Update: Esports News UK understands the situation has now been resolved. Tom Stokes has published the following tweet, which ENUK has verified – the event will have 24-inch gaming monitors now in place for the weekend’s competition.
— Tom Stokes (@StokesFIFA) March 25, 2022
Original article:
One of the UK’s first big-name esports LANs since the pandemic is taking place live in London this weekend, but some of the participants have taken to Twitter to complain.
Pro FIFA players including Excel Esports’ Huge Gorilla and Tom Leese (both representing Spurs at the ePremier League) and Tom Stokes of Hashtag United (representing Watford) have complained about being made to play on 50-inch TVs in the ePremier League tournament.
As we understand it, pro players will usually play with smaller gaming monitors in official tournaments, as these will typically have less input lag/delay. A larger screen will also mean players will have more space to view and track than usual.
Tom Stokes asked the organisers to ‘please fix this for competitive integrity’:
Huge Gorilla added: “This is unacceptable for one of the biggest tournaments of the year. How does this even happen?! This is an esports event! We need monitors! First LAN event in UK since covid and this is what happens.”
Tom Leese commented: “Biggest tournament of the season with a £100,000 prize pool and we’re being made to use 50-inch TVs! Please fix this before tomorrow’s event. Yours sincerely, every player and viewer of the ePremier League.”
Some fans sympathised with the players on social media, while others poked fun at them for making the complaints.
“The players’ complaints are valid and remain the feeling among many of the pro players in the scene. It is relatively unheard of that a player at the highest level will practice and compete using anything other than a gaming monitor due to the decreased image processing, response time and just outright size of a 50-inch TV.”
Source close to the situation
One source close to the situation told Esports News UK: “The players’ complaints are valid and remain the feeling among many of the pro players in the scene. It is relatively unheard of that a player at the highest level will practice and compete using anything other than a gaming monitor due to the mentioned decreased image processing, response time and just outright size of a 50-inch TV.
“The players have seen evidence of TVs that have been confirmed to be used during the event, and as such have explained their disbelief in what is a huge event in the competitive year to have these used, as opposed to a standard gaming monitor.”
Another source claimed the TVs are actually monitors, and that the complaints are more about size than lag, but we’ve been unable to verify this and will update this article as soon as we can on that.
Futwiz CEO and co-founder Dan added:
The ePremier League finals will be broadcast on Sky this weekend and held at Here East in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The event brings together 40 of the best FIFA players, representing the 20 Premier League football clubs.
The 2021/22 ePremier League is being organised by Blast.
Esports News UK has reached out to Blast and another press agency handling the event for comment/response, and we’ll update this article if we receive official comment from them.
Related posts:
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.
