E-Sports: Valve gets it right on match-fixing...

Too bad it takes E-Sports to do it, and maybe part of that is, in most cases, the company or sanctioning body isn't in on it.

As one of those "it's unbelievable it's come to THIS!" moments, several of the major video games which have crossed over into Electronic Sports or E-Sports have been marred by match fixing scandals.  There have been at least two in Korea involving Starcraft (and one of them forced Blizzard, the game's creator, to seize control of all such tournaments going forward).

But leave it to Valve, the creators of Counter-Strike, to understand what a match-fixing situation (in any sport -- E- or otherwise) can do -- not only to the sport, but to the game itself.

As a result of this and as a result of a match-fixing scandal in a Counter-Strike event, Kotaku's Steam sub-blog Steamed reports today that Valve has released a clarified position that any team or player (even retroactively) who fixes a match and loses on purpose, especially for the purposes of money, will be banned permanently.

For life.  First offense.

Gone.

Forever.

Bout damn time.

I don't think I need to go much further than about ten days down this blog to that Canadian Soccer League to state how important it is that a sanctioning body of any sport take this kind of a stand.

And yet, the current fluid state of E-Sports does leave a few questions.

First, some background:  About 18 months ago, on August 21, 2014, an American powerhouse team, iBUYPOWER, was supposed to roll to an easy victory in a season league match over NetCodeGuides.com .  They lost, and the way in which they did so was quite disturbing.

The Daily Dot, an Internet website which dabbles in video games as well, quickly received communications with substantive belief that the match was fixed, including betting patterns which indicate that a person with connections to both teams was able to place five-figure bets on the match on NetCodeGuides.com .

The winter of 2014-15 threatened to kill Counter-Strike -- not just the professional leagues, but the game itself.  This became one of several match-fixing scandals of that winter, exploding when another team's player's former girlfriend released texts indicating that he had actually been the one to make several wagers on the match in question.

Some of the bets even take place inside the game, in which players will bet items which can then end up on the RMT (Real Money Trading) market.  This professional player was making some such bets (on this match and others believed fixed) in the Lounge area of the Counter-Strike game.

On January 26, 2015, Valve banned seven players from all Valve-sponsored events, indefinitely.

The bans were clarified to life bans today.  An eighth player has also been life-banned for fixing a match shortly after the iBUYPOWER/NetCodeGuides match.

The Nathan Grayson Steamed article does leave some questions on the matter, though:

• There is a DOTA2 player, Alexi Berezin, who was banned from all DOTA2 Starladder events, and the basis for a similar rule in that game.  (The ban was later reduced to one year in his case.)  However, he is still allowed at Valve games, especially given the reduction in the ban.  This, as a significant Reddit conversation on the subject reports, is a major problem -- and I agree, it never should've happened.

The fact is, Berezin and all other such players who do this in the United States should be in prison.

Yes -- for point-shaving and sports bribery, Federal offenses.

This is the other side of what really pisses me off about American sports:  It is legal (Mayer decision) for a sports league to fix it's events.  It is NOT legal for an individual player or team to point-shave -- and that's exactly what we have here.  Those eight players now life-banned and Berezin should be punished (in Berezin's case, if it's applicable under US law) with prison time for a Federal crime.