Earlier this afternoon it was reported on Gamespot that the sixth instalment of the IGN Proleague has been cancelled by the organisers, just four weeks before it was due to take place.

Over the past couple of years IGN have been running some of the biggest and most exciting Starcraft II and League of Legends tournaments in the world through their IPL brand. Last years IPL 5 was lauded by fans as one of the events of the year thanks to the high level of competition, location of the finals and the excellent production value which made it so much fun to watch. The tournament was also reported to have pulled in record numbers for the IPL both in terms of viewers and live spectators who flocked to Las Vegas to see the action. The event also played host to the Code S finals, the first time that they would take place outside of Korea in the history of the tournament.

Recently though the future of the IPL was in question following the acquisition of the IGN by Ziff Davis' parent company J2 Global from previous owners NewsCorp. It was reported in an internal memo sent by the Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah that they would be actively looking for buyers for the league, stating that rather than coordinating and running its own E-sports events, "IGN's role going forward will be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events."

While a buyer for the league has yet to be found it is fast becoming clear that their planned sixth event will not be taking place this March. Rod Breslau earlier reported that products sent by sponsors to IGN have since been returned, while the Korean League of Legends qualifiers were yesterday cancelled by OnGameNet due to a change in management policies and financial difficulties. Links to reserve hotel rooms have also been removed from the IPL Website. The news will come as a shock to the thousands of players, casters, managers and fans who had purchased tickets and flights to the event at the end of this month, many of which will be non-refundable.

MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni yesterday announced that any fans who had purchased tickets to attend the tournament would be offered "heavy discounts" to his own event in Dallas, set to take place a couple of weeks before. Meanwhile no statements have been made by anyone from either IPL or IGN at this time.

The latest update sees a statement by IPL themselves on how to proceed for those who were going to attend IPL6:

We regret to inform you that we have decided to cancel our next public competition event, IPL 6 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, March 28-31. When we launched IPL two years ago, the eSports landscape was very different with far fewer events than we have now. Today, game publishers are holding their own tournaments, which is why we are not ready to commit the resources at this time to run another major independent event. You should also know that we are working on finding a new home for the IPL team and IGN will continue to broadcast partner tournaments in the future.

The past two years have been incredible, and we thank every one of the millions of people who tuned in to our events and coverage over that time. Your support has been tremendous and we could not have done this without you. We went from $5,000 online StarCraft 2 tournaments to one of the world’s best and largest eSports events.

We sincerely apologize to our biggest fans who planned to be out in Vegas with us. If you already purchased tickets for the events and/or reserved a hotel room at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, you can receive a full refund by following the instructions that apply:

Cancel a Hotel Stay at The Cosmopolitan – Information pertaining to hotel room refunds will be posted on ign.com on Wednesday, March 6.

Tickets that were purchased via Credit Card – Tickets purchased with a credit card will automatically be canceled and the money will be refunded to your card – this can take up to 10 days to process. If you have not received your refund by 3/15/13, please contact The Cosmopolitan Box Office at 702.698.7778

Tickets that were purchased with Cash at The Cosmopolitan – Tickets purchased with Cash must be refunded in person at the Concierge during normal business hours.

Again, thank you for your support of the IPL, and we hope you will stay with us for the next exciting chapter.

Sincerely,

The IGN ProLeague

iplevents@ign.com

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