Three years ago, iBuyPower was the best team in North America. Today they are a meme to many, a cautionary tale for some, but for an increasing contingent in the CS:GO scene, iBP is a symbol illuminating the flaws of omnipotent judicial systems embedded in every major esport title. Was iBP guilty of the matchfixing charges held against them? Yes, every member except Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham has since admitted to receiving rare weapon-skins in return for throwing a match against NetcodeGuides.com in 2014. No one is arguing for iBP’s innocence. But more fans and players than ever are pleading for iBP’s freedom.

The rise of iBUYPOWER

Back in 2014, iBP placed 1st at ESEA Global Finals Season 15, 1st at CEVO Season 4, and 1st at ESEA Season 16, all in the span of five months. When CEVO Season 5 kicked off a few months later, iBP seemed destined for global greatness. Although iBP had just lost to two dynasties in the making, fnatic and SK, they were North America’s heir apparent, ready to light the torch for the Western hemisphere on an international stage.



But on August 21, 2014, iBuyPower threw NA’s torch away, when low-tier team NetcodeGuides.com blew iBP out of the water 16-4 in highly suspicious fashion. IBP botched simple executes, took scenic routes for bomb plants, and held their trigger fingers for no strategic reason.

The fall

Three years later on Jason “jasonR” Ruchelski’s Twitch stream, former NetcodeGuides member Tarik “tarik” Celik reflected on how excited he was to pull off what he thought was a genuine upset over iBP. But NetcodeGuides’ in-game leader Pujan “FNS” Mehta was not fooled. “[FNS] said, right after the game, these guys 100% threw that.” Immediately afterward, esports journalist Richard Lewis published a piece suggesting iBP threw their match against NetcodeGuides. Lewis’ report focused on chat screengrabs of Shahzeb “ShahZam” Khan, a pro player and NetcodeGuides partner at the time, repeatedly stating before the match that iBP would throw the NetcodeGuides game.



After months of investigation, Valve brought the hammer down. All iBP members were banned indefinitely except for Skadoodle, who was found not guilty. The full list of banned members:

Sam “DaZeD” Marine , former iBP igl, NetcodeGuide cofounder, alleged coordinator of the match fixing scandal.

Braxton “swag” Pierce , former iBP wunderkind. Cloud9 star Tim “autimatic” Ta called swag “probably the best [CS:GO] player I’ve ever seen.” Swag recently played at a non-Valve event, the 2017 cs_summit, but Valve’s ban still stands.

Joshua “steel” Nissan , former iBP member, now a professional Overwatch player.

Keven “AZK” Lariviere , former iBP member, now a professional Overwatch player.

Casey Foster , co-owner of NetcodeGuides, DaZeD’s alleged coconspirator.

Derek “dboorN” Boorn , former CS:GO pro.

Duc “cud” Pham, former CS:GO pro prospect.

The verdict was in: iBP were what we thought they were. Everyone except Skadoodle admitted to losing intentionally, an act that, although taken lightly in CS:GO, has left a black mark on some massive sports institutions. For instance, when FBI investigations revealed that in 2007 Tim Donaghy, an NBA referee with 13 years of experience, had placed bets on countless games he refereed, basketball took a massive blow in the public eye. Donaghy served 11 months in Pensecola Federal Prison, and the NBA’s integrity was compromised for years.



But iBP did not suffer the same fate as Donaghy. As the years go by, iBP sympathy seems to grow by the second. From the call to get DaZeD -- one of the smartest CS:GO minds in the industry -- unbanned, to the #freebrax movement that still rages on today, iBP have gone from disgraces to cult heroes. How did this happen? Why is this such an insignificant crime to the majority of the CS:GO community, worthy of a slap on the wrist, but one that warrants a lifetime ban from Valve? Matchfixers in every other sport are reviled, and Valve seems to agree with that sentiment, so how did iBP land on their feet after their fall from grace?

Wow, so the boys are banned forever. You literally get less time for murder. — HenryG (@HenryGcsgo) January 5, 2016

Cheaters

The answer is simple: cheaters are worse, way worse, at least in the eyes of the Counter-Strike community. If iBP are something akin to esport con-artists, then cheaters are the true frauds. And Counter-Strike was on the brink of a cheating epidemic.



In the winter of 2014, a few months after iBP was banned for life, Hovik “KQLY” Tovmassian of Titan Gaming was flagged by the Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) for using third-party aim software in competitive play prior to the DreamHack Winter Open. Valve immediately banned him, and Titan cut all ties with him. From their official press release on the matter:



“Following the organization’s own investigation into the matter, KQLY confessed to having used a third party program …”

“Considering the information we now have at our disposal, it is no longer possible for Titan to maintain trust in our player. We have therefore taken the decision to dismiss Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian from the team effective immediately …”

While the conversation about iBP was cloudier, with many wondering whether their punishment fit their crime, there was no such sympathy for KQLY and, by extension, other cheaters. KQLY’s own Team Manager on Titan, Jérôme "NiaK" Sudries, said “[Titan] firmly condemns the act Hovik has been accused of committing. As a professional player, it’s simply unthinkable to behave in such a way.” Even KQLY called what he did “bullshit.”



Although KQLY has the highest profile of any VAC-banned player, there are now 66 known professional cheating cases in CS:GO dating back to 2013. 35 have received indefinite bans, like KQLY, and 31 have received partial bans. And those are only the known cases.



Another player banned around the same time as KQLY, Simon “smn” Beck, admitted to only using aim-hacking software during certain matches, while playing others honestly so as to make his patterns harder to detect. The hack itself was designed with all sorts of subtleties, programming headshots every eighth shot or so, to make it less obvious to viewers. This, combined with cheaters playing with deliberate inconsistency, means there could be countless more cheaters playing today that were never caught.



That kind of uncertainty has plagued CS:GO in a way the game still hasn’t completely recovered from, and it has trivialized iBP's scandal. Just two weeks ago, an amateur streamer, Haley-Isabel “MissQGemini,” accidentally (and hilariously) showed the wall-hack program she uses to her entire Twitch stream. After her Twitch chat pointed out that she was armpit-deep in the cookie jar, she awkwardly stammered, grasping for a logical explanation.



MissQGemini has now been immortalized -- Counter-Strike’s newest cheating meme. After every impossible shot in a professional match, a quick glance at the chat reveals one word emblazoned in all-caps: “CLARA,” the (likely imaginary) friend MissQGemini blamed for planting the hack on her computer. But this isn’t even really a new meme. Before “CLARA” it was “VAC,” and before “VAC” it was “KQLY.” Tongue in cheek as “CLARA” may be, the Cheating Witch Hunt, as Duncan “Thorin” Shields once called it, has hurt the game’s image. A bonafide first-ballot Hall-of-Famer like Fnatic's Robin “flusha” Rönnquist, for instance, has had seen historic career dragged through the mud by an avalanche of cheating allegations. Whether they are accurate accusations or not, and at times it seems like they are, one thing is certain: Counter-Strike has a history of cheating, and its community does not tolerate it at all.

A shortened sentence

Which is why it infuriated so many when, earlier this year, every single one of those “indefinite VAC bans” was shortened to a mere 2-year sentence. KQLY, apparently, would be able to compete again. IBP? Not a chance. A lot of pro players didn’t appreciate this new development:

What exactly is accomplished by essentially saying 2 years is the punishment for CHEATING? Rough @ESLCS — Will (C9) (@RUSH) March 23, 2017

CS:GO Becomes the next TourDeFrance where people get suspended by eating the "wrong beef" In CS you just downloaded wrong file — FaZe karrigan (@karriganCSGO) March 23, 2017

players who were banned for cheating during their pro career should never be unbanned imo. crazy how ibp still can't play though — Michael Stapells (@UberCSGO) March 23, 2017

To the pro community, it made no sense to punish iBP more severely than someone like KQLY. Should matchfixers be penalized? Most players, it seems, agreed that they should. But should their careers be over? Not if KQLY’s career isn’t.

Valve vs The People

Which brings us to today, when the issue extends beyond iBP. The community has forgiven them, partially due to the way time erodes and even lionizes con artists, partially because with every passing LAN event Cloud9 falls short at fans are reminded how great they might be with swag. But really, iBP has been pardoned because the community views what Valve has done to them -- an organization-killing act of authoritarian arbitration -- as much worse.

“When we talk about swag it … also involves people that have been cheating, and that aren’t able to compete at the top level [anymore]. It’s a really sensitive situation, but I also think that Valve didn’t listen to anything, and are just going off on their own will. And I don’t know if that’s really dangerous, but it should be more thought about … I think we can all agree a lifetime ban is out of proportion.” - Vincent “Happy” Cervoni of EnVyUs

Valve, on the other hand, saw iBP as an ethical precedent they must set in place early in their sport. From their official statement on the iBP ruling:

“As CS:GO grows, it’s important to consider the substantial impact an individual professional Counter-Strike player has on the health and stability of their sport. Performing before an audience of millions of fans, they are ambassadors for their game -- the strength of professional Counter-Strike comes from the integrity of its players and teams



Professional Counter-Strike is very important to us and to our community. The audience’s trust in the integrity of the sport has allowed it to grow to the point where it entertains millions of fans. To ensure that the highest level of competition continues to entertain, that integrity can never be called into question.”



IBP is still banned today. KQLY and other cheaters are free to play at any ESL events they wish, provided they find a team willing to sign them, an unlikely proposition. Counter-Strike has not forgiven cheaters, and probably never will. After Valve made martyrs of iBP, though, Counter-Strike has taken match-fixers back with open arms.

The future of iBP and Valve’s judicial system

All esports belong to game publishers (LoL to Riot, CS and Dota to Valve, OW to Blizzard). They own all rights to their products, a dynamic that traditional sporting institutions do not share. Basketball does not belong to the NBA. Baseball does not belong to the MLB. Soccer does not belong to FIFA or La Liga. Those sports have third-party judicial systems, checks and balances to ensure that absolute power isn’t corrupted absolutely. But most esports titles have no such structures in place. There is just one magistrate that sits in the heart of each game, a monolith with the power to dole out lifetime bans and career-altering patches at a whim.



DaZeD and steel are aging analysts. Even if they returned to the pool of competitive play, would any teams want them? No one even talks about AZK anymore. Swag, at age 20, is still young (and his legend seems to grow every day). With a player as talented as swag, his ban status impacts the shape of professional CS right now. It’s not unreasonable to think C9 could compete internationally with a roster of Stewie2k, swag, autimatic, Skadoodle, and shroud/n0thing. They’ve beaten SK without swag, and many fans see him as an immediate upgrade over both shroud and n0thing. From the cs_summit segment:

“It’s pretty sad for me. Me and Brax, we’ve been playing together since CS:GO came out, and I always thought he was probably the best player I’ve ever seen play. He’s been playing since he was 7 years old, and just to have all that time he put into the game not amount to anything is kind of sad. Even though I know what he did was wrong, I think Valve made a bad decision letting the cheaters come back [instead of the match fixers]. If anything, they shouldn’t let anyone come back, [both cheaters and match fixers] should stay banned. But if cheaters can come back, then … it doesn’t make any sense.” - Tim “autimatic” Ta of Cloud9



Consider also the bigger picture: Legacies are fluid. Historical contexts age over time, and shifting entire narrative like a wine gaining acidity as the years go by. IBP’s legacy, however, has gone the opposite way. When Richard Lewis first published his infamous exposé on the iBP match fixing scandal, iBP were (briefly) villains, however minor. Professional CS:GO was young, and North America needed a team to root for; iBP, with all its talent, looked like they would be that team. Fans didn’t turn on them so much for the matchfixing as they did for pursuing personal greed over the growth of their region, and the competitive scene as a whole. IBP were the first North American team with any international relevancy, and when they sold that for a few rifle skins, NA fans were furious.



Today, the “what if” scenarios iBP left in their wake dominate the conversation about their legacy. What if iBP were a rival on par with Astralis, SK Gaming, or FaZe Clan? What if the meta was more complex and engaging for fans today with another top-tier team pushing it forward over the last three years? What if swag and Skadoodle were NA’s version of coldzera and FalleN, arguably the greatest rifler/AWPer duo of all time? Combine the weight of these wistful questions with the tragic way every iBP member’s career unfolded, and the community, once frustrated with iBP’s throw, has refocused their sights on the failures of Counter-Strike’s Valve-ian autocracy. Whether or not Valve chooses to lift iBP's ban, whether or not future matchfixers receive more lenient punishment, it’s simply hard to imagine esports continues to grow while operating like a tyranny.