The $300,000 Irrelevant H1Z1 Event

Some of you will love this post, and some of you will hate it. I completely understand you regardless of if you agree or disagree with me on this but, hear me out. Please note I’m a huge fan of H1Z1 King of the Kill and at the time of writing this I have around 500 hours of play time invested into the game.

What is the $300,000 H1Z1 King Of The Kill event? I’ll tell you in Daybreak Games own words, “H1Z1: Fight for the Crown is a six-part esports docuseries coming this spring to The CW Network, with the finale featuring the first ever 5-man H1Z1: King of the Kill tournament! The 75-person tournament will feature 15 elite teams of five, including Echo Fox, Rogue Gaming, Panda Global and Denial Esports, all competing for their share of a $300,000 prize pool.”

Now that we all know what it is, I’m going to highlight a few of my issues with the event.

• 75 person tournament based on five players per team for a total of 15 teams. Players must be ranked in the top 200 leaderboards based on “Solo scores.”

• “The Tournament will be filmed on March 19th, 2017” in front of a live studio audience.

• “The H1Z1: Fight for the Crown tournament will be broadcast on April 20, 2017 on The CW Network.”

• “The actual tournament will consist of only one game where all of the prize money will be distributed. The tournament will be very high pressure and intense!”

THIS NEXT ONE IS A BIGGIE..

• “Tournament Results and Confidentiality: Players and Teams in the Tournament must not disclose the winner of the Tournament. As the filming of the tournament will not be live, and the surprise of the winner is a crucial element to the commercial viability of the broadcast, disclosing the winner will cause the Tournament and the Sponsor irreparable harm. Therefore, all Players individually and Team agree to each pay one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) to Sponsor for any disclosure of any Player or Team’s finishing placement in the Tournament attributable to that Player or Team or disclosed by a person associated with the Player or Team. This is not a penalty but a requirement due to the loss of economic interest that Sponsor may suffer.”

Ok, let’s start from the top. The prize pool is excellent, and I’m happy Daybreak decided to go towards a team based event instead of the traditional free for all aka “solos” event.

My first issue is how players must qualify to play for a team in the event, why must all of the players be in the top 200 on the Twin Galaxies leaderboards for them to be eligible to be on a team? This makes zero sense, it’s almost like they’re saying org owners/players are too stupid to ensure they have the best team possible going into the event.

The tournament won’t be steamed in Twitch.tv in a live environment setting.. are you kidding me? Did someone forget the only reason the game is relevant, is because of Twitch and the streamers who continue to play the game regardless of all the issues the game has?

The tournament will be shown on “The CW Network” almost a month after the event is over. WHAT? WHO? WHY? Please come out and say this is all a joke?

Speaking of the event being aired on TV over a month after it’s over… you expect people to stay silent on the outcome of the event? Five players will win $180,000, and they can’t say a damn word to anyone? Have you lost your minds?

“Individual players and teams agree to EACH pay $100,000 to Sponsor for any disclosure of any Player or Team’s finishing placement.” Yes, I wanted to quote that part again as this is simply amazing! We live in a world where people want to consume content in real-time and yet we have an Esports event being treated like it’s something that should be on HBO.

This simply doesn’t work, can you imagine if E League did this with CSGO? People would be burning down the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Just recently the Call of Duty World League event had a delayed broadcast pushed one hour late to Twitch after it was aired on MLG.TV and it was laughable at best.

People in Esports and Gaming, please remember we don’t need TV to continue the incredible growth of Esports.. TV needs us! As their numbers keep declining and ours keep growing, a ton of traditional marketing budgets will continue to flow into our space.