The CS:GO world has a new cheating scandal. Coaches have exploited a spectator bug. The punishments have already been pronounced.
Riots in the world of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Three coaches were suspended. They took advantage of a bug where they could sit as spectators in the match at a spot on the map and thus pass on information to the team.
Blocks were available for dead (mibr – six months block for ESL and DH events), MechanoGun (HardLegion – 24 months) and ESL One-Cologne winner Dogs (Heroic – twelve months). The affected matches were the ESL Road to Rio and the DreamHack Masters Spring.
I think I mentioned this somewhere else already, but a key fact in the Hard Legion story is that they had TWO different coaches abuse this bug in the span of 3 months.
People already know about zoneR but here is a clip of AKIMOV doing it vs. Alternate in Malta Vibes. pic.twitter.com/V3jbTeDGkR
— Michal Slowinski (@michau9_) September 1, 2020
The locks may sound hard for some people. Especially since in the case of mibr only one game was included in the conviction (Rush B has discovered more).
The coach himself already argued against it and explained that he did not exploit the bug, did not pass on any information and restarted the game immediately afterwards. But mibr himself is not really squeamish if the team suspects a cheater.
In the case of HardLegion, the players are now moving into the limelight, as a second coach has already been noticed. The team beat among others Na’Vi around superstar s1mple. It is almost impossible to find out whether the gamers knowingly exploited or forced the bug and would therefore be as guilty as their coaches.
Мда, ну hardlegion и черти , 100% игроки тоже знали инфу, а я то думал – как такие нубы могли нас обыграть
— Sasha (@s1mpleO) September 2, 2020
If you look at other bans, the temporary bans seem almost a bit ridiculous. The Finnish youngster Jampii is banned for life for official tournaments of developer Valve. He was 14 years old at the time of his cheating offence. He also filed a complaint against it because someone else is said to have used his account.
In the case of the matchfixers of iBUYPOWER, where in 2017 the ban for ESL-events fell, it is the same fate. Also they cannot play majors anymore. With steel the last remaining player left the CS:GO scene in the direction of VALORANT.
The affected teams, Valve and ESIC have received the evidence the bans were based on, so there has been full transparency to them. Teams can appeal the bans if they consider them unjustified. Beyond that, we do not consider releasing any clips or other material to be necessary.
— Ulrich Schulze (@theflyingdj) September 1, 2020
In the coaching bug, Valve initially keeps a low profile, the ESL passed on all the information. According to a statement from Heroic, the developer doesn’t want to draw any conclusions at first.
This is the wrong way. Taking advantage of the coaching bug was no trivial offense. The Road to Rio was about points for the Major and a lot of prize money.
Valve should take action there, especially with a view to the previous line in known cheating incidents. With Jampii or also brax/swag two players had their career blocked – because of mistakes where they were minors.
The ESL, on the other hand, has a loose ban policy and wants to enable gamers to rehabilitate themselves. This explains the verdicts for Bug-Abuser.
It's so absurd that Jamppi is banned for life from competing at the world championship for allegedly cheating as a nobody kid but you can be a coach and literally cheat in a qualifier for the same world championship and get a lower punishment.#freejamppi
— Thorin (@Thorin) September 1, 2020
But beyond that, there is an imbalance. Valve should follow the policy of the ESL and adapt old cheat barriers and ban them permanently only in case of recurrence.
And much more important is the adoption of the judgements in the coaching bug case.
Because otherwise the developer sends the wrong signal: That not every cheat incident is really bad.
