Over the past decade, eSports has become the fully legitimate equivalent of traditional sports disciplines. Whether you like gaming or not, we cannot deny the exponential growth of its popularity. Undoubtedly, it is very interesting to watch tournaments where the action is so fast, and the picture is mesmerizing to the eye.
It’s ironic, but eSport mimics traditional sports and also has space for some individuals to cheat. However, in this case, it’s a bit more complicated and even exotic. Eventually, eSports will not be considered official sports in many countries. However, you may still place a bet on these options. The best way of doing it is to claim bonuses on Kwikbet. After registering here, you may get generous bonuses when you place a bet on your favorite CS:GO or DOTA 2 team!
Some creators of games and tournament organizers have one approach to enforcement, unlike others. This causes inconsistencies in managing incidents. Many attempts by the Esports Integrity Commission, a non-profit gaming association, to enforce rules were in vain. It is worth noting that this establishment is fighting against the threat that match manipulations would pose challenges to the esports world.
Before we dive into the most infamous scandals in the gaming industry, we should list the types of scandals that have a chance to happen from tournament to tournament. Esports cheaters and scammers can use software cheats like aimbots or wallhacks; they may resort to exploitation of bugs; some of them can be accused of using performance-enhancing drugs like Ritalin or Adderall; and others even organize, to our mind, the most unscrupulous of all scams, match-fixing. According to journalist Declan Hill, match-fixing is closely associated with corruption, violence, and tax avoidance.
In general, every cheater is aware that deliberately violating the rules makes him take huge risks. And we tend to laugh at awkward cases of breaking the rules that caused an enormous public outcry in the world of eSports. However, most of the cases have not been supervised by the referees of the match. That makes us worry a lot that those “criminals” were not caught; nevertheless, here are the most outrageous events in the gaming industry that will surprise you!
Azubu Frost vs. Team SoloMid Scandal
Azubu Frost is a Korean-based competitive LoL team that was sponsored by the German media group Azubu. The team had high hopes for the eSports stage. Nevertheless, during the game against the team of TSM, an American professional esports organization, one of the players looked at the minimap on the big screen of the event stage. This cheat was not mentioned by the referees in the quarterfinal match at the World Championships Season 2. The investigation conducted by Riot Games came to the conclusion that looking at the map and thus knowing where the rivals are contributed to the victory of Azubu Frost. The controversy was that the TSM player also looked at the minimap, but this was taken as an excusable case. And afterward, Azubu Frost was fined $30,000 for this behavior.
A Player Known as Forsaken Is Using Cheats Right on LAN
For some of you who may not know, LAN is a gathering of PC or console gamers in one place where a local area network connection is set between the devices, allowing people to play multiplayer games together. In the final match of the CS:GO tournament, Forsaken, a member of the OpTic India team, was caught during the game by the committee. But what was the reason? Perhaps you are not familiar with the “word.exe” meme. Forsaken used this name for the file that had to be used to cheat during the game. According to Liquipedia, ESL India concluded that the player had used cheat codes before when he participated in the ESL India Premiership in October 2018.
Eventually, this unsuccessful attempt by an Indian player to break the rules caused a domino effect on the team. Shortly after that incident, Optic was disqualified from participating in the Valve Tournament. Later, the team was disbanded. For those of you who are curious about this accident, you can watch a short video where you can see Forsaken being caught.
Team Secret Early Days Scandal
Team Secret is a nearly decade-old esports team based in Europe. This team was founded by an Estonian DOTA 2 player, Puppey. Nowadays, their punters are NVIDIA, MetaThreads, and Corsair Gaming, which means that the companies find this team trustworthy and reliable to create partnerships with. However, at the beginning of its success, there were some rumors about unfair payments to players.
TS was one of the first super teams created in 2014. There have been a few public debates about the suspicious changes to the roster. For example, Danish player Johan Sundstein, formerly known as BigDadyy, was controversially excluded from the team. Aliwi “w33” Omar and Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen suffered the same fate right after BigDaddy.
The secret of this “team secret,” no pun intended, was revealed after Evany Chang accused the management team of not paying the team members appropriately. After the secret had been revealed, MISERY and other players confessed about the reasons why they left Team Secret.
After not getting 10% payments from all players, they decided to leave the team. To avoid the scandal, it was decided to fire Kemal Sadikogly, director of the team. Puppey was also the director of the team, but he solved the problem by apologizing to all the players who were harmed by this fraudulent scheme. Shortly after this event, Team Secret regained their reputation as the top DOTA 2 players.
Hearthstone Sexism Scandal
As we mentioned earlier, eSports resembles real-life sports a lot. And the sexism scandal is no exception to that. Sexism exists a lot in the gaming industry. But one of the most evident cases of that was the Hearthstone tournament for the Finnish Qualifiers. The organizers might have had good intentions when they decided to allow only men to participate in the competition. They motivated their decision to comply with the laws of the e-Sports Federation. On their official Facebook page, the iESF mentioned that their objective was to promote e-sports as legitimate sports where there is a division between men and women.
Let us explain more about the hearthstone. It is a strategy game where you have to build decks of cards with different warriors. Those decks are used in turn-based fights between the players. This video game was developed by World of Warcraft and, at the current moment, has over 100 million registered players.
We are sorry for the following syllogism, but we think that it is the best way to convey our opinion on this scandal. Chess is extremely popular, too; it does not require physical strength. The game’s major competition is open to both men and women. But why can’t this be applied to a video game? Why didn’t the organizers of that Hearthstone tournament take this factor into account? The debates were extremely vigorous back in 2014, as this topic was new to the public. Unfortunately, this gender controversy keeps the ball rolling nowadays too.
Counter-Strike: the “Olof Boost”
In the world of Counter-Strike, there is one event that is quite familiar to everyone who adores this game. It is the “Olof Boost” controversy. Let us explain what has actually happened. In 2014, during the Dreamhack Winter event, an annual CS:GO tournament, the teams Fnatic and LCDC were the strongest. Two teams faced each other on the Overpass Map, which was a new map where teams didn’t know a lot about the landscape and shelters. But Fnatic had an advantage as, due to the glitch, Olofmeister, the strongest CS:GO player from Sweden, helped his team over LCDC.
After the match, the Dreamhack authorities found out about this bug and asked Fnatic for a rematch. But Fnatic withdrew from the tournament and thus lost the victory to its opponent. Later, the CS:GO fans called this phenomenon “Olof Boost.” But let us explain what actually happened and how this boost works.
So this move can only be done by three players. The first player gives a boost to the second player. Right after that, the second player will get stuck at a pixel. Then the third player jumps on the first player and performs as a platform for the second player. By implementing this method in gaming on CS:GO, a player can reach the highest area on the Ancient Map and shoot the opponents.
Conclusion
As we may see, eSports doesn’t lack controversial moments. There are various types of gaps that scammers can use to cheat; however, with the development of the e-game community, it is getting harder and harder for cheaters to wrap around the fingers of the referees or other teams. As in any sport, it is necessary to supervise the gaming environment for better control and objective results. Now we would likely laugh about these frauds at the beginning of the eSports era. It may seem so banal that a player used cheat codes in front of the referee or that a manager underpaid their players. But as the business grows, new gaps appear, and it is the duty of gaming organizations to prevent anybody from breaking the rules to keep sports honest
