Complexity ceases operations after 23 years in esports

One of the oldest names in North American esports has stopped operating. Jason Lake, who founded Complexity in 2003 and was its owner and chief executive, said in a video posted on September 23, 2026, that the organization has shut down and that he and his core team are no longer part of it. HLTV reported the announcement the same evening and Esports Insider the next day.

The closure was not sudden. According to Lake's account, the decision to wind down operations was taken at the end of 2025, a few months after Complexity gave up its Counter-Strike team, and the months since were used to close the business in what he called an orderly and professional way instead of letting it collapse.

The name itself survives. The Complexity brand and the rights attached to it, its intellectual property, still exist, and their ownership has gone back to GameSquare, the company that sold the organization to a group led by Lake in 2024.

HLTV, September 23, 2026. Founding year as given by HLTV and Esports Insider.

What Lake announced

The video is the only public account of the shutdown, and it comes from the former owner, not from a company statement. HLTV and Esports Insider report three points from it.

The first is the fact: Complexity has ceased operations, and for the first time in 23 years Lake and the colleagues he calls his core team have no role in it.

The second is the method. Lake said the team chose to close things down properly when the alternative was an abrupt failure. Neither report names the staff concerned or gives a number of jobs.

The third is the reason. Esports Insider reports that Lake and his team were unable to raise the capital needed to complete the acquisition of Complexity from GameSquare while also paying for competition at the top level. HLTV adds the mechanism in Lake's own terms: GameSquare held a seller-held note from the buyback, which is why the rights have returned to it. A seller-held note is a debt the buyer still owes the seller when a sale is paid over time.

From buyback to wind-down

The buyback dates from March 1, 2024. That day HLTV reported that an investor group called Global Esports Properties, led by Lake, had acquired Complexity from GameSquare in a deal the outlet put at US$10.36 million, with the vast majority to be paid over three years.

The sale had a regulatory logic on GameSquare's side. The company was then weeks away from completing its acquisition of FaZe Clan, and both FaZe and Complexity fielded Counter-Strike teams in many of the same competitions. HLTV noted at the time that common ownership of two such teams is a conflict of interest prohibited by Valve's rulebook for the Majors and by ESL's rules. Lake said at the time that Complexity's revenues had grown significantly and that the organization was financially stable, and GameSquare's chief executive, Justin Kenna, said the company hoped to keep working with Lake and his team. The Counter-Strike team of that moment, built around EliGE, JT, floppy, hallzerk and Grim, stood 14th on HLTV's ranking of February 26, 2024.

Less than eighteen months later the picture had changed. On August 19, 2025, Lake announced in a video on X that Complexity was leaving Counter-Strike. He said, according to HLTV, that after strong years in 2023 and 2024 the esports economy of 2025 had been really challenging for Complexity. He explained that the organization had not been able to bring in enough revenue to support a team at the top level, that it had tried everything to find investment and income, and that shrinking revenues had forced the decision. HLTV's report pointed to the scarcity of sponsorship opportunities in North America.

Complexity kept going on a smaller footing for the rest of that year. Esports Insider reports that it continued at a reduced scale in the NA Revival Series and with a roster in Halo Infinite. The decision to wind down followed at the end of 2025.

The three-year payment period agreed in March 2024 had not run its course when the organization closed.

Six changes of owner in twenty years

Complexity changed hands more often than most esports organizations, and each change says something about the period in which it happened.

The first sale lasted only a few years. DirecTV bought the brand in 2006, and Lake recovered it later in the decade after the collapse of the Championship Gaming Series, a league of that period. Esports Insider dates the organization's pause to 2008, when that league's competition ended.

The second brought money from outside gaming. Jerry Jones is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys and John Goff is a real estate investor; together they bought a majority stake in 2017. The third, in 2021, put Complexity inside GameSquare, a company answerable to shareholders. The fourth returned it to its founder with outside investors behind him.

The record in Counter-Strike

Complexity was known first of all for one game. The organization entered Counter-Strike 1.6, an early version of the game, in the year it was founded, Esports Insider writes, and HLTV dates its first roster acquisition to 2004. From then until 2025 it fielded a Counter-Strike team in every year but one. HLTV noted in 2025 that the exit left the organization without a team in the game for the first time since 2014.

HLTV cites three trophies across that span: the ESWC of 2005, the CPL Summer of 2006 and, much later, ESL Challenger Jönköping in 2024. It also counts 10 appearances at official Majors, the tournaments sponsored by the game's publisher, Valve, that serve as its world championships. The best of them was a semi-final, third to fourth place, at DreamHack Winter 2013, followed by two quarter-final exits, fifth to eighth place, at EMS One Katowice 2014 and at the FACEIT Major of 2018.

The list of players who wore the jersey explains part of the name's weight. Esports Insider names fRoD, FalleN, n0thing, stanislaw, RUSH and EliGE among them.

The last team was still competitive on paper. When the exit was announced in August 2025, the lineup of JT, hallzerk, Grim, Cxzi and nicx was ranked 26th in the world by HLTV on its list of August 18. On August 15 the same outlet had placed it 21st in the Valve Regional Standings, the publisher's own ranking, and fourth in the Americas. The warning signs were elsewhere. The head coach, T.c, had left in March 2025 after more than three years and the post had only been filled on an interim basis. The team had gone out in the first stage of IEM Cologne and lost to HEROIC in the first round of BLAST Bounty.

What becomes of the name

Nothing in the two reports says what GameSquare intends to do with the brand. Esports Insider does not relay any statement from the company.

The same outlet draws one inference from the ownership. GameSquare, it writes, also owns FaZe, which competes in Counter-Strike 2, and that makes a return of the Complexity name to the game unlikely in the medium term. The reasoning echoes the rule that prompted the 2024 sale: two teams under one owner cannot enter the same Valve-sponsored events.

For Lake, the shutdown is the end of a company and not of a career, by his own description. He said he took a sabbatical this year to rest. "I love to build, and I love to lead," he said in the video, adding that he is not retiring and hopes to find a new project in esports, without being sure the opportunity exists there at present.

Other organizations stepping back in 2026

Complexity's closure was announced on a day when another organization made a similar move. About two hours after its report on Lake's video, HLTV published the news that ODDIK, a Brazilian organization that entered Counter-Strike in June 2022, had suspended its esports operations indefinitely and with immediate effect, without giving a reason.

Other organizations have cut back by game during 2026 and said why. HEROIC left Dota 2 on May 4, stating that the financial results had fallen short and that the division could not be sustained, according to Dot Esports. Gaimin Gladiators benched their remaining Counter-Strike players in June after a strategic review, citing changes to the revenue structure of the Majors among the reasons, HLTV reported on June 23.

Complexity's case differs from these in scale and in kind. Those organizations closed or paused a team. Complexity, after giving up its main team in 2025, closed entirely.

What its history adds to the picture is the length of the attempt. The organization was sold to DirecTV, bought back, sold to investors from outside gaming, sold to GameSquare and bought back again, and through all of it kept a team in the same game. The explanation Lake gave in August 2025 was the plainest one available: revenue did not cover the cost of competing at the top.

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