EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/MKVYj.jpg)
It is with a heavy heart today I bring you some sad news. As of tomorrow, iCCup TV as a company will be dissolved. I want to first say while the actual execution was a bit ahead of schedule, this has been something I have been considering for quite a long time.
First off I am sure many of you will ask, "Why?" That is of course the always the big, and most complicated question so I will provide two of the key factors, in no particular order. While I only bring up these issues, there were quite a few small things as well, but these 2 major points alone justified the move.
Lack of support from iCCup, and the stagnation of the iCCup community
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For roughly 14 months iCCup TV has been running 100% independent of iCCup.com and any of their staff. We have received no financial support (or any type of support) in that time. This was while being expected to give a nice size of company ownership and profits to iCCup.com, which made sense at a point, but in the current E-Sports market no longer is acceptable.
Also and also more importantly the iCCup.com community has stagnated horribly becoming a land for games of the past. Most of anyone that was interested in SCII from iCCup.com moved onto one of the many new communities. Also most of the new traffic came in the form of DoTA1 users and almost no growth in SC2 or E-Sports. With the recent slew of good news for the MOBA community (DoTA2 with $1 mil, $5 mil for LoL, HoN making moves) there is no way the site will not have a similar issue when DoTA2 comes out where most of the traffic is actually just people hyped about the up and coming game, and using iCCup as a "warm up" for the next game.
These two combined factors made it so using iCCup.com as our partner for E-Sports did not make sense anymore.
Lack of support from Blizzard
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I will come out and say it, the iCCup servers ARE illegal. If they are good for the community or not is another discussion (I believe they are good), but they are considered by Blizzard to be "pirate servers".
I had hoped with the continued growth of iCCup TV we could either come to a solution with Blizzard. However we could not.
This past week we were covering the Battle.Net Chinese Invitational and on Day 3 were informed that we could no longer cover the event. We were very saddened, as covering a Blizzcon Invitational was a huge leap for us as a company, and we really love providing coverage of the Chinese scene.
So I immediately (3am my time) started reaching out the Blizzard branches all over the world: China, Korea, North America, and Europe to try and find a solution to the problem. We came to an agreement that leaving iCCup and the iCCup TV name behind would allow us to return to covering the event.
I agreed.
We have never received any support from Blizzard (have never asked for any either), but it is becoming obvious the advantages of having Blizzard support are quite large these days for events and companies like iCCup TV and the iCCup Map Team. We realized if we want to continue to make huge things happen, I needed to open the shut door that was between me and Blizzard. I have done so.
Now for the next question I know you will have, "What next?" Well that is the good news. Not much is going to change right away with our events or coverage, maps, or anything.
The only change you will notice at first (and possibly ever) is a different company name/stream link. The new company is called ESVision (E-Sports Vision) and we have a new stream set up at http://twitch.tv/esvision or you can also get to our stream by going to http://www.esvisiontv.com.
All our current events (like the Korean Weekly) will be moved to this channel and company. All maps will remain under the "iCCup" tag for several weeks (reason below), until they are moved to either the ESV tag or something else.
This will be a very very very painless transition as we have been running independently for so long. So you will not see a decrease in production, totally new and clueless casters, or the disbanding of the map team. It will be business as normal in every sense, and almost all our current staff will be joining us with the new venture.
So do not fear, this is at this point truly just a name change. Everything you have come to expect and love with iCCup TV and the iCCup Map Team will continue.
And now for the last major question I am sure people will have is "ESVision??" At this moment ESVision is a temporary company set up for only a couple weeks.
During these couple weeks I will be reviewing offers from companies looking to bring on me and my staff, as well as accepting any new offers from major companies. After these several weeks we will either choose a new partner to go with, or end up making the ESVision the new permanent home. This is why our maps will still remain under the tag "iCCup" for now. Once we find the permanent home we will rename the maps to either the ESV tag or the new companies tag. I am hoping we can find a major partner to work with that will provide us with the proper financial support we deserve to make our events where we want them to be!
One final thing is all iCCup TV assets minus the www.iccup.tv domain will be transferred to the new company to prevent tampering or account deletion. We know a GREAT deal of SCII history is stored in our VOD's and we do not want that part of history to be deleted.
So while I am sad, I am also very excited about the new opportunities that await us ahead! Word has already gotten out that this was happening and several very large companies have already expressed a huge interest! Either way it turns out (ESVision or something else) this will be something that will allow us to grow past where we could under the iCCup banner. Of course any time you leave something behind you have poured your blood, sweat, and tears is a sad thing, but this is good for us in the long run! We are here to stay in E-Sports, and many new doors have already opened just in the 48 hours behind the scenes since we made this official.
So I am sure you will all have many questions, and rest assured I will be here to answer them all. You are also always free to contact me via Twitter or any other contact method you have for me (I will have a new public email soon).
Edit: Poll about name
Poll: What do you think of the name "ESV TV"
I'm don't like it (602)
71%
I like it (249)
29%
851 total votes
I like it (249)
851 total votes
Your vote: What do you think of the name "ESV TV"
