A Dota 2 tournament organizer has allegedly failed to pay the winners of two of his events $9,000 in prize money, DotaBlast reports.
Chris Lombard, the tournament organizer, has gone dark since the conclusion of his most recent online tournament; Solid Dota 2 Challenge. The teams—FlipSid3 Tactics, Danish Bears, ProDota Gaming, and Power Rangers—haven’t heard from in more than a month.
The events concluded on March 17 and April 28 respectively. That means that both Prodota Gaming and Power Rangers have waited for more than two months without any news.
The problems didn’t stem from sponsors backing out. FlipSid3 Tactics and Danish Bears contacted the main sponsor of the Solid Dota 2 Challenge-tournament, LootMarket, who made it clear it had upheld its end of the bargain. LootMarket’s agreement with Lombard was that it would supply the prize pool while Lombard was in charge of making sure it went out to its rightful owners.
“Our agreement with Chris Lombard was pretty simple,” LootMarket CEO Kevin Wilmer told DotaBlast: “We pay him for a certain set of deliverables / exposure (overlays, links, on-air site usage, etc). He was pretty easy to work with and the results were great for us.”
Unfortunately for the players, LootMarket is now unable to dispute its payment, claiming that “compensation to the winners falls outside of the scope of our [LootMarket’s] involvement.” Wilmer also told DotaBlast that LootMarket will not have any future involvement with events organized by Lombard.
The CEOs of both FlipSid3 Tactics and Prodota Gaming expressed their disappointment in the situation to DotaBlast. Prodota’s CEO, Maxym “Max” Dyakonyuk gave a brief statement in which he described the events that have transpired as “just simply fraud.” For FlipSid3 Tactics CEO Hector “Frost” Rosario, however, the situation was a distressing reminder that “things that were happening in 2012-2014… still persist.” In other words, six years after the game was released, players and teams are still getting conned out of prize money.
