Esports arena: The state of esports integrity

September was a dark month for all esports fans. The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) announced the result of their review, which resulted in suspension of 37 coaches across several Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) competitions. The reason was exploitation of a bug, which allowed them to cheat and gain unfair advantage. But what seems like a crushing moment, can ultimately help the industry in the long run.

Strive for transparency

Firstly, let’s not sugar-coat this, the ESIC ruling seems to confirm the doubts of every naysayer. As cycling had to face the repercussions of their doping problems, we need to side-line any person willing to compromise the integrity of esports.

I consider the ruling fair, and I firmly believe all parties should follow it to the letter. Without integrity, any sport will lose its validity. That’s why we need to embrace this process, no matter how painful it is. Because the result is full transparency of the whole esports ecosystem, and that’s something we should all strive for.

Golden opportunity

If we look at traditional sports like football, integrity is something they were not able to solve until recently. Even with the addition of the VAR system, there are still controversial moments, unfair situations, and unfair play that goes unnoticed by referees.

The real opportunity that esports has is to show how it can do better. Esports has options that traditional sports lack, which was shown during the ESIC investigation. Imagine someone trying to go three years back, and evaluate every penalty kick taken, to investigate if there was a breach of rules or not. That’s ridiculous. Yet, that’s exactly what happened here, because all games are recorded and stored.

Once the ESIC was notified about the potential exploit, they were able to run an algorithm which determined any use of this bug. Those games that were marked by algorithm were then manually reviewed and resolved. In a situation where an esports image took a hit, this is actually a massive achievement.

Ideally, there would be no cheating at all, but that’s the reality we live in. There is a usage of PED in MMA or cycling, there is diving in football, and there is cheating in CS:GO. What makes or breaks a (e)sport, is how you approach this. And from my point of view, esports will only be stronger in the long run.

Moving forwards

There are organisations which took the ruling correctly, and some who did not. Whereas I firmly believe that everyone deserves to get a second chance, it should be done after they serve the punishment. Take for example Mousesport, which parted ways with their very successful coach Rejin. Or OG, which suspended their coach, but who are willing to give him a chance after the ban is over.

This is compared with the likes of Hard Legion or Ence, which moved their coach to analyst position. What is the message they are sending? What they are doing is damaging not only their own brand, but esports as a whole.

Ultimately, esports is here to stay. This year has shown tremendous growth of viewership and betting volumes.  Organisations like ESIC are making sure that the integrity of esports is not compromised, and with proper approach, esports can accelerate their progress.

Estimates are that esports will be a top five betting sport in 2024. Some people, like Stepan Shulga from Parimatch, are even more ambitious, expecting esports in top three betting volumes in 2021. Whatever the reality will be, integrity will be the key part of it.

Ondřej Šilhavý is an esports business professional, working as a senior business development manager at RTSmunity. After working for corporations such as IKEA, Ondřej joined the team of RTSmunity, an esports analytics company, providing complete solutions for esports betting. While his background is in mechanical engineering, his passion for business and esports has led him to his current role.