Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released by Valve Corporation back in 2012 as the fourth major title in the series, and has gone onto become one of the biggest names in the world of competitive Esports. It has one of the most hyper-competitive scenes and one of the most stacked calendars for fans to immerse themselves in, has attracted multi-million dollar partnerships with companies ranging from Coca-Cola and Monster to the US Air Force, and is one of the most adrenaline-pumping and easy to follow games out there.
And the recent Operation Broken Fang update has rejuvenated interest in the game and shown there’s still a bright future for the Valve title on a massively unexpected scale. However, the last month has brought with it plenty of obstacles for the community to have to deal with, including two controversies that have rocked the entire competitive industry to its core.
Here’s the full lowdown on the two controversies that rocked the CS: GO world over the past month or so.
MIBR’s Flashpoint Stream Sniping
MIBR have genuinely been one of the feel good stories in the world of CS: GO in the latter part of 2020. Having been in decline for well over a year and riddled with controversies outside of the server, the Brazilians hit the refresh button big time in October and hastily scrambled together an active roster made up loanees and far less impressive sounding names.
However, despite all the predictions in most CS: GO betting markets, the team has performed admirably well in most of the events it has competed in and the enthusiastic celebrations and passion on show has been a welcome and refreshing sight for fans to see.
But the side would become embroiled in a controversial argument on stream sniping during the recent Flashpoint Season 2 event. The tournament organisers discovered that the org had loaded up a stream of the event in their gaming room which was visible to the players from their playing positions, and even though there was a substantial delay, Flashpoint still considered this to be against the virtues of fair play and competitiveness.
MIBR were fined $10,000 of their prize winnings by Flashpoint (which was later donated to a Brazilian charity of their choosing) and all other teams in the event were warned that having a stream of the tournament open and visible would lead to their immediate disqualification.
BLAST And The Case Of The Comms
The BLAST Fall finals were scheduled to begin on the 8th of December with a eye-watering match between Mousesports and Team Vitality followed by an even juicier-looking series between two of the world’s best sides, Astralis and Natus Vincere. However, mere minutes before the first match was scheduled to begin, news broke from the Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association (CSPPA) that the tournament organisers had been denied access to the players’ voice comms and video rights on the grounds over the concern of what was being done with these things.
The tournament was delayed for over three hours as deliberations and discussions between the players and tournament organisers unfolded, with Twitter turning into an absolute state of hearsay and rumours, before eventually the tournament was resumed. Nevertheless, Astralis and Na’Vi’s matched ended up running well past 3AM local time for the players involved on the server.
However, speaking on behalf of all the sides and pros playing in the tournament, G2 Esports released the following statement:
“We fail to understand how and why CSPPA are involved in trying to raise concerns with an already resolved issue, without our knowledge or any form of previous communication,” the statement said.
To be clear, organizations generally operate with their players’ interest in mind; but in this round of CSPPA’s problem-solving, teams weren’t aware of any concerns from pro players that weren’t already addressed.”
It seems like the whole controversy was really dancing on the end of a small pin that was already well on its way to being resolved, and little more than an attempt by the CSPPA to try and assert some authority, but there’s no denying it did a great job in causing some havoc for the tournament and wrecked a couple of players’ sleep schedules.
