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Lately, it's been easier to spot a bad decision made by the CPL than it would be to find Waldo, if he were 7'4" and holding a humongous sign pointing to himself that says "I'm right here". Following a disastrous summer World Tour of World In Conflict and F.E.A.R., you would think that the CPL would take a little time off to reassess their obviously grim sponsorship situation and maybe talk to the gamers about what games they would like to play. Exactly the opposite has been true, with them adding to their list of poor decisions and poor game selection. What has happened since then has only further convinced me that the CPL is close to shutting it's doors forever.

Let's start with the decision not to hold any kind of tournament for any popular duel games such as Quake 3 or 4, or even the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3. Ditching an audience that stood by and made their organization as successful as it has been, is just a sign that the CPL has turned a deaf ear to gamers. It wasn't too long ago, the Painkiller World Tour was getting some major media attention, and building up some major excitement within the dueling community. After that event, they really didn't do anything to keep building onto that frenzied excitement that was swirling around gaming at the time. Though last year they did hold the Quake 3 World Tour (and though I do love Quake 3), I really felt that this hurt the community in general. By not using Quake 4, it really felt like the game was at a stand-still for a bit, as many of the top Quake players stopped practicing Q4 to take time to refresh their Q3 skills. Even worse though, is not holding ANY tournament for a duel game at all.

My biggest problem with the CPL though, stems from the upcoming "$1,000,000" Halo 3 competition they are holding in December. To me, nothing about this event sounds legitimate and I would be highly apprehensive about attending this LAN. Let's go through some of the reasons why this competition is making headlines across the gaming community, and not for good reasons. First of all, let's talk about that outrageous registration fee of $475 ($275 if you did "early-bird" registration) that the CPL is expecting gamers to shell out to enter the tournament. This alone, should be making gamers think twice about entering this competition. Why else would they be charging gamers this much?

Well that brings me to my next point as to why this event seems sketchy to me. Second, the prize purse for this tournament seems to be completely reliant upon a certain amount of attendees, and not even-partially backed by a legitimate sponsor, giving a set amount prior to the registration closing. For example sake, let's say that even if 1250 people signup with the "early-bird" price and 1250 signup at the $475 rate, they are still short of the designated amount by about $54,000. Well the time on the discounted amount ended today, and a credible source has told me that only about 100 people signed up so far. Now by logic, I can imagine that number won't go up much now that the registration fee has nearly doubled. So what we have is a tournament where even if a player finishes first, where they were supposed to win $250,000, they might not even walk away with more money than they paid to register. An announcement on the site confirms this assumption and states that there's no guarantee that the tournament won't change the payout amount. Given the registration amount, this is extremely troubling to see such a "major" tournament using such unprofessional business practices.

The CPL is a perfect example of a tournament that has become disconnected from gamers, and making decisions only to satisfy sponsors. Here's what needs to happen: tournament organizers need to be collaborating with the gamers and eSports media about what's popular in gaming and how to run tournaments and events in a way that would HELP gaming, instead of dragging it down into the mud. Until there is more cooperation and communication between both organizers and the professional gamers, eSports and indeed the CPL will continue to suffer. In all, I think the Halo 3 tournament will be the final nail in the coffin of the CPL, and I don't expect them to be around much longer.