The fall of 3DMAX sent shockwaves through the gaming community last night and rightfully so. They were a team on the way to the top with what from the outside seemed to be big and stable sponsorships. At ESWC their female team won the entire tournament and their male team qualified for the major in Katowice and have been showing strong results recently. But last night their management decided to call it quits.

This is also a clear signal that the business side of esports still has ways to go. The willingness for sponsors to pay for the impressions that 3DMAX and teams of their size actually delivers still need to rise considerably. Another factor is of course that the amount of teams trying to compete for sponsorship at this level is enormous. It is also really hard to judge a team from the outside but if a team that seemingly has it all struggles to compete for sponsorships it might be signs of esports rapid expansion, high number of competitors and lack of funding outside of the absolute top teams.

In their own statement they cite “changed priorities” and “We have decided to put an end to our activities before 3DMAX cannot garantee a decent, high level management for their players.”. All very understandable reasons as running a professional gaming team at this level as it is very challenging and time consuming. The biggest strenght of esports is its biggest weakness with the lack of organisation and solidarity among teams. This fact also enables the power to remain in the hands of sponsors and big tournaments. When in fact the whole product that is sold in said tournaments are the teams and their rivalries, the star players in them and their fanbase watching.

Regulation continue to be a hot topic of debate but right now outside of Kespa and Riots LCS esports are very free and non-regulated. I think it is an amazing scene where any organizer or any team can rise through the ranks and that it truly inspires competition. But others see the lack of a governing body with strict rules and established business practices as weird and out of place. The recent leak of information concerning ESL and a closed league with big money and the top teams does not seem to be the right way forward to me. It excludes all teams not in this agreement to compete against the teams in it. But it´s way to early to make any comments as the deal is not even confirmed or announced.

The competitive nature of esports means that demand for increased budgets affect all teams and keeps rising and just to keep up with the increased demands in salary and travel budgets can be challenging for teams. It is very positive for the players that the demand for salary and travel budgets are on the rise though. This means that the willingness for organisations to pay the stars their true market value are increasing. For example when we started Team Property salaries was very rare especially in Starcraft outside of Korea and today they are pretty much a requirement to compete at any of the higher levels in the pro scene. That is just five years of development of our sport and really makes you think where the scene might be in five years time.

There are still huge challenges when it comes to organising the sport we all love. But a team pretty similar to us has gone down and that is very sad to see. All of us at Team Property wish the players and staff all the best in the future and hope to meet them again on the pro circuit.