By: Courtney Obeng
The Electronic Sports League, the worlds largest e-sports group, announced on July 23 it will soon introduce a policy against the use of performance-enhancing drugs at its competitions.
The announcement came after professional Counter-Strike player Cory Friesen admitted in an interview that he and members of his team Cloud9 used the psychostimulant Adderall during ESL’s quarter million tournament in Poland.
Skip to 7:48 for drug admission
Even after this admission of guilt the head of Communications at ESL, Anna Rozwandowiez, told Motherboard they wouldn’t be punished.
“We can’t punish someone if we are not 100 percent sure he is guilty,” Rozwandowiez said. “And as we have no way to test it anymore. We won’t take action in this specific case.”
To prevent further use of PED, ESL partnered with the Nationale Anti-Doping Agentur (NADA) to create an anti-PED policy that is “fair and respects player privacy.” ESL will also meet with the World Anit-Doping Agency (WADA) to be involved with the implementation and enforcement of the policy.
The problem here isn’t that Cloud9 cheated and got away with it, it’s that there are no widespread rules against performance-enhancing drugs.
E-Sports has grown rapidly over the last few years in both popularity and prize money. According to Event Hub, this year’s EVO Ultra Street Fighter 4 main event peaked at 248,663 viewers.
- Ultra SF 4 248,663
- Super Smash Bros Melee 211,393
- Mortal Kombat X 190,535
- Ultimate Marvel VS. Capcom 3 177,057
- Guilty Gear Xrd—Sign 131,337
The International, the world’s most famous e-sports tournament, begins Aug. 3 and will have a $17.2 million prize pool. And yet The International hasn’t responded to this doping scandal.
But doping isn’t the only problem with e-sports. There’s also hacking.
VGC, video game championships, is the yearly Pokémon competition. Over the last few years there has been controversy over the teams used by champions and players.
Unlike the use of PED’s, cheating in the Pokémon VGC is harder to define and punish. In general Pokémon are classified as legitimate and/or legal.
Players have been using PED’s for years and VGC is filled with hacked “legal” Pokémon. Hopefully ESL’s commitment to stamping out doping in its competitions spreads to other e-sports events and will cover more than just drugs.
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