Cover-Credits:
Unscrupulous activities in the Dota 2 competitive scene, such as match fixing, account sharing, and more, have generated a lot of discussions in the past few months. There have been numerous bans in Dota 2 in the past year and recently the Chinese team Knights competing in Lima Major 2023 has also been under scrutiny for similar allegations. During Side Pull Podcast Episode 139, popular Dota 2 commentator Austin "Capitalist" Walsh shared his thoughts on the state of cheating in competitive Dota 2. Cheating has become a rampant problem in the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), according to Capitalist. Apparently, he has gone through much evidence that was quite conclusive, especially in Southeast Asia (SEA) and South America.
Capitalist claims that cheating has become common in the DPC, particularly in SEA and South America
In the most recent Side Pull Podcast, Capitalist and his co-host Joey "Leafeator" Thimian talked about social media cheating discussions that have been circulating.
"There is cheating all over the place in DPC," Capitalist began, saying that before the first season even came to a close, he had seen enough instances to be convinced that there was illegal activity.
As he went on, he specifically mentioned map hacking in SEA, explaining that watching the replays could show how players were minimizing their Dota 2 screens during games and cheating.
“I have read and seen most of the evidence and it looks pretty damning, especially the Southeast Asia cheating allegation where you can watch the video. It’s basically accusing map hack and when you go through the player perspective, you can see that he stops moving his mouse because he’s Alt tabbing, and if you watch the VOD, I think there’s a moment where you could see a light like a flashbang goes off in CS:GO. You obviously changed Windows. That’s one pretty damning.”
Capitalist stated that cheating charges were also raised against teams playing in Division II in the South American DPC, and additional information is expected to come out on the matter. It would not be shocking if these cheating tentacles had spread to Division I as well, he added.
“There is now a South American cheating allegation, a whole ring it seems like. I read through the details just an hour ago and there was a tweet from Chompix out there. There are definitely more details going to be coming out but it does kind of seem like this is a general ring of betting and match fixing of multiple people involved and multiple teams in the South American DPC Second Division. It’s surprising that Lower Division has this sort of cheating allegations. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in Upper Division in one or two regions.”
At the same time, while he believes that cheating is a widespread problem, he also recognizes that there are players who put their heart and soul into the game in the correct way.
“But obviously, there are some havens of integrity I think because Dota is still worth a shit ton of money and why would you obviously throw away 10 years of work that you put together for a chance to be able to win a shit ton of money.”
Valve has been proactive in combating Dota 2 cheating in both professional and casual play. While many players and teams have been banned in the last year, Valve recently issued a massive banhammer after it tricked a third-party cheating tool, removing more than 40,000 players from the game.
