Bizarre that this is even coming out as a controversial view, but it helps shed light on the burn-out that players are experiencing within professional Counter-Strike that has led to multiple players stepping away from the esport temporarily to recover.
The CSPPA, which stands for the Counter-Strike Professional Players Association, is coming out against multiple tourney organizers and demanding that players are offered at least a three-hour break in between matches.
This is coming to a head as European team ‘c0ntact’ had a four-hour-long match, with a fifteen-minute turnaround before they were due on another server. One of their players was beginning to feel ill, and they requested a veto of the match until a future time so that they could recover from the grueling set they had just endured. The tournament organizer told them politely to get bent.
The stress that is coming from players consistently needing to play back-to-back matches is beginning to take its toll, and the tournament organizers appear to care very little. After all, if the match doesn’t go on as planned, then how can anyone make money?
The CSPPA has stepped forward and thrown their weight behind the players, showing concern for their well-being as some teams are playing multiple matches a day against very highly-ranked teams.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like many Tournament Organizers (TOs in the industry) are entirely willing to adopt this stance, as it means fewer matches occurring daily, which results in fewer views, which ultimately hurts their advertising strength when they try to sell spots.
And if they can’t monetize, then what has this all been about.
It’s worth noting that Counter-Strike matches can be a grueling ordeal, even more so if they’re in a best-of 3 (BO3) series.
Multiple times fans have watched singular maps stretch well beyond two hours as teams seem permanently locked in overtime, with neither being able to find a weakness in the other’s armor as the series progresses. It’s a stressful event when a BO3 starts with a two-hour map, with up to two more maps that need to be played.
It isn’t outside of the realm of possibility that a BO3 series could stretch beyond five hours of intense play, and scheduling a match to occur after that series could well result in a few minutes of downtime before they need to begin fighting yet again.
There’s a simple solution nestled somewhere inside, yet TOs simply need teams to compete, and not competing will ultimately hurt a team’s rankings. So compete they will, until inevitably a team will simply need to forfeit a match for safety or health. Perhaps at that point, it will be taken a bit more seriously.
