ESEA responds to Season 46 criticism

Earlier this year, ESEA announced they would be moving their entire League structure, everything from ESL Challenger League to Open to FACEIT. This proved to be less than ideal, with the initial League games starting last week opening a Pandora's Box of issues, from difficulty installing substitutes to lack of forfeit mechanics and more.

In response, earlier today, ESEA released an announcement detailing their reasoning for the shift and scheduling of the delayed season. In essence, ESEA says that the move to FACEIT was sparked by the imminent release of Counter-Strike 2, which will be released this summer. If the new game was released midway through the season on ESEA, the previous architecture could not handle changing the game half-way through, unlike FACEIT which was equipped for the transition.

At the same time, ESEA was eager to start the season earlier rather than later, as postponing the season until the release of CS2, perhaps indefinitely, "would be depriving players of both their income and a chance to compete that would damage our favorite game's ecosystem, particularly in regions where ESEA is one of the biggest competitions." In addition, postponing any further would possibly push the last season of the year into the Christmas break, which ESEA hoped to avoid.

ESEA says they remain committed to the FACEIT architecture and will work on fixing the issues plaguing the League ecosystem.