UPDATE: Minutes after posting our below article, Method announced its Raid to World First: Eternal Palace partner will be TakeTV in Germany.
The stream will begin on the evening of July 16th on Method’s Twitch channel.
Broadcast talent will include UK WoW content creator Mike ‘Preach’ Lamb, Adam ‘Finalboss’ Knych, JB ‘Jdotb’ Daniel, Peyton ‘Tettles’ Tettleton and many more.
David Kugelmann, TakeTV COO, said: “Broadcasting the progress of Azshara’s Eternal Palace from our studio is a match made in heaven: Competitive gaming on the highest level combined with the relaxed atmosphere of our studio is a perfect fit.
“We’re incredibly excited to welcome Method’s players and casters in Krefeld, Germany, to bring you the best coverage of the Race to World First.”
Original article:
The future of World of Warcraft Race to World First (RWF) competitive raiding is up in the air, after a partnership between Red Bull and Method ended badly.
UK esports organisation Method – which is best-known for its world-first boss kills in World of Warcraft (WoW) – has claimed that energy drink brand Red Bull has attempted to seize greater ownership of RWF.
Method previously streamed the mythic Uldir G’Huun and Battle of Dazar’alor Jaina world-firsts from the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London, racking up millions of views.
Method founder and co-owner Scott McMillan (aka Sco) said that Red Bull was originally brought on board to sponsor the event and provide a venue. However, his Twitlonger post on the situation shows that Red Bull wanted to stream the events on their own channel, not Method’s.
Sco said: “Red Bull saw the magnitude of the RWF and decided that they wanted to own and operate the event themselves. After Uldir, they started pushing us to have the next RWF streamed on Red Bull’s Twitch channel.
“We of course rejected that for many reasons. Most importantly, we see the long-term damage of handing off the 14-year-old community run RWF competition to a third party corporation. Only the community and/or [WoW game developer] Blizzard Entertainment itself should have ownership over the RWF.
“We reject the prospect of a third-party corporation taking this competition away from the community.”
Scott McMillan, Method
“Allowing a third party corporation to take ownership of the Race to World First is conflicting with the interests of the guilds who compete in the race. The guilds become powerless and restricted in terms of the event itself, the exposure they get, the revenue generated from the event, and other elements. All of this has a direct impact on how the long term raiding scene develops from here on out.”
Sco added that Method had plans to make the event bigger, for example by including other guilds on stream. However, he then says that Red Bull began contacting other guilds without Method’s knowledge.
“While dialogue remained open, it was leaked to us that Red Bull reached out to Limit and Pieces to plan an event called Red Bull’s World First,” he added.
“Red Bull had gone behind our back, and after seeing their presentation to Limit and Pieces it was apparent that they had taken a lot of our ideas and concepts for expanding the RWF.”
It now looks like Red Bull will host their own separate event for 8.2 The Eternal Palace, as will Method, who will reveal a new streaming location soon.
The cross-guild agreement and differences between traditional esports
Method is now reaching out to other top WoW raiding guilds to try and get a collective agreement signed for the RWF ‘to prevent exploitation of the guilds’.
Under this agreement, each guild will elect a commissioner to oversee the RWF broadcast and sign potential sponsors, working alongside Blizzard.
Sco also spoke about the differences between top-tier traditional esports and WoW raiding: “A notorious problem has been the sustainability of being a top raider. The majority of guilds that have achieved World Firsts are either disbanded or have stopped competing, including guilds such as Death and Taxes, Nihilum, Ensidia, Blood Legion and Paragon.
“We live in a time of top esports competitions rewarding millions in prize money and six to seven figures annual pro player salaries. Most top raiders on the other end have to take vacation from their full time jobs to compete in the RWF.
“The past two RWF events have achieved numbers similar to CSGO Major tournaments, or multiple weekends of the LCS, these events are massive and there value should be realised by the guilds involved.”
Esports News UK has reached out to Red Bull for a right of reply.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
