In a statement published by IGN, yesterday, Mar. 5 2013, they announced that the IGN Pro League (IPL) 6 event, IGN's eSports tournament, will be cancelled and will be giving out refunds for all tickets purchased.
IPL quickly became a big event for eSports after hosting popular games like "League of Legends", "Starcraft 2", and was going to showcase for the second time ManiaPlanet's newest game "Shootmania" in their upcoming event. It seems that IGN's recent acquisition to Ziff Davis is having adverse effects from layoffs, to shutting down sites like 1UP and Gamespy, to now this event cancellation. Ziff Davis released a statement late last month that they were looking to sell IPL to any interested parties as Davis wants IGN's focus "to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events" rather than host them. In the IGN statement, they offered this as one of the reasons for cancelling the event:
When we launched IPL two years ago, the eSports landscape was very different with far fewer events than we have now. Now there are more tournaments than ever before competing for people's time and attention, so we're no longer in a position to commit the resources required to run another major independent event.
Judging by the statement from Ziff Davis it seems the bigger reason is that the new owners did not want to spend the money required to host this type of event and in turn hurt the reputation of the very league they wish to sell off. Fans don't easily forgive or forget but I guess that will be the problem for whoever purchases the league, but thanks to Ziff Davis cancelling this even could get the IPL at a lower price.
This is following the DICE Summit where general manger of the IPL, David Ting, talks about the rapid growth of eSports and the IPL. The fallout of this event represents a blow to the eSports community because while it's not the only competition out there, it was one of the bigger multi-game events not hosted by Major League Gaming (MLG).
What are your thoughts on IPL 6 being cancelled? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
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