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Beyond the Summit announces total layoffs and plans to restructure

The home of Dota and Smash Bros. esports will run through Smash Ultimate Summit 6 and then explore new paths forward.

Ozzie Mejia

February 27, 2023 11:40 AM

Beyond the Summit

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Beyond the Summit has been one of the premier names in esports for both Dota 2 and the Super Smash Bros. series. It had gone on strong for more than a decade. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have hit the organization so hard that it can no longer function in its current state. On Monday, the team at BTS announced that Beyond the Summit will lay off its entire staff and reexamine its path forward, shuttering operations, at least temporarily.

Here's an excerpt of the statement issued by Beyond the Summit co-founder David Gorman:

We knew 2023 might be hard. But we've been through tough times before, so we had high hopes that we could withstand this recession. Over the last year, as economic conditions have worsened across the industry, we have been working hard to build a pipeline of business to weather the storm.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, things haven't broken our way.

Throughout this time, our number one priority has been to ensure that our team doesn't get hung out to dry. We've been closely monitoring our financial situation, and over the last few weeks, we reached an impasse.

If we keep going, and things don't improve, we could run the company into the ground and not be able to pay anyone anything. But if we let everyone go now, we can give them advance notice, a headstart to figure out future plans, and good severance offers.

We don't want to leave our people out in the cold. We don't want to leave them with uncertainty, constantly wondering and worrying when the money will run out. We care about everyone who has helped build BTS. They have all given so much, and they deserve to know exactly what is happening and have the best possible chance to land on their feet.

Based on our current financial outlook, and how challenging the next year looks, we've decided that it would be irresponsible to keep BTS going in its current structure. So, after nearly 11 years in business, we've made the extremely difficult decision to let all our people go.

Beyond the Summit will keep everyone on the payroll for the next two weeks, at which point the organization will offer everyone a two week severance package. Medical benefits will be offered through the end of April. The final BTS event will be Smash Ultimate Summit 6, which will run from March 23-26.

As one of the biggest names in grassroots esports, it's unknown what happens to the Dota 2 and Smash Bros. scenes in the wake of this event. The former, in particular, may be devastated, considering BTS' role in holding events leading up to The International every year. It looks like BTS will attempt to regroup, but whether it will ever reach the heights it once did is unknown. We'll keep an eye on this story and report back with any further information.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?