North American esports organisation Complexity Gaming has confirmed it will continue to compete in Counter-Strike for the coming season, announcing contract extensions for several of its players.
The announcement comes amid speculation over what parent company GameSquare Holdings will do with its Complexity Counter-Strike team in light of the company’s pending acquisition of rival FaZe Clan.
Complexity announced the news on social media on January 4th. In a public statement, Complexity said: “Over the last 20 years Complexity has been honoured to represent North America in four different versions of Counter-Strike. Today we are proud to announce contract extensions for [Complexity professional players] JT, Floppy, Grim, and TC, who in addition to Elige and Hallzerk will represent Complexity and North America in the upcoming season.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to play for the best fans in the world, and we are eternally thankful for your support. We’re not going anywhere,” the statement continued.
The announcement raises questions about which teams GameSquare will choose to field Counter-Strike rosters for when the FaZe Clan acquisition goes through. Complexity has now committed itself for the upcoming season, but FaZe Clan also signed a new player in December.
A GameSquare representative told Esports Insider: “We are assessing multiple options currently given the conflict on the esports side but there has been no decision made at this point.”
GameSquare announced its planned acquisition of FaZe Clan in October 2023. The deal, which Bloomberg reported was worth $17m (~£13.4m), has not yet been completed. GameSquare told Esports Insider the deal was in its final stages and more news would come soon.
The acquisition announcement drew conflict of interest concerns over the impending ownership of two North American rivals. Complexity and FaZe Clan compete against each other in major Counter-Strike tournaments, and both are permanent partner teams in the semi-franchised ESL Pro League and BLAST Premier leagues.
FaZe Clan did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
Tournament organisers ESL and BLAST have both said they’re monitoring the implications of the deal, according to Counter-Strike news outlet HLTV. HLTV also reported in December that Complexity’s CEO and Founder Jason Lake was looking to buy back Complexity from GameSquare, having sold his majority stake in 2017.
GameSquare is a holding company that owns several notable esports assets, including esports agency Code Red and analytics platform StreamHatchet, alongside Complexity. The company reported increased revenues in Q2 and Q3 2023, its two most recent financial reports. Both GameSquare Esports and FaZe Clan are currently publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
FaZe Clan went public in July 2022 in a deal that attracted major media attention and mainstream headlines. Initially claiming a valuation of over a billion dollars, the company’s stock has since declined dramatically, sitting at 0.18 US cents at the time of writing.
