Gotfrag.com was recently contacted by several gamers from a diverse background of videogames. The gamers claimed they were owed the prize money won at one or more tournaments organized by the Global Gaming League.

Halo 2 teams fighting for their winnings

Daniel Stepanic, alias DeLuD3d from the Halo 2 team “OmgLikeWoah”, attended the Army Gaming Championships (AGC) orchestrated by the GGL in October 2007. Stepanic is a twenty year old college student from Dallas, Texas. According to him, none of the teams involved with that competition were paid.

“Three tournaments were held for Halo 2,” he said. According to Stepanic’s estimate, the purse for those tournaments was reportedly anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 USD.
The official website for the competition has been deleted.

“My team is owed 3450 dollars, and there are other teams owed money as well. They (GGL) continue to push back the date. They even went as far as to lie and say batches were being sent out as they typed messages in the forums. In fact no checks were sent out and now they are stating it will be another month before prizes are sent out,” Stepanic said.

Director of Communications at the Global Gaming League does not refute Stepanic’s claims. He points to the usual problems in paying out prize money and blames the process.

“The process for paying out the winners is always a laborious one that is very time consuming. We have many legal requirements that we have to follow in addition to sorting out all winners' information, eligibility, disputes and verification of the results,” Summa said.

The original time frame for prize payout was 45 days. However the competition ended in mid-October with no tax forms sent out from the organizer (GGL). According to Stepanic, the teams received the forms in late November or early December and his team allegedly sent them back within a week.

“Our view is that it is not unreasonable to have to wait 90 days after the end of the tournament to get all of this done right,” Summa said. Stepanic claims the holdup is at GGL’s end and that his team has done their share of the paperwork.

“The team captain filled out his tax form and sent it in. He has a confirmation email from both Joe Moss and Em Porter stating that they had received his forms,” Stepanic said.

Summa’s answer is that for the GGL to start paying out prize money, they need complete and flawless paperwork, not only from Stepanic’s “OmgLikeWoah”, but for all the eligible winners. The director of communication recognizes that this might not be time efficient, but he upholds that it is done for the gamers’ benefit as it helps avoid any problems that could lead to teams and players forfeiting their winnings.

“We can't award prizing to a second place finisher only to discover that the winner was disqualified or ineligible. We have tried many strategies, and this simply works best.

Forfeiture of prizing is a severe result that we attempt to avoid […] until all winners have completed the process (even if some of those folks end up forfeiting their prizing), we simply cannot pay any winners.”

Summa added, “We really do want to clear this up as fast as possible!”

Trailing in the Eurocup

This story does not only have repercussions for North American gamers. Its impact is also faced by prominent members of the 1.6 community in Europe as well.

Martin ”guddo” Cording, long time manger and a representative of NoA, claims GGL’s affiliate Clanbase failed to make good on their financial commitments to him and the team. NoA won Eurocup XIII and XV, tournaments held in 2006 and 2007. The turnaround on the 2006 prize money was over one year. It was finally paid out during the fourth quarter of 2007.

According to Cordin, the team is still owed 6000 Euro from the 2007 edition of the cup, those funds have yet to enter NoA’s bank account. Despite Cordin's repeated attempts at reaching GGL President Brett Hawkins, he has yet to reply to emails.

“After being in frequently dialogue with the European Managing Director I decided to contact the president myself. Unfortunately, those attempts have yet to be met with a reply,” Cording said.

Robert Summa was not familiar with these issues. He was willing to look into it to comment on the record for both GGL and Clanbase. Again, he feels the fault lies with business bureaucracy.

“For EC XV the finals on Sept. 7-9th 2007, our goal was to pay prizing out in December. Unfortunately, business constraints have prevented us from doing so; we are working hard to get these paid out and will do so in the next 60 days.”