Cheating in video games, especially multiplayer games, has been seen as taboo since the medium’s existence. It’s never fun to lose a match because the enemy had a completely unfair advantage. It’s even worse in competitive settings, where players are competing for prizes and notoriety. Recently, a massive cheating scandal was uncovered inCounter-Strike: Global Offensiveand the punishment is pretty intense.
The esports scene forCS:GOis storied.Counter-Strikehas grown and changedsince it first started in 1999, but unfortunately, the reality of cheating within the series hasn’t ever gone away. The most recent cheating case has to do with three coaches who manipulated a spectator bug.
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The coaches for teams MIBR, Heroic, and Hard Legion were all caught cheating. The bug allowed the coaches to control the camera of the spectating mode and basically see an overview of the live map. The coaches could then see into the enemies' spawn, spot where enemies were running, and then advise their team of where the bad guys were. The coaches were banned for 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months respectively for cheating inCS:GO.
The teams of the coaches have been disqualified from tournaments and will lose their current ESL Pro Tour points. That means that the teams will most likely not have the points needed to make the ESL One Cologne and IEM Katowice 2021 events. They also need to forfeit their prize money, which was around a collective $11,000. ApublicCS:GOapologyprobably won’t help the teams at this point, but the teams have yet to make a statement on the matter.
Apparently other coaches found the bug, but instead of taking advantage of it, they reported it to officials and those in charge. The three cheating coaches were the ones who used it nefariously. Cheating in big competitions and events is not new to the game, withCS:GOpros revealing they used Adderall during tournamentsbeing among the most notable.
CS:GOis widely considered to be one of thebest multiplayer shooters of all time. And for good reason. Games arrive with popularity spikes and disappear soon after for good. Rarely is it that games can last as long as CS:GO has. But the cheating reputation could be starting to truly hurt the game’s reputation. It could also be that the game has just been so successful for so long, that cheating is bound to eventually happen.
