The Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association has taken a stance against CS:GO tournament organizer BLAST. The CSPPA came out with a public announcement on the first day of the BLAST Premier Fall Finals condemning the hosts for improper use of in-game voice communication.
BLAST have been recording in-game voice communication during their events for a while. That much was made clear by the CSPPA's public announcement that was also shared on Twitter:
Players refuse BLAST access to voice comms and video screen recordings without agreement on how information is handled pic.twitter.com/8RoofaQRA1
— Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association (@CSPPAgg) December 8, 2020
That in itself isn't a problem. However, unauthorized sharing of these recordings is a different thing. Apparently, inter-team information has been shared by BLAST with analysts and casters without player permission, which understandably made the latter group rather unhappy.
Even if there's no malicious intent, risking your tactics or team relationships to leak out to the public is not what you would call a calculated risk. BLAST's unwillingness to discuss all of this with players and find a solution together has led to this rather ugly, but necessary way of handling the issue.
Furthermore, BLAST wanted to also record the players' screens, again without much of a discussion. Of course, that's not going to happen for the time being and it does look like the organizers and the players are in a touchy situation here.
The biggest BLAST event of the year - BLAST Premier Fall Finals, began yesterday and matches are going as planned. There will be no recording of either voice comms or screens this week, though. The CSPPA has taken care of that.
Their message is clear: they want a civilized discussion on the matter. BLAST are now on the clock to respond.
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