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Blizzard cuts ties with Korean e-Sports Association

Stephany Nunneley-Jackson avatar
News by Stephany Nunneley-Jackson News Editor
Published on

starcraft

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has said that the company intends to find a new e-sports partner for StarCraft in South Korea, due to IP rights.

According to Korean publication Yonhap News, Blizzard has tried to work things out, to no avail.

"We've tried to talk to [the Korean e-Sports Association] for three years, but we can't get them to recognize our IP rights," said Morhaime.

"Of course we think our IP rights should be respected. StarCraft II will be released soon, so we will have to look for a new partner".

KeSPA and Blizzard have going at it for a few months now, and last year Blizzard became a supporter of broadcaster GOMtv, excluding KeSPA and its partners.

During BlizzCon last year, Park "JulyZerg" Sung-Joon was pulled from a StarCraft competition by his team STX, which has ties to KeSPA.

Other teams declined to participate in the GOMTV broadcasted events.

No word on whether the scandals involving cheating and gambling in the e-sports world over in the country had any impact on this decision.

Thanks, 1UP.

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