ESL Vice President Michal «Carmac» Blicharz was interviewed by HLTV in the middle of this week, talking about the merger of ESL and FACEIT and what the future holds for the company. On Monday it became known that both organizations were bought by Savvy Gaming Group – a large company from Saudi Arabia.
Commenting on this event, Carmac said that from an organizational point of view, the merger looks quite logical: all tools and resources, from anti-chit programs to competition venues become part of a single ecosystem, which is easier to develop. The creation of the ESL FACEIT Group does not mean that the company will become a monopoly in organizing tournaments: Valve has always supported an open market and the creation of an environment in which different organizers can compete on an equal footing. In addition, Carmac believes that ESL lags behind other organizers such as BLAST on a number of parameters, and the company will have to work hard to compensate for this lag.
One of the principal innovations will be the change of the selection system for the two most prestigious events of the year – IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne. Participants will now be determined not by the number of ESL Pro Tour points, but by their results at ESL Pro Tour Masters events and their place in the ESL World Rankings. This will make the format more understandable to viewers. In addition, in the future, the results of competitions held outside the ESL system may start to be taken into account in the selection process.
The company's values will remain unchanged. Blichartz formulates it as follows: «It will still be the same ESL and FACEIT, and if it is not, the blame will surely fall on us».