The biggest scandals in eSports
Today – Brazen cheaters, manipulations and crimes: In today’s article we highlight the dark side of eSports.
The gaming landscape is booming: whether we call ourselves casual gamers, try our virtual luck on sites such as the online casino Wunderino, or show off our skills in multiplayer battles – the days when gamers eked out a secluded niche existence are long gone. However, the relaxed hours in front of the screen are sometimes overshadowed by a major drawback: Brazen cheaters, who turn an enjoyable online session into a bitter frustration fest in no time. What can’t be completely ignored in the world of fun recreational gambling naturally has no place in serious eSports. At least, this is the naive dream of many spectators, which, however, cannot be reconciled with reality. Despite all the gigantic prize money and enthusiastic crowds of fans, the professional battles are unfortunately not always free of cheats and scoundrels. When it comes to the prime example of a brazen cheater being embarrassingly exposed, there’s no way around Forsaken. Why the OpTic India clan member became an involuntary meme in 2018 is shown in the following case. As a professional CS:GO player, Forsaken competes in the eXTREMESLAND tournament in Asia along with his cronies. Meanwhile, when an anti-cheat program sounds the alarm, Nikhil Kumawat, Forsaken’s real name, obviously panics. The scenes that are then caught on camera seem unintentionally comical from today’s perspective. The attempt to delete the numerous Aimbot files at the last moment fails and the computer is confiscated. With this ridiculous action, Forsaken did an absolute disservice not only to himself, but also to his teammates: OpTic India was disqualified and the cheater has never been seen at an official tournament since. However, the cheater’s dubious “legacy” lives on to this day – in the form of amusing memes that hilariously remind us that karma always strikes back in the end.
In 2012, a thunderous earthquake went through the Starcraft eSports scene. A certain Life suddenly appeared on the scene, making all his opponents look like bloody beginners. Over the next two years, Life, aka Lee Seung Hyun, made a big name for himself in the industry, securing over $300,000 in prize money. Then, in 2015, came the sad crash, proving once again that human greed for money is sometimes greater than one’s ambition. Life was tempted into match-fixing, i.e. he deliberately lost matches in order to cash in afterwards. An action that not only robbed the rising star of the eSports sky of the trust of his fans, but also of his own freedom: The South Korean was sent to prison for 18 months for betting fraud. Needless to say, Life also ruined all further career plans – he was completely banned from Starcraft eSports.
Okay, admitted: The so-called BIG jump of the eponymous German team is strictly speaking not a cheat – because it is actually just an exploit that can be used in CS:GO to gain crude advantages. As soon as the player ducks behind cover at the same time while jumping, he can see over walls – but for the opponents the character still appears invisible! Although this bug had been known for a long time, and many teams complained about its abuse, the BIG jump was perfectly legal. The happy ending: As part of a gentleman’s agreement, the 16 teams at the PGL Major in Krakow decided to do without the exploit. The clan subsequently proved in masterly fashion that BIG has a lot going for it even without such advantages – and won the tournament.
While we can still find something humorous in the previous scandals, the next case advances to bitter seriousness. But at first, the story of the South Korean Clan Griffin seemed to resemble a modern eSports fairy tale: Founded in 2016, the team quickly emerged as the hottest newcomer in the national LoL professional league. Participation in the 2019 World Cup was supposed to catapult the clan to even higher heights – however, some puzzling personnel decisions were made even before the tournament began. Both coach Kim Dae-ho and manager Cho Gyu-nam had to take their hats just before the 2019 Worlds. The question of what was behind these surprise dismissals would be answered shortly thereafter. The Griffin team raised serious accusations against his former superiors: According to them, the manager forced the players to sign contracts with which they did not agree at all. Even more serious, however, was the coach’s behavior: he allegedly hurt the clan members both psychologically and physically. Since those in charge could not, of course, ignore the rumors about players being strangled, a thorough investigation was launched. The result: Kim Dae-ho will never again be allowed to hold an official position with an eSports team – and Griffin, too, is now history again after a quick relegation.
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