14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has revealed that a number of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players involved in match-fixing have been banned for life.
Valve is known for the fact that it punishes any kind of cheating very seriously, and they have developed a powerful system that’s integrated on Steam. This latest wave of bans has nothing to do with cheating on Steam but in real life.
Since Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is considered to be an “eSport” and a lot of money is involved, any kind of cheating or match-fixing must be dealt with severely. The same happened today when a number of players and big teams have been banned from playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in any kind of events that have Valve as a sponsor.
Just the tip of the iceberg
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the few other games that are considered eSports manage to shift millions of dollars each year, so there is a big incentive for players to break the rules. The fact that a few of them are caught from time to time only means that there are probably more.
“Back in January and early February 2015, we took action after we discovered that a small number of professional CS: GO players were engaged in match-fixing. Our decision was to ban these players indefinitely from involvement in Valve-sponsored events. To clarify, the bans for these players are permanent, and players proven to have taken part in match-fixing will be permanently banned,” Valve said on the official blog.
This is actually just something for the show since the players involved in match-fixing are not going to play anymore, but it sends a powerful signal to everyone else. It would be nice if other publishers did the same thing, but that’s up to them.
The affected teams include NetCodeGuides.com and iBUYPOWER.