compLexity Gaming founder Jason Lake told ESFI in an interview on Saturday that the team’s gaming house in Houston, Texas has closed its doors as of last week.
Lake said one of the chief reasons for its closure was that media content that was planned to be produced out of the house was no longer possible. The person responsible for the media production side of the house needed to attend to other commitments.
“One of our top goals for the house was to turn it into a landing pad for top teams from around the world,” Lake said. “Rather than fly back to Korea when you have another event in ten days, you could just come [to the house] and make it a training facility.”
“The experiment wasn’t bad by any means. We got a lot of player growth and development. But at the end of the day, when we looked at a new year…renewing the lease..we just said we could spend our money elsewhere more wisely. If we could get a few top tier players, that would make more sense.”
We still believe in the concept, we were just swinging for a home run on this one, and we got a double.Launched in mid-July 2012, the five-bedroom estate housed Kevin “qxc” Riley, Michael “goswser” Dobler, Gage “Sasquatch” Dubose, Joshua “TriMaster” Niven and player manager Scott Ford. Korean Kim “GanZi” Dong Joo also had a short stint at the house before leaving the team after the two parties failed to agree to new contract terms. Other players, including members of the Heroes of Newerth team, were eventually moved in as well.
Players were on a training schedule during their stay there, and several players made gains in their skill. Most recently, Michael “goswser” Dobler, who began his relationship with compLexity by joining their academy and is now on Millenium, defeated Korean Terran Jung “Mvp” Jong Hyun in three straight maps in the Iron Squid round-of-16. He faces ESFI’s player of the year, StarTale’s Life, in the next round.
“I’m sure at some point, there will be a house #3,” Jason Lake guaranteed. “We still believe in the concept, we were just swinging for a home run on this one, and we got a double.”
The complete video interview with Jason Lake will be released on Sunday.
