ChaosGround, Epulze, and the art of starting over without settling the past

In esports, reinvention is practically a survival skill. Teams rebuild, brands rebrand, and organisations pivot until the word “identity” starts to lose meaning. But every so often, a reinvention arrives carrying more baggage than momentum.

That’s where ChaosGround finds itself now.

Late last year, ChaosGround announced it had acquired the assets of Epulze, the once-prominent esports platform that collapsed under a mountain of unpaid debts and unresolved controversies. On paper, it’s a clean transaction: technology, intellectual property, and community infrastructure changing hands after a bankruptcy filing.

In reality, it’s anything but clean.

Because while Epulze may be legally gone, the people it left unpaid are very much still here and they’re watching closely.

What ChaosGround says it is

According to its own materials, ChaosGround is a gaming and Web3 venture studio, aiming to build platforms at the intersection of esports, blockchain, and digital incentives. Tournaments powered by smart contracts, transparent prize pools, tokenized rewards. It is the usual Web3 promises, wrapped in esports language.

Their website positions ChaosGround as a forward-looking ecosystem builder — less an organiser, and more of an architect. They want to enable competition, streamline infrastructure, and fix long-standing trust issues in esports through technology.

That pitch matters because trust is exactly what Epulze ran out of.

What Epulze was — and how it fell apart

Epulze launched in 2015 and grew into a familiar name, especially in Dota 2. It hosted grassroots tournaments, regional competitions, and eventually Valve-affiliated events, including DPC leagues and Major-related broadcasts. By the numbers, it looked like a success story with roughly a million registered users and over 150,000 tournaments hosted.

Behind the scenes, it was an entirely different and dark story.

Starting in 2023 and continuing well into 2024, players, teams, casters, production staff, and freelancers publicly alleged they had not been paid for work completed under the Epulze banner. Payment delays turned into months. Months turned into silence. Promises were made, deadlines passed, and frustration spilled into public view.

By January 2025, Epulze filed for bankruptcy in Sweden. Public filings pointed to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unresolved liabilities, with estimates nearing the high six figures. For many creditors, bankruptcy didn’t mean resolution.

The platform shut down and the brand disappeared, but the debts did not.

The acquisition: What did and didn't change hands

Chaosground announced it had aquired Epulze’s assets, not the company itself, therefore this is an asset acquisition, not a merger. ChaosGround picked up the technology stack, platform tools, and community infrastructure. It did not assume Epulze’s legal entity, nor did it take responsibility for Epulze’s outstanding debts.

From a legal standpoint, this is standard. From a community standpoint, it’s combustible.

ChaosGround has stated that some former Epulze management were involved in facilitating the asset transfer. That involvement has raised eyebrows, especially among those still waiting to be paid. While nothing suggests ChaosGround is legally liable for Epulze’s past, optics don’t operate on bankruptcy law.

To the people affected, it looks less like closure and more like continuity of the same machinery, reassembled under a new name.

So where does that leave ChaosGround?

ChaosGround has framed the acquisition as an opportunity to rebuild esports infrastructure the “right” way. Blockchain-based prize pools are presented as a solution to the very trust issues Epulze became infamous for.

It’s a neat pitch but it’s also one that lands awkwardly given the context.

For many in the scene, the problem was never technology. It was accountability for payments that simply didn’t arrive.

No amount of smart contracts can retroactively fix that and ChaosGround has not indicated any plans to address Epulze’s unpaid obligations, even symbolically.

Esports has a short attention span, but it has a long memory for being burned.

Across social media and private conversations, skepticism has been voiced. Some see ChaosGround as a genuine attempt to salvage useful tools from a failed company. Others see it as a convenient reset and a way to keep the platform while shedding responsibility.

Both can be true.

Legally, ChaosGround owes nothing to Epulze’s creditors. Ethically, the situation is murkier. When an ecosystem repeatedly fails to protect the people doing the work, each “fresh start” chips away at what little trust remains. And trust, unlike IP, isn’t something you can acquire in bankruptcy court.

Epulze’s collapse didn’t happen in isolation. It fits into a broader pattern of esports organisations overextending, underpaying, and ultimately folding without meaningful consequences for leadership while freelancers and players absorb the losses. Although ChaosGround didn’t create that system, by stepping into its shadow it inherits the scrutiny.

If this acquisition is meant to signal a new era, transparency will matter more than branding. So will acknowledging why people are skeptical and not dismissing it as leftover bitterness from a failed company.