Esports vs Coronavirus — who will win?

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Unfortunately for the majority of video game fans, the coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 has not gone past the esports world. The cancelation of the Los Angeles Major was pretty predictable but the imminent cancelation of a fourth couple of events in the DPC series in Split and Moscow reflects that the situation is serious.

The spring DOTA2 holiday is canceled, CS is waiting

A month and a half have left for the initially scheduled EPICENTER Major 2020 but Valve has decided to announce the cancelation of the tournament in Moscow, including the Minor in the Croatian city, Split. It can be said a lot that the situation might stabilize by the moment but the fact is that countries are closing their borders one by one, so there is no sense in organizing the event, to which players simply will not be able to come with the chance of 80-90%.

Meanwhile, CS:GO fans have calmed down temporarily — the 11th season of ESL Pro League will be hosted but online. Due to the movement restrictions between countries, the format of the tournament was changed quickly: all participants are now divided into two divisions — «Europe» and «North America», respectively. Each of the divisions will be playing in own time, from which a viewer only wins — the group stage will be carried out almost continuously from March 16 to April 4.

On the wave of massive restrictions and limits, the Major in overseas Rio is at risk. The first stage of the championship, according to the current plans, should be hosted on May 11. Despite COVID-19, which is raging all over the world, there are good chances that the event will be hosted. IEM Katowice was successfully carried out in front of the empty stand and ESL Pro League 11 will allow evaluating the current viewer’s interest to CS:GO.

Going online — is it the right step?

In the situation when the majority of CS:GO fans (and fans of any other popular esports disciplines) prefer to stay at home during the pandemic, the full transition of tournaments to online might be a very wise decision:

it is better to see hundreds of thousands of views online than see empty stadiums or simply think about news about the full cancelation of tournaments;
online matches allow to avoid potential visa issues in absentia and teams will be able to perform with the maximally-prepared rosters in a comfort condition (not considering ping issues);
if big tournaments show decent results online in terms of views, more similar events might be expected from the organizers in the future.

TI 2020 — to be or not to be

One month ago, it seemed that coronavirus would not make an impact on the organizing of Dota 2 The International in Sweden. Bets on the potential cancelation of the tournament were taken at the beginning of March. In half a month, odds dropped from rich 50 to minimal 1.15. The government of Sweden introduced limits on the organizing of massive events in the country for an unknown term on March 12.

According to the most optimistic predictions, COVID-19’s threat could be eliminated only in June-July. Even so, it is unclear what Valve should do — the teams have not played even half of the rating season, so there might be problems with participants: they will have to orientate on current results or return to the old system of invites. In any case, the fact of the possible cancelation of TI 2020 does not look like a silly joke. If the top teams in the world gather at the Stockholm Globen Arena on August 18, it will be a real miracle.

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