Players release open letter to Professional Esports Association, its Member Teams, and the CS:GO community

22 December 2016

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Scott “SirScoots” Smith, an esteemed broadcaster in the esports industry for the best part of 20 years has released an open letter on behalf of the players of Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, Team Liquid and Team SoloMid addressed to their owners and the Professional Esports Association (“PEA”)

Credit: PEA

The open letter, which can be read in full here reveals the manner in which the association was set up, and the fact that despite being promised transparency and a say in matters – the play representatives can actually be outvoted on anything by the league’s commissioners and team owners. 

“So there we were: the minority vote on the committee that was supposed to give us an authoritative voice”

The main cause for argument here is that “PEA” are trying to effectively remove the ESL Pro League from North America by forcing teams under their “association” to withdraw. Simply put, the players aren’t happy and they have gone to SirScoots to represent them against both their owners and the “PEA” which was supposedly setup to bring a quality of life improvement to all players. 

Esports Insider says: This is the one thing that esports just can’t get right at the moment. It’s another association set up that effectively doesn’t include all parties; doesn’t seek to protect players but instead is organisations trying to monopolise a region in CS:GO. At the end of the day, players should have the final say in where they wish to compete – nothing should be forced. The fact that PEA are trying to ban these teams from playing in the Pro League against their will is both bizarre and simply put wrong.

It’s initiatives like PEA that, on face value, seem like a step forward for the industry but after hearing about their actual motives seem to be a step back. It’s widely acknowledged that players need better protection, after all – they’re the people bringing the audiences and playing the game thus creating the product. The wait for a proper association or union goes on as players are urged to protect themselves.