A loot dispute heats up the Championship finale this weekend
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A hearty congrats to the winners of the ALGS Championships so far! Paradox Esports in South America took home $110,000 for their victory; FENNEL Korea earned a $177,000 check for their win in APAC North; and in APAC South, WOLFPACK ARCTIC led the field for their own $177,000 payday.
Now the Championship is gearing up for a grand finale this weekend, with EMEA finals on Saturday and NA finals on Sunday. In North America, NRG has been on an absolute tear lately, finishing more than 60 points ahead of the 2nd place TSM(FTX) during the group stage. From their brutal aggression to their absurdly clean bubble fighting, NRG are by far the deadliest team in the field right now and the squad to beat. EMEA is a closer field as usual, with the top three teams from the group stage, NEW, Alliance, and Gambit, all within a few points of each other.
Tunnel vision
Sunday’s upcoming NA final got a dash of extra spice this week, when drama broke out between members of CLG and Alpine Esports. Alpine, who recently signed Euriece, Rkn, and Hill, have been dropping Survey Camp, a meager spot for loot. CLG drops Skyhook and loots a large portion of it, including the tunnel to the east—very close to Survey Camp.
Desperate for better gear, Alpine began contesting CLG for the loot in the tunnel east of Skyhook. This angered the CLG squad (to put it mildly), who felt blindsided by Alpine’s sudden change in strategy. Legions of CLG fans, as well as some pros, concurred, while others felt that CLG had no intrinsic right to the tunnel.
Not content to settle their differences on the battlefield alone, members of each team took to Twitter, where a series of poorly-drawn diagrams did little to clarify the situation.
Madness shot back with his own drawing, which I personally cannot explain but will leave here for historians of Apex to ponder:
Rkn went on in a tweet thread here, explaining his reasoning at length. Finally there was a bit of name-calling and a low blow by Madness:
Squabbles like this, however cringe, are fascinating insights into the psyche of pros and lead to only good things for spectators. Love or hate them, the fact is that contested drops generate excitement for the game. There's so much on the line this weekend, but win or lose, both of these teams will have a bright spotlight on them for the broadcast (even if, as I suspect, they won’t actually fight that hard for the tunnel) and will help create drama in the otherwise quiet early game.
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Twitch numbers during Champs
So far, viewership of the Championship’s official broadcast has fallen short of big events like the Winter Circuit Playoffs, the most-watched event on the offical stream to date. EMEA averaged around 40,000 viewers during that broadcast, and NA averaged around 50,000. The three days of Championship competition in EMEA and and NA averaged between 10,000 and 15,000 viewers, putting those stats well behind the official numbers from all three days of the now-legendary Preseason Invitational LAN as well.
But let’s be clear: comparing viewership numbers directly is hardly a scientific measure of fan interest. There are now official broadcasts in Russian, French, and Japanese, somewhat splitting viewership, at least in APAC North and the EU. And the Championship finales tomorrow and Sunday might easily smash the Winter Circuit Playoffs numbers, given that many fans don’t have the time or inclination to watch three days of group stages, and, perhaps more importantly, that viewers can earn exclusive in-game items just from tuning in.
Another issue to consider is the growing cultural importance of the individual stream in competitive Apex. Back in Poland and at X-Games, the big stars of the game were just getting going, and the main broadcast allowed viewers to develop loyalties for teams and players that have turned out to be, for lack of a better word, fairly sticky. The best example of this is unsurprisingly TSM, whose dominant early performances on the competitive circuit and legendary clutch at Poland gave them the momentum that made them the most popular team in the Apex. Hal’s stream has been dominating the Apex category during the Championships—he averaged around 40,000 viewers on day 3 of the group stage, about 4 times more popular than the official broadcast, and peaked at 63,000, an all-time high for him. That growth shows no signs of stopping, either: his share of the total competitive Apex viewership appears to be increasing with every tournament. He’s hogging all the eyeballs.
And more than two years into the game, I think it’s fair to say that broadcasts following the entire lobby are still trying to find their footing. The rationale behind the unfortunate creator-led broadcast of Winter Circuit #3, when the production team got the day off, was sound: draw viewers to single casters on a more intimate personal channel, where it’s much easier to keep track of five teams than twenty. This is part of the reason why competitive Arenas has so much potential (depending on who you ask) from a broadcasting and esports perspective. Two squads facing off is a concept everyone can understand and follow, while asking viewers to grasp quick transitions among twenty different teams has always been a big ask.
Of course, the folks at Respawn/EA know this, and it may be part of the rationale behind bringing folks like NiceWigg on as an offical partner. A single personality who brings their unique perspective, complete with quirks, gaps in knowledge, and a good sense of humor, can often be more entertaining and edifying than a large and dedicated broadcast team that tries to do it all.
What to watch this weekend:
Today: The second and final day of the $10,000 Knights Carnage Cup, an invite-only tourney played right in the middle of Championship season.
Saturday, June 12th: EMEA Championship finals at 4 PM BST.
Sunday, June 13th: NA Championship finals starting at 5 PM EST.
Everything else:
Joseph Cox at Vice broke news of a big hack at EA affecting FIFA, the Frostbite game engine, and related source code. Luckily, Apex does not run on Frostbite and appears to have escaped unscathed from this breach.
Apex player Yeul released a statement accusing another community member, Harvest, of grooming him.
Caster Raynday spoke with Daniel Z. Klein about legend balancing, ranked Arenas, and other topics in a new YouTube video.
FaZe Clan made the cover of this month’s Sports Illustrated.
A kind Redditor pointed out that there's a mistake on my ALGS dates—they are, of course, this weekend, but that's June 12th and 13th for EMEA and NA respectively.