Epulze bankruptcy filing explained

Esports tournament organizer and production studio Epulze, known officially as eSports Pulse AB, has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden — with proceedings concerning the filing beginning on January 2nd. Founded in 2015 by Mattias Lövgren, Markus Lövgren, and Pontus Lövgren, the company was primarily responsible for the production of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Southeast Asian regional leagues, as well as the Bali Major that same year alongside IO Esports . They were also the official partner of 4D Esports for the 2023 Lima Major.

In late 2023, several Dota 2 players and talents, as well as former Epulze staff, went on the record accusing the company of failing to pay them for the second and third tours of the aforementioned regional leagues. These players included Nikko “Force” Bilocura, Carlo “Carlo” Manalo (post since deleted), and Galvin “Meracle” Kang Jian Wen, who played for Geek Slate, Execration, and Myth Avenue Gaming at the time, respectively.

I’ve literally received my first salary off my new job but have yet to receive my prize money from (DPC!) that happened more than half a year ago. Wild!

— Meracle (@Meracleeeeee) February 6, 2024

More than a handful of casters eventually joined them in putting Epulze on blast late last year, such as Maurice “KheZu” Guttmann, John Nathan “johnxfire” Fernandez, Sophia “Sophy” Mapua, and Alexandra “Reya” Roberts. Some talents were apparently also made to cover their own airfare by Epulze for certain events, but according to an investigation by Esports.net, they ended up never getting paid for those expenses either. In addition, the same report mentions that some “bigger” but anonymous talents were paid in advance, in order to keep them quiet about these payment issues.

So it's been over a year since I hosted the SEA DPC and i haven't been paid yet. I'm tweeting about this because it's been so long since the tours happened and I honestly just want to move on with my life but it's quite a large sum of money for me that I worry about every day…

— sophy (@sophmapua) August 29, 2024

Hasty Retreat?

Epulze CEO Markus Lövgren eventually put out a statement apologizing for the delays in payment, saying that the company was “taking responsibility over the situation” and that they were “slowly but steadily” making progress towards resolving the issue.

Throughout all this, the company claimed that they had not been able to pay off players and talents alike due to not having received funding from sponsors and partners. The report from Esports.net notes that the company underwent a restructuring in June 2024, with a round of layoffs as part of the restructuring itself — even after Epulze had supposedly secured SEK 57 million (about $5.5 million) that never actually arrived.

As we know now, Epulze has since gone bankrupt, presumably to cut their losses while they could. But this might not work out as well as they hope it will, because Swedish and Malaysian law — the latter concerning the studio’s physical location — do not allow companies to simply shut their doors when they still have outstanding debts and salaries to pay off. Since the bankruptcy filing itself is still new, it may take some time before the Swedish and Malaysian courts deliberate and rule on this case, so time will tell what the fate of Epulze will be.

Unpaid Talents and Missed Opportunities

It’s unfortunate and frankly infuriating that these types of issues still exist in Dota 2. The game’s publisher and developer Valve Corporation consciously chose to give Epulze the broadcast and organization rights to the DPC SEA regional leagues, only for things to go south after the first tour of 2023. The contracts could have gone to a more reputable company with a proven track record like Beyond the Summit, which has since bailed out of esports citing financial struggles and changes in the industry landscape.

Beyond the Summit was a well-loved entity in the Dota 2 space by the community at large, which makes their closing an even more poignant reminder that although modern esports have been around for about a decade and a half now, these problems are still somewhat common in the industry.

I’m hoping that Valve can step in and help out in this situation. They certainly have the resources and presumably the legal personnel to assist in this matter, and since they were the ones that assigned the SEA DPC regional leagues and two whole DPC Majors to Epulze, I think they should at least take some responsibility here.