Counter-Strike pro player Nikhil “Forsaken” Kumawat has been banned from all Esports for five years by the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) after his usage of cheats was discovered at the Zowie eXtemesland tournament in Shanghai.
In a video of the event, a tournament official is checking Kumawat’s PC and prevents him from closing the window as he goes through the computer files. Due to this action, OpTic India, Kumawat’s team, was dropped from the tournament, Kumawat was kicked out of the team, and OpTic Gaming has ditched the entire team. While Kumawat has the opportunity to appeal the ban, efforts by the ESIC to contact him have gone nowhere. In an interview with AFK he explains that he wanted to be perfect at the game but found his aiming lacked so he resorted to using an aimbot to compensate. Kumawat claims not to have tried to delete the cheat itself but just the window that displayed it.
I would probably delete the day when i first played counterstrike on. Nothing good has happened to me since the day i started playing this game. i thought this game was for me but since last almost one year i have not been loyal to it.
forsaken was trying to refuse the referee’s check #eXTREMESLAND2018
via Weibo@alex卞正伟 pic.twitter.com/gC5yn005n5— 辛味。 (@liuxinwei0102) October 19, 2018
Somehow, this is no the first time Kumawat has been caught cheating, as he previously was given a two year ban from ESL tournaments in 2017 due to a Valve Anti-Cheat ban, though that punishment was reduced to six months. Instead of a lifetime ban, ESIC has chosen to ban him for five years, with no word on if that will also be shortened, though given his repeat offenses it wouldn’t be surprising to see no team want to pick him up.
We considered the nature and extent of his cheating as a level four offence under the Code (Art 2.4.4). For a second offence, the maximum sanction is a lifetime ban, but we took the view that this was not proportionate as his first offence in 2017 was only very indirectly related to this offence and that a lifetime ban would have been disproportionate. We are conscious that many in the CS:GO community will disagree with this and we understand their feelings, but do not agree and feel that sanctions in esports ought to reflect what is accepted practice in traditional sports as our industry professionalises.