Economy Legshots ESL

BY Andrew Miesner / February 24, 2009

The credit crunch hits yet another aspect of the economy and this time it has hit down hard upon the prize money for the ESL ENC 2009 competition. With the prize money for Call of Duty 4 and Defence of the Ancients at a whopping 0 Euros, it will actually cost teams money to win the top two places in both games with nothing in return but the title of 1st/2nd place. So what will pull in the teams? It’s hard to imagine any team investing money in the admission/travel fees only to go home with a minus defecit in their pockets. A staggering minus differential of 21,000 Euros since the 27,000 Euros that was up for grabs in 2007 means that teams have even less incentive to turn up to such events.

This year the prize pool consists of 15,000€, while in 2008 the pool included 55,000€. The prize pool also uncovers that the third-place finisher is not getting prize money.

In spite of the prize pool, they have announced two new game titles to the game list: Defense of the Ancients (DotA) and Call of Duty 4. According to the official press release, these two game titles were chosen, since “the communities in both games are growing fast”. But due to their debuts, the top competitors will not be given any money in these tournaments.