Aurora's CEO rants about IEM Cologne 2026's sticker revenue

Valve deployed significant changes in the pre-Major update before IEM Cologne 2026 and stickers went through a massive overhaul. While many termed Cologne 2026's stickers as one of the best in recent times, the mechanism behind it saw a lot of hate. Valve removed sticker capsules entirely, introducing an in-game store where players can buy stickers directly using an in-game currency- tokens. The prices were set by Valve and would dynamically vary based on demand.

The community bashed Valve for slapping dynamic pricing on items that have infinite supply. Aurora's CEO Adalyat Mamedov was spotted ranting about Cologne 2026's sticker system in a Telegram channel. "This is the worst Major in terms of sticker sales by a huge margin" said Mamedov before predicting that the situation would not improve in the future.

Valve also modified the revenue distribution system for sticker money from IEM Cologne 2026, making it a merit/performance-based system, meaning which, teams that make it deeper into the Major will secure a bigger share of the sticker revenue than teams that exit in the early stages of the Major.

The number of random sticker farming stories in America and Asia will significantly decrease.
Adalyat Mamedov, CEO, Aurora

He went on to claim that the value of Majors from a financial standpoint would decrease while still holding the top spot from a competition perspective and the volume of Tier 2 and Tier 3 organizations would go down. The Aurora CEO also took at dig at the Asian and American scene claiming that "random sticker farming" stories would decline, given how teams have eyed Major slots primarily for sticker money in the past.