Evil Geniuses and Alliance break away from Twitch ownership

Update: [10am PST] Alliance has released its own statement on becoming a player-owned organization. Alliance Dota 2 player Jonathan “Loda” Berg has confirmed via Twitter that this is the reason the team has been able to sign players for other games, including Hearthstone.

The original story follows below.

Twitch has announced that esports teams Alliance and Evil Geniuses will become independent player-owned organizations.

Both teams will still be streaming on the Twitch platform, but each organization’s brands and player contracts will be controlled by their respective players and player-selected management. Twitch has said it will work with Evil Geniuses and Alliance as they would “any other esports team.”

Twitch had previously come into a partnership with the teams via its acquisition of GoodGame, the parent company of Evil Geniuses and Alliance, in 2014. Despite the relationship, Twitch claims that the teams “received no preferential treatment,” during this time.

Earlier this year GoodGame founder Alex Garfield announced his departure from Twitch. Garfield had sold the company to Twitch in 2014, and did not reveal the reason behind his leaving.