THE TRUTH BEHIND THE CLANBASE SHUTDOWNS & GGL MISMANAGEMENT

It has mostly escaped the public eye, perhaps because only ET and CoD2 are still communities kind of dependent on ClanBase, but the parent company behind ClanBase has pretty much stopped sourcing the website. This article with delve into some of the backstory on why this is happening and how it came to be, while the end focuses on the ramifications for ClanBase dependent communities.
It seems like an eternity when we think back to 2005 and the purchase of ClanBase by the Global Gaming League. GGL back then were a relatively thriving organization and could afford to expand into the European market. It's naturally hard to find numbers for a deal that long ago, especially considering they weren't in the public domain. It was not a peanut buy, though, and ClanBase seemed happy at first considering this part of the statement they put out :

"For Clanbase this means that we get the resources to realize our plans and ideas, enabling us to introduce new and improved services at a much higher rate, and allowing Clanbase to once again place itself firmly at the forefront of European online gaming."

As things evolve over the course of the years, ClanBase and GGL both attain a reputation of being slow at paying out prizes, business practice or foreshadowing of things to come - that is for others to debate. The next interesting piece of the puzzle drops in 2009, when the well known Swedish company Game Hosting takes GGL to court over unpaid bills for hosting of both GGL.com and ClanBase. The Swedish court rules in favour of Game Hosting and orders the unpaid bills, amounting to around $40.000 paid. As GGL is an American company, the decision has to be transferred to an American circuit of law and enforced there.

Despite facing such lawsuits and seeing a much dwindling userbase in 2010, GGL or to be more accurate, the parent company Professional Interactive Entertainment, Inc. is targeted by PrismOne, a Florida based company that provides managed technology services. They put on paper a purchase agreement that also includes an initial $2.5 million dollar financing deal. Details of what happened after that become a little sketchy to find but GGL never covers up their debt to gaming teams. GGL Chairman Ted Owen commented on the purchase agreement :

"We are looking forward to welcoming and introducing the PMOZ shareholders to our robust family of GGL services as we aim to become the 'Facebook' meeting place for online gaming and related activities."

Clearly becoming the facebook of gaming never materializes and regardless of ownership we must assume GGL have some serious cashflow problems by now, as ClanBase and GGL's websites are switched from Amazon Web Services to the relatively unknown greenqloud. This is almost certainly a cost cutting measure and further evidence towards the state of GGL. Sometime in the summer of 2012, GGL receive a revenue stream or tap into some hidden reserves to purchase a long term hosting contract. When that expired - the periodical shutdowns of ClanBase and GGL's websites begun. Situation today
The reasons behind ClanBase's shutdowns over the last five months or so are therefore quite different than what most of the community anticipated. Switching from a yearly subscription to a monthly one has caused almost all of the downtime. While some successful DDoS attacks also crippled ClanBase recently, the root of the problem is the continued ownership from GGL, who have, according to sources, been paying the monthly bills late, thus causing shutdowns in service. The unavailability of GGL.com and ClanBase at the time of writing, however, boils down to an unpaid bill. It is irrelevant to the conversation whether it is for services already rendered or for future ones.

The inside sources I talked with at ClanBase complained about GGL's mismanagment. Now that the hosting has been pulled, the only means of ClanBase managment communication with GGL is through email. This total breakdown in communication is not abated by the fact GGL installed an overseer in a salaried position over ClanBase, as information provided indicates Mads Ehrhardt, Managing Director of Europe Operations is no longer receiving his salary from GGL. With GGL struggling to pay the bills every month, let alone pay their staff, how much time do they have left as an organization?In light of all of this, the upper managment of ClanBase, spearheaded by Mads Ehrhardt, seeks emancipation from the Global Gaming League. This seems like quite a reasonable solution, should it be plausible. Unfortunately Mads Ehrhardt did not respond to our queries regarding this outcome or regarding the financial situation ClanBase would find themselves in such a scenario. With ClanBase planning a staff meeting to discuss putting the aforementioned information into the public domain, EsportsHeaven has decided to put the information into the hands of the community, before any attempts at a controlled and potentially misleading message can emerge.

Whatever the outcome, it is certain no community can flourish on a website that experiences over a week of downtime every month.

Source: http://www.esportsheaven.com/news/64014/the-truth-behind-clanbase-shutdowns-or-how-ggl-mismanaged-a-pioneer