If you’ve been keeping in touch with more exotic TF2 news recently (or e-sports news in general), you might have heard of the recent settlement of a case brought by the New Jersey attorney general against E-Sports Entertainment Association, or ESEA for short, a gaming league with major divisions in Counter-Strike: Global Offense and Team Fortress 2.
Obviously, if you’re involved in competitive, you’re probably monitoring the situation and seeing what comes of it. If you aren’t, and are wondering why this is such a huge story, consider this analogy: say the owner of a very well-known price guide for TF2 items was accused of price manipulation and then agreed to give up hundreds of buds without admitting whether they did it or not? That event would certainly lead to a major switch to another pricing guide which the community would place its trust in and primarily use. In both cases, the community is at a critical juncture, where a major decision affecting the entire future of the community lies in the balance. In the trading case, the community successfully rallied behind the new community-based alternative, although not without some regrets being voiced with its current state today.