On August 31st, there was a phenomenally high-profile cheating event in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Three coaches of famous teams at once were banned for a period from six months to two years at ESL and DreamHack tournaments for abusing a bug in observer mode. But the main and most interesting thing is how many more similar (if not more egregious) cases have there been at least in the last year? Surely many times more, people just do not want to talk about it. But you shouldn’t be afraid – society will always be on the side of honesty.
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To whom are the players accountable?
The Counter-Strike scene has always been extremely cohesive and friendly. It is simply not customary here to scatter loud statements and accuse others of dishonest play (if you are not MIBR), even if there is every reason for it. In a word, everyone chooses to stew in their own juice and not get involved in other people’s business: like Shilo from “Krovostok”, they prefer to “score a bolt” rather than “score an arrow.”
Not so long ago, MIBR accused the player Chaos of cheating, and now the Brazilians themselves were caught in “spying” on the opponent. Photo: Turtle Entertainment / Helena Kristiansson
This is probably due to the fact that the concept of hierarchy is very vague in Counter-Strike. In the conditional League of Legends, any offense will be severely punished by the developers themselves – and if it is serious, then the esports player may be permanently deprived of the opportunity to play. In Counter-Strike, it’s not like that – Valve opts for a laissez-faire position. It seems like exactly how it should resolve all issues, but the company prefers to shift the responsibility to other tournament operators.
As a result, to whom are the teams held accountable? First of all – to the tournament operators, who are the same equal participants in the ecosystem, like the clubs. As foolish as it sounds, Counter-Strike lacks a solid hand. Can you do without it?
Publicity is the main weapon
The Counter-Strike scene six years ago and now is heaven and earth. In recent years, anti-doping initiatives have emerged, an e-sports union and many forums for discussion. Now any “sneeze” of the player is discussed by everyone – close attention is riveted to everything, which means that there is no longer any point in being afraid that you will not be heard.
Of course, you can always use the “witch hunt” argument in discussions of dishonest play. But at the same time, one must remember that there are no untouchables anywhere – even the seven-time Tour de France champion did not hide the truth Lance Armstrong… In Counter-Strike, there are still a lot of unresolved questions, and even more of those that have not even surfaced yet.
It is unlikely that there will be a more controversial player in Counter-Strike history than flusha. Photo: WESG
For example, the other day Sergey starix Ischuk admitted that he is still sure that flusha really cheated at the championships of the highest level, and Valve found out and preferred to hide the fact – it would be too difficult to justify that the cheater became the three-time world champion in Counter-Strike. Conspiracy theories? Of course, but do not forget what is against Robin Flusha Ronquest other eminent esportsmen also spoke out – the same Richard shox Papillon, Spencer Hiko Martin and Kevin kRYSTAL Amend…
There is another famous example straight from North America – Yassine Subroza Taufik… Strange cuts with his game were analyzed in detail only by reddit readers and journalists, in particular Richard Lewis. Most of the players preferred to remain silent. It seems that only he was not afraid to speak out against the esportsman Joshua steel Nissan…
In 2014-2017. from the players you could often hear: “Well, yes, other guys told me that he was a cheater, I don’t know.” Something like this about Howik KQLY Tovmasyan before his VAC ban, other members of the French scene responded. Same Nikil forsaken Kumavat even before he was caught using a cheat on the LAN, he had a VAC ban on his old account and was even banned by ESIC – this is not counting the accusations from little-known players from India. In general, the classic story – everyone knows everything perfectly, but they cannot do anything. Or they don’t want to.
Forsaken will be remembered forever. But not the way he would like. Photo: Yuki Yujen Chen
Perhaps the loudest example concerns surrender of the game: world champion Tyler Skadoodle Latham, who escaped being banned at the Majors simply by giving up his share of the winnings. All other iBUYPOWER members were permanently banned from the majors. Everyone found out about the surrender of the game purely by accident – through the emerging correspondence Shabzeb ShahZam Khanwho didn’t even participate in the match. He knew everything, but said nothing.
It’s time to stop being afraid
Any violation of the principles of fair play immensely damages the integrity of the competitive scene. If someone does the wrong thing, even if it is your friend or partner, it is wrong to hide it from others – it is dishonorable to the stage and to yourself.
Now it’s very easy to attract attention – just write about it on social networks. Yes, haters can begin to unreasonably accuse a person of “hypo-gluttony”, but if there are grounds for accusations, the problem will not be ignored.
Ramz1k. Photo: StarLadder
Consider the situation with Syman Gaming (K23 after rebranding). At the beginning of 2023, the club transferred to the reserve one of its best players without any intelligible explanation – Ramazan Ramz1k Bashizov… What preceded this? That’s right, accusations of giving up matches. If the club excluded a player precisely because of a possible match-fixing (of which, for example, I’m sure Alexey OverDrive Biryukov), then the decision can be understood humanly, but you cannot agree with it. It is precisely the concealment of facts that is the main problem in such proceedings.
But the situation can always be changed for the better. There is no point in fearing that your teammates or fans will hate you. Counter-Strike is a huge community that is not limited to FACEIT friends or teammates. The stage has many problems, and you cannot solve them on your own. Everyone is interested in making the scene better – and without their own input, this cannot be achieved. As everyone already understood, Valve will not do anything – we need to openly talk about problems. Now is the right time.
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