Tag Archives: Valve

Astralis provides esports with an example of transparency

You have to hand it to Astralis with their most recent post about transparency behind cajunb‘s ownership situation.

They have simultaneously defused any public backlash about the trade and, for a large part, explained how their player-based co-ownership system ends up working out. While they didn’t disclose specific numbers regarding the amount of money involved, they disclosed a lot more about the process than they were obligated to, by any means.

A TL;DR of his ownership situation: he will keep some of his share in the company, however, as a minority stakeholder, he won’t have any control or vote in Astralis’ operations. His minority stake doesn’t allow him to directly profit from the team’s performance, only from a potential sale of the organization to a new owner.

A Bloomberg article you should read.

Bloomberg published a lengthy feature about the multi-billion dollar esports betting industry with a focus on CS:GO skins gambling. They’ve even gone so far as to say that Valve is poetntially liable for enabling illegal sports betting in the second-hand market because of gambling sites that are built around the Steam API.

These sites, while independently run, use Valve’s software and pay out in skins. Valve employees also communicate with CSGO Lounge and have given technical support to the site, said Courtney Timpson, a community administrator and spokesman for CSGO Lounge. The Valve logo is prominently displayed on the site, and in one post on its forum, a moderator addresses people—especially the “younger audience”—who feel that they have been scammed. “If something is wrong, don’t post on the forums; contact Valve/Steam,” the moderator writes.

They also fired what I’d like to think is the perfect shot at Riot while defending CS:GO’s ongoing audience growth spurt… in an article that’s largely critical of the second-hand CS:GO marketplace.

With familiar graphics and a spy-vs.-spy structure, CS:GO is far more accessible than fantasy games like League of Legends, which look like an incomprehensible frenzy of bizarre creatures casting spells on one another to the novice viewer.