http://kotaku.com/assets/resources/2008/03/cpl_logo.jpg
Effective immediately, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) will cease operations. Therefore, all CPL events currently scheduled for 2008 are hereby canceled.
The CPL was launched in June 1997 with the pioneering mission of promoting and sanctioning video game competitions as a professional sport. For ten years the CPL events experienced increased growth - commencing with a small LAN event in Dallas, Texas, and culminating in world-class competitions across five continents.
However, the current fragmentation of the sport, a crowded field of competing leagues, and the current economic climate have prompted the CPL to suspend its pro-tournament operations. The CPL regrets that this news will disappoint those that were planning on attending the summer and winter events this year.
Many thanks to all of the sponsors and partners that helped CPL establish the groundwork for professional video game competitions. Their vision and pioneering spirit should always be remembered.
― s1ocki, Sunday, 16 March 2008 22:41 (seventeen years ago)
Wow, that logo.
― JimD, Monday, 17 March 2008 01:10 (seventeen years ago)
Kind of amazing that it even lasted over a decade. Is there even still a competitive FPS scene? I guess there'll still be those Korean Starcraft players...
― Nhex, Monday, 17 March 2008 03:16 (seventeen years ago)
the logo is so sad.
― s1ocki, Monday, 17 March 2008 05:00 (seventeen years ago)
MY friend used to be in CPL for counterstrike. Ever since he got a life he's much more happy in general.
― Will M., Monday, 17 March 2008 15:29 (seventeen years ago)
YOUR friend
― s1ocki, Monday, 17 March 2008 15:55 (seventeen years ago)
Competitive gaming does try so very hard, but things like that logo always come along and remind us all that its a bunch of kids playing computer games.
CPL going under is a shame, but it is mostly down to more competitions rising up than anything else (CEVO mainly). It is all going a bit stale too, it's been based on an axis of CS 1.6, CS:Source and Warcraft for years now and no game has really broken through. Problem is that you need a game that has a huge populist player base that can also make for good competition and is easy to run at a LAN event. Very few games fit the picture. All the RTS's since Warcraft haven't even come close. C&C3 was too spammy, CoH wasn't popular enough, DoW was a hilariously unbalanced expansion-pack cashcow. Any FPS's have either been to gimmicky (TF2, BF2, Quake Wars) or too close to Counterstrike (COD2). COD4 is gathering a bit of momentum now and looks the likeliest to go huge but it looks like COD is going to be a franchise with a game a year which will hinder it in the long run.
Maybe too the whole thing has just hit a brick wall with how much progress it can make. When it comes down to it 'e-sports' (lol) are terrible to watch. The FPS's are too fast to spectate, the RTS's have too much depth to communicate. The only people who are interested in these things are the people involved and the handful of guys who shoutcast matches clinging on to the vague hope that it'll go huge and get on TV at some point. Which it won't.
― Lynskey, Monday, 17 March 2008 16:04 (seventeen years ago)
I wish I could stop capitalizing the second letter of every sentence :/
― Will M., Monday, 17 March 2008 16:13 (seventeen years ago)
wave of the future::
Settlers of CatanTV (alternate name: Settlers of iCatan)
Middle of the screen is overhead view of the board, 4 corners show what resource and development cards each player has.
wave of the future, wave of the future, wave of the future...
― Z S, Monday, 17 March 2008 16:39 (seventeen years ago)