These Cheaters Really Sucked At Cheating

Gaming fans tend look down on cheating and believe the act stains associated accomplishments. For instance, when the final boss of "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice" proved too much for PC Gamer's James Davenport, he used a cheat to make the fight easier. As Davenport explained at the time, he still enjoyed the game and didn't want to let the game's intense difficulty overshadow that enjoyment or sense of accomplishment. However, it seemed like the full force of the internet crashed down on him after the article. 

The blowback from this article spawned the famous "you cheated not only the game, but yourself" tweet that deemed his success a "hollow victory" and became a meme in its own right. Whether or not you agree with this statement, at least Davenport had the decency to cheat within the closed system of a single-player experience. Not everyone is that honorable.

Cheating is a plague on many online multiplayer games. Some players use cheats to win online matches, while others just use cheats to just mess with other gamers. But, while the hows differ, many agree on the whys: Many heaters cheat because that's the only way they can succeed. Because of this, the internet is full of instances where cheaters get their comeuppance.

Whether it's an example of cheaters forgetting to hide their iniquities, being outplayed by gamers who actually took the time to grow and improve, or cathartically failing even with their unfair advantages, audiences love seeing the hammer of fair play slam down on cheaters.

When you see someone cheating in a game, your first thought probably is  "Gee, this person must not be very bright if they aren't willing to learn the game's mechanics and become skilled on their own." During one stream in 2020, "Rainbow Six Siege" streamer GMZ tricked a cheater into streaming their underhanded tactics live, proving that not every cheater is especially bright.

During a stream in 2020, GMZ was playing against a team with a suspiciously knowledgeable Bandit player, FranKoR6. GMZ accused FranKoR6 of wallhacks, but the player predictably pleaded innocence and boasted that he had a stream to prove it. GMZ was willing to accept the stream as evidence, but only on the condition that FranKoR6 used display capture mode. FranKoR6 took the bait, and when his stream resumed, it showed the telltale green boxes of wallhacks (which let cheaters see the positions of opponents through walls, hence the name). By the time FranKoR6 realized he had been duped, he had already been eliminated, and his cheating ways had been streamed for the entire internet to see.

After viewers saw that FranKoR6 was a cheater, he tried to salvage his reputation, but not by apologizing or anything. No, as noted by YouTuber Tobie, he apparently changed his username multiple times, but the damage had been done. FranKoR6 hasn't streamed since 2020.

But the question remains: What did the most damage to FranKoR6? Was it the knowledge that he cheated, or the ease with which he exposed himself? Sometimes, it's better to just plead the Fifth.

Not all cheats come from manipulated code or programs running behind the scenes. Sometimes, gamers cheat with some good old-fashioned match fixing. On paper, that sounds like a "safe" way to cheat with minimal risk. If everyone keeps their traps shut, nobody will ever know, right?

During the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit 2012, audiences expected great things from the match-up of Team Curse vs. Team Dignitas. Who would be crowned the best "League of Legends" team? Viewers hoped to witness tightly-knit strategies and general MOBA chaos. Instead, the teams selected random champions and turned the middle lane into a mosh pit battlefield. Once that travesty started, there were only two kinds of people in the audience: those who suspected collusion and those who were in on the not-so funny joke that it was collusion.

According to a now-deleted tweet from MLG executive Adam Apicella (via Kotaku), Team Curse and Dignitas conspired to throw the match and divvy up the prize money — and they agreed to do so in public, no less. "The entire venue was aware of it," claimed Apicella. Curse and Dignitas were both subsequently disqualified for "misconduct," and the first and second-place prizes were instead awarded to the teams that came in third and fourth, respectively.

While Team Curse eventually apologized, members maintain they only collaborated with Dignitas to "have fun." If that's true, nobody's laughing.

Particularly skilled cheaters can often hide their cheats. However, the more eyes that are on them, the more likely it is that they will be discovered. This is why you should never cheat during a tournament.

During the quarter-final "Valorant" match of the 2020 TGS Signature Series, Team Tokyo went up against Vancouver Elated, and all eyes were on the action — and that was the last thing Team Tokyo player Ryut wanted. When Ryut rounded a corner, he saw an opponent, but opened fire on a completely different opponent hidden behind a door. According to the replay, Ryut aimed dead center at this second opponent's head, even though Ryut could not have known they were there, let alone the exact pixel where their head was. This incident screamed of wall and aim hacks.

Forbes reported that Ryut's cheating was so blatant that Riot banned their account via the "Valorant" proprietary anti-cheat system Vanguard. Gamers have decried the program as invasive malware, but it's hard to argue with the results, since Vanguard strips cheaters of their accounts and blacklists their PC hardware. In other words, Ryut can't play "Valorant" without buying a new computer.

In the tournament and ban aftermath, Ryut reportedly deleted their social media accounts. After such a public display of unsportsmanlike behavior, Ryut might never resurface.

In a competitive video game, the player with the fastest reflexes usually wins, but no matter how fast competitors are, they are still only human and limited by their bodies. Anyone who exceeds these biological limits is either a demigod or a cheater.

During the 2018 South American qualifiers, Thunder Predator's Juan "Atuun” Ochoa used Meepo, a "DOTA 2" character who is notoriously difficult because players need to basically babysit him and his clones to bring out their full potential. Meepo is essentially the epitome of the phrase "United we stand, divided we fall," and during the match, Atuun was on point. He juggled Meepo's clones and abilities with mechanical precision ... too mechanical, actually. 

Reddit users who dug through the match's combat log noticed that Atuun used abilities such as Poof (which lets Meepo teleport to his clones and vice versa) simultaneously with multiple characters, which is humanly impossible. Many concluded that the only possible explanation was that Atuun used macros — a bannable offense.

Although Atuun's team won the match, event organizers dug deeper into his previous fights and found that this use of Meepo wasn't Atuun's first offense. It turns out that he had used macros with a different character in a prior round. The evidence was overwhelming, so not only was Thunder Predator's victory deemed invalid, but the entire team was disqualified (via Kotaku).

Thunder Predator tried to defend Atuun's actions by claiming they were the result of "special button bindings” on his mouse, but it seems nobody bought the explanation.

Esports tournament organizers try to guarantee a nice, clean competition. Usually, this only requires anti-cheat software, and tournament stages should only factor into the spectacle. But imagine if players could cheat merely by peeking over their shoulders. Surely the organizers of competitions with millions of dollars on the line would go all-out prevent such tactics, right? And surely nobody would attempt to cheat like that in front of others. Don't be so sure.

The second "League of Legends" world championship featured many teams that would go down in esports history, including Team SoloMid and Team Dignitas, but the most infamous was Azubu Frost. They handily won their fight against Team SoloMid, but several members of that team accused them of cheating. Video evidence clearly shows Azubu Frost member Jang Gun Woong looking over his shoulder several times to peek at the big screen meant for audiences. One major piece of evidence unearthed by redditors shows Azubu Frost placing a warning ping on the top lane right after Woong turned his neck. And the ping was (you guessed it) right where all five SoloMid members were standing.

Even though Azubu Frost went on to the finals, the team ultimately lost against the Taipei Assassins. Tournament organizers ultimately agreed with SoloMid's allegations. Azubu Frost was fined $30,000, but they weren't even the only perpetrators. Organizers also issued warnings to Team WE, Invictus Gaming, and even Team SoloMid for similar unsportsmanlike behavior. Just goes to show you that some people will cheat if they think they can get away with it, even when there are millions of witnesses.

While many major esports organizations recruit players from countries such as Denmark and South Korea, some have scouted talent from India. In 2018, OpTic Gaming announced it would expand into India with a new team, OpTic India. OpTic held tryouts for the opening roster, and one of its most notable inclusions was Nikhil "Forsaken" Kumawat. His inclusion turned heads not because of his skill, but because he had been previously banned by Valve Anti-Cheat. 

While Forsaken pleaded his innocence in order to participate in tournaments — and made it to the ZOWIE eXTREMESLAND 2018 Asia finals — audience goodwill evaporated when team organizers stopped the match to examine Forsaken's computer (via ESPN). And as seen in clips of the event, Forsaken refused to cooperate at first.

While examining Forsaken's computer, tournament officials found a command prompt, which Forsaken tried to close and delete right in front of them. The program, unsubtly titled "word.exe," was an aimbot that was eventually traced back to a "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" cheat site. EXTREMESLAND organizers had more than enough evidence to boot Forsaken and the rest of OpTic India from the tournament. Forsaken was terminated — along with his teammates — and issued a five-year ban from all esports competitions (via Variety).

Forsaken disappeared from the esports scene, and all of his ex-allies have since retired.

When games let players roam all over an open map, those players will often find ways to get themselves stuck. These bugs and glitches are often impossible to fully iron out for development teams, so a band-aid solution for these problems is required. This is where console commands come in. Typically, player-side console commands consist of "/unstuck"-style inputs that do not directly affect gameplay, but rather exist as a debugging tool. However, the game developers have their own set of empowered console commands that allow them to test the game in more robust ways.

One of these commands, as seen in a clip from "H1Z1" developer Autenil, can grant invisibility to the developer's character model. In the clip, Autenil stalked down a group of players trying to use a car to get away from shotgun sprays they couldn't see. Apparently without realizing it, he had the "hidden" console command activated, granting him invisibility in a live multiplayer lobby.

Over the in-game proximity voice chat, Autenil learned that the players he was shooting point-blank couldn't see him — right around the time they all started remarking, "A dev is hacking!" Clearly embarrassed, Autenil turned his console command off and apologized to the team and his viewers. 

Eventually, according to commenters on Reddit, Autenil even let the wronged team get free revenge kills on him. While more of an honest mistake than deliberate cheating, this incident is nonetheless a funny moment for fans to remember. 

"Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" is host to one of the most competitive esports scenes in the entire gaming market. However, this competitive edge has brought rampant cheating to its esports scene over the years.

As reported by Kotaku, a "CS:GO" cheating scandal in 2014 unearthed an aimbot that was able to get past Valve's anti-cheat software. Upon updating its anti-cheat measures, Valve uncovered a dark underbelly of pros using this previously undetectable aimbot.

Of these newly-found cheaters, Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian was the highest-profile player on one of the better teams of the era, Titan. After swiftly receiving a VAC ban (courtesy of Valve Anti-Cheat), KQLY admitted that the ban was justified. In his confessional Facebook post (translation via Google Translate), KQLY said that after learning of the software and its widespread usage in the pro scene, he was tempted to use it, because he wanted to see how effective it would be in public matches.

Claiming that his cheating only dated back a week (which has been contested by Reddit investigators) was not enough to spare him from a lifetime ban from competing in "Counter Strike" tournaments — until 2018, when he was added to a professional "CS:GO" roster. This return was thanks to controversial rule change that turned lifetime VAC bans into 2-year professional competition bans. Despite getting a second chance, his teammates refused to play with him (via Kotaku).

"Call of Duty: Warzone" is no stranger to hackers. There are countless websites offering subscriptions services to cheating scripts that update even faster than the anti-cheat software used in "Call of Duty: Warzone." As a result, just about anybody can use these simple-to-install scripts at the cost of a subscription service.

One of these cheating subscription users, LemonSnipezz, was called out for this practice while streaming. According to the a Reddit post about the incident, LemonSnipezz initially denied the claims. When proof was sent to him, however, he flipped the script and started boasting about it, saying over and overm, "You know what, I'd do it again!" 

Not only did LemonSnipezz boast about his cheating, he went to the website from which he'd bought the cheats to show everyone watching his channel that his ban only lasted for 14 days. According to Dexerto, he claimed he would be right back at it again, just as soon as that ban expired.

It takes a certain type of person to use cheating subscriptions in the first place, but to brag about it and self-incriminate live on-stream for the whole internet to see? That's a whole other level of shamelessness. It's also maybe the worst way to go about cheating in a public setting.