New Valve Guidelines Suggest Big Tournament Reforms

The latest Valve guidelines will see the financial dynamics between teams and tournament organizers undergo a massive change

In a groundbreaking move, Valve has announced three measures that will curtail business affiliations between teams and tournament organizers to a substantial degree. The new Valve revenue sharing guideline will effectively end competitions featuring partnered teams.

An update on the future of Counter-Strike esports: https://t.co/WYrYMf7zNZ

— CS2 (@CounterStrike) August 3, 2023

Prominent Esports reporter Richard Lewis had revealed a few months back that Valve had introduced a new set of demands to tournament organizers for granting them CS2 license. The latest reforms validate Lewis' report.

New Valve Tournament Guidelines: What Will Change?

Both ESL and BLAST, the leading operators in Counter-Strike, have established circuits centered around handpicked teams receiving invites to tournaments and collaborating on revenue sharing. This contrasts with the game's historical values, which embraced a multitude of tournament organizers organizing open events with prize money.

Valve is reverting to the game's foundational principles, requiring tournament operators to adopt an open format where teams are invited based on Valve's ranking system or via open qualifiers.

Valve New Guidelines: What Are The New Rules?

As Valve continues to work on the details, they have outlined three general rules.

Tournament organizers must refrain from having special business connections or conflicts of interest with the teams involved in their events.
Valve's ranking system will serve as the primary basis for all tournament invitations, while open qualifiers will be an alternative method.
The compensation provided to participating teams, whether in the form of prize pool or otherwise, will be made public, and the criteria used for determination will be objective and available for community review.

When Will The New Rules Come To Effect?

In consideration of teams and tournament organizers with pre-existing long-term arrangements, Valve has provided an adjustment window. The new rules will not be applicable before 2025.

What Did ESL And BLAST Say About The New Valve Guidelines?

Ulrich Schulze, senior vice president of Game Ecosystems at the ESL FACEIT Group, took to Twitter to declare that ESL will adopt a new approach of inviting teams through rankings and qualifiers starting in 2025, following Valve's forthcoming guidelines.

We will shift our tournament revenue sharing model from selected teams to all teams participating starting in 2025. We will announce more details on this in the coming months.

— Ulrich Schulze (@theflyingdj) August 3, 2023

In an official tweet, BLAST declared their commitment to follow Valve's new criteria from 2025 onwards, resulting in teams under BLAST's agreement losing their invitations to BLAST Groups.