Chinese PUBG pro players found guilty of cheating at live event

A few Chinese Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds pro players have been caught cheating during the PUBG Champions League 2019.

According to a Weibo post published by the PCL Competition Organizing Committee on September 4, as well as translations posted by the head of Liquipedia’s PUBG editor team on Twitter, six players have violated PCL’s rules by obtaining in-game information outside of the game, using resources available to spectators in the competition’s arena.

The committee has investigated almost 50 teams and over 650 players after having suspected rule violations during the tournament’s summer split. With PUBG being a battle royale game, cheating at tournaments is not only done through in-game means. Often, and this was apparently the case with the PCL, players may seek to obtain additional information on opponents by using the features of the tournament venue itself.

The players responsible for breaking rules that prevent them from illegally acquiring game information during PCL 2019 are Pan “Baolei” Xiny, Wang “shou” Kang,  Li “AhaNg” Shihang, Chen “Shark” Haoran, Luo “Gouz” Hansong, and Bao “LanBo5927” Xinhang.

Cheating in PUBG extends to live events

According to the committee’s statement, all of the named players have violated Article 7.4 of the PCL Summer Competition Rules for unfair competition. The lone exception is shou, who only violated the Code of Conduct.

One of the ways these players were likely to have violated the rules was by standing up and observing opposing players elsewhere in the room, then relaying that information to their teammates.

As stated, Baolei, AhaNg, Shark, Gouz, and LanBo5927 are accused of obtaining information about other teams through behavior outside of the game. Unlike the others, shou isn’t responsible for illegally obtaining information about other teams, but rather was found to have left his seat during a game without the permission of PLC referees.

Most of the players were given a penalty deducting their seasonal points, along with a warning not to transgress again. Gouz and LanBo5927 have admitted to the rules violation and were only given warnings.

Due to this incident, PCL’s committee is now looking to stop the usage of potentially disruptive or informative lightning effects in arenas, strengthen referee training and on-site supervision, and will strictly require from participating teams that they be professional and accept participation in a fair competition.