Overwatch lost another team today, with the news that LDLC would be leaving the scene with immediate effect. The team did not pull any punches with their reasoning either, pinning their decision mainly on Blizzard’s lack of direction and communication, with only the briefest mention of results-based doubts they may have had about the team or players therein.
The statement on the website can be found in full here, but the opening section is both illuminating and somewhat familiar to those that have followed the scene for a while now. The announcement of the move has the usual ‘we can stay friends’ feel to it, but there was definitely a barb or two thrown Blizzard’s way too, as shown in the excerpt below.
The contracts of our Overwatch team have expired by the end of june and we do not wish to renew them. Moreover, our results during the Overwatch Contenders and the strategic choice of Blizzard Entertainment, which don’t help clubs like ours to continue to invest in this game, make us decide to stop the story.
In isolation, this would be a worrying thing for an org to say, even one with LDLC’s history, but in the context of the current Overwatch climate it is the latest in a string of fairly damning statements aimed at the company. Their handling of the run-up to and preparation for the Overwatch League has created more problems than it has solved to date, and there is a real sense that time and hype is running short if they want their FPS to take esports by storm.
The team was made up of Guillaume ’KabaL’ Ettori , Metehan ’Mete’ Aksüt, Mihail Cristian ’Meza’ Paunescu, Artem ’Kensi’ Budiak and Kiryl ’Anak’ Nikalayenka, with the latter recruited from the world of Team Fortress 2. Kabal will join the LDLC staff, with the rest set to depart the organisation entirely, with the following statement provided by LDLC Esports Director Anthony Rabby.
“We were very happy to work on Overwatch since almost a year and we consider ourselves lucky to have met thoses players who brought us so much. We really love Overwatch and we will watch carefully the development of this game. We wish a lot a courage to our former team and we hope they will reach their goals soon.”
It will be interesting to see where the team goes from here, with the players involved probably not as proud as they could be of their time at LDLC, but the growing grumble from teams like the French org needs to be addressed at some point. What started as a trickle has become a deluge, and we are in danger of seeing Overwatch dry up before it ever really starts to flourish.
Images courtesy of LDLC
