Top esports organization Splyce exited Gears of War esports earlier this week, citing the scene’s “unsustainable salary expectations.” Marty “Lazerchicken” Strenczewilk, the CEO and co-founder of Splyce, released a seven-minute video describing the challenges at monetizing their involvement with Gears esports and rapidly increasing salaries.
“With Gears of War, with the way that the salaries have pushed up and become obstructive to its growth, it doesn’t make sense for us to invest in there where we can take that same money and invest it in a title where salary expectations are more in line with the title’s exposure and revenue opportunities, or to grow our bigger games,” Lazerchicken said. Splyce joins an increasing number of esports organizations that have decided to cease involvement within Gears esports following the first season of the Gears Pro Circuit—most notably Team EnVyUs, Enigma6 Group, and Epsilon Esports. We caught up with former player and coach of Splyce, José “Choche” Jácome to talk about his team’s experience with the organization, and why they ultimately went their separate ways.
Why did Splyce and the team part ways?
Choche: “Splyce and us parted ways because we couldn’t reach an agreement for the next season. They were supposed to send us an offer for the new season, but then Daniel ‘Identivez’ Santillana left the team to join Ghost Gaming, so they never sent us an offer for the next season because they said they didn’t feel like we would be comfortable with the new contracts and the new salary, so they let us go so that we could search for another org that could give us what we want but they never sent us an offer and we never told them the salary we wanted.”
How was your experience with Splyce over the course of Season One?
“Our relationship with Splyce over the course of the season had our up and downs. They are a really good org but we really thought we could get more for them and they could get more of us but we never made things happen. We have a really big fan base in Latin America and they could leverage that and make a lot of money with us but they never did it. We believe that we can get more salary because we had travel coverage during all of Season One. That being said, we generally think that they are a really good organization, but the problem was that we never tried to make things happen to bring more money to the both of us, and I think another organization can do that with us. We are really thankful for everything Splyce did for us but we feel like we could do more. At the end of the day, we appreciate everything they did for us and we wish them the best of the luck.”
Your new lineup is a bit different from last season’s squad. What can you say about the new players and how do you see yourselves stacking up against the competition?
“I think this roster is stronger than the past season. We lost one of our best players in Identivez, but we replaced two of our players, Addvers and Involving, with two new amazing players. We really feel like this season will be better for us, and mark my words, Melody will be better than Identivez.”
Splyce’s former roster now consists of Hector “Dezonide” Compean, Reynaldo “Chaoz” Tosado, Rogelio “Sleafer” Rojo, Juan “Leggend” Gonzalez, and Alejandro “Melody” Macias, with Jose “Choche” Jacome as the team’s coach. It’s been a rocky offseason for Gears esports, and the issue of inflated salaries and lack of revenue streams to leverage in Gears
