ESIC Issued A 5 Year Ban On Forsaken
Nikhil "forsaken" kumawat, a former member of the OpTic India's CS:GO roaster is now officially banned by the Esports Integrity Coalition. The ban is for a time period of 5 years. Meaning forsaken is now banned from "all esports related activity for or with any ESIC member organization".
The exact moment when admins at #eXTREMESLAND2018 caught forsaken and he attempted to delete the hack pic.twitter.com/rZG7aYBdbD
— CSGO2ASIA (@CSGO2ASIA) October 19, 2018
Forsaken was caught cheating during the Zowie eXtemesland Tournament LAN finals in Shanghai last week. Leading up to the disqualification of the team from the tournament. Beyond this Optic then announced they disbanded the team. ESIC stated the evidence against forsaken is solid and blatant. ESIC also highlighted that he also cheated in the ESL India Premiership tournament, in which Optic India won.
However, ESIC gave forsaken 48 hours to plead guilty or not plead guilty and defend himself. Forsaken did not respond to these attempts.
Beyond this forsaken finally break his silence about the situation. In an interview given to AFKGaming, forsaken apologized to his teammates and to everyone he let down. Forsaken said “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 jeopardized their chances of being where they deserve.
What Now For Indian CS:GO Scene
This whole situation took a major hit on the Indian CS:GO scene. The Indian CS:GO scene is a rising one and has a lot of players with exceptional talent. However, this situation did make the whole scene seem like a total meme. In contrast to this situation, the community did surface sketchy clips of forsaken dating back to 2017. Beyond this, other pro players from the scene also confirmed that they knew he was in fact cheating. This action from forsaken also took a huge toll on his teammates and the Indian CS:GO scene as a whole.
The decision from Optic to disband the team, which raised more questions. This could very well mean the doubt of rest of the players being aware of forsaken cheating. However, at the time of this writing, there's no word from Optic solidifying this. The chances of Optic releasing any statement to address this is faint.
Forsaken's immature actions single-handedly handicapped a rising CS:GO scene as some puts it. The negative aura surrounding the regional CS:GO scene is sure to take away some major opportunity for the pro players. Sure, rest of the team members of the Optic India team will land in a deal with some other team. However, these players will never have the future like when they were in Optic India.
The influx of other gaming organizations to acquire players from India could see a step-down. However, disregarding the negatives, the enthusiastic and passionate pro scene of India has every potential to produce some world class CS:GO players. This could only be achieved through genuine efforts and solid trust in yourself. WIth the passionate efforts of the community we hope to see the Indian CS:GO scene thrive regardless of the negativity that is occurring right now.