This has been a monumental year for professional Counter-Strike in the worst way possible.
An unprecedented scale of cheating was uncovered as multiple coaches were using exploits during live matches to find information on opponents maneuvers in real-time, match-fixing accusations are at an all-time high while ESIC offers gentle taps on the wrist, the North American Counter-Strike scene is in disrepair beyond belief, stream-sniping during matches continues unabetted, and talent is dropping like flies.
Things are looking rough at the moment.
It should be noted that this isn’t necessarily the first time that CS has been on the back foot; Rainbow Six: Siege was hyped to be the Counter-Strike killer along with every title of the past two decades that has had a ‘competitive’ game mode wedged in somehow on release.
So this isn’t the end of Counter-Strike by any means of the term, but the road is currently rocky as all hell, and at the heart of it is the Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association, typically referred to by their acronym CSPPA.
The CSPPA is a form of union that isn’t: it’s a player agency that acts like a union by consulting with players as to their feelings and ultimately refers to it as collective bargaining.
They had a hilarious power ranking that didn’t match any form of reality, they have allegedly cost tournament organizers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and now people are pointing at them for the consistent issues of Counter-Strike.
The issue appears to stem from the idea that the vast majority of CSPPA actions are not for the health of the Counter-Strike scene, but more so for their own lining of pockets and bullying organizations into what they believe to be a good idea.
This all begins quite a while ago, truth be told, as the CSPPA has butted heads with rumors being that the CSPPA’s mismanagement was causing untold damage with sponsors; recently, however, the fires have been reignited with fury on all sides.
with the CSPPA refusing BLAST voice comms of players along with video feed; this issue was brought up shortly after MIBR was caught (again) stream-sniping during a professional match; the next day, the CSPPA pushed out a strange statement.
Some are alleging that the CSPPA is attempting to hide instances of stream-sniping from being recorded, and others are stating that it’s an entirely different issue altogether. The timing, however, was bizarre, as BLAST is attempting to use new organizational requirements to ensure competitive fairness.
Team Liquid then brought fourteen teams together (including themselves) stating that they’ve already talked to BLAST and that the TO had resolved the issues well prior to CSPPA even making a statement that tried to shut down the TO using video and audio from the players in a match.
Cue speculation on precisely what in the world CSPPA is attempting to do; the timing looked strange enough, but to have multiple teams coming together and stating that the CSPPA is bringing up a non-issue for unknown reasons seemed to encourage speculation.
That speculation quickly turned on its head into a rampant fire.
Ryan Morrison, the head of an Overwatch League player agency, has joined the fray and spoke directly about the CSPPA apparently owning every player.
Sadokist had a lengthy discussion with the organization on Twitter that resulted in fascinating results where the CSPPA claim to have worked directly with T2 players, yet none were to be found to verify the claims.
The allegations regarding the CSPPA only looking out for themselves are piling up, and meanwhile, multiple members of the board seem intent on digging their graves as deep as possible.
The CSPPA believe that the NA scene had ‘died’, a sentiment echoed by Tarik of Evil Geniuses to heavy criticism. When the CSPPA believe a scene is dead, apparently they pull out all funding and resource allocation based on the beliefs.
Meanwhile, much as the community has been begging Valve to do anything regarding rampant cheating within the title (that they allege isn’t real), they’ve now begun requesting Valve to actually take control over the esport scene and stop the rampant allegations of collusion, the cheating debacles that drags the title through the mud, or to at least pretend to care about what was known as one of the strongest scenes in esports while others are reportedly looking out only for themselves.
Right now, it is not a clear picture of everything that is occurring, but a monumental storm is brewing and CSPPA seem to find themselves at the center while they believe that their beliefs should guide the entire course of COunter-Strike. A maneuver that is costing hundreds of people their jobs, and is likely not close to being done.
It’s punctuated repeatedly with statements that support trickle-down economics, where only T1 matters and everyone can receive scraps (as the CSPPA is filled with T1 only), outlandish statements regarding what regions they believe ‘deserve’ support while failing to strike for multiple players thrown wayside by archaic decisions that appear bear little wisdom for the scene as a whole.
Richard Lewis notes that the 2021 scene for professional Counter-Strike could be a very dark place, and we could be watching professional CS:GO actually kill itself.
This could be the beginning of the end. Decades of competition brought to an end because of greed and cheating, while fans somehow still support groomed personalities that actively participate in the disgusting behavior.
