While the newly formed eSports body hopes to stabilise the industry, it’s left a blazing trail behind that has scalded the community.
With great power comes great responsibility; this is a theme that will crop up a few times in this post.
But let’s back up a bit.
The world of eSports is currently a frontier industry. It’s exciting, innovative and fast expanding, but lawless, chaotic and harsh for many of its participants.
That’s right, it’s the Wild West of the sporting world and this is especially true in competitive Counter Strike Global Offensive. Out of this disarray, however, a new organisation has been born: the World eSports Association, also known as WESA.
WESA is…
To put it simply, WESA is striving to be the eSports version of FIFA, the NFL or the NBA – a regulatory association that supervises the industry. It was announced by ESL in conjunction with a slew of the top European teams, including Na Vi, Fnatic, EnVyUs and Virtus.Pro.
The way in which it differs from other sporting associations is that it doesn’t exactly have the consolidation of power that other associations have. It is devoted purely to CSGO and only relevant for ESL competitions, leaving member teams free to play in leagues and tournaments.
In many ways, it represents only a tentative first step towards industry standardisation. But is standardisation actually desirable?
The Good
There’s no doubt eSports in general could benefit from better management and protection for players – doping, hacking, constant visa issues, improper treatment of players and withholding pay are just a few of the issues perpetuated through lack of regulation. So, WESA could potentially offer solutions to some of these concerns.
Parallels can be drawn here with League of Legends’ highly successful LCS, which provided the LoL eSports arena with much needed stability.
Steady schedules, professional broadcasting and consistency in payments and funding have all helped to attract further investment in LoL. Can the same be expected from WESA?
Repeatedly, the term ‘player protection’ has been thrown around. Players have attempted to unionise in the past with little success, so no doubt many will be hoping that WESA represents a step forward for workers’ rights in eSports.
They will at least now benefit from standardised contracts, bringing tighter regulation of player transfers, for instance.
There will also be a ‘Player Council’ to represent the interests of players. Hopes are they will now have a valuable impact on issues that directly affect them, i.e. doping policy and how sanctions and punishments are carried out.
And, interestingly, WESA will only control marketing rights in areas authorised by both the organisations and the players.
The Bad
But how much of an impact can the Player Council have when it is a completely separate entity and does not have a position on the board of the organisation?
It all depends on how it’s integrated into the overall structure, and to what extent it is involved.
The visceral reaction towards WESA by the eSports community shows there’s a deep gap between the key stakeholders (viewers and fans) and the association.
FaZe Clan, one of the key founders of the association, have already parted ways one week after WESA’s formation. The reason? Some disagreement over exclusivity and a lack of transparency on WESA’s behalf.
While WESA claims it doesn’t limit performances to WESA tournaments, it seems they do not want other organisations to represent their teams in non-WESA games.
Also, there is an unnerving haziness that haunts the whole project and how it plans to achieve its goals, which made it hard for FaZe to commit.
The Ugly
Concerns are further escalated as the community is left wondering why ESL is the only organiser associated to WESA.
Exclusivity rights to major teams, broadcasters and tournaments could potentially damage its competitive integrity and place a stranglehold on CSGO.
If WESA truly wants to fulfil its stated mission, then surely it needs to involve other big leagues such as GFinity, CEVO and MLG.
ESL have stated, however, that the structure of WESA doesn’t allow for more organisers to join, but they can work together via WESA.
Concerns would have also been alleviated if Valve, the publisher that owns CSGO, had bought into WESA. Valve is, naturally, an important part of the CSGO eSports world and retains the right to revoke use of the game at any time.
WESA has insisted that it will work closely with Valve, but that is practically meaningless to an already sceptical community. Official affiliation would have at least been tangible and provided some degree of credibility.
We’ll See…
Overall, it’s hard not to see this as at least a shaky step forward for CSGO, even if there is a great deal to be concerned about.
Clearly there needs to be greater regulation, player protection, a legally sound environment and consistency, but how useful as a means of achieving those goals WESA will be remains to be seen.
Though unlikely to quickly become some kind of bloated, corrupt and all-powerful FIFA-esque organisation as some have predicted, WESA may not necessarily empower players, nor provide the best route to greater professionalism in eSports.
The FaZe fiasco demonstrates the challenge awaiting the organisation and it will have to prove its good intentions to a deeply suspicious community.
