Finns drop GamePlay due to financing

18-12-2008 15:36

A matter of weeks ago before DreamHack, GamePlay’s manager told Shayan told us that due to the financial crisis they would not be able to attend DreamHack. Today the announcement has been made that they will not renew their contracts with GamePlay due to the financial crisis in Russia.

A matter of weeks ago GamePlay added omi "lurppis" Kovanen to their squad. Things looked promising for the Finns but today their managed announced that they would not be renewing their contracts with the Russian organization GamePlay. He stated in an interview:

"It's going to hit eSports a lot harder. Companies are going to cut investments considerably, Gameplay.tv was just the one to start with."

The soon to be organizationless team consists of:

Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen
Niko "naSu" Kovanen
Max "ruuit" Aspe
Juuso "contE" Sajakoski
Samu "plastE" Aalto
Shayan "Shayan" Taleb (manager)

If one chooses to believe Shayan’s predictions this will probably be a downwards spiral that will affect the Counter-Strike scene hardly in the nearby future. Only time will tell!

sad..

2008-12-18 15:37

back to roccat.

2008-12-18 15:39

2 replies

2008-12-18 16:15

hopefully!

2008-12-18 19:38

yeyeyeye! roccat go! By the way, awp tihOp > awp ruuit

2008-12-18 15:43

lurppis and nasu brothers? relations?

2008-12-18 15:45

1 reply

Brothers.

Roccat > Gameplay :p (question answered -.-)

2008-12-18 15:47

I hope they will find new organisation soon, or come back to Roccat. All the best wishes for the team!

2008-12-18 15:50

Same as #7, GL!

2008-12-18 16:02

Hoorai or Roccat is better.

2008-12-18 16:06

I knew it'd and it will hit eSport really hard. If you think about it: who you gonna fire - bunch of slacker-gamers or hardworking workers? Obvious is obvious.

2008-12-18 16:08

6 replies

hardworking employees..

2008-12-18 16:12

5 replies

You wouldn't be a good boss.

2008-12-18 20:28

i was not answering your question.. i was correcting your sentence "Hardworking workers" it sounded kinda stupid.

2008-12-19 11:34

Yes I know, just wasn't able to come up with the word. =)

2008-12-19 12:01

crossfire.nu/?x=news&mode=item&id=3869 The industry disagrees

2008-12-19 04:50

i was not answering his question.. i was correcting his sentence "Hardworking workers" it sounded kinda stupid.

hard times for Cs are coming...nvidia pull out, clans and organisations go bust... looking from a economic perspective, what has to be done is introduction of something new, and in my opinion it will all come down to the cs promod. it may not be the best result, but it may be what investors are looking for.

2008-12-18 16:16

10 replies

Are you kidding me? Cs promod is long dead, forget about it. Besides, even more insecurity is exactly what we do not need.

2008-12-18 16:20

8 replies

cs promod is dead due to the mistake of its timing and lack of progressing with the project. Ask yourself, what else can you have from CS? more tournaments? more clans? that will not help the game overall. Promod has one major upside, and that is it can be a 'surprise', its not yet verified the potentials of that game - however on the other hand, as you stated 'long dead', we might not necessarily see the full potential. Even though CS is still very popular among gamers, it seems clear that it will never reach its peak of popularity as it was in 2001/2003 seasons. Introduction of Cs:CZ (even though now also concluded to be 'dead') and Source (slowly dying too) caused people to be uncertain what to expect of the games. CAL used to be the big thing, now it's only popular in the states. ESL introduced EAS, and few teams actually compete in that league. G7 is also to be blamed - an oligopoly on a gaming market is doomed from the start, and it might benefit in the short run, in the long run its controversial and unprofitable.

2008-12-18 16:27

7 replies

I think i have my finger closer to the pulse of CS 1.6 than you, and believe you me, it is showing no signs of dying, all numbers are going up and up.. Sure there might be less players, but who cares if there are more or less FFA players? It is the people who follow the pro clans that matter..

2008-12-18 16:32

For the pro clans to exist and function as they currently are, investors and organizations are essential. With this example, Gameplay.tv decided to invest in CS, but now they see that the total cost > total revenue. Personally, I enjoyed seeing GP play, and in my opinion they played well, but there is a big difference in satisfying the needs of a spectator than satisfying the needs of an investor.

2008-12-18 16:45

GP (the organisation) never showed anything, they came out of nothing and quickly went away.. When SK or fnatic closes we can talk about a crisis.

2008-12-18 16:47

4 replies

Agree, thats all. They had some extra funds, gave it to cs team. Now they havn't and its the end:P

2008-12-18 17:00

100% agree with Nomad.

2008-12-18 17:28

that's right!

2008-12-18 18:00

+1 I didn't even know GP.tv existed before they picked up the roccat squad.

2008-12-19 13:59

CS Slow mod*

2008-12-18 19:14

bad

2008-12-18 16:29

sad news & good luck roccat

2008-12-18 16:39

yeye they havent won anything...and they dont even deserve a good organisation...

2008-12-18 17:25

you kidding me? just because they do not win anything (tournaments....) they should not deserve a proper organisation? sk didn't win anyhing for a long time too, so, do the sk players not deserve a good organisation?-....

2008-12-18 17:43

ye but SK had won events before they didnt won :)....hehe GP have never won anything big...even if they go to almost every big event.

2008-12-18 17:47

I'm not a fanboy of GP, but last year (2007) they made some good solid results and surprisly got some first place finishes tho. But this year they have been performing truly poorly, thats a fact for sure

2008-12-18 18:02

Your a sweede fanboy so what did former LANKLAN do to deserve an organisation? Plz tell me.

2008-12-19 22:46

3 replies

plzz are you stupid? have i said that lanklan even did deserve that?.....but Giants(former lanklan) is developing as a team and are new and just getting better and better...GP have been to many big events and have won nothing biG...thats why i dont think they deserve that...and maby i am a "swedish fanboy" cause i look at most swedish teams and i can follow them more and better then teams from other countrys.. ...and i like teams not from Sweden to..

2008-12-19 23:12

So GP can't develop? Well shouldn't almost every team that hasn't performed bettre then last year just... Stop playing? :D

2008-12-20 22:11

as i see it they have got ALOT of chances to prove that they belong to the top but i dont see that they have proven themselves...anyway i dont think they are bad...and maby they get better next year who knows...

2008-12-20 22:47

these fins dont have luck with sponsoring lol at omi

2008-12-18 17:44

personally for me, thats good news. gameplay teg is so bad and boring. just like a shitty tv-channel.

2008-12-18 18:22

sad to see that the crisis affects also the gaming scene

2008-12-18 18:45

don't be so sure that roccat will take them again.

2008-12-18 18:52

omg gl GP

2008-12-18 19:41

Things looked promising for the Finns but today their managed announced that they would not be renewing their contracts Shouldn't it be manager?

2008-12-18 19:50

GP <3 :)

2008-12-18 20:03

Back to roccat!

2008-12-18 20:49

"added Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen to" you're missing T

2008-12-18 21:18

well the key for a top team is to have steady nongay sponors/organaziton and to be able to travel and train w.o any major problems,not stress around about money and skipping major events cause money is slow . Gl finns finding a decent organzation lol..

2008-12-18 21:57

>>> financial crisis in Russia... LOL! They are too weak for fighting!

2008-12-19 04:04

I think, Gameplay is finnish organization, so How the financial crisis in Russia affects on the Finnish organiztion?

2008-12-19 10:03

DOH

2008-12-19 13:24

Gameplay is Russian organization.

2008-12-19 13:31

thanks

btw the financial crisis will affect us all sooner or later

2008-12-19 14:00

agree

2008-12-19 14:42

Lol 0% return on such a stupid investment. Thats the another problem of this russian mistake. Most people even dont know that gameplay.tv is the russian cybersport tv-channel(actually GameplayTV is a channel of the russian space televison company ntvplus, even in russia not so much people(like 2-3%) have this televison but owners of ntvplus had a lot of money from oil and probably it was good money laundering. now due to crisis they lost a lot of money) unfourtunately only financial crisis made them understand that its pointless attempt to invest money in advertisement in cybersport if u dont make any useless shit computer product for kids like steelseries, roccat,mymym and others...

2008-12-19 16:13