After a year of speculation, Valve has finally made clear the length of the bans they handed out for match fixing: Permanent.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive developer today released a statement regarding the bans of former iBuyPower members. The company have stated that all four players plus three others involved in last year’s match fixing scandal are permanently banned from competitive play.
The following people were at the center of the scandal, and have today received confirmation that they are permanently banned from the competitive scene.
Duc “cud” Pham
Derek “dboorn” Boorn
Casey Foster
Sam “Dazed” Marine
Braxton “swag” Pierce
Keven “AZK” Larivière
Joshua “Steel” Nissan
“Our decision was to ban these players indefinitely from involvement in Valve-sponsored events,” Valve said in their statement. “To clarify, the bans for these players are permanent, and players proven to have taken part in match-fixing will be permanently banned.”
They also stated that they will “continue to take whatever action we think is necessary to protect the entertainment value created by professional Counter-Strike.”
It is unknown whether Marine, Pierce, Larivière, or Nissan had plans to rejoin the competitive scene, but now Valve has essentially made the decision for them. While they’re free to play in events that aren’t backed by Valve, that precludes them from most major events and likely from ever joining a professional team.
Marine and Nissan remain active within the community as streamers, while Pierce was initially added to Cloud9 as part of their coaching staff, though recently he was removed from that role and instead remains with the team as a personality. Larivière has not been as active as the others, though he has featured in some low level offline tournaments, such as Fragadelphia in October 2015.
Image via Valve | Remix by Jacob Wolf
