Let’s look at some of the most unfortunate ones and hope that these episodes will serve as a good example for the entire gaming community.
People vs. Digital Chaos
At times, the competitive spirit is so strong that teams are ready to cross any sensible borders in relation to each other. Occasionally, one team can be so strong that the members of other teams gather in a single effort to put that team down. This is the story that happened with Digital Chaos – a well-known Dota 2 team from Canada.
In November 2015 Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao from Team Secret published a piece of correspondence from the private chat of the members of several American teams, thus exposing their intents to prevent Digital Chaos from winning a ticket to The Summit 4 – a famous LAN tournament taking place in Los Angeles. The most active members of the chat were Zheng “PatSoul” Yukai from Void Boys, Mason “mason” Venne from Shazam, and Ravindu “Ritsu” Kodippili also from Shazam.
These players were leaking and exchanging information from Digital Chaos, such as their strategies, picks, bans, etc. As of now, it’s still a mystery what has caused such a strong hostility in these players towards Digital Chaos, who eventually still won the ticket to The Summit 4.
This incident resonated throughout the community and showed the dirty game of some American teams and their total disregard of eSports ethics.
Permanent ban for Team Redemption
In March of 2015 Valve permanently banned Team Redemption, formerly Arrow Gaming, from all Valve related Dota 2 tournaments for match-fixing incidents that involved the key players of the famous Malaysian team.
This was a huge blow for the team, as they were expecting to achieve high results on such huge event as The International. But after betting against themselves in a match versus Can’t Say Wips in October 2014, the SEA professional scene didn’t want to see them put the reputation of the whole community at risk.
Also, this is not the first time Valve decided to take serious action against professional teams accused of match-fixing. Earlier two teams - IBUYPOWER and NetCodeGuides - were also permanently banned from all major competitions hosted by Valve after trying to alter the results of a match.
322 in StarCraft II
The term 322 originates from Dota 2 match-fixing incident that started the trend of illegal betting of certain players against their own teams. But StarCraft II community is no exception and 2015 was marked with a huge scandal in the Blizzard community over such incident.
The Korean team Prime was involved in several match-fixing incidents during GSL Code S and Proleague tournaments. According to reports the players of Prime received tens of thousands of dollars through illegal betting.
This criminal scheme involved 12 people and all of them were arrested by the police. Since eSports is officially recognized in South Korea, players caught in such manipulations could be sentenced to two years in prison. The current status of investigation is still open.
On top of that, the Korean eSports Association (KeSPA) has announced that all participants of the scandal received a lifetime ban and will no longer be able to play at official tournaments within their country.
Gaming Paradise didn’t turn out well
The strangest thing happened in September of 2015 in Slovenia. The Dota 2 tournament at Gaming Paradise was unexpectedly canceled. The reason was that organizers couldn’t pay the prize money to the winning teams, and more than that, they couldn’t even pay for the venue, equipment, or hotel bills.
The local police seized the passports of all Dota 2 teams and would not allow them to leave the country unless they themselves paid for their hotel expenses. But this wasn’t the only problem. Three players of the Malaysian team Titan got very sick, apparently due to food poisoning, and had to be hospitalized.
Even casters invited for the event weren’t paid and had to look for the ways to leave the country on their own. Here is a Twitter message from Toby “TobiWan” Dawson, a well-known Dota 2 commentator, who got stuck in Slovenia just like everybody else and asking for help:
Fights at The Frankfurt Major and The International 2015
The first incident happened between two Hellraisers teammates during qualification tournament for The Frankfurt Major – Andrey “Dread” Golubev and Dulat “goddam” Seidimomyn. Both players got in fight during match and “goddam” had to leave in the middle of the game in complete frustration. No wonder, Hellraisers lost the match and their chance to enter The Frankfurt Major.
The second one took place right after Team Secret lost in the match-up during The International 2015. Two of its players – Artour “Arteezy” Babaev and Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi – started blaming each other for the loss and things got out of hand quickly. However, the insiders say that the tension between the two teammates has been growing way before the tournament.
This is a sad page in the last year’s eSports life, which otherwise was extremely exciting and full of positive emotions. Let’s just hope that 2016 will have less match fixing incidents and fights between the players.
What do you think of the Dota 2 and StarCraft II eSports scandals? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
