The first match of the BLAST Premier Fall Finals between Team Vitality and mousesports was delayed briefly after the CSPPA (Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association) made a statement regarding access to voice comms between players by BLAST and posted it prior to the start of the first match.
In their statement the CSPPA voices their concerns with the tournament organizer having access to voice comms. “Such recordings contain sensitive and personal information and players have no control over who can access it, how they are stored and when they are deleted.” The CSPPA goes on to state they don’t trust BLAST with this information and that they decided to no longer allow them access. Furthermore the CSPPA allegedly approached BLAST to discuss the issue, but they declined.
Players refuse BLAST access to voice comms and video screen recordings without agreement on how information is handled pic.twitter.com/8RoofaQRA1
— Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association (@CSPPAgg) December 8, 2020
The statement was met with mixed feelings by the CS:GO community, with most understanding the argument made by both parties. Others, such as Erik “fl0m” Flombut, questioned the timing of the statement. “I get players not wanting to be recorded, but where the fuck was this stand for players when you guys agreed to halve pro league and unemployed literally half of pro league overnight and then let ESL push it as some good thing for the scene.”
I get players not wanting to be recorded, but where the fuck was this stand for players when you guys agreed to halve pro league and unemployed literally half of pro league overnight and then let ESL push it as some good thing for the scene. https://t.co/nrUE3dTJca
— fl0m (@fl0mtv) December 8, 2020
The BLAST Fall Finals would eventually get underway as BLAST accepted talks about the issues with the CSPPA. Team Vitality would go on to beat mousesports 2-0 on Inferno and Dust II. Natus Vincere defeated Astralis 2-1 with a comeback after losing the first map, Inferno. They’d go on to win both Nuke and Dust II. Later today G2 Esports will take on FURIA, while OG takes on BIG. In the lower bracket mousesports faces Astralis.
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