Dota 2 WPC League (World e-Sports Professional Classic), has recently come under fire by several members of the Dota 2 community for the delay in their prize payouts. More recent evidence has revealed that not only is WPC League unable to pay out the prize money, a whopping $245000 for WPC League 2014, but also may be on the verge of breaking up.
WPC League, a Chinese e-Sports organization based in Shanghai, is known as one of the largest e-Sports organization in the Eastern hemisphere. Backed by real estate company Jingrui, they are famous for hosting some of the most lavish, well funded events in China. However, WPC League has fallen upon hard times and many people amongst the community have spoken out in frustration against them. The most recent being Alliance manager Kellymilkies who has revealed information that may indicate the company is doing worse than expected.
Just to clarify:
I am disappointed because I spent 2 - 3 months negotiating the tournaments to allow western teams to participate, (shifting a ridiculous request of wanting western teams to go to china 2 - 3 times, first to play round robin group stages, then to play playoffs, and again to play grand finals. Ended being me making group stages online for western teams only happen) I helped them invite / beg teams to play almost... Arranged studios for them for casting (they ended up going with bts). I arranged translators and went early to scout the area to see what food etc can the western teams (Alliance and Cloud 9) have around the area. Fixed VISAs for all foreign players...
For me, I wanted to take the high road and not make a big deal out of it. The whole process was frustrating:
Timeline:
After we got back from China, the staff that was working with me had all quit. That was pretty irresponsible of them to not complete their work before they did. I was passed off to a contact who worked for JINGRUI , a real estate company in China that is the sponsor of WPC. The e-mails were generally this: We are transitioning in the company, we need more time blahblahblah you will get your money soon. Whenever I asked : Is there a timeline? It's ok if it takes long, we just want to know the time line (We, = [A] + C9). And.. -no reply-
At The International i went to the China teams and asked if they heard anything from WPC. They are having the same problems. I spoke to ACE starting from about 2 - 3 weeks ago, had people in China speaking to ACE as well. Today a weird ass thing happened which made me really angry at the way WPC was handling things. They told ACE this:
Is there anyway someone can facilitate the "ticket sales" from VALVE for the event so we can follow up on payment. I blew my lid. Ticket sales are not supposed to be your prize money. I am almost 100% sure that the ticket sales for WPC will hardly cover enough money to pay for anything. How can you host a tournament when you have a sponsor that was backing you, expecting to pay out of ticket money? It was an obvious excuse / delay tactics.
No more bullshit, if things drag on, I think ACE said something along the lines of hiring a lawyer in China to sue WPC. That being said, if you sue a company that is closing down (seems that way since their staff all quit / was let go, leaving some admin staff behind) - you probably won't get anything back.
My main concern is this:
A lot of foreign teams are already unwilling to go to China due to the unfamiliar conditions (Heat, language, general lay of the land) WPC doing this will discourage teams who already have a hard time wanting to go to china even more.
I work a lot towards bringing the east and west together. This whole thing just makes me sad and mad at the way things are handled reflecting badly on the Chinese tournaments and future invites.
As I know, there are 3 upcoming large scale tournaments in the next 2 - 3 months. Oh well. Sorry for rambling. 4am here.
Edit: Cloud 9 and us are both owed travel allowance (we paid for all the flight tickets which was supposed to be reimbursed to the company)
We are owed prize money
We are owed players allowance (they had a stipend for food and travel (taxi) there).
kellyMILKIES
Kellymilkies, tasked with managing the funds for western teams Alliance and Cloud 9 at WPC League 2014, attempted to contact authorities on several occasions. WPC League was unable to provide an explanation or answer, instead employing delay tactics like requesting facilitation of ticket sales for prize money. A reliable inside source has also stated that besides the employees who worked with Kellymilkies, other staff have also at this point already quit and left the company.
If the allegations are true, WPC League will be unable to pay out the promised $245000 prize pool for WPC League 2014, which includes over $163000 winners share to Chinese iG who defeated DK in a BO7 series with a score of 4 - 1. In addition, DK reportedly never received their first place prize of $163000 for WPC - ACE 2013. As it stands now, it's may only be a matter of time before WPC announces bankruptcy.
Sources : Reddit, Gosugamers
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