In September G7 Teams reached out to the e-sports community to submit any claims for unpaid prize winnings. In just two weeks we received over 150 e-mails from community members with claims totaling $355,208.
To start, G7 Teams has reached out to CPL, which was recently bought by an Abu Dabi based investment company, ESWC, which recently filed for bankruptcy and has since been re-purchased by DIP Communications, and GGL / Clanbase, which is being sued by Game Hosting for unpaid server hosting bills, which together represent over $274,000 in claims. To date, G7 Teams has only gotten vague responses from ESWC, and so we’ll continue to reach out to each organization, notify current partners, start online petitions, and explore legal routes in an attempt to bring resolution to the issue. In the meantime, G7 Teams strongly encourages the community to boycott their ongoing activities until they engage in constructive discussions with G7 to investigate and resolve the community’s claims.
While there are disputes against 15 e-sports organizations, it is important to note that groups such as World Cyber Games, which has paid out millions of dollars to gamers around the world, do not have any open claims. Kode 5 also did not have any significant open claims. Additionally, since our outreach to the community ESL has made significant strides to pay outstanding prize money and we will continue to work with them for the open claims.
It will take time for us to bring resolution and closure to the problems brought to our attention by the community, but we again ask all gamers to continue to support and standby those organizations that have a reputation of honesty and excellence and to boycott and spread the word about those that do not. Individually our voices have been ignored by these organizations for months and in some cases years, but together with one voice and coordinated efforts we can hopefully hold organizations accountable for their deceitful or malicious activities.