Uncertain Future for IGN ProLeague

Earlier this month IGN was sold by their parent company News Corp. Despite being bought by News Corp in 2005 for $650 million, the company was sold to publisher Ziff Davis for a sum of less than $100 million. As a result of the acquisition, Ziff Davis has announced plans to close down several sites associated with IGN including 1UP.com, UGO.com, and Gamespy.com. Despite being arguably popular sites, they were shutdown in order for the company to mainly focus on IGN.com and Askmen.com. The following is the full press release by Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah:

Today, we took some difficult but important actions that will ensure the continued growth and health of IGN and AskMen. Before I go into more details about the changes, you should know that they resulted in the elimination of jobs at IGN. It’s always upsetting to say goodbye to colleagues and let’s do what we can to help these employees as they seek new opportunities.

It’s also important for you to know that we are absolutely confident that we now have the best structure and team to successfully move the company forward and that there are no further planned reductions.

The changes we made today are designed to allow us to Simplify and Focus. Our goal is to do fewer things and to do them exceptionally well. In that vein, we want to direct all of our energy and work behind our two flagship brands: IGN and AskMen. They are both category killers and share a vision of a multi-screen (PCs, tablets, smartphones, TV) and multi-format (text, photos and video) world.

As a result of our decision to focus on our core brands, we are:
· Winding down 1UP.com, UGO.com and GameSpy.com;
· No longer ad repping 3rd party sites such as GameStop.com and FamilyGuy.com;
· Actively engaged with parties interested in acquiring IPL. IGN’s role going forward will be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events;
· Dividing our ad sales team into two: one focused on IGN and the other focused on AskMen.

On the IGN front, Peer Schneider will continue to oversee all of editorial and product, focusing those resources exclusively on IGN. The foundation of this entire company is its content and we will continue to have the best people in the industry producing it.

Charlie Barrett will oversee the monetization of IGN everywhere in the U.S. – PCs, tablets, smartphones, YouTube, consoles – and now be able to concentrate the sales and ad ops teams’ efforts where they can make the most impact.

Frank Puma will assume an exciting new role as executive director of programs and solutions, reporting to Charlie. The sales development, design and creative teams will report to Frank, whose charge is to deliver world-class advertising experiences.

A new head of engineering and technology for IGN will be recruited as quickly as possible. Tech has a monumental role to play in the growth of IGN and will be committed to working hand-in-glove with edit, product and sales.

On the AskMen front, Ric Poupada will continue to oversee all aspects of the AskMen organization and is excited to have a new VP of sales, Paul Chenier, reporting to him. Paul has been a longtime advocate of the AskMen brand and is one of the most talented sales executives in our organization. Having him build a dedicated AskMen ad sales team will do wonders for the business.

Ian Chambers will continue to run International out of the UK for both IGN and AskMen and we’re thrilled with the performance of our businesses overseas.

Mike Etheridge will be the VP of finance and operations for IGN and AskMen, working across all of the departments to ensure that we’re growing our business, expanding our margins and making metric-based decisions.

Rachelle Igoe will be the head of human resources for IGN and AskMen, ensuring that we continue to nurture, attract and retain the best talent in the industry.

I’m sure that there will be a number of questions in the days and weeks ahead but please know that we will be a better functioning and nimbler organization from this moment forward.

But what exactly does this mean for e-Sports? Well here is why:

                  · Actively engaged with parties interested in acquiring IPL. IGN’s role going           forward will  be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events;

IGN Pro League, which is arguably one of the most watched and best organized professional gaming events in the US no longer has a stable future. Will another company come along and continue the legacy that IGN created, or will they leave a huge gap in North American e-Sports allowing the only other NA e-Sports organization MLG to monopolize the industry.

Week of February 7th, 2013

This week brought to us what many North American and European e-Sports fans have been waiting on for years. Thursday was the opening day for the Season 3 League of Legends Championship Series, or LCS for short. What exactly is the LCS? Well it's the first professional league in Europe and North America in which 8 salaried teams in each region will complete weekly League of Legends matches in a 22 week long season culminating in a playoff series where the top teams from each region will face off for a spot in the million dollar League of Legends World Championship Finals tournament.

Before the existence of the LCS, top tier players in League of Legends and other video games would have to rely on money from sponsorships and tournament winnings as a source of income. But these weren't exactly the most reliable of income sources. As such, most players would have to split their focus between spending time improving their game and working a standard job. Now with the LCS, these players can focus 100% of their time on their gameplay because they will now be receiving a full salary to live off of from Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends. We are now one step closer to making professional gaming a viable career choice in the same way that established professional sports players are seen.

For such a momentous occasion, the first week of LCS matches is chock full of rivalry matches. In the both regions, 8 total matches were played over the course of two days. In the North American series the most intense matches came from Curse Gaming (Crs), Team Solomid (TSM), and Counter-Logic Gaming (CLG). The season opener was the match between Team Solomid and Counter-Logic Gaming. The rivalry between these two teams stems back all the way to the Season 1. Right from the first 3 minutes of the game, CLG was pulling all the right moves and placing insane pressure on all three lanes. Everything seemed to being going in CLG's favor who eventually forced TSM to surrender. Day two started with the match between CLG and Crs. The last time these two teams met in competitive play Crs lost to CLG at the Season 2 North American Region Finals and missed out on the chance to play in the Season 2 World Finals. On top of that, 3 of the starting members for Crs are former members of the CLG lineup who were dropped by CLG's current team captain HotShotGG.You could say that Crs had a lot more motivation to win this match than CLG. And they delivered! From start to finish Crs completely outclassed CLG and proved to all North American fans that they would be the team to beat this season.

Across the Atlantic in Cologne, Germany, the European LCS began it's matches on February 9th. On day one the top 4 teams would face off against each other, and they are Gambit Gaming (GG), Evil Geniuses (RG), SK Gaming (SKG), and FnaticRC. The opener would be the match between SKG and Fnatic. The matchups between these two teams are now known in the e-sports world as "el Classico". This rivalry is one of the oldest in all of e-Sports dating back to the days of Counter-Strike 1.6 in 2003. The last time these two met was at IEM Katowice where Fnatic pulled off a last minute upset victory despite being behind for the majority of the match, knocking SKG out of the tournament. After a disappointing appearance at the Season 2 World Finals and IEM Katowice, SKG needed this win in order to restore hope in their once great franchise. Similar to their previous meeting, SKG would be in control of the game for the majority of the match. However they're inability to close out matches would come back to haunt them allowing Fnatic to once again barely sweep past them. The next match up would be between Season 2 Favorites GG and EG. Both of these teams are considered two of the best teams in the world at the moment. At the Season 2 World Finals they both made to the semifinals before being defeated. As expected the entire match was back and forth between these two teams, however it was EG who was able to snatch the win.