Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit, and this time, it's one unrelated to either the Microsoft acquisition, or misconduct against employees. This time around, the United States Justice Department is suing Blizzard over its "Competitive Balance Tax", which allegedly has unfairly suppressed the wages of esports players. According to the lawsuit, "This conduct had the purpose and effect of limiting competition between the teams in each league for esports players and suppressed esports players’ wages. This conduct violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1".

The legal document specifies the competitive Call of Duty and Overwatch leagues, specifically, with the plaintiff demanding that the upper limits on player compensation and penalties for exceeding certain amounts of income be removed from Activision Blizzard's contracts for their esports leagues.

The United States requests that this Court: a. adjudge that Activision’s agreements with teams in the Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues to implement the Competitive Balance Tax rules are unlawful under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1; b. permanently enjoin and restrain Activision from agreeing to or enforcing any rule that would, directly or indirectly, impose an upper limit on compensation for any player or players in any professional esports league that Activision owns or controls, including any rule that requires or incentivizes any team to impose an upper limit on its players’ compensation or imposes a tax, fine, or other penalty on any team as a result of exceeding a certain amount of compensation for its players, and requiring Activision to take such internal measures as are necessary to ensure compliance with that injunction; and c. award the United States such other relief as the Court may deem just and proper to redress and prevent recurrence of the alleged violations and to remedy the anticompetitive effects of the illegal agreements entered into by Activision.

Source

 

[The Catboy]

I am starting to think Activision sold itself because it’s hotbed for lawsuits

 

[Kioku]

Acti/Blizz keep your nose clean challenge: Impossible

 

[AlanJohn]

So funny how quickly Blizzard has fallen from grace. Remember when everyone was playing Hearthstone and Overwatch? Now you don't hear anything about those games.

 

[MariArch]

Lel. Antitrust is a meme in 2023

 

[SylverReZ]

This is gonna be one hell of a blizzard alright.

 

[Kioku]

So funny how quickly Blizzard has fallen from grace. Remember when everyone was playing Hearthstone and Overwatch? Now you don't hear anything about those games.

Quickly? These issues were years in the making…

 

[MeleeMaster500]

and right on cue, a brand new hero is announced as PR smokescreen

 

[DarkCoffe64]

This is gonna be one hell of a blizzard alright.

 

[Lather]

So funny how quickly Blizzard has fallen from grace. Remember when everyone was playing Hearthstone and Overwatch? Now you don't hear anything about those games.

indie

 

[LightBeam]

As much as I love Overwatch, it's esport league has been a mess since the very beginning. It's really a feat how they managed to mess that up so badly. They wanted to be the « NFL of esport » and failed miserably. Lost many huge talents at one point when it comes to casting.
Also, OWL always seemed more boring to watch than Apex (not the game Apex Legends, the Overwatch Apex, south korean tournament series), mostly imo because of the camera handling that would sometimes just show dumb and boring shit when a move was going on somewhere else (like, focusing on a Hanzo throwing his ult around instead of the Sombra using her EMP and fighting with the team)


Maybe unrelated, but the Heroes of the Storm scene was also completely assassinated. It was working nice. Sure it wasn't as big as LoL or Dota2, but it had it's following. People knew it was done in a fucking blogpost lmao. Imagine knowing you're out of a job as an esport player, the same moment the spectators do.

To me it just shows that the people who run this shit don't care at all. They don't know that this stuff is ran by passionate people and that's why it works in the long run. I'm pretty sure League did not become as big as it is right now in just a few days. You can even see it today with Valorant's scene not being as big as CSGO right now (tho it's still quite big, relatively speaking), it just takes so much time and the people at Blizzard thought it would be fine to just throw a bunch of dollars around and it'll get big. Money solves everything.

It's just sad because honestly, Overwatch is probably at it's best state right now. The balance is really nice, we're so so far from the mess we used to have before. And each season gives it's set of features, PvE is coming this year too. New hero coming in a few weeks. 5v5 is so much more fun to play. PvE is probably going to gather people who don't care about PvP but this is not going to help for the esport scene.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Jeez, with all these lawsuits, they would have to cut wages just to pay for the lawsuits! This is sheer madness. Blizzard is not good for Activision; they should cut it off.

 

[TehCupcakes]

I don't think this one is as cut-and-dry as it might sound. While "suppress[ing] the wages of esports players" sounds horrible on paper, pay-to-win is equally bad. Maybe the goal was to prevent a corporation with a lot of money from swooping in and buying the best players, making it impossible for other teams to compete. Sure, you can criticize the way they went about it, but I don't think it's a simple problem to solve.

 

[Kioku]

I don't think this one is as cut-and-dry as it might sound. While "suppress[ing] the wages of esports players" sounds horrible on paper, pay-to-win is equally bad. Maybe the goal was to prevent a corporation with a lot of money from swooping in and buying the best players, making it impossible for other teams to compete. Sure, you can criticize the way they went about it, but I don't think it's a simple problem to solve.

Wouldn’t be surprised if it did turn out to be this cut and dry… It’s always been about the money, especially with a company like Blizzard. eSports just happens to fit the bill of “easy money” so long as players didn’t know better.

 

[scoobydude51]

I am starting to think Activision sold itself because it’s hotbed for lawsuits

that was the point.

 

[urbanman2004]

Oh my, what a shocker ... Their name reeks of toxic culture

 

[Redhorse]

This is gonna be one hell of a blizzard alright.

A Blizzard in Hell, well there are a few words I never thought I'd see together...

 

[vinstage]

it's esport league has been a mess

i'm late to this thread and im sorry if im bumping it... i only just saw it but yes, it is a mess. from personal experience.

OWL is an absolute money drain for orgs with zero profit or turnover or benefit for them whatsoever in comparision to other games therefore i really think we'll be seeing many orgs withdrawing next year and selling their spots (or trying to) - you have to pay a minimum salary imposed by blizzard, you have to either pay for your players accomodation or pay them a monthly installment to pay for accomodation, they have daily food allowances and so forth (this hasn't been as heavily imposed). it is not enticing when you are making no money from viewership or very little sponsors.

also the orgs themselves are very unprofessional with their handling of players... visas always an issue every year as most orgs do not do them early enough - many players playing on ping as a result. managers not finding accommodation actively (when it's only one of their maybe 3 jobs... lol) and of course how organisations have handled cancellations of players... (more recently sweeping the aspire stuff under the rug)

 

[LightBeam]

i'm late to this thread and im sorry if im bumping it... i only just saw it but yes, it is a mess. from personal experience.

OWL is an absolute money drain for orgs with zero profit or turnover or benefit for them whatsoever in comparision to other games therefore i really think we'll be seeing many orgs withdrawing next year and selling their spots (or trying to) - you have to pay a minimum salary imposed by blizzard, you have to either pay for your players accomodation or pay them a monthly installment to pay for accomodation, they have daily food allowances and so forth (this hasn't been as heavily imposed). it is not enticing when you are making no money from viewership or very little sponsors.

also the orgs themselves are very unprofessional with their handling of players... visas always an issue every year as most orgs do not do them early enough - many players playing on ping as a result. managers not finding accommodation actively (when it's only one of their maybe 3 jobs... lol) and of course how organisations have handled cancellations of players... (more recently sweeping the aspire stuff under the rug)

You've been involved with the league personally ?

I've always wondered why pro players were sticking to all this. Probably because they just have the opportunity and think it's best for them to just stick to it while it lasts but that's just my own guess. And even I as a random guy who's just farming owl tokens on the 2nd screen have heard about orgs not being able to sell their slots like Chengdu (iirc they didn't even sold it, right ? They couldn't even find somebody so they just dropped it)

I know they dropped the french cast also, for some reason, while also sponsoring a race car event organized by youtubers in France and it made some noise at the moment of the announcement. As if they were hoping this would give some attention to the game and the scene. It just seems they don't realize what they've done to their own game and their scene.

What's funny is that they wanted to be the NFL of esports, lol.

 

[vinstage]

You've been involved with the league personally ?

I've always wondered why pro players were sticking to all this. Probably because they just have the opportunity and think it's best for them to just stick to it while it lasts but that's just my own guess. And even I as a random guy who's just farming owl tokens on the 2nd screen have heard about orgs not being able to sell their slots like Chengdu (iirc they didn't even sold it, right ? They couldn't even find somebody so they just dropped it)

I know they dropped the french cast also, for some reason, while also sponsoring a race car event organized by youtubers in France and it made some noise at the moment of the announcement. As if they were hoping this would give some attention to the game and the scene. It just seems they don't realize what they've done to their own game and their scene.

What's funny is that they wanted to be the NFL of esports, lol.

partner plays in it and one of my closest friends. some of them still get paid well by today's standards (them included) and actually somehow still love the game... i really can't explain it since i don't see the appeal AT ALL. a large majority of them either couldn't care less and do their own thing outside of scrims and just have no interest in the game at all.

they were pretty on track to being the NFL of esports on the surface, but jesus fucking christ it was a mess from the get go and was only hyped on borrowed time. think covid was a catalyst for its inevitable failure since its running on borrowed money and the orgs being stuck in the shittiest positions.