E-sports are rapidly growing in India and as well as in abroad. From PUBG to VALORANT, all the gamers have been given the opportunity to make their career in E-sports.

But the increasing rates of hackers in every game are making the scenario worse for the hardworking players. Some games have increased the power of the anti-cheat system. But they still failed to identify some of the hackers or third-party users. The hackers are not even afraid to use their hack in official tournaments as well. It simply started to increase the question about the integrity of official tournaments.

However, some officials have taken a significant step to stop hacking in tournaments. PUBG Mobile E-sports has banned 7 teams and two individual players from PMCO for using third-party applications and using different identifications.

A statement by PUBG Esports read, “In our regular investigation to fight cheaters and provide fair competition in our official tournaments, players in the following teams were found to be using prohibited third-party software. As this is a clear violation of our code of conduct, the teams have been disqualified from the tournament. The teams will not be replaced, and the PMCO will continue as planned with the remaining teams.”

Indian teams are not in this year’s PMCO as the game is banned in India until further notice. But India also has seen some of the hackers in last year’s PMCO. Multiple teams were disqualified due to hacking. It was very frustrating to some of the players who had grinded to make their mark on the big stage but their dreams were shattered by hackers.

However, the problem of hacking is not restricted to one E-sports. Other games have also affected by hackers. The games like VALORANT has seen the worse of it recently.

Since its release last year, VALORANT has become one of the most favourite games among FPS gamers. It has also brought a new wave in Indian E-sports. The developer of this game, RIOT Games, has introduced a powerful anti-cheat system for this game. But the hackers somehow started to find their way to cheat.

Recently, in ESPL VALORANT PowerUp by Esports Players League, a whole cheating, account sharing fiasco surrounding Team Paratroops recently came to light. Abhay ‘Xhade’ Urkude, a player from Team Paratroops was caught using hacks. However, it was later declared that Xhade had not used any cheats in the tournament. But he has revealed that he used these hacks to reach a radiant rank in VALORANT.

Later, the officials of that tournament have taken the offence very seriously and issued respective statements. Xhade was permanently banned at least till further notice. Team Paratroops have been banned for 3 months from any and all Skyesports tournaments and leagues. Team captain Mithul ‘Binks’ Nayak has also been presented with a 3 months ban for account sharing.

Shiva Nandy, CEO, Skyesports stated, “There should be a strong regulation from Publishers and ban the hackers permanently so that gamers won’t even think of hacking. Recently RIOT’s ban system has come out strong where if you are found hacking, you may end up getting a hardware ban. This is a good move.”

Ankit ‘Venom’ Panth, one of the renowned athlete of Indian E-sports told, “If you think you will be successful in the scene by cheating and hacking, then you would only gain temporary success.”

“You might temporarily get a lot of fans, fame and sponsors, but all of that will be temporary. When you get caught, it will only take a second for all of this to go, and the backlash would be unbearable.”- he added.

India has already seen the worse of it when Nikhil ‘Forsaken’ Kumawat was caught with word.exe at the eXTREMESLAND 2018 Asia Finals. It was a shameful day for the Indian E-sports. These players are just hampering the hard work of other athletes who are grinding every day to lift an international trophy for India. The developers and officials need to take more strict actions against them to keep this gaming environment clean.