UK esports organisation Resolve is leaving Rocket League
18 December 2024
Over the past few years, Rocket League has grown into one of the most popular and most-played esports titles, not just in terms of esports in the UK but in many countries around the world. Recently though, a couple of well-known esports organisations have announced their departure from the title, despite its popularity. Not long after Endpoint Esports revealed that they won’t be returning to Rocket League in 2025, similarly UK-based organisation Resolve has now pulled out of the upcoming season as well. While not explicitly expressed as such, it looks like changes to the Rocket League ecosystem by the game’s developer Epic Games underlie both organisations’ decision not to return to the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) 2025.
New Epic Games marketing programme
As it stands at the moment, coming season will mark at least a temporary absence from Rocket League for Resolve Esports for the first time in four years. While not mentioning the newly introduced Epic Games marketing programme as a key reason, statements by the team’s management clearly hint at those developments. As far as Resolve are concerned, while the new marketing programme is not an inherently bad idea, the current set-up is unsustainable for (smaller) organisations.
“Had a lot of people reach out about next season”, writes Jeff “HereLiesJeff” Simpkins, Chief Operating Officer at Resolve, on his personal X account, “Unfortunately, Resolve will not be returning to Rocket League for 2025 barring a miracle or significant changes from Epic. Right now, it's completely unsustainable for organisations and becoming more so for players, too.”
As a way to further promote the existing Rocket League ecosystem, which has gone through rapid growth in the past years, Epic Games has re-designed the way in which they want to approach contracting. As part of this effort, the developer will be offering contracts to select teams. The goal is to support and promote a new and improved Rocket League competitive ecosystem this way. Epic Games has not yet revealed which teams might be eligible and what the conditions for eligibility are.
Similar move by Endpoint
As mentioned earlier, Resolve’s decision to (temporarily) leave the Rocket League ecosystem follows the same decision by the fellow Brits from Endpoint Esports shortly before that. Peter Thompson, co-owner of Endpoint, also cites changes to the ecosystem as a main reason for this organisation to leave the title for now.
“Unfortunately, Epic Games and Psyonix have changed a few things for the ecosystem”, said Thompson at the time of Endpoint’s announcement, “They’re good for the game, I just think for the esports it’s not great, and Rocket League esports is going to suffer because of that […] “For RLCS 2025 we won’t be taking part in it, at least for the start. The Endpoint group does want to be part of the Epic ecosystem, I think they’re building something fantastic with that and we’re currently figuring out our business model to sustainably go into that sector. It’ll be exciting to be a part of. We’ll look at ways we can engage with Rocket League still, but unfortunately for now, we just can’t.”