1NΞ · @1NEeSports
13th Sep 2018 from TwitLonger
Cancellation of APL 3.0 until further notice
Hi Everyone, Tasty here.
Apologies this is a long one.
For those of you that know us at 1NE we have always had a drive to bring Rocket League in Asia to the world stage. This has been done pretty much exclusively with money I have been putting in. I have been fortunate in my life to have built a successful IRL business and have a supporting wife that understands my passion for eSports in general but RL in particular.
First off I want to make clear, when we started T.H.E(now 1NE) it was always done for the players who became my friends. I wanted these guys with their great attitudes to make it to the big stage as I truly believe they deserved the chance. This is still very much the case.
Secondly I want to address a miss conception that people think we are doing this for a long term payoff in future, I think most can agree that there simply is not the money in RL for tournament org’s and team org’s that rely on RL only. So believe me when I say not 1 penny I have put in have I ever expected to get any return on. It was all done for the love of the community and probably to some extent to appease my own ego. You see I am not someone that takes failure lightly, everything I have gotten in my life I had to work my ass off for so when I was told Asia wont ever make RLCS I was determined to prove them wrong. I do not regret spending any of the money I did in the past 2 years on the scene.
I was super proud of the entire community with what happened in APL 2. We put on a tournament with production that is amongst the best in the world with some of the best casters in RL, the viewers were there and at our peak we were only a little bit off SAM’s grand finals which was a LAN. We did all of this with no support from any dev and our only sponsor was trade central( A big thank you to them) with the items.
Our stats were good, our production was amazing and the gameplay was really good as well, so everything pointed towards maybe having a APL3.0 where we would not have to self fund everything ourselves. Unfortunately I have to report back that although we have interest from major sponsors they would not come on board unless we had some sort of official support.
I cannot blame Psyonix for this as they are after all a company and have to do what they believe is best for the game and their bottom line. For me it is more a frustration that this region has been kept alive by very few passionate individuals and we are now 2 years down the line still holding our own tournaments totally self funded.
Understandably but unfortunately for us the one major request from them is that we have to split 1NE between our teams and our tournament org side. After much consideration I have decided that we will not be doing this. Too much has gone into 1NE to split it up now. I love my teams and players and they are the reason we hold these tournaments, to showcase their skills. At the same time Our production team is engrained in the org. If I split them up it will most certainly be to the detriment of both divisions.
I spent the last 2 weeks really thinking long and hard about this, discussed it with my wife and friends and people I trust and thus have not reached the decision to not split 1NE lightly. Personally I see no conflict as rules are always published ahead of time and you cannot influence a RL match on the field IMO. We had one accusation of this in the past (APL2.0 week 1) which was quickly cleared up due to the rules having been published 1 month before the tournament started. I believe my teams are the strongest in their respective regions because of how much time and effort and resources we put into coaching with them. This will always be the case as I truly believe they deserve to be at the ‘’World’’ Championships.
For those who know the Asian scene you would understand the challenges we face, we cover a massive continent face our fair share of server issues. We lose some of our best players every time a new RLCS is announced without Asia even being mentioned for future. We thought it would change when mentioned that a portion of key sales will go to esports, just maybe we wished the portion we spend will come back into the scene. It has been a struggle to keep players motivated as just saying it will come is not good enough anymore.
Japan is getting the logicool cup next month which from their announcements seems to include support from Psyonix in some way. This is great for Asia east but unfortunately excludes 90% of the Asian scene. Again from a business point of view I understand and cannot fault anyone for it.
Bottom line though is that I personally do not see any use in continuing APL further. The tournament including the LAN will cost roughly $13k and although we are capable of funding it ourselves, its simply not justifiable in my mind to do so.
As such I am afraid that I have to announce that there will be no APL 3.0. I trust the community can understand that this is not a decision we have reached lightly but we will no longer be the sole driving force for high level competitive RL in Asia. It is simply not fair and not sustainable without the people that benefit the most from it stepping up.
Instead we will move back to offering more community orientated tournaments again. With the launch of 1NE Cups. These will make use of our production assets and ensure that at least the region still has tournaments to enter to keep it alive.
I hope and I believe with the gap left by APL that someone will step up and take our place. I love this region and the players in our community, you are the best community I have ever had the pleasure of being apart of and I hope that very soon the rest of the world will take notice of this.
1NE will continue to push our teams to new heights and ensure that when the call for RLCS comes, we are ready.
I apologize to everyone that was looking forward to APL and the promised LAN, however simply put big tournaments in Asia should not solely be on 1NE’s shoulders. Its time for the Dev’s to come out and make clear if and or when Asia will be part of their plans. I think after 2 years of buying keys, running tournaments and supporting the game that is not too much to ask.
Cheers
Tasty
TLDR: APL 3.0 will not be happening and instead we will go back to fortnightly Community cups