Valve Company announced, which amends the rules for organizing large-scale Counter-Strike tournaments. The changes are aimed at the availability of tournaments for all participants and the transparency of their conduct. A total of three changes have been announced:
- Tournament organizers will no longer have unique business relationships or other conflicts of interest with the teams that participate in their events.
- Invitation to all tournaments will be carried out according to the rating system (described in detail Here) or determined by the results of open qualifying rounds.
- Any team rewards – prize pool or otherwise – will be public and will be determined by objective criteria that can be verified by the community.
These changes are aimed at eliminating situations when partner teams of organizers or sponsors of tournaments participate in tournaments.
“The best results in Counter-Strike are achieved when teams compete on equal terms, and their capabilities are the only limit to their success.
Over the past few years, we have seen how professional Counter-Strike is moving away from this ideal. The ecosystem is gradually becoming less open, and access to the highest levels of competition is increasingly limited to business relationships.
We believe that Counter-Strike should be an open sport.” – Valve’s official statement.
The changes will come into effect in 2025 as teams and organizers have existing agreements that will be difficult to break before then.
