They also locked their own community out of updating their own community playlist. I wanted a set up where the actual MLG community would get to vote on and push maps up to the MLG playlist after MLG abandoned it, and all MLG had to do was give final yes/no.. they had zero heavy lifting to do ..all the final cert testing would be handled by CCs/343/Bungie (and that's all it'd be, just making sure the map wouldn't set a 360 on fire, no creative changes).. they didn't want to do it.
And there was actual demand. Forgers in the MLG community did exist and I helped them test their maps all the time. MLG snuffed that portion of their community out for no other reason than arbitrary ego bs. MLG being under the "Community" tab in Halo was a complete farce.
This was a night and day difference between them and the other "corporate owned" playlist in Halo, Grifball, where community content got in regularly alongside the official maps.
Instead of embracing and growing their community, they insisted on pretending they'd be the only game in town and that changes and direction would be top-down. I personally did not enjoy the later MLG settings but that community got screwed over by their own leaders. They pushed too far at the corporate level and now you see every publisher running their own leagues because it gives pubs more complete vertical integration and control over the public perception of their game.
And yet they still pissed it all away with their arrogant corporate governance. Wasting all your money securing 100% exclusive rights through brute force, crushing small comp leagues and arbitrarily releasing initial settings instead of organically figuring out where a game is going burned a notably sized group in their community. My ire is 100% aimed at their corp governance, not the community members that put in effort.
I'm not going to pretend that MLG was a perfect organization back then. But looking at how they have been operating COD and how they have structured Gears 4, it's hard to argue that halo Esports would have been better off with their involvement now. Ironically, 343 is doing their best OG MLG impression right now, except it's less effective...
MLG was offering to work with ESL to handle live open events for HCS. 343/ESL told them no because pros competing in the same tournaments impedes obstructs AMs path to the pro level. They told them that they could only participate in HCS events if they were AM only. A nonsensical crock of shit.
Then a few months later 343 announce that they are inviting Pros to HCS open tournaments. But it's in fucking Orange County Cali, in the middle of the roster transition period, so only 22 teams (4 pro) are showing up. It's a joke.
You just know MLG would have planned it all better.
There's no reason 343 should be holding a grudge against MLG anyway. Most of those issues were during the Bungie era, and Halo 4 was handed to a different TO (who was woefully inferior to MLG). Was essentially barred from MCC. MLG hasn't been able to do much with Halo 5 ( though the best presentations thus far, XGames and NA regionals, were handled by MLG). I don't see the justification here.
