Valve is looking to ban closed circuit leagues in Counter-Strike 2, and has banned tournament organisers from inviting teams to events. These changes will take effect in 2025.
Tournament organisers will be banned from having "unique business relationships" with teams that play in their events. Also, organisers will have to be open about money given to teams, including prize pools and other incentives.
"The ecosystem has become gradually less open, with access to the highest levels of competition increasingly gated by business relationships," says a statement from Valve (via Dexerto). "We think that Counter-Strike should be an open sport. So we're going to add new requirements to running large-scale competitive events."
In the past, FACEIT Group and BLAST have been creating partnered circuits, not allowing for open qualifier competitions. This means that if you're trying to make it as a new CS2 team, you won't have the chance to face off against top-tier competition.
What do you think of these changes?
