According to Shaun Byrne, the varsity esports director of St. Clair College, PlayVS will soon be shutting down its collegiate esports leagues. Based on a screenshot of a Discord conversation from high-ranking PlayVS officials, the organization plans on shutting down its collegiate leagues following the conclusion of the 2021 Fall season.

Days later, PlayVS followed up this announcement with even more bad news. It was revealed that Nintendo had reportedly asked PlayVS to not offer Super Smash Bros Ultimate as part of the organization's collegiate esports league. PlayVS had initially planned to introduce the game to its leagues during the Spring 2021 season.

The Profit's Take:

I called the decline and eventual failure of PlayVS a couple of years ago because I saw the writing on the wall. PlayVS had all the trappings of a company doomed to fail. It seemed mismanaged, the CEO was posing with Lamborghinis on Instagram, and they raised way too much money too quickly. There were a whole bunch of red flags that made this seem bad. I said this at a PAX panel almost three years ago. In response, a person that was a PlayVS customer stood up and explained that their personal experience with the company was awful. To me, that was the nail in the coffin. If one of your customers says your product is no good in public, then, eventually, you're going to fail. I just didn't think they had a good product. On top of that, there was a lot of artificial hype generated from their massive fundraising rounds. In the end, fundamentally, they were unable to execute and deliver on promises that were made to these educational institutions. It's not much more complicated than that. I don't think anybody cares to watch college esports tournaments, but I do think there are many college students that want to compete in esports. There are a lot of opportunities in the college gaming space, but nobody has been able to do anything in that market yet. Either way, I don't think college audiences were the problem here.

(All information was provided by Daily Esports)