(Photo: Brandon Parker)



On March 10, World Cyber Arena announced its 2016 season. A few seconds later, the collective groan of the esports community swept across the internet.

That’s because in its past two years, the WCA has generously been considered a cataclysmic disaster on every front. Several pro players confirmed to Yahoo Esports that the organization not only suffers from severe planning problems but struggles to simply pay winning players. Some players claim they still haven’t even been paid for WCA 2014.

So how did we get here?

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(Photo: Brandon Parker)

The name game

WCA was born out of the World Cyber Games, which formed in 2000. The event would mirror the Olympics, holding its own Opening Ceremony and bringing together pro players and teams from 17 different countries. The prize pool was a hefty $200,000. The event returned year after year, jumping around the world to places like Korea, California and Germany.

Thanks to some poor decisions by management and partners, such as dropping Counter-Strike from their roster of games, the WCG shut down in 2014. Over its lifetime, the organization doled out $4.5 million in prize money.

But it wasn’t quite finished. In its death, the WCG split into two Chinese competitions: WEC (World Esports Championship) and WCA. After an initial event in 2014, the WEC went quiet. We are now in our third year, however, of the WCA.

The WCA global finals are held in Yinchuan, China. You’ve never heard of Yinchuan because it’s one of the most remote cities on the Chinese mainland, bumping up against the Mongolian border. Despite its location, the local government banded together on an initiative to build a massive esports arena, the Ningxia International Convention Center.

What they didn’t build, however, was a supportive infrastructure. And players are paying for it.

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(Photo: Brandon Parker)

Production problems

In 2015, WCA hoped to lure teams with promises of a well-organized trip to Yinchuan. What they got, however, was one headache after another.

Flights were a chaotic mess of incorrect dates, missing connections, and 14-hour layovers. European Warcraft III organizer Fabian Playah was reportedly stuck in the Beijing airport for 20 hours after a missed connection due to a scheduling mishap. Some players had to rebook their own flights and were promised to be reimbursed at the venue, which has yet to happen.

Players were lodged at a beautiful yet unfinished five-star hotel that they were not allowed to leave for reasons unknown. No one working the front desk spoke English. Teams were afforded translators, but they were local volunteers who struggled to bridge the language barrier. The venue was a full hour bus ride away from the hotel, and the buses were not heated despite temperatures in Yinchaun that hung in the negative numbers.

Meanwhile, the Chinese players took full advantage of their home field by staying at a hotel within 10 minutes walking distance to the venue. The edge given to the Chinese players and teams was an ongoing trend throughout the tournament.

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