Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) has always been one of the most fun and competitive games since it was released worldwide in 2012. With the eSports world getting bigger and bigger over the years, there’s no doubt that CS: GO is going to keep thriving.
However, with the arrival of professional teams and competitive events to CS: GO, other things such as scandals, bans, and toxic communities among the game also arrived. The first – and one of the biggest – scandals to happen in the CS: GO professional community took place in 2015 when the North American teams iBUYPOWER and NetCodeGuides were involved in a match-fixing scandal after one of their matches.
What Happened?
It all started on August 20, 2014, at the CEVO Professional League’s Season Five. The teams iBUYPOWER and NetCodeGuides were matched against each other; up until then, everything seemed to be going well. While the fan-favorite for the match was iBUYPOWER, they lost heavily to the opposing team with an ending score of 16 – 4.
The team justified their loss with jetlag or unfamiliarity with the map in which they were playing. However, many fans and spectators pointed out that the team was executing odd plays in the match, such as trying knife kills randomly. There were early rumors that the game was fixed, but no one paid attention to them until the eSports journalist, Richard Lewis, stepped up with a follow-up article on January 16, 2015.
The Match-Fixing Scandal
The first article was composed of various screenshots of text and chat messages with Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan. In these messages, Khan revealed that the match was, in fact, fixed, but he refused to reveal who the person responsible for the match-fixing itself was. However, when the case came back in 2015, another string of screenshots surfaced. This time, the conversations were with Derek “dboorn” Boorn. Boorn confirmed that he had bet with Duc “Cud” Pham on that specific match, and that iBUYPOWER was supposed to lose.
According to the article, Boorn used several alternate accounts to bet on the “CS: GO Lounge” site. Over $10k-worth of bets were placed on the match, and Boorn redistributed about $7k-worth of in-game skins after the match. After some investigation on Valve’s behalf, the company confirmed that there was an unusual pattern of high-value-item betting by Pham and Boorn.
The Aftermath
After all the facts came to light, Valve took action and banned the following people indefinitely from professional tournaments sponsored by the company:
- Derek “dboorn” Boorn
- Duc “cud” Pham
- Sam “Dazed” Marine
- Braxton “Swag” Pierce
- Keven “AZK” Larivière
- Joshua “Steel” Nissan
- Casey Foster (Founder of NetCodeGuides)
The remaining players signed to the NetCodeGuides team left and started another group with the name Mythic. In 2017, the ex-players from iBUYPOWER were unbanned from ESEA and ESL events, with exception of events that were partnered with Valve. DreamHack also stepped up that year and lifted the indefinite bans from all the players, allowing them to participate in future DreamHack events.
Conclusion
While this was the first scandal ever, there are still smaller instances of match-fixing and cheating. These issues are continually being fought by eSports organizations and gaming companies to ensure fair, competitive play.
