In a recent episode of HLTV Confirmed, the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) commissioner Ian Smith has claimed that as much as 80% of the games in the Chinese CSGO scene are fixed.

This comes as a shock to many avid CSGO fans and calls into question the integrity of the professional CSGO scene in China. The commissioner said that the reason Chinese CSGO isn’t broadcasted on HLTV is that most of its games are fixed, which results in the sponsors backing out and the prize pool experiencing cuts. 

“Who takes the hit? Prize money reduces when sponsors back out, when broadcasts stop, when HLTV don’t want to put something on because they think it’s corrupt or fixed like 80% of Chinese CSGO,” Smith said during the interview. “Why is there no Chinese CSGO on HLTV? Because it’s fixed! It’s not worth putting on, right? …It’s the players who take the hit, and you guys who take the hit!”

The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) is a non-profit members’ association established in 2015 to promote and facilitate competitive integrity in esports.

The news comes after the ESIC handed out five-year bans to CSGO pros Sebastian “retchy” Tropiano and Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak after an audio clip of them attempting to fix a game in the ESEA Premier season 35 North America surfaced. 

With the Chinese CSGO scene constantly growing larger, the numbers stated by Smith should certainly be a cause of concern for the CSGO community.

Counter Strike and bugs is a tale as old as time, and when a game that has been around as long as CS:GO has, it’s bound to have bugs and glitches every now and then. We all remember then infamous smoke that didn’t bloom instantly and couldn’t control the spread of a Molotov, ‘ropz’ dying to a chicken blocking a door, or even more recently, steps in the water being heard from EVERY position on the map on Ancient.

The smoke bug is no different, be it a regular matchmaking game or at the highest level of Professional CS, it is ever-present. The smoke bug is most prevalent when it is used to extinguish a Molotov or incendiary grenade and temporarily gives the player clear vision through the smoke. Reddit user u/Heinzelboss showed just how menacing this bug is and how it can ruin games by giving the other side a very undeserved advantage.

What is even weirder is that the bug doesn’t reveal what is on the other side of the smoke, and only highlights the outline of the player moving through the smoke. In the new meta, some players such as ‘electronic’ and ‘next sit inside the smoke to wait it out, to catch the opponent off guard, and give themselves a split-second advantage.

This was also highlighted very recently in a Group Stage game between Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan for the top spot in Group C. On the B site of Inferno, Finn “karrigan” Andersen tried to smoke a molly and run through to it. But as you can see, his model was very clearly outlined by the bug giving ‘Perfecto’ an easy chance to kill him and turn the round from a 5v5 to a 5v4 for his team.

Will this bug be patched by Valve anytime soon? All we can do is wait it out, as the company that made the best FPS game for over 2 decades stays silent on most issues and fixes them in the next update. This is of course before the bug is back in some form or the other.

So, as every caster very often tells you, the smoke is not a wall and it will not protect you from stray bullets, smoke walks, or even Smoke Criminals jumping through it.

Earlier this week the Astralis Group did a midyear roundup of their finances which showed a huge improvement in their performance, compared to the past year. A huge chunk of this was, of course, owing to the transfer of Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz to Ninjas in Pyjamas. The Astralis group is a publicly-traded one, and thus the shareholders have every right to enquire about the finances, and Astralis duly obliged by posting the details for the first half of the financial year 2021.

As per the report, Astralis generated $6.24 million from Jan 1, 2021, to June 30, 2021. This is a huge jump up from the $3.26 million generated in the same period in the year 2020. This was down to the global pandemic, with investors pulling out of deals as they couldn’t sustain the losses. But since then, things have been looking better for all parties, with offline tournaments and investors coming back.

The 4 time major winners lost $4.8 million last year in the first 6 months, but they cut it down to less than half that amount in 2021, losing $2.01 million in the process. Astralis CEO Nikolaj Nyholm did reveal that player sales are NOT part of the revenue generated for the group, so the sale of ‘dev1ce’ to NiP did not actually play a part in the improved situation for the Danes.

Delving deeper into the report, it stated that the sale of the 2 time Major MVP cost Swedish side NiP close to US$715,000. When dev1ce left in late April 2021, it was reported that the transfer cost NiP nearly a million US dollars, but the finances reveal that it was closer to 700k USD, which is in no way a small amount and for a player of the calibre of dev1ce, it may well be worth every penny that the Swedes spent on him. The sale also paved way for the signing of ‘Lucky’ from Tricked esports.

Also as per Valves ruling, each team that has in-game items in CSGO, get a percentage of the amount every time that item is sold or bought on the market. This includes the latest 2020 RMR stickers, Player Autographs and Souvenir skins. The report stated that Astralis made nearly 1 Million USD from sticker sales alone, which would only improve once the Major comes around and new stickers come into the game.

Astralis are also partnered with ESL and BLAST Premier, the biggest TOs in CSGO currently and also have teams in FIFA and League of Legends, with CSGO being their most profitable endeavour, winning 4 majors in 2.5 years, a feat unmatched till now.