[ACL VaNzR]

Hey guys, just wanted to poke my head in here and respond to a few concerns with some facts.It sucks to upset anyone, especially such a loyal (and now long running) community we've been serving since 2012. So we're sorry about that!

First up, the spectator price point. This is actually an initiative already in operation for MaqLAN, and something we were happy to abide by. I'll give my personal take on this: Australia is not yet 'up to par' with other continents in terms of esports events (particularly EU, NA, parts of Asia - KR). Not without publisher support. Not YET anyway. Similarly then, one wouldn't expect to pay to access an event or content that isn't up to a certain standard.

We here at ACL are very headstrong in terms of our vision for the future though. We believe firmly that we're not as far off as you think from being a more self-sustainable 'branch' of the global esports ecosystem. I am personally spending most of my time working on late 2015/2016 initiatives. There's a lot that can (and maybe won't) happen in that time, but we are working to put on some massive events that will be more in line with global efforts that will require charged spectator entry. Of course, this won't be breaking the bank for price point, but for this reason we think it's vital to 'ready' the community for this kind of activity.

Understanding it's still a sore point, we DO want to improve the experience for everyone. By and large that would come in the form of improved breaks/less downtime and more broadcast interviews etc. As much as we can do with limited resources.The intention in the future of course is to totally overhaul our model to make the experience unquestionably worthwhile.

We'll keep pushing to try and make the scene better in whichever way we can!

Accidentally ended up writing a wall of text, so I'll let Baldie explain price hikes. Pretty much just comes down to being able to organise the bracket efficiently and run a smoother tournament, we want everyone to sign up online, not pay us more money