Valve issues warning to tournament organizers with sanctions for failure to comply with new rules

Counter-Strike 2 developers sent a letter to tournament operators demanding that they comply with the new rules for holding competitions, which came into force at the beginning of 2025. HLTV.org reported this, citing its own sources.

In particular, Valve's claims to TOs are that many organizers have not announced the venues for their events, although, according to the regulations, they are required to do so a year in advance for tier 1 competitions and two months in advance for tier 2 tournaments.

The aforementioned letter states that in case of non-compliance with the rules, tournament operators will face penalties in the form of fines (which ones exactly are not specified). At the moment, none of the TOs have responded to Valve.

The list of tournaments whose locations were not announced within the specified time frame looks as follows:

2025

IEM Spring - April 21-27
BLAST Rivals S1 - April 28-May 4
StarLadder StarSeries Season 19 - May 26-June 1
ESL Pro League Season 22 - September 27-October 12
Thunderpick World Championship Finals - October 15-19
BLAST Rivals S2 - November 10-16
Skyesports Souvenir - February 17-23
Skyesports Masters - May 26-June 1
Skyesports Championship - September 15-21
CS Asia Championships - October 1-13
Skyesports World Tour - November 10-16

2026

BLAST Bounty S1 - January 12-25

Origin: www.hltv.org