 'This will be my last month in Germany' about last week. Sorry, I'm on my phone atm, no time to link it.
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AFAIK he is moving to California to work in ESL America
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Lifting europeans and koreans isn't a challenge enough anymore. He needs to lift true 20 years of McDonald powered 'muricans
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Ah, interesting!
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He has to go to America to become the greatest fireman lifter there ever was, to lift is his cause.
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yeah i got the link but this doesn't say he leaves. He could work from somewhere else from ESL.
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If this is true, this could be bad news. It could possibly lead to the end of an ESL-run WCS. Without the ESL, who the hell is gonna manage it?
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There is no company big enough to handle that.
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Why doesn't Blizzard run their own tournament?
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Why bad news? If someone has shown interest in the busines and is willing to pay a lot of money, he probably does not want to ruin it, but sees potential in the industry. From acquisition point of view this would make sense for a big traditional sport/news studio to go into esports if it sees potential there. A big company could make desired investments in the scene.
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Because SC2 isn't the most popular eSports, and usually if a business is sold, it's because of their big successes(CS:GO, DotA2), and their smaller projects tend to get cut.
But we know nothing about that atm. I personally think we should prepare for SC2 being smaller in the ESL regard, though.
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[deleted]
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To go along with zerus_ says, SC2 is kinda crappy in the West. It's not the worst thing on the planet but it's not top tier like CS:GO Dota or LoL. WHen you see big acquistisions like these, a very common thing to do is trim the fat.
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Is the chance of ESL dropping WCS any higher under new ownership than it is under current ownership? Alternatively, I don't see any reason why this might not help ESL starcraft.
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No chance, afterall WCS is or potentially is Hearthstone, WoW, overwatch, Heroes and StarCraft combined.
I imagine Turtle Entertainment was bought out primarily due to its relationship with Blizzard!
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[deleted]
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The fear is that under the new ownership the company decides to focus on other games which could help them turn a bigger profit by attracting a larger audience.
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Seems pretty far-fetched. Maybe you drop a game because it loses money. But you don't attract a larger audience by dropping games with established viewership.
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No, you drop a game, because hosting a tournament isn't cheap, and your resources are limited. Thus you use your resources on other games which would have a higher projected income. For example if I were a new tournament organizer looking to host some tournaments, I would look at league, CS:GO and possibly dota 2. As a tournament organizer why would I put resources into a Sc2 tournament, when I could put the same resources into CS:GO and get more double the viewers simply because of the game I am hosting.
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I don't know honestly. It's almost entirely speculation at this point.
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Almost everything else ESL does is bigger than Starcraft 2. In 90% of business acquisitions the acquiring company looks to shed under performing assets.
It's going to be up to them if the relationship with Blizzard is worth more then the money they lose on WCS.
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Why do you think they would drop it?
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Buyer is a Swedish company that i is heavy into csgo iirc. Wcs doesn't make money and is more of a passion project for ESL.
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WCS is not a passion project for ESL that is honestly one of the stupidest things I've ever read on here.
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Multiple inside industry people have said companies that win the WCS contract lose money on it.
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Blizzard pays ESL a lot of money for running WCS probably.
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maybe, but both mlg and NASL had the WCS contract at one point and both gave it up so it's probably not lucrative.
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I believe there has been comments from ESL employees in the past that suggest that what Blizzard is paying is not enough to make WCS a profitable job for ESL. It's hard to see them losing any significant money on it though, so maybe it's about a break even or tiny profit kind of thing, where ESL justifies it by strengthening it's brand name for their own events.
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or the opposite.
Companies get sold if they are doing really well too. Like Twitch. This could be a sign that ESL's strategy is working well and has made them big enough for a larger company to warrant buying and invest into.
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what this makes no sense. Usually investors buy companies to INVEST into something, not close down every operation of the business they bought.
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Richard Lewis said in TLG that all the employees of ESL signed NDAs and were unable to speak off the matter, suggesting that the negotiations were in an advanced state. Let the land grab wars begin.
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ESL owns a lot of Esports and is in a very strong position and we have always known what they were trying to do. Now that a new company owns ESL we don't know their motives or direction. So it is a bit scary.
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[deleted]
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Probably means that every IEM this year will have 300.000 dollar prizepool.
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Yay, swedish tv companies. Kappa Dom är soppor hela bunten! I promise you, they are greedy as fuck.
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Um...this isn't an American company. It's a SWEDISH company that actually has, you know, ethics and morales. They actually pay their employees a fair wage and don't have to resort to lying or fear mongering like American companies mate.
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PJSalt
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If this is true then sadly i dont think there will be a future with any ESL related streams on Twitch since MTG owns Viagame which they have tried push alot within esport already.
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Have you guys maybe thought that sc is actually dying a slow death?
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couple of years ago yeah
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It has been since 2013, but that's ok
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[deleted]
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SBENU bought them Kappa
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