A day after many pros publicly complained about not being paid their promised Apex Legends Global Series winnings, it appears that many of those players have finally received their promised payouts. The payments didn’t come without any shortage of public outcries, however. And many players think that’s the only reason those payments were finally completed in the first place.
While sometimes having to wait a few months for payment from an esports tournament isn’t unheard of, the issues specifically revolving around ALGS cropped up yesterday after Moist Esports’ Wxltzy noted that he and his team were about to go play in the Split One Playoffs LAN while they still hadn’t been paid their winnings from the ALGS Championship LAN from July 2022. His story was subsequently amplified by Full Squad Gaming’s Jake Lucky. As if by magic, the payments for many players affected by lengthy waits materialized.
The timing of those payments most likely isn’t an accident. Many pros revealed on social media that often, the players who were paid fastest were those that complained the most to PGL, one of the companies involved with staging the ALGS Championship event.
The ALGS rules for last season indicate that players must sign “a Prize Winner Declaration and Release” within 90 days of their tournament to receive their prize, and then must also allow up to three months for delivery of that prize. It’s a bit unclear if that means three months from the date that the declaration is signed and delivered or if those three months kick in after the end of the initial 90-day period when players must claim their prize. Seeing as many players have reported having to wait six months or longer for payments to arrive, the only thing that seems certain about the payment timelines is that no one really knows exactly how long they’re supposed to take.
In some cases, like the claims made by Pioneers IGL Gnaske, that’s reportedly resulted in players actively losing money thanks to conversion rates changing in their wait period. And still others, like current DarkZero and former Cloud9 coach PVPX, claim they haven’t been paid for earlier events like the Split Two playoffs in Sweden that happened in May 2022.
What exactly is causing all the hold-ups in payment isn’t known at this point. It could range from anything like international prize laws to currency conversion struggles to good old-fashioned organizational red tape. But there’s only one method pros have found to be useful in getting their prize payments so far, and that’s complaining.
