22 year old Nikhil ‘forsaken’ Kumawat was found cheating at the ZOWIE eXTREMSLAND 2018 Main Event in Shanghai. Following the incident, he deactivated his social media accounts and switched off his phone, effectively maintaining a near week long silence.
Today, that silence has been broken. In an exclusive interview with AFK Gaming, forsaken has responded to questions that were sent to him via email along with a statement of his own. His responses have been left unedited and are published as received.
forsaken – I am extremly sorry to my teammates, OpTic managment and the people who always put their trust in me over the facts. I feel guilty of stealing away the opportunities from my teammates. each one was extremly talented and i have jepordized their chances of being where they deserve.
Why did you do it? Was it due to pressure, financial issues or something else?
forsaken – There was no pressure from anywhere, it was all me who wanted to win everygame, wanted to be perfect in every aspect of the game.
i was confident in my decisions, i was confident in understanding of the game etc but was never confident in my aim so to compensate that lack of confidence in aim i had to choose the wrong path.
The stream footage shows you resisting the admin’s attempts to investigate your PC. There are also reports that you deleted the files in question in front of the admin. Please tell us what happened from your perspective during the incident on the mainstage of Extremesland.
forsaken - I never resisted when admin came to investigate my pc, however when admin opened the file window i tried to close the file. It also was a virus file for windows defender so when admin opened the folder in which the file was stored it was deleted automatically because of a virus threat.
Admin came up to the stage asking they wanted to check my pc, i backed away n let admin check it, admin then alt-tabbed my game n was going through all the opened windows in my pc untill finally he opened the cheat window so i got scared and tried to close the window, it was captured on the video n was portrayed as if i tried to delete the fles.
How did you activate the cheats on your PC? Was it via the mouse as many speculated or some other method?
forsaken - i activated it through a .rar file, i downloaded it from a file store website.
Did any of your teammates know that you used hacks while competing?
forsaken - noone in my team had any idea of me using any external programme including my teammates, coach and manager. Because of the hack being not too blatant(as people think it might be) noone in my team or people standing behind us(coach or manager etc) had any idea i was using anything. It gave me a slight advantage over my natural aiming so it was almost negligble to be observed by people around me.
Did you use hacks while scrimming inside the OpTic India bootcamp? How did you manage to avoid detection by your teammates that were sitting beside you?
forsaken - Yes, and as i already mentioned it only gave me a slight advantage in terms of accuracy, precision and better registery of bullets so it was not visible to people observing me outside the game. There were no such instance while my time at bootcamp so there was no reason for them to doubt anything.
Are there any other players that you know of that use hacks while competing?
forsaken – No
If you could go back and do things differently, would you?
forsaken - 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. i worked hard but i wasn't loyal. I gave everything away for the game, i always put this game above everything else and today i realize what i have lost. One thing i always put everything above on and i cheated it. I lost everything when put CS above everything n today i lost CS too. The only thing i never lost is my family and my girlfriend and i hope to never cheat on them.
How have you been dealing with the social media outrage directed toward you?
forsaken - I am broken inside but I am paying for what i did. sometimes i feel its a little extreme but then i know its for my own good, it was not expected of me means i have committed a far greater mistake and i must pay not only for my mistake but also for the people who trusted in me.
What’s next for forsaken?
forsaken - All i can do,is to try doing something in life so that i can be able to help my family.I have never think of doing anything other than CS.I will try to improve for my mistake and be a better person
There were some questions that were met with no response. These include a request for details about the cheats he used, a question about the first time he used them during a competitive match and a question about any other tournaments during which he cheated.
Finally, his response included a separate document with his official statement. His official unedited statement is as below:
“I want to start this by apologizing to my teammates, OpTic management and the people who put their trust in me. I feel extremely guilty for stealing away the opportunities from my teammates, each one was extremely talented and i have jeapordized their chances of being where they deserve.
I did not have any financial pressure, any family pressure or anything as a reason to cheat, it was all me. It was all me who wanted to win everygame, wanted to be perfect in every aspect of the game. I was confident in my decisionmaking, i was confident in understanding of the game etc but was never confident in my aim so to compensate that lack of confidence in aim i had to choose the wrong path.
None of my teammates had any idea of me using any external programme including my coach and manager. They simply trusted in me and I am sorry to say I failed them. The hack was not too blatant (even though people think it might be), noone in my team or people standing behind us (coach or manager etc) had any idea I was using anything. It gave me a slight advantage over my natural aiming so it was almost negligible to be observed by people around me. I was also very careful to only use it occasionally and in hiding it after games.
I did use hacks inside the bootcamp but it was impossible for them to know. As I already said it only gave me a slight advantage in terms of accuracy, precision and better registry of bullets so it was not visible to people observing me outside the game. There were also no instances to doubt me but whenever clips were online I was quick to come up with an excuse and took advantage of their trust in me.
If i could go back I would probably delete the day when I first played counterstrike. Nothing good has happened to me since the day i started playing the game. I thought this game was for me but since last almost one year i have not been loyal to it. I worked hard but i wasn't loyal. I gave everything away for the game, I always put this game above everything else and today I realize what I have lost. One thing I always put everything above on and I cheated it. I lost everything when putting CS above everything and today I lost CS too. The only thing I never lost is my family and my girlfried and I hope to never cheat on them.
I am broken inside but I am paying for what I did. I have commited a far greater mistake for the community and I must pay not only for my mistake but also for the people who trusted in me.
I know my career in CS is over. All I can do is to try something in life so that I can be able to help my family. I have never think of doing anything other than CS. I will try to improve for my mistake and be a better person.
i never ver cheated in the tryouts because it was one of my first lans and i wanted to give my best there and i tried convincing myself to leave it and do it by my own and i didn't had the courage to that also but when i came to bootcamp i was not been able to adjust on pc and by looking towards my teammates the urge to good at every aspect lead me to this again, so i could use it in bootcamp without anyone knowing about it, it gave me the courage to use it in further lans
I have betrayed the trust of people who believed in me.
I have dragged the name of the country in the dirt and I know it's unforgivable.
There is no one else to blame but me. No one else should have to take the hate and blame for this but me.
I saw the holes in the system and I took advantage of it for my own blind, selfish reasons. And I have nothing but regret.
Even after I had served the ESIC ban, I could have started over, but in my stupidity and selfishness I continued to cheat.
So many people have fought for me and stood up for me, and I realize now, how many people I have betrayed and how they are facing the punishment which is meant for me.”
– Nikhil ‘forsaken’ Kumawat
In its wake, this incident has already sent ripples across the Counter-Strike world causing community outrage, potential value erosion and revenue loss. And while we hope this interview could provide some closure for the community and all affected, the other players’ silence on the matter indicates that there’s more information yet to emerge.
