Curse Voice is one of two third-party apps for League of Legends approved by Riot earlier this year. It’s a VOIP tool that Curse have poured time and resources into – and made sacrifices for.
In order to be able to promote the app with other LCS teams, the plug-in creators have ended their official sponsorship of the US squad headed up by Steve ‘Liquid’ Arhancet. There’s been no acrimonious split – but Team Curse have had to relinquish the name that fans know.
LCS regulations have it that sponsors who put their name behind a single team cannot also work with other players. And the rule’s definition of ‘player’ is quite far-reaching – meaning Curse would have been prevented from working with LoL’s biggest streamers to promote Curse Voice.
Curse began the breakup process earlier this year. The team became a separate company, owned, managed and run entirely by Liquid and his staff. All players will remain for the 2015 season, and the manager continues to work with Curse in a PR capacity.
“Please continue to show the players and team your support as you have been for the past few years under the Curse name,” said Curse CEO Hubert Thieblot.
Thieblot said that the change had been a “hard decision” to make.
“I still consider Liquid a friend and confidant and we are working to ensure that the name change is as painless as possible for both parties and of course – most importantly the fans,” he said.
“We will miss being the ‘named’ team sponsor and obviously feel that brought a lot of good PR and goodwill within the community, but we’ll still keep up with the games and watch them play from the Curse office!”
Liquid will announce the team’s plans in January – and Curse will implement clan support and group chat for Voice over the next few months. That okay with you?