A tournament organizer allegedly flouted a ruling to cancel an amateur Call of Duty LAN event, despite publicly stating it had been canceled.
Despite the ongoing health crisis, Call of Duty players made their way to Indianapolis in hopes of competing at a Modern Warfare tournament, American Gaming Network’s Indy Open.
However, the amateur event, which was scheduled to kick off on August 1, was moved to an online format last minute after AGN revealed they were contacted by Activision over “health and safety concerns.”
https://twitter.com/AGNEvents/status/1289372796733149186
“After discussions with representatives from Activision, we are deciding to change the Indianapolis Open to be online only,” AGN’s statement read.
With under a day until the action was supposed to start, this news was announced too late for some teams. Many had already traveled and booked accommodation or arrived at nearby hotels.
Event allegedly goes ahead on LAN
It is now alleged that the event has simply continued as normal, rather than moving online, with videos showing players gathered in the venue.
The competition was originally thought to have been thrown together and hosted at one of the teams’ Airbnb homes, with u/ElementalStormz sharing a brief clip of the LAN on Reddit.
Later, it became apparent, according to some on social media, that the event was simply going ahead as planned, despite the statement to the contrary.
Update, 1:40 PM EST, Aug 1: AGN, the tournament organizer, have denied their involvement in the event, and say the do not condone the players being there.
https://twitter.com/AGNEvents/status/1289612360643010560
However, others noted that their staff members were present at the venue.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Seattle Surge coach Joey ‘Nubzy’ DiGiacomo said “Pretty sure the online thing was fake and I believe they’re holding the LAN as we speak.”
Toronto Ultra’s General Manager reaffirmed this claim, saying she had reported it to Activision Blizzard.
They are. I reported everything to AB. Absolutely stupid and I can’t believe they thought they’d a) get away with it and b) be bold enough to post about it.
— Wi5dom / Dominique (@Wi5dom12) August 1, 2020
Former MLG event organizer Adam Ap condemned the videos of the event that appeared online. In since-deleted Tweets, Adam called their public statement a “smoke screen.”
Everyone involved with that disaster is about to get nuked from orbit.
Who thought it was a good idea to try and trick an $80bn company? This will be worse than when Carthage got wiped off the face of the earth.
— Adam Apicella (@MrAdamAp) August 1, 2020
A video of a match being played was posted with the result of the game, but was deleted when it started to be shared around. Another user reuploaded the video.
https://twitter.com/TheMrJPistachio/status/1289589877403611136
AGN founder Gage Cash simply responded, “we are hosting an online event.”
There was already criticism of the competitors for ignoring the safety concerns that Activision raised. Some pointed out the risks involved with this gathering.
Comment byu/ElementalStormz from discussion inCoDCompetitive
It is unclear when Call of Duty events will move back to the regular LAN setting, with tournaments such as the CDL and Challenger’s Playoffs also confirmed to be online.
What is clear is that this event, in any capacity, should not be taking place.
