eSports fans and followers of the professional StarCraft 2 circuit will be disappointed to hear that Major League Gaming has parted ways with Blizzard and won't be hosting future World Championship Series tournaments.
In a statement posted to MLG's website , CEO Sundance DiGiovani wrote that “given the structure of the relationship and the impact on the organization, players and community, we feel it will better serve the eSports ecosystem to run tournaments independently.”
“We thank the community for participating in and watching Season 1, look forward to showcasing StarCraft II at the MLG Spring Championship, and wish the players participating in WCS Season 2 the best of luck," DiGiovani wrote.
We've enjoyed our coverage of MLG's running of the WCS tournaments, so we're eager to see if reports that the North American Star League will take over WCS turn out to be true, or if someone else might be picking up the ball.
John Bain, aka “Total Biscuit,” told PCGamesN that MLG got out of the WCS series because of restrictions imposed by Blizzard that became “a massive resource drain” on MLG. “They had to host at an EU-unfriendly time,” he said, “So you lock out your biggest audience by default and are then expected to recoup via sponsorship and ad revenue. What? The amount of money MLG had to spend... was outrageous.”
We'll keep you posted as we learn more about the future of one of StarCraft 2's biggest tournaments.
