Low viewership and failed payments to teams – the developers who previously were affected by the Russian oligarchs are probably getting into a tough situation…
ESPN reports that H1Z1 Pro League is ending, as there wasn’t a lot of viewers despite several known eSports teams (Cloud9, Team SoloMid, Echo Fox) participating, even though their payments didn’t happen… so Daybreak Games‘ H1Z1 isn’t getting to its second season in the league!
Jace Hall, Twin Galaxies’ co-president, says they are now working on paying the teams and the players: the fifteen participating teams are owed a total of three million dollars, breaking down to 250K per team to pay the salaries of the players. Several teams (Cloud9, Team SoloMid, Counter Logic) covered payments out of their pockets, meaning a net loss to them. After this debacle, we can say that H1Z1 has flopped on a professional level.
The whole debacle might be led back to the Spring when several Russian oligarchs’ (who were tied to Daybreak in a way or another) bank accounts in the United States were frozen. The battle royale throne wasn’t taken back by H1Z1 despite it getting a PlayStation 4 port. Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are still the most-played battle royale games.
Source: DualShockers