CGS is Dead

The Championship Gaming Series has closed it's doors and the multimillion dollar organisation has left eSports. The organisation ran a televised gaming league featuring CS:S, FIFA, DOA4 & Forza using a unique team format to award winners rather than individual competitors for each game. The show aired in DirecTV, SKY & Eurosport 2 to name but a few of its broadcast partners. The CGS world finals had a $500,000 prizepurse and all of its players (over 100) were salaried to play.

The reasoning states:

QuoteWhile the concept was ahead of its time and we are extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished, it became increasingly clear as this ambitious project evolved, that profitability was too far in the future for us to sustain operations in the interim.


You can read about it and more, plus extensive community reaction on Cadred
Comments
87
lol who cares about shit games in a shit format
What I don't get is why everything needs to be so fucking expensive. Why can't prize money be at a more normal level? I mean football didn't start out with million dollar contracts as well, but evolved into that over a period of time. They should just start with normal prize money and when people see money in it and investors will put their money it the prizes can rise itself. I mean am I the only one who thinks 1/2 million dollar is a bit much for what in my eyes are "just" a bunch of games.
That's not silly money for TV... my understanding is that the prize funds are relatively irrelevant (i.e. not the organisors biggest cost), they're an advertisment to add credibility to the competition - least that was the aim, doesn't seem to've worked.
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Oh then I'll shut up :>
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Secede to the man in the know below! Guesswork from what’s been posted, mr fdj ‘n el tosspoto know best.
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Interesting. A shame, obviously. I wonder who'll try it next...

I was thinking it might be an interesting (and more sustainable) idea to run a system like tennis. Give existing tournaments ranking points, then run an end-of-year tournament for the top X teams in whatever games you're ranking. Would be win-win for event organisers - they get the added publicity of being on the tour, leading to more teams playing their LANs. And for the ranking organisation, the relative cost would be low, due to the fact that many of the events are organised and run externally.
That's more-or-less how the CPL worked.

Why would an established event, such as ESWC, want to become second fiddle and devalue their event?
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Wimbledon is Wimbledon whether it's in the tour or not, right?
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so what happens to all the contracted players?
they join impact!
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no its a serious question which I'm interested to know the answer too, specifically i was thinking of the likes of ferus
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fanboy detected!
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haven't you got something better to do
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they're adding to the unemployment statistics
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Unexpected, thats what u get when u put ridicilous amounts of moniez into shit games.

Althought this could be nice for CS 1.6 because alot of teams will return to it.
Till another surprise: WCG and ESWC announce they take CS:S) xD
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was this the thing that ferus was contracted to ?
too bad.. Liked watching it on EuroSport2
stupid, mongols, idiots. Just like in football who thinks that a man running behind a ball is more important than a doctor to save a human.

I dont care about u "close", i care about where do u get that money, to "contract players". That players can now, go study and make something important to your society.

Just give that multimillion dollar to organisation in Africa(ex:) and start saving your own world, and again idiots.


ps. soz english
You live in a box, it must be nice there
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It's partly true though. Doctors do save lives, all footballers do is entertain you.

(:D nothing to do with me studying medicine..!)
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All you need to keep the mob happy is 'bread & games' tho, hence the social significance footballers play :D
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Ye obviously I just wanted to back up doctors (and med students) are the most important persons in the world.
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My heart bleeds for those doctors on £100,000 plus a year or were we talking about the surgeons on £400,000 plus a year?

To compare the salary a CGS player earnt which at the time equated to £15,000 your talking basic entry level job for a A-Level school leaver. Hardly earth changing.
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I wasn't being serious. Just for you information, that's hardly the paycheck doctors get in Holland.
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Years at medical school, days from 8 till usually after 7, most in on a Sunday. They're worth it.
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not when its raining :(
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np cpl will be back thanks to arabs!
If anything I thought it would grow. Could this be the start of the end for competitive gaming?
Competetive gaming is definitely still on the up, it's just that this was trying to be too big too soon.
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Don't believe everything you hear. Of course they won't admit it.
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The ESL, ESWC and WCG have all expanded this year. The issue is with the CGS.
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Competitive gaming is not some skewed conception of "e-sports".
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ofc its dead since et wasn't included.
Said it one year ago at SK-Gaming.com if I'm not wrong. Do you remember, Toss?
Truly sad but it's probably a reflection of the current state of the economy more than anything. I also agree it probably was ahead of it's time. Esports is growing rapidly but its still not mainstream media. I give it 10 or so years & it'll be as big as any other sport if not bigger.

Look at it this way, Im in my early 30's. My generation truly was the first to grow up on gaming. I had an Atari when they were brand new. It took almost 20 years to go from that to the inception of multiplayer gaming. Now look at how rapidly we've progressed in the last 5-10 years. That progression is only gonna multiply over the course of the next couple of years with some of you guys 10 or more years younger than I, who have grown up on multiplayer PC & console gaming now coming to an age were you will have the means to push it & advance it further.

It just takes time for things to develop, look at pro wrestling for example. Those morons were wrestling at small venues & state fairs 25 years ago making a few $100. Now it's a muti-billion dollar business. If those idiots can do it well...

CGS defiantly laid out a road map & an idea for the rest of us to follow. Somebody else will come along & make it better. Thats the way things work. eSports will be big business soon. I just hope that when it does those that pour so much into this now,will have put themselves in a posistion to benefit from it.
But the system used by the CGS did just not care about Clans which already existed for nearly 10 years and have established themselves within the world of eSports (SK,MYM,MiBR). You can't start a league you want to be accepted as the one and only but shit on teams/communities/companies that have been part of eSports far longer than the new league itself and say 'We have the money, they will follow'. Big parts of the Counter-Strike scene said 'No, thanks!' All in all you could even say there were more guys within the gaming community saying they don't like the CGS and who just did not accept the league as anything worthful, than the other part who were hoping for the success of CGS. And with a rather small backing of less than 50% of the gamers themselves, there is no chance for any league/company to have success.
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Do you think they were going after the competitive gamer and not the mainstream gamer? The percentage involved with teams/communities/companies surely must be insignificant compared to the number of actual players worldwide?
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Do you believe the percentage of casuals between the people who were actually following the CGS was big?

Or let me rewrite my conclusion: You can't establish a gaming project which is not even wanted by half the gamers.
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Yes, I think it being on TV opens it up to the casuals (I remember pre-geek watching the odd gaming show on tv)
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Well I think you have to kind of do both don't you? Sure you want the big names, top players & top teams but you also have to provide the main stream gamer with a clear vision & a means of how they could achieve that success.

You look at actual sports for instance, the perception that most people have when they're young is that what they're watching on TV is something they could do & they understand what avenues will give them the best possible chance to get there. Everybody understands how you get into the NFL. You play football in High School, you get good you get a scholarship to play at a major college. You play in college, you get better & hopefully come draft day, you're drafted. When I watched CGS on TV I had no idea who these people were or how they got there so there was no way for me to relate to them whatsoever & thus removing a big portion of the drama.

The media goes out of it's way to give backgrounds & profile every pro athlete out there.Take a person like Tiger Woods for instance. Who doesn't know Tiger Woods story? Even people that don't play golf know Tiger Woods' story. Why? because the media & all the the people profiting from his talent make sure you know because it adds to the dramatic effect. It makes you wanna watch more.It makes you look at that person & say hey "I can do that" or "hey his life closely resembles mine, I can root for a guy like that".Look at how many parents put golf clubs in their kids' hands after Tiger or how many put tennis racquet's in there hands after the Williams Sisters hit the scene.

I guess what I'm rambling on about is yes, you need to cater to the average everyday gamer.After all thats your audience & if you're putting something out there that they don't feel they could ever be a part of or relate to, they're not gonna tune in.
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True you can't turn you back on the important part & thats the the players & teams themselves. Especially those that paved the way & made esports interesting.

I watched a couple of the matches on G4 & was for the most part quite bored but I watched with the feeling that I was supporting the idea behind it more or less. It had almost an American Gladiators feel to it. Like the teams & players were hand picked & assembled by the league itself. The teams didnt come across like a group that worked its way up from nothing to achieve this fame & glory. There seemed to be very little drama & no build up. It felt very prefabricated.

But, like everything theres always the innovator & the innovators doesn't always have the right idea. Like I said there will be somebody that comes along & replaces them & as long as they learn from the mistakes, they will have better success.
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in other words there was no more $$ avi
Maybe I wasn't right about the prize money being the biggest factor in costs, it's still kinda true when I say it's bullshit to pay that much money to videogamers and start of paying wages way higher than where footballers used to start with. For something so "new" as competitive gaming it's better to start low and build up the salary/prize money as the branch expands and more sponsors join the party.
ferus joins mamut
*SHOCKING NEWS*
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reason of economy crisis
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QuoteCS:S, FIFA, DOA4 & Forza


HAHA
"...the fans they paid to cheer..."

:-D
want to become a cheerleader slajdan? :D
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If I am paid good enough, sure. x-]
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yeah sad it had to run like some nhl on drungs:P
This is actually sad news for anyone who actually cares about eSports.
or pretty good, like cpl, a bad organisation shutting down is better than a bad organisation still doing damage
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How were they bad? Who exactly were they damaging?
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+they got gaming onto "mainstream" tv
-they presented it as an over americanised tv show rather than a sport

+they gave a 100 or so gamers salaries for 2 years
-the league owned the players, forbid them from playing in other competitions at the cgs's wish, massively disrupted the NA 1.6 scene and European CSS scene

the cgs was an artificial bump in the road of esports that tried to massively accelerate something which is fine growing naturally
Parent
I agree with you, particularly about the natural progression of online gaming, everyone doing their own little bit for the scene seems to be fine for now coinciding with head sponsor funding.
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im with evan on this one, and you need a new facebook profile pic!
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I watched an episode on TV once, when I was in the USA, they were showing a CSS match. It was basically gaming turned into one of their drama shows, pretty ridiculous with that coach guy and all.

Good riddance I say.
esports gonna be soon as big as sports like tennis or so
we re in a new century and nearly everyone has internet these days
used to watch it on sky, pity rly!
cadre should remove the image profile @ comments, so awfull to read comments there
so the word 'fail' would sum it up

anyways sad to see the money for esports go
good thing for the source community, we could see some teams like Berlinz Allianz or Stockholm Magnetik come back actively on the scene... It could be also really interesting for some big organisations like dignitas or fnatic as players are now free... We will see !
like they said

their concept was ahead of its time
TosspoT, let's start are own league like in football :) ! pm me if you're interested

x
the guys split and whacked which ever money was left between themselves. its the best business model if youre the one calling shots.
I actually remember tosspots 5 minutes of fame s-casting fifa on sky one when i moved into my new flat, it was a good format and alot was done to emphasise the player rather than the ingame-traits and in all i thought it was a great show/format and it's a shame it didnt continue.
AAAAARGHGHGGHH BLIIIINDED
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