A screen shows a live image of the Dota 2 eSports match between team Alliance and team RNG during the International Dota 2 Championships in Shanghai on August 20, 2019.
Around 40 of China's most renowned Dota 2 players have been banned by Valve, the video game developer, and Perfect World, the organization that manages the game in China. Several of these bans are permanent.
Eradicating Shady Activities
The two organizations made the announcement Thursday, Mar. 9, in a joint statement, banning 46 players from the Chinese Dota 2 league.
Twenty-one of those bans are permanent, meaning the players will never be allowed to participate in another event hosted by Valve or Perfect World. Thirteen were banned for two years, while the other players were banned for one.
Ban lengths and durations varied, but "esports integrity violations" was the only stated cause. For years, there has been a widespread assumption that match manipulation is rampant in the Chinese Dota 2 professional scene, even at the highest levels.
Due to esports integrity violations, the following players are now Valve and Perfect World-banned. The details are as follows. In cases of a discrepancy, the Chinese version of this announcement shall prevail (available here: https://t.co/cXMQKlvANd) pic.twitter.com/qair8d68OJ
— Perfect World Esports (@PWRDEsports) March 9, 2023
Banned for Life
In a report by Forbes, fans of the Chinese team Knights at the recent $500,000 Lima Major accused them of match rigging due to their seemingly unusual performances and odds. This seemed to have been impacted by a lot of money being put into their games.
Some player cam videos seemed to show the players gazing at second monitors, which would light up when they were in the opposing team's field of view, leading to allegations that the group utilized cheating during games in the Chinese Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) league. On Thursday afternoon, permanent bans were handed down to all five ex-Knights.
Immediately after the Lima Major, four members of the Knights were dismissed from the roster, and four replacements were brought in under the new club name of Antarctic Penguins. All four of those new players, though, have been suspended too.
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Other Suspended Gamers
A number of members of the Chinese team EHOME have also been banned after their poor performance at the Lima Major.
Wong "mks" Sim An received a lifetime ban. In contrast, Pan "yChen" Shuaifang, Tang "Salad" Xiaolei, and Liu "Lww" Weiwei each received bans of two-year duration, and Lee "X1aOyU" Qian Yu received a ban of one year's period.
Now that both of these teams have been stripped of their suspended players, the Chinese DPC League must find two new teams to fill the void. Nothing has been said about the selection process for these squads.
It is the most drastic measure Valve has taken to date to put a stop to some of the shady activities that have long been rumored to be occurring in the game. Hopefully, this will go a long way toward eradicating match-fixing and cheating for good in the Chinese Dota community.
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