Counter-Strike Tournament: Cancelled. Counter-Strike All Star Game: Cancelled. Counter-Strike Womans: Aborted, prizes redistributed. Call of Duty Tournament: Relocated then aborted, prizes redistributed. Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Cancelled. Americas Army: Unfinished, finals online. Quake III: Aborted, prizes redistributed. BYOC Tournaments: Cancelled, some prizes given away. UT2K3 and Warcraft III Tournament: Finished. What really happened?

GotFrag as a media source has a responsibility to the community to provide an unbiased and factual description of the occurrences at the event. Having finally had a chance to reflect on the chaos of the event, what follows is our impressions and experiences surrounding what could be an epic Greek tragedy.

When we first arrived at CXG on Wednesday morning, we were presented with a very well structured event. The sponsor’s booths were impressive, and the actual BYOC area was already laid out. The event featured a front stage with a great audio and video system, providing what we hoped would be an excellent tournament for on-site spectators. The tournament systems were top of the line as were many other aspects of the event setup. Considering that CXG began setup a little over 24 hours prior to our arrival, we were impressed with their efforts. But setting up an event and running a tournament are two wholly different matters.

When the GotFrag staff left the event area Wednesday night, the tournament PC’s still had not been fully unpacked or fully installed with the tournament games. By Thursday morning, the process was still incomplete.

On Thursday morning, the BYOC attendees slowly filtered in and never filled more than half the capacity. The complete competitor list was not available until midnight on Thursday (Friday morning) in multiple games. Several teams (i.e. D-Sky and GG) were not recorded in the registration process even after the “final” competitor list was handed to GotFrag. GotFrag gave seeding recommendations to CXG staff shortly thereafter. The following Friday morning, when the teams reported in, the seedings had to be redone in order to account for the missing teams.

The spotlight game of the tournament, Counter-Strike, had only three matches played in the first day of the event after significant delays resulting from cabling and Internet/Steam-related issues. There were reports that Steam was being DDoS’d during that night. The extent and cause of the Steam-related issues throughout the event however, are unconfirmed. Regardless, the largest impact upon all of the tournaments being run at CXG was a lack of tournament preparation. Specifically there was no tournament schedule for every game except Warcraft III, and an understaffing at the event.

Early Saturday morning, CXG called a meeting with key members of the CS community to discuss the tournament delays and how the event might move forward. During this meeting, CXG realized that there were many problems that needed to be addressed. Several members of the CS community, along side Super Computer Inc., stepped forward to assist in salvaging an event that was in dire straits. These people included key members of Super Computer Inc, GotFrag, Craig “Torbull” Levine and a number of volunteers from the gamers in attendance. At great professional risk to himself; Craig willingly volunteered his expertise, time and efforts out of a desire to see the event succeed for the sake of the community. Additionally, the entire staff at Super Computer Inc put forth a great effort, above and beyond their obligations, pulling yet another all-nighter to make sure that the entire infrastructure was ready for the upcoming matches. Combined, these people led the tasks of creating a full bracket and schedule for the CS tournament, and rebuilding the tournament network that was setup prior to the event. In addition, brackets and schedules were created for the other game tournaments.

By 8AM PST on Saturday, all of the goals set at 1:30AM late the previous night were accomplished. The brackets were complete, a new tournament network was up with revamped cabling, and the teams were ready to play. As the first Counter-Strike teams were called in and began to set-up, things were working smoothly. As more players filtered in, a problem with running Steam became more and more apparent. At 20 players, it was nearly impossible to launch Steam to join the local LAN tournament servers. After some analysis, it was determined that the problem was that the limited amount of bandwidth at the event was unable to support the required number of steam sessions.

Only two matches were playable simultaneously. With over 50 CS matches left, it was clear that completion of the CS tournament was impossible in the time remaining. That conclusion being reached, the volunteers met with Joe Hill to present the current status. Mr. Hill then made a determination to cancel the CS tournament, and instead run a series of exhibition matches with a reduced total prize amount. He then met with the team captains to break the news—he also committed to fully reimburse teams for their travel expenses incurred to attend the event, and other expenses on a case by case basis.

In an open forum, Mr. Hill took questions from the assembled captains. Topics included reasons behind the cancellation, and questions about reimbursement. Mr. Hill also apologized for the outcome of the event and accepted responsibility while simultaneously indicating that, in his opinion, there were “outside forces at work”—naming prominent figures in the competitive gaming scene. GotFrag cannot substantiate any of those claims and will not publish them here without supporting proof.

Exhibition matches to fill the time remaining were announced in a $10,000 per match “shootout” format. 8 games were scheduled, including an Americas vs European All Stars match up, with several others added later for a $2,000 prize each. The exhibition matches were a thoughtful attempt at salvaging an event filled with some of the best teams in the world. With the understanding that the exhibition matches would run one by one, the volunteers were asked to step away, leaving the matches to be administered by the CXG staff. All in all, 7 of the 8 initially scheduled shootout matches were completed. Unfortunately, the matches were not managed properly, causing significant delays and ultimately the cancellation of the All Stars match and all of the additional exhibition matches.

Meanwhile, Unreal Tournament 2003 and Warcraft III finished ahead of schedule; The Return to Castle Wolfenstein tournament was cancelled before a single match was played; The Female CS tournament was stuttering along; The Call of Duty tournament was in progress, having begun at 3:30 AM the night before and having suffered several additional delays; America’s Army and Quake3 were moving along at a good pace, despite their very late starts.

As these tournaments were ongoing, the mood grew uglier and uglier by the hour. Joe Hill and every CXG admin were constantly surrounded by players, spectators, and parents demanding answers. Tempers flared and more than a few heated words were offered to CXG staff. By Sunday afternoon, the last hour of the event loomed, and the situation went from a failure to a catastrophe.

CXG Staff began ushering players out the door and event organizers began tearing down the tournament and BYOC areas. Power was turned off in all the outlets in the main area. In the middle of the CoD semi-final loser’s matches, the entire event came to a screeching halt, including all ongoing games.

CXG announced that all teams remaining in unfinished or un-cancelled tournaments would be awarded prizes. For example, the four teams remaining in CoD split the total prize amount, $6800 per team, with team zfz receiving only $200 more for winning the winners bracket. All-in-all, only two of the seven game tournaments were completed, with CoD’s prize distribution reflecting the entire event.

For the record, GotFrag’s relationship with CXG has always been one of press and event. We were never paid by CXG at any point or time. Every volunteer’s efforts, including ours, during the event were for the betterment of the community and the eSports industry. GotFrag, like the many prestigious teams at the event, devoted money, time and effort into their attendance at CXG. We hoped, like everyone in attendance, that this event would raise the bar in eSports. Unfortunately, it has not.

~ The GotFrag Staff in Las Vegas