The Real Reason This $250k Warzone Tournament Descended Into Chaos
Accusations of cheating recently rocked the Twitch Rivals Call Of Duty: Warzone Doritos Bowl championship, causing the tournament to disqualify a team following an investigation. However, one of the original accusers later admitted he might have been wrong. The chaos that has followed has revealed that Twitch needs a better process for dealing with allegations of cheating, while Warzone itself needs a way to free itself of its longstanding hacker problem.
The problems began when multiple participants posted footage they claimed was of a player named METZY_B. The footage seemingly showed METZY_B cheating in the penultimate game of the final day of the tournament. One clip, posted to Twitter after the fact, shows what looks appears to some viewers like an unnatural auto aim-powered shift of METZY_B's reticle to a player jumping out a window. As a result of this type of footage, the organizers of the Doritos Bowl championship halted the tournament for an investigation.
Following the investigation, the Twitch Rivals account posted, "During the Doritos Bowl ft. Call of Duty Warzone Final, METZY_B was ruled to be cheating. As a result his team was removed from the event. We take Twitch Rivals Player Conduct extremely seriously. We will continue to investigate any allegations of cheating."
The team that included METZY_B, kryptic_j0ker, and Unifyz was booted out of the tournament prior to the fifth and final match of the day. However, that didn't turn out to be the whole story, as METZY_B then offered to turn over his computer to one of the accusers. Eurogamer reported that METZY_B joined Tommey from 1000 Thieves' stream to try to clear his name, allowing the other gamer access to his files remotely.
Tommey failed to find evidence of cheating and took to Twitter for a mea culpa. He claims he wasn't the person who had METZY_B removed from the tourney. According to Tommey, he only posted clips of METZY_B's gameplay after hearing of the cheating accusations.
"I'll hold my hands up and admit we were wrong," Tommey posted. "I'm sorry for letting a lot of you down. I don't know what more to say, but I accept and deserve anything that comes from this."
Some of METZY_B's other critics have deleted their tweets following this, but others are still skeptical, certain that the player used some sort of auto-aim. Many players have noted that, with Warzone's non-existent anti-cheat barriers, this was bound to happen.
NickMercs of FaZe Clan posted, "Unfortunately without anti-cheat, authentic Warzone tournaments just aren't possible anymore." Streamer Tim Chase said in response, "Warzone is broken." NickMercs has also claimed in-stream that he will be quitting the game as a result.
However things fall out in the end for the players, perhaps this will be a wake-up call for Activision, which hasn't responded publicly to the cheating scandal.