The ever-growing esports industry has taken its place in the mainstream in recent years, from League of Legends broadcasts on ESPN to Overwatch League stars appearing on The Tonight Show. Many esports tournaments have taken on a squeaky-clean, made-for-primetime image, while often still struggling to make ends meet. Industry veterans Duncan “Thorin” Shields and Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles sought something different, a sustainable CS:GO league where players and on-air talent were encouraged to be themselves.
With production help from FACEIT, Flashpoint became just that – a CS:GO tournament series made by hardcore fans, for hardcore fans. TheGamer was able to speak with both MonteCristo and Thorin, and delve into where the million-dollar league stands after its inaugural season.
The Need For Change
As esports has continued to grow and evolve, even the most popular games struggle to find a profitable formula. Most took the safe route of cleaning up their broadcasts in an effort to appeal to more mainstream viewers, becoming more like a traditional sports broadcast you’d find on ESPN. This, unfortunately, didn’t have the effect most had hoped, as many leagues still struggle to maintain themselves despite a more “family-friendly” approach.
Counter-Strike veteran and Flashpoint Creative Director Duncan “Thorin” Shields knew that going in the opposite direction would be the most lucrative move. “Luckily for me, everyone else had already tried every other formula and blueprint that they could think of in esports and they all basically failed or, at least financially, have not really come online in the way people anticipated,” Thorin told TheGamer. “I get why the most obvious initial play in esports was, ‘Why not try and get all the kids who play games to get involved? Why not get […] them to be a fan in the same way they’d be a fan of baseball, or the NBA, or whatever it might be?’”
“The problem is,” Thorin continues, “I’ve yet to see anyone who’s made that blueprint actually work and gotten very rich or gotten any industry power from doing so. […] I’ve always been someone who went against the grain in that regard. I wanted something that’s a product for me, someone who’s an adult, someone who likes the hardcore elements of the game.”
Flashpoint on-air talent member Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles, who brings broadcast experience from League of Legends and Overwatch, held similar beliefs. “We tried bringing in traditional sports people who just brought in old traditional sports ideas, instead of looking at the twenty years of esports history where people actually figured out what works and what doesn’t within our space,” MonteCristo said. “So now that we’re actually returning to people who know the landscape that they’re working in, we’re able to take good ideas from old Korean tournaments like we did with Flashpoint and modernize them and make them more interesting because we actually understand the history.”
Monte ended a two-year run with the Overwatch League due to “creative differences” shortly before the start of Flashpoint’s first season. “I fought very hard internally at the Overwatch League to get them to make better creative decisions and that was unsuccessful. Towards the end of last year, Thorin and I were asked to consult with the group of owners for Flashpoint about the creation of a league and they decided they were excited by our ideas and wanted to implement them.”
The Flashpoint Effect
Flashpoint is solely a Counter-Strike league, though many of those involved hold experience across multiple esports titles. “I think Counter-Strike is the best big esport that’s currently active,” said MonteCristo when discussing why CS:GO was the ideal game for this concept. “It has a dedicated fanbase, it’s an excellent game and it has an older audience so we can really go after that with the tone of the show, so it really is the perfect title to do this with.”
Should Flashpoint prove successful for years to come, it stands to make a lasting impact on the broader esports space. Of course, the raw, unfiltered nature of the league won’t work for every game. “We wouldn’t make this product for a different audience, necessarily. We’re not saying that every esport should be presented this way,” says Monte, “but Counter-Strike certainly should be.”
“Other games might adopt some elements of what we’re doing in terms of the attitude, but I think most of them are too scared and don’t have the personnel to go as far as we have,” Thorin said on Flashpoint’s potential influence. “I think some of the leagues will take some of the things we do that make sense, but the problem is you gotta have the stones to really go all the way on this one. If you’re gonna be committed to having a fairly savage atmosphere around the game, I don’t think you can be like most of the other companies in esports, so I think you’ll see a little bit of influence but it won’t be enormous.”
Thorin and MonteCristo are no strangers to building a brand through original content, both leading various esports-focused podcasts while also taking part in tournament broadcasts for the past decade. This all culminated in The Blind Spot – an aftershow with a relaxed atmosphere, meant to bring the same feeling of friends talking about esports together at a bar.
“I always wanted to do something more casual in terms of an adult atmosphere, with drinking,” said Monte while discussing The Blind Spot. “It was something I recommended years ago to Riot for League of Legends.”
Monte describes his original pitch for a more relaxed post-show at the League of Legends World Championship, that would involve going to bars around the different countries visited and showing off the culture with a more “relaxed vibe.”
“They never did it, so I decided to do it here instead, and I think it was really successful and we’d like it to continue just as a Counter-Strike talk show in general.”
The Future of Flashpoint, and CS:GO
Flashpoint was created by a group of teams, each forming a long-term partnership with the league to compete. This involved a $2 million buy-in fee, and granted the teams a heftier slice of the league’s revenue share. Alongside Flashpoint, both BLAST and ESL adopted similar structures, with BLAST reformatting their entire tournament series to do so.
“The reason why you’re going to see that as the general model that all these leagues adopt is because it’s an arms race to get the best teams, and then you hope that your format shows off how awesome they are and makes the entertaining matches,” Thorin provides as reasoning for this shift in the CS:GO scene. “In the past, it was about creating an environment where people want to go to your tournament, now it’s about battling to see who will ally with you because that’s who’s going to be number one in the end.”
“While the open circuit is wonderful, having teams in one spot for a longer duration will allow us to make better broadcasts and better content, and it’s also better for the players and everyone who works on the game, including the casters.” Monte added. “Having to travel to a different part of the world every weekend is not a great way for anyone to live. I think having these more long-form tournament structures for a few weeks at a time is generally just better for the health of everyone who is involved in the professional side.”
Flashpoint’s first season kicked off in March, hosting twelve teams in Los Angeles, California, as they fought for their share of the $1,000,000 prize pool. Coronavirus delays may have moved the competition online, but the league’s main philosophy still rang true. The casters bantered with each other, and the players brought an in-game heat that felt right at home.
Danish team MAD Lions were crowned as Flashpoint Season 1 champions after completing an awe-inspiring comeback against MIBR in the Grand Final. MAD Lions took home the $500,000 first-place prize and, had they been in the studio, would have lifted the Flashpoint trophy – a chrome AK-47.
“We took an initial condition that everyone just assumes they know how it should be done, like how a trophy should just be a really big silver trophy,” Thorin says about the chrome AK. “We took the most initial unchecked assumptions and we thought, is that actually even the case? You can do whatever you want – what should a Counter-Strike trophy look like? The AK has always been the best weapon within Counter-Strike, effectively, and it’s the most used gun, and it basically represents the game. Then you add in the fact that someone can hold it in a way they can’t hold a normal trophy, which I think people would find cool. It just fits what we’re trying to do at Flashpoint, which is check unchecked assumptions and see if there’s a different way to do things that might even be better.”
Flashpoint will return for its second season later this year.
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