The Championship Gaming Series has taken strong measures to assure its Counter-Strike: Source players are not seen playing CS1.6, using the threat of fines to prevent players from attending CS1.6 events.
CGS’s rationale is that 1.6 events directly compete with its own events. Somewhat paradoxically, the CGS regularly allows its teams and players to attend events that use the same games as the CGS. CGS squads 3D.NY, compLexity, and San Fransisco OPTX attended GGL’s DigitalLife 2007 CS:Source competition.
Several CGS Dead or Alive 4 players, as well as Project Gotham Racing 3 star Ch0mpr, were also allowed to attend the World Cyber Games 2007 Grand Final, but no CGS Counter-Strike teams attended.
Stermy (of OPTX) attended QuakeCon for the Quad Damage Tournament, but wasn’t fined because the CGS doesn’t consider QuakeCon a competing event.
Dallas Venom’s Kevin “aZn” Wang recently received a $5,000 fine for attending the X3O Dust Off Championships, a CS1.6 LAN event, with his friends. When asked for comment, Wang described the situation to GotFrag as “…retarded.”
The Source/1.6 situation directly highlights the murky rules of player exclusivity in this “new era” of e-sports. As leagues attempt to enforce player exclusivity, other competitions are often denied the prestige of having the best players attend.
Source: GotFrag
