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Posted by SmellyMoss on Jan 29th 2009 23:40
There was a collective gasp followed by one of the most eerie silences to ever hit esports today as Poland's RTS powerhouse, Meet Your Makers (MYM) completely disbanded their entire Warcraft 3 and Starcraft: Broadwar rosters. This leaves two of the world's greatest Warcraft 3 players without a team and over twenty of the world's top RTS players and managers in search of new organisations.
The biggest shock is seeing Jang Jae Ho aka Moon and Manuel Schenkhuizen aka Grubby, two of the most well paid and successful WC3 players ever, left out on the pavement. The two titans went head-to-head in the World Cyber Games final in Cologne back in November in an epic grand final that saw Grubby, from the Netherlands, take his long awaited second WCG title (his first came back in 2004). Moon, who hails from Korea, has been one eSports top earners outside of Starcraft taking home over $161,000 US in 2007 just in prize money alone. Together they are two of the most respected and loved players in the sport.
Warcraft veteran Susiria retires
Meet Your Makers have stated that the decision to let go their entire WC3 and SC rosters was based on parent company ESNation's shift in strategy and focus. According to Grubby's girlfriend and former MYM Cassandra Ng, Warcraft 3 was only generating about 20% of MYM's site traffic. A figure no where near good enough for a team paying the salaries of some of the world's best RTS players.
Shortly after the MYM announcement, Korean WC3 veteran Jung Ki Oh aka Susiria announced on readmore.de that he would no longer play Warcraft 3 and only compete for fun. Will any of Susiria's former teammates follow in his footsteps? They very well could if Ng is anyone to go by. Her last MYM blog entry states that, "if he (Grubby) gets an offer that makes it possible to continue doing what he loves, he might go for it. If not, retiring from progaming is the next option. All biases aside, I sincerely think that his retirement will not only be a great loss to the Warcraft scene, but also to e-Sports in general."
Losing Grubby because of poor management by Meet Your Makers would be a very sad day.
One person who hasn't lost any sleep over the matter is Grubby's former teammate, Moon, who is rumoured to be close to signing a 16,000€ a month contract with professional Korean Starcraft team WeMadeFox. When Moon's last contract with MYM was up for renewal, WeMadeFox offered the world number two a similar contract but was turned down with Moon deciding to resign with MYM.
Beginning of the End
Could this be the beginning of the end for Warcraft 3? With Starcraft 2 not too far away, perhaps it is. MYM is not the first major western esports team to rid its roster of almost all Warcraft 3 or RTS players. Two months ago Mortal Team Work made the decision to cut several players and focus only on individual competitions. SK Gaming has quietly been dumping WC3 players under the radar for the past month. Gravitas Gaming gave up on Warcraft 3 a long ago.
Warcraft 3's future will be determined over the next few weeks. Moon's possible signing with WeMadeFox is a positive sign as is Grubby not throwing in the towel yet. Personally, I enjoy watching Warcraft in competition and it usually is one of the most enjoyable titles to watch at an event. Let's hope it doesn't go away anytime soon, even if it's just so we don't lose esports favourite son, Grubby.
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Schu11ers said: (Jan 31 2009 at 10:51:42 GMT)
Interesting. Could it be that they priced themselves out of a job?
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