Thousands of users have started reporting that CSGO servers are going offline. The issue started only a few minutes ago but hasn’t been fixed yet.
Many Steam servers and game servers are down as a result, and CSGO servers are no exception to that. Reports show well over a thousand reports on CSGO servers being down across more than 60 different countries.
According to outage.report, the issue started around 16:00 (IST), whereas, as of writing this article there have been 16+ reports so far.
CSGO Servers – expected time to resolve?
Considering the similar events that happened in the past which was resolved quickly within 30 Mins – 1 hour, we should expect that this might not take long as well.
A day after receiving a permanent ban from Twitch, Dr Disrespect has finally come out and tweeted out a statement thanking his fans for all the support and tried to address the nature of his ban.
He revealed that Twitch has yet to contact him about the reason for the abrupt ban and whether it is permanent or not. While this is the first time Dr Disrespect has made any statement regarding the Twitch ban, his wife “Mrs. Assassin” was first to respond about the ban on Instagram. Just a few hours after the news of the ban broke out, Mrs Assassin posted to her Instagram Stories on June 26, thanking the Champions Club and stating that their “love, support, strength, and kindness” has been “overwhelming” and that there’s “no one better.”
While the rumor mill is spinning out of control, It is currently unknown whether Dr Disrespect’s ban is permanent, or not. But the further action of refunding his subscribers and removing his emotes entirely from the platform has raised more questions and added further to the confusion.
Going by the current information available through industry experts, the situation is very critical, and Twitch not officially contacting Doc might mean that they are currently accessing all the available “proofs” about the matter and might contact Dr Disrespect soon with a legal notice.
Champions Club,
Twitch has not notified me on the specific reason behind their decision… Firm handshakes to all for the support during this difficult time.
According to sources close to the matter, Twitch is issuing refunds to subscribers of Dr Disrespect just hours after he was perma-banned on the site. An email was sent out by Twitch to his subscribers today, saying their subscription to his channel would be refunded and the money for the remaining time would soon reflect in their bank statements within 3-5 business days.
Twitch have cancelled subscriptions to Dr Disrespect's channel and are sending out refunds. His emotes are also no longer available.
According to Dexerto, Twitch is sending emails to every subscriber of his channel informing about the refund process and how to contact them in case any issue arises with the refund. Twitch has also gone ahead and deleted his entire channel while also disabling his emotes.
Earlier in the day, Twitch had suddenly banned Dr Disrespect without releasing any official statement about the matter and cause of the sudden move. When contacted by several media houses Twitch refused to share any information regarding the ban and only said it will “take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
Some people initially speculated it may be due to DMCA copyright strikes but Esports insider Rod “Slasher” Breslau reported soon after the ban that it was not related to the DMCA strike, rather the matter is very serious and people with knowledge of ban won’t even speak about it.
The past week has shaken the esports world to its core, as women across the scene – from cosplayers to casters – have raised their voices in unison against mistreatments done towards them by various men in the industry. The #MeToo movement reaching the esports scene has come as a shock to many men in it, who couldn’t possibly have imagined that a misconduct they performed several years ago would come haunting them in the present.
While many of the women raising accusations against popular personalities admitted that they were initially afraid to raise their voices due to these people being influential in the scene, the domino effect started when renowned Destiny 2 streamer “SayNoToRage”, also known as Lono, was alleged for sexual misconduct done towards women.
From then on, allegations started appearing from different games. Female personalities from Call of Duty, CS: GO, DoTA 2, and multiple other popular games started raising accusations against men from the respective games for inappropriate actions done towards them.
Grant “GranDGrant” Harris, a Dota 2 caster, was alleged for drugging and sexual assault by a person who chose to remain anonymous. He was also accused of “defaming” and “harassing” her female co-caster “LlamaDownUnder” to the point where she quit her job.
We’ve all been far too quiet for far too long about Grandgrant. He has for years shown a consistent pattern of behaviour of harassing & degrading women. Most notable case we know about is LlamaDownUnder. She was a fast-rising Dota 2 caster. And then she wasn’t. Grant did that.
When Llama took legal action against Grant, he was supported by many senior talents in the space. This is the boys club. These are the gatekeepers. This is why we are only ever getting excited about one women casting Dota at a time. The space is toxic.
Toby “TobiWan” Dawson, another iconic Dota 2 caster, was alleged by three different women for misconduct done towards them. While one of them chose to remain anonymous, the other two resorted to Twitter to speak out their minds.
While TobiWan addressed all of the accusations in his Twitlonger statement along with an apology, his response wasn’t satisfactory for many.
Another incident that shook the CSGO scene was the accusations against “HenryG”, a widely popular CSGO caster. On June 21st, Henry’s ex-girlfriend Kelly Jean accused him of being “verbally, emotionally & mentally abusive” and alleged him of sexual harassment done to her.
The above-mentioned accusations are only a handful among the hundreds of accusations raised combinedly by the women in the esports scene. These accusations didn’t go unnoticed, as more and more people started showing their support to the victims and demanded appropriate measures to be taken against the abusers.
A consequent impact is also prominent in the community. Destiny 2 streamer SayNoToRage has publicly apologized for the situation through a YouTube video.
https://youtu.be/jluGP1iHcKE
Evil Geniuses have confirmed through their Twitter about no longer associating with “GranDGrant”, who also made a public apology before indefinitely quitting the Dota 2 scene.
Effective immediately, Grant "GranDgranT" Harris has been released and is no longer a member of Evil Geniuses.
We have a zero-tolerance workplace policy, and take any accusation of harassment, or a violation of our policies handbook, seriously.
ill be Leaving Dota and the Esports Scene For A long time if not permanent. I dont want to make this about me though, I want to Say, I hope the people who dont feel safe do feel safer, and I hope Dota becomes an overall better esport over the upcoming years.
TobiWan’s statement regarding the allegations wasn’t satisfactory to many fans, and even some of his co-casters, who continued to demand getting Toby “away from DoTA”
Furthermore, all of Toby’s voice lines were removed from the TI10 Battle Pass, which was later announced by Wykrhm Reddy through a tweet.
The following Chat Wheel lines have been replaced for the TI10 Battle Pass.
– It's a disastah! > Holy Moly! – Oh my lord! > I can't believe what we're seeing. What just happened? – Whoa, how close was that? > You're a goddamn hero!#TI10#Dota2
Amid the huge support this #MeToo movement is getting, a good part of Twitter and Reddit are raising concerns about taking the victims’ word of mouth without any concrete proof as conclusive evidence to what actually happened. Popular streamer Summit1G has said through Twitter, “Innocent until proven guilty…..unless it’s the internet where we do things backwards.”
Innocent until proven guilty…..unless it’s the internet where we do things backwards.
This mentality was further amplified through HenryG’s response to his ex-girlfriend for the allegations raised against him. He rejected most of the claims set up by Kelly, and shared some screenshots of their personal conversations as evidence to what actually happened. Following this incident, many people claimed that Henry had set an example towards people raising false accusations during this time.
I hope one day I will be able to find the words to explain how much irreparable damage has been done to me behind the scenes. I will never be the same again.
This shit *will* kill someone. Imagine if i didn't have the receipts.
However, Henry’s response wasn’t free from controversies either. Kelly Jean in one of her recent tweets claimed that Henry is outright “lying” and that it contradicts their discord messages.
She said in a follow-up tweet, “Seeing other women in the CSGO industry side with my ex fucking hurts man. I don’t care if people don’t know what to think because they /literally weren’t there/. But calling me a liar and a psycho, hurts. Before I even responded to his allegations without proof.”
A necessary movement
It can’t be denied that the #MeToo movement might have been necessary in the esports scene to make a positive change. It’s pointing out to millions of people that wrongdoings will not go unpunished, regardless of how influential you are and will eventually surface at some point in the future to haunt you back.
The movement is showing all the men in the esports world that it’s not okay to take advantage of your position of power to harass, abuse or bully others who are struggling to rise up the ladder.
SirActionSlacks, a loved public figure of the Dota 2 community, has released a heartfelt video addressing the issues that have happened in the past week. Slacks, generally a very comedic person who never fails to make fans laugh, was himself on the verge of tears throughout the entire video. He mentions how these incidents revolving around the game which turned his life around is upsetting and people who he “would take a bullet for 48 hours ago,” have changed, while repeatedly emphasizing on the fact that “it’s not hard to be nice to people.”
The video which is enough to make every one of us shed a tear, has over 210,000 views at the time of writing.
Fresh allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct have shaken the gaming industry to its core in the last week. From people at high positions like game directors to streamers within the community facing fresh allegation daily, questions about the safety and work culture that women employees are subjected to within the industry is gaining traction.
This time, Ubisoft’s creative director for Assassin’s Creed series Ashraf Ismail is in the limelight following allegations of infidelity. Multiple people close to Ismail have accused him of allegedly cheating on his wife many times. One such accuser, a woman, revealed that Ismail had a full-blown relationship with her while hiding his married life. The women also revealed that Ismail tried to hide their relationship from his family and kept it a secret from them while simultaneously living a double married life.
Following the accusations, Ashraf Ismail has stepped down from his position in Ubisoft and also deleted his Twitter account after posting his last Tweet:
“I am stepping down from my beloved project to properly deal with the personal issues in my life. The lives of my family and my own are shattered. I am deeply sorry to everyone hurt in this.”
Since his last Tweet, Ubisoft has also issued a statement where they have apologized to everyone affected by the misconduct and have since launched a deep investigation with the promise of “taking any and all appropriate disciplinary action”
Ashraf Ismail was working as the creative director at Ubisoft Montreal for the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Valhalla was his second game as a creative director, with the first one being Assassin’s Creed: Origins which came out in 2017.
Herschel Beahm IV who is widely known as is in-game alias Dr. Disrespect has been handed a Twitch ban, multiple reports have surfaced. The 38-year old American streamer has been in the news multiple times for violating community guidelines in the past.
The Video Game journalist for CNN, Shannon Liao reported that the Amazon-owned streaming platform have stated the reason being ‘violation of community guidelines.’
The full statement reads: As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
Twitch's statement on @drdisrespect ban: "As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
Industry insider Rod ‘Slasher’ Peak who goes by the Twitter username @Slasher had Tweeted about the developments. Rod had specifically emphasized that the ban in affect wasn’t related DMCA. Perhaps, not really related to copyright strikes from the streaming platform.
Hence, it was due to something in respect with Twitch’s code of conduct or/and community guidelines.
Sources: DrDisrespect has been permanently banned from Twitch
Just about last year, Dr Disrespect was banned for streaming when he filmed some clips in a public bathroom on his journey to E3. Herschel is very vocal in the industry about his views and some may even consider him a little ‘outspoken’ at times.
Further, with no confirmation from Twitch, community have started to speculate if this has something to do with the ongoing #MeToo movement in the esports industry. This week, multiple counts of sexual allegations rattled the scene after DotA 2 celebrity figure TobiWan was involved in an harassment complaint.
The fight against cheaters in CSGO continues, as the devs are looking to take some strict measures to curb cheating in their competitive shooter. Today’s CSGO update features a new beta branch for the game which players can optionally opt into to help the fight against cheaters.
Today we’re shipping an optional beta branch of CS:GO with changes that are part of our continuing fight against cheating. More in today's Blog Post: https://t.co/4KVVkzllzl
The beta will “significantly restrict” the number of third-party programs and files which are allowed to interact with the game, thus reducing the likelihood of cheaters running any sort of cheating software in the background.
In case a player runs the game with these types of restricted programs, they’ll receive a warning after launching the game which will indicate the name of the blocked file and will be prevented from joining any VAC-secure servers. To fix this issue, players can choose to disable the ‘Trusted Launch’ which can be found in the in-game settings, however doing so might temporarily reduce the trust factor of the player, as mentioned by the devs in their blog post.
A problem which might have arisen as a result of this update was the difficulties which the developers of genuine third-party softwares would face, and this issue was also addressed by the CSGO devs.
The blog post said, “For developers of third-party programs that interact directly with the CS:GO executable process, we have added requirements that will impact your software. Moving forward, all DLLs that interact with CS:GO will need to be digitally signed with an Authenticode signature. Additionally, we will block signed DLLs if their functionality interferes with the game in any way.”
Moving forward, this update might be a big step towards lowering the amount of cheaters currently found in the game. This beta branch is likely to be added to the main client soon, when its consequences will be more prominent.
The past week has shaken the esports community to its core, and Dota 2 is no exception. Women related to esports, from cosplayers to casters have raised their voices against misconducts caused to them by various popular esports personalities. Many of them claimed to not have been able to speak up their minds in the past due to these popular personalities being influential, but now that the domino effect has already begun, one after another, the allegations are arising; and even the most renowned personalities seem to wield a horrific past.
Allegations in the Dota 2 scene started with Grant “GranDgranT” Harris, who was accused by co-caster “cofactorstrudel” of refusing to let go of her hand in a TI7 after party where he was allegedly drunk. Soon after Grant posted an apology confirming the claim, he was dropped from Evil Geniuses.
Effective immediately, Grant "GranDgranT" Harris has been released and is no longer a member of Evil Geniuses.
We have a zero-tolerance workplace policy, and take any accusation of harassment, or a violation of our policies handbook, seriously.
Grant had also posted about taking an indefinite break from Dota 2, with no date of return being scheduled.
ill be Leaving Dota and the Esports Scene For A long time if not permanent. I dont want to make this about me though, I want to Say, I hope the people who dont feel safe do feel safer, and I hope Dota becomes an overall better esport over the upcoming years.
This time, it’s one of the most iconic Dota 2 casters being accused by not one, but three different women for sexual misconduct towards them. The three allegations were addressed by Toby through his Tweet, but it appears like fans weren’t satisfied with the statement he put forward.
After being slammed by many people on Twitter for some of his “insensitive” comments, he removed his initial statement and released another statement after “discussing privately with those who want to be heard.”
Upon the request of many people I have deleted my posts & will think long and hard as well as discussing privately with those who want to be heard before speaking further.
However, this statement too, failed to please the fans and one of the victims publicly stated her dissatisfaction on Toby’s apology. He also called him out for keeping her anonymous in his statement despite her not consenting to it.
Despite the fact that most of the allegations haven’t been confirmed as of yet, popular faces in the Dota 2 scene have raised voices in unison against Toby. Capitalist, another popular caster in the Dota 2 scene has made it clear that he wants Toby out of Dota 2.
The effects of these allegations turned out to be disastrous for Toby. Beyond the Summit has severed all ties with the caster and have said through a tweet that they “won’t be working with him in the future.”
Recent allegations of sexual assault and misconduct have come out against Toby. We believe them. We won't be working with him in the future.
Another huge blow which came afterwards affected the entirety of the Dota 2 player base. All of Toby’s voice lines in the Dota 2 Battle Pass were removed and replaced by other voice lines. This was later confirmed through a tweet by Wykrhm Reddy.
The following Chat Wheel lines have been replaced for the TI10 Battle Pass.
– It's a disastah! > Holy Moly! – Oh my lord! > I can't believe what we're seeing. What just happened? – Whoa, how close was that? > You're a goddamn hero!#TI10#Dota2
With only one month being passed since the addition of the TI10 Battle Pass to Dota 2, the prize pool of The International 2020 has already skyrocketed, breaking the milestone of $20 million the fastest in Dota 2 history.
The International 10 Battle Pass was implemented to the game towards the end of May and included a plethora of new features in it for the buyers to enjoy. TI10 had also broken the $10 million mark in record time, breaking previous year’s time by a considerable number of hours. This time, however, the $20 million mark is reached days before the time required by the TI9 Battle Pass to reach the same.
This sudden escalation of the prize pool after a month is due to the Battle Points bundle that was released by Valve yesterday. The bundle included 120 Battle Levels with nine Treasure 1s, six Treasure 2s and three Treasure 3s at a discount of a whopping 75% and the price tag being $29.99. Due to the insane demand of the points bundle, following the pattern of every year, the prize pool experienced a sudden surge in the span of a day.
This year, in particular, saw a heavy demand of the points bundle due to the attractive rewards this Battle Pass features, the most notable of which are the Pudge persona, Anti-mage persona, Wraith King arcana, Queen of Pain arcana and the Windranger arcana which is found at level 575, a mark which is certainly difficult to reach without buying the Battle Points bundle.
Previous year, some players could find a way to buy the battle points bundle as much as three times. This year, in spite of that number being limited to two by Valve themselvesthe elevation in the TI10 prize pool is considerable.
On June 24th, The Pokémon Company caught fans across the world by surprise and announced their all-new and upcoming video game title – Pokémon Unite – through an eleven minute YouTube video featuring the CEO of The Pokémon Company himself. A day later, the video has become the most disliked video in the history of Nintendo.
The video featured some words from Tsunekazu Ishihara – the president and CEO of The Pokémon Company – followed by a gameplay presentation of Pokémon Unite, which he himself participated in.
Like most other MOBAs out there, Pokémon Unite is a 5v5 co-op game set in the vast world of Pokémo. Players have to select one Pokémon each from a pool and engage in combat against the enemy team in an arena. Each Pokémon has a unique set of skills which have to be utilized by the players to gain an advantage.
The gameplay presentation featured some of the most popular Pokémon in action like Pikachu, Lucario and Snorkax. The combat mechanics are similar to that of League but the skillsets, map and objectives seem to be different from the revealed gameplay.
However, fans didn’t seem to like the gameplay, as the number of dislikes in the video kept skyrocketing, and only a day later is standing on the brink of hitting 150k dislikes. Many hardcore Pokémon fans are complaining that although the concept of the game is good, the execution is simply bad. Some also complained that the game is way below expectations, and falls bland compared to their other upcoming new projects like the Pokémon Sword and Shield: Isle of Armor expansion, Pokémon Smile, and Pokémon Cafe.
The Pokémon Company has revealed that Pokémon Unite is set to be a free-to-play game across the world and will be available for mobile phones and Nintendo Switch. However, no specific release date has been scheduled for the game.
