Gamers Caught Cheating

Just like regular sports, the world of e-sports is full of cheaters. And with the rise of online gaming tournaments and streaming platforms like Twitch, some gamers exploit these cheats to help them score a quick win! But it takes just one wrong click to completely expose them and bring their little gaming empires to their knees. So, let’s take a look at some hackers, liars, and dim-witted cheaters who got caught on camera trying to play the system!

MissQGemini

Cheating in video games isn’t a crime, but the way streamer MissQGemini tried to cover up her blatant cheating absolutely was!

This young, ambitious gamer regularly streamed herself playing the ferociously competitive ‘Counter Strike: Global Offensive,’ or CS:GO for short, which is an online multiplayer first-person-shooter game. However, back in 2017, she started her stream with a huge rant about how she’d been unfairly accused of cheating.

CS:GO Cheating Live On Stream | MissQGemini by Get Exposed

Way to tell off those pesky trolls! But then, during the game’s warmup phase, she seemed to forget that the world could see her screen, and she brought up a cheat software menu! After hitting the ‘load coding’ button, all of her rival’s ranks and locations suddenly began appearing through the walls!

For those of you who don’t play CS:GO, this ain’t normal. It’s called a wall hack, which allows players to locate their opponents through solid objects in the game’s arena. Hacks like this are a sneaky way of gaining the upper hand in multiplayer shooter games, and MissQGemini’s viewers were quick to pick up on it. But blissfully unaware she’d been caught, she continued to play and, even worse, lose!

After being caught red handed, you’d think this would be the time to ‘fess up, right? But only cringey excuses started falling out of her mouth. It definitely wasn’t “Clara” that we watched load the cheat code at the beginning of this game! After that, MissQGemini guiltily abandoned the match and her CS:GO account was eventually slapped with an anti-cheat ban. But following massive backlash from the streaming community, her Twitch account also disappeared soon after, along with any chance she ever had of making it as a pro-gamer!

Forsaken

When it comes to cheating in CS:GO, it’s safe to say no player has ever been more humiliated than Nikhil “Forsaken” Kumawat.

During the eXTREMESLAND Zowie Asia tournament in 2018, Forsaken was competing as part of the pro e-sports team ‘OpTic India’. They’d entered into the top tier CS:GO tournament, which had a hefty prize pool of $100,000! But as Forsaken was playing, someone reported him for suspicious activity and an administrator was called in.

At first, Forsaken boldly refused the admin access to his terminal. But after they asserted their position, they probed into his setup and discovered a suspicious program running in the background. When it was pointed out, Forsaken unbelievably batted their hands away and tried to delete it in front of their eyes!

Stunned, the administrators disqualified Forsaken on the spot, and the entire OpTic India team was booted from the event! When they finally got a good look at Forsaken’s terminal, they discovered the illegal aimbots he’d been desperately trying to delete!

These are hacks that provide easier target acquisition for players, and are expressly prohibited by CS:GO. But what made it worse was that they’d been accessed multiple times, meaning he’d been cheating in many different matches in order to get his hands on that prize money!

Appalled by his actions, Forsaken was handed a full five-year ban from the Esports Integrity Coalition. The pro player was also booted from his team, but in the overwhelmingly embarrassing aftermath, OpTic India was dissolved altogether!

Tavo Betancourt

Have you ever heard of speedrunning before? It’s where players record themselves racing to complete levels or entire games as fast as humanly possible! And some of these times are so fast, they’re only separated by the split second of a button push!

It’s not the most well-known style of gameplay, but because the community is made up of passionate nerds, speedrunning is a serious business. And that’s why YouTuber Tavo Betancourt came under heavy fire when Mexican channel Badabun uploaded his insanely fast Super Mario Bros speedrun back in 2017. He effortlessly sailed through the entire game, completing it in a respectable 5 minutes and 12 seconds.

While this run earned him plenty of online views, the speedrunning community spotted some serious problems. For a start, even though the attempt was just 5 minutes long, Tavo took the time to guzzle down coke and pizza as he was playing. Surely, if he were taking this seriously, he could have waited 5 minutes to have his dinner, right? Secondly, the game’s counters suspiciously didn’t match what was happening in the footage! Like here, where Tavo collects 11 coins, but the counter curiously increases by 12!

Pasando Super Mario en 5 minutos by Badabun

It was clear that Tavo had stolen someone’s speedrun footage and mashed it together with a different counter, so that it wasn’t too obvious he’d stolen it. But this minor mistake didn’t escape the attention of real speedrunners! They tracked down the original footage and revealed that it had been brazenly stolen from world record speedrunner Darbian.

And when the community found out, Tavo was crucified online! He later admitted what he’d done and apologized, claiming it was just part of a social experiment.

Speedrun Cheater Apologizes - Tavo Betancourt (English Translation) by EZScape Speedruns

Lame excuses aside, it’s pretty clear this was just done for clout, seeing how, despite his apology, his run is still up on Badabun’s channel! Although now, I reckon it’ll take more than video splicing for Tavo to outrun his ruined reputation.

SuperFastJellyFish

The impossibly precise button pushes and muscle memory required for speedrunning are insanely difficult to master, which is why blindfolded speedrunning is even more mind-blowing! Just using audio cues and their memory, players complete games as quickly as possible without once looking at their screens.

Considering most people couldn’t even get past a start menu blindfolded, this is some god-tier gaming! So, when unknown gamer SuperFastJellyFish livestreamed his blindfolded speedrun of Super Mario 64 in just 42 minutes, the speedrunning community was stunned. But not in a good way.

For a start, there are only three certified blindfolded streamers who have submitted their times into this category, ranging from 24 minutes to 1 hour 58 minutes. This would’ve put SuperFastJellyFish in third, even though he claimed he’d only ever done 3 blindfolded speedruns before! But, compared to his competitors, SuperFastJellyFish’s gameplay was suspicious. He left audio alerts on, which are hugely distracting and can mess up a real blindfolded speedrunner’s timing.

Obvious Cheater Fakes Blindfolded Super Mario 64 Speedrun by charliebrown64

Unphased by this, he then talked continuously through sections that real blindfolded speed runners know requires careful attention to audio details. These were huge red flags for the speedrunning community, and they called out SuperFastJellyFish for cheating by using a blindfold he could see through!

Clearly caught out, SuperFastJellyFish eventually came clean, well, kind of. Instead of a proper apology, he tried to save face by claiming he purposefully faked the speedrun. And yet, he only admitted this after he was exposed!

Joshua ‘Autenil’ Kriegshauser

Game developers often stream games they’re working on as an awesome way of interacting with the game’s community. But these developers usually have special abilities other players don’t, which can look like cheats as Joshua ‘Autenil’ Kreigshauser awkwardly discovered back in 2017!

The technical director of the battle royale game H1Z1 decided to stream the match he was playing with his friends on Twitch. But when he blasted through a rival group of players, their reactions shocked him.

H1Z1 Dev forgets to turn off Invisibility Dev tool and plays a public game by Twitch Switch

Cheating like that definitely isn’t a good look for a developer. Although, it seems like he’d genuinely forgotten to turn off his special cloak of invisibility. Either that or he just really wanted to show those 12-year-olds who was boss!

Azubu Frost

With over 100 million monthly players, League of Legends is one of the largest online multiplayer games in the world. For those who don’t know it, it involves two teams battling it out to occupy and defend their half of a map. And to do this, players have to strategically attack or hide from the other team. But professional e-sports Team Azubu Frost found an inventive way around this back in 2012! During the Season 2 World Championships, Azubu Frost faced off against Team SoloMid.

From the get-go, the match was plagued by technical issues which caused multiple pauses. But during these pauses, members of Team Azubu Frost sneakily checked out the minimap that was being broadcast on the huge stadium screen behind them! This allowed them to see exactly where the other team was heading and what they were planning.

Proof Azubu Frost Cheated vs TSM! by AviarysNation

Team Captain Woong, in particular, looked back at the screen on a number of occasions, before recklessly altering his gameplay. Azubu Frost won the round, but an investigation by League of Legends’ developer, Riot Games, later determined that Woong clearly gained an unfair advantage by looking at the screens. He also shared the information with his team, which lead them to certain victory. For this unsportsmanlike behavior, Azubu Frost was fined 20% of their tournament winnings, costing them a grand total of $30,000!

MrGolds

Some streamers play games in a way that can really divide an audience, like MrGolds for example. At his peak, his Twitch streams boasted a respectable average of 2,000 live viewers, where he routinely bragged about how good he was at Call of Duty: Warzone. But during a stream from August 2020, one of his viewers noticed something strange on his screen. Can you see what their cursor is pointing out?

Yes, while MrGolds was shamelessly bragging about how he’s so good he doesn’t need to cheat; he had the cheating software ‘EngineOwning’ running in the background! EngineOwning is an app that freely admits it sells cheat software for many games, including Call of Duty. Like their ‘aim at enemies’ hack, which MrGolds clearly had set to ‘On’ in the background!

After he was rightfully exposed, MrGolds’ channel received temporary suspension, as Twitch’s guidelines ban the streaming of cheats in any online games. Although his channel is now back up, this cheater he hasn’t recovered enough dignity to show his face on the platform since!

FaZe Jarvis

Just about every fan of the battle royale game Fortnite knows the name Faze Jarvis, but not necessarily in a good way. This British YouTuber and gamer rose to fame when he joined the mega-popular e-sports group The FaZe Clan in 2019. He’d been uploading his Fortnite gameplay to YouTube since 2018, with many of his videos garnering millions of views each.

His channel was made up almost exclusively of Fortnite gameplay, but then, in 2019, he made an unfathomably dumb decision. He uploaded a video where he openly claimed to be using an aimbot!

Jarvis Aimbot gameplay (Reupload) by Lucas Ozo

While the hilariously controversial video made him some sweet YouTube money, Fortnite’s developers, Epic Games, didn’t see the funny side of it. They have a zero-tolerance policy to any kind of cheating, let alone bragging about it to millions of people online!

Without missing a beat, Epic Games brought down the hammer, and immediately banned Jarvis’ account. But the band wasn’t just for a month or even two, but for life! And this didn’t mean he was only banned from the community; he was also prohibited from participating in all future Fortnite gaming events! What a staggering self-own!

In true YouTube style, Jarvis released a tearful apology video admitting his infractions and accepting Epic Games’ decision.

I've been Banned from Fortnite (I'm Sorry) by Jarvis

Even with all those tears, his account remains banned until 2025 when the company made a policy change and unbanned all the first-time offenders.

Zaccubus

In the UK, there’s one gamer who’s known for his dapper skills as well as his dapper styles. David “Zaccubus” Treacy is a tie wearing, shirt sporting Twitch streamer who’s been gaming professionally for more than 17 years.

But even with all that experience, and style, behind him, it didn’t stop him from cheating at the DreamHack gaming convention back in 2018. He was caught teaming in Fortnite, which is where a player talks to and works with rival players instead of taking them out in game. Although just about every Fortnite player does it, streaming it from Europe’s largest gaming convention wasn’t Zaccubus’ brightest idea.

Zaccubus @ DreamHack Banned for Cheating (Zaccubus Stream) by Viral Hits

Well, if you’re going to stream to thousands of people at a high-profile event, you should probably stick to the rules, no matter how suave you look!

JonnyK

Now just about anyone can cheat in Fortnite, but it takes seriously huge kahunas to cheat during the Fortnite World Cup! Considering the prize pool is around $100 million, it’s no wonder people are tempted to turn to illicit means of winning! But for professional player Jonathan “JonnyK” Kosmala of Team Kaliber, the overwhelming temptation to cheat got the better of him.

In 2019, this player was exposed online after his discord messages with a known cheat seller were made public. Taking the name Bigboy, JonnyK tried to purchase an ESP cheat. This is a hack that allows a player to see the locations of all their enemies, even if there are walls or terrain in the way!

After downloading it, JonnyK started a call with the seller who walked him through the process of installing it. But unfortunately for JonnyK, the seller recorded their entire call!

Fortnite Pro BANNED For HACKING In The WORLD CUP! by The Fortnite Guy

Initially, it all seemed to be running smoothly. He logged into his official account with the cheat software running, and the game loaded without issue. But all of a sudden, his account was flagged by Fortnite’s anti-cheat software, and he was immediately booted from the game for cheating! And to really rub salt in the wound, the seller then released their entire call for the world to see.

After being so thoroughly exposed, Team Kaliber wasted no time booting the cheater out of their team and cut all ties with him. As bad as it looks, I don’t reckon JonnyK’s fall from grace hurt too much. After all, his massive kahuna’s probably broke his fall!

MarkiLokuras

Even though Fortnite is one of the biggest video games in the world, it still suffers from its fair share of bugs. While exploiting these bugs is generally frowned upon, abusing them in professional matches or tournaments is obviously a dumb move. But not obvious enough for pro Fortnite player MarkiLokuras!

During the 2019 ESL Katowice Royale Fortnite tournament - which had a grand prize of $500,000, the professional Team Heretic player was reduced to zero hit points. But thanks to a bug, he wasn’t eliminated, and quickly discovered he could keep playing. He should have alerted an administrator to the error. Instead, he exploited the bug and waited to be revived by his teammates. But when his teammate asked him what had happened, he did this:

Pro Player Caught CHEATING then REFUSED To LEAVE in $500,000 Tournament! - Fortnite Moments by Fortnite Moments

So, it’s clear he knew he’d done something wrong, but he was trying to avoid being detected. Eventually, the admins spotted what he’d done, and asked him to leave. But, unbelievably, Marki refused! After stalling for as long as he could, he was finally convinced to leave his terminal and was disqualified from the tournament.

But this incident sparked a huge debate online! Technically it was a glitch, so it wasn’t like Marki had purposefully engineered the cheat. But, being a pro player, he really should have known better than to try and exploit it! Ultimately, he didn’t face any kind of punishment aside from being disqualified.

Shroud

Like Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG for short, is a battle royale style game that has a huge problem with hackers. Since it was released in 2017, most of the cheats used in this game revolve around improving a players’ accuracy or speed. But there’s one cheat that’s so hilariously dumb, even famous streamer Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek simply couldn’t resist getting involved with it.

With more than 9 million followers on Twitch, this professional streamer racks up tens of thousands of views per stream. And this meant there were plenty of witnesses when he joined in with the hijinks of this group of hackers back in 2018! Just like in the real world, cars in PUBG aren’t meant to fly. But Shroud couldn’t resist the offer of a free ride!

Shroud jumps into a hacker's car in PUBG (HD) by Black Ops 4 Battle Royale

Unfortunately, after this, Shroud hit a dead end. Like Fortnite, PUBG has a very strict no cheating policy that it enforces indiscriminately, and the ban hammer came down on Shroud’s account for a whole month. He later apologized and admitted he knew what he was doing, but that he just wanted to have a little fun. It’s hard to blame him. After all, if someone offered you the chance to ride in a flying car, it’d be pretty hard to turn down, right?

Choc

The NBA 2k21 community is an extremely competitive group of people who take any hint of cheating very seriously, as professional player and YouTuber Choc found out back in 2020. This is when rival player Tjack critiqued his game play and called him out online for using a modified controller!

Tjack EXPOSES Choc LIVE Shooting AUTOMATIC GREENS with Modded Controller by 2k Wagers

You may be thinking that a modified controller has levers and buttons designed to make quicker and easier button hits, but they don’t always look that obvious. Controllers like the Cronus Zen, for example, can run software like aimbots, which makes scoring hoops in the game much easier! And this is something that Tjack aggressively accused Choc of doing.

But Choc wasn’t taking this lying down! He uploaded a video showing every single button press he made on his controller to prove he wasn’t cheating!

I'm a "Cheater" (NBA 2K21) by Choc

However, this gaming community was already in full witch-hunt mode! Despite Choc’s proof, more and more accusations began flooding Choc’s chats. Eventually, the pressure became too much for him to handle, and Choc broke down live on one of his streams!

CHOC CRYING AFTER BEING EXPOSED FOR CHEATING USING A MODDED CONTROLLER IN NBA 2K21! by Brutalsim Da Guru

While there’s no way to really tell whether or not Choc was using a modified controller, the NBA 2k21 community still seems pretty divided.

Hosty

Hearthstone is an incredibly popular, digital-strategy card game which has close to 24 million active players around the world! And unlike a regular game of cards, you can’t cheat by peaking over your opponent’s shoulder. But back in 2015, during the Hearthstone Pinnacle 2 Tournament, pro-player Raphael "Hosty" Tsantili found a way around this!

As part of the professional e-sports Team Archon, Hosty was one of just 6 players invited to compete in the tournament, which had a prize pool of $5,000. His match with Team Nihilum’s Adrian "Lifecoach" Koy was livestreamed for all the world to see, but part way through, viewers suddenly noticed something strange in Hosty’s background.

The Pinnacle 2 - Group A - Hosty vs Lifecoach by Provarence

Embarrassingly, Hosty’s set up was being reflected in the picture frame behind him, showing he was looking at 2 separate monitors! And one of them had the tournament live stream on it, meaning Hosty had a full view of Lifecoach’s hand. This is what’s known as Stream Sniping, and it’s the digital version of peaking at your opponent’s cards!

Allegations immediately flooded the internet, and in a matter of hours, Team Archon dropped Hosty from their roster like a hot, cheating potato! Hosty later admitted to having the stream up on the second monitor but argued that, because the stream was on a 10-minute delay, it didn’t help him gain an advantage. Considering he lost to Lifecoach, that kind of adds up. But if Hosty really was trying to cheat, this was a hilariously terrible attempt!

xQc

Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel is one of Twitch’s most popular streamers with a follower count of over 8 million. Streaming multiple times a week, often for more than 24 hours, it’s hardly surprising that weird and hilarious stuff is often captured on his camera! But back in December 2020, he had some serious explaining to do when this slip up happened live on stream:

There is a big file labelled ‘Cheats’! Admittedly it’s completely empty, but why would xQc have had it in the first place? And considering how much he panicked when that window opened, he didn’t exactly seem innocent. But he had an explanation ready, saying , "And in randomizer, there's something called cheats. And those cheats are like to make the game different. Like if you're doing a certain run, yeah, you have to use a cheat folder."

So, he needed it to change the difficulty of his Pokémon games. As legitimate as he makes it sound, using any kind of cheats or hacks in games is against Twitch’s community guidelines! Despite this smoking gun, Twitch didn’t take any action, even though he’d been caught cheating less than a month before!

This happened when, during GlitchCon’s Twitch Rivals Fall Guys Tournament, xQc decided to target other players taking part in this battle royal platform game. He singled them out by stream sniping, and then sabotaged their attempts to win.

With his opponent in his sights, you can see his eyes darting to and from his rival’s stream as he plays, so he knows when and where to sabotage him!

Tyler1 Reacts to XQc CHEATING in Fall Guys Twitch Rivals Tournament by Joel

Unfortunately for xQc, stream sniping directly violates Twitch’s code of conduct. They slapped him with a six-month ban from future Twitch Rivals events, forced him to forfeit his GlitchCon winnings, and suspended him from the platform for seven days! Maybe he should have stuck with Pokémon.

I hope you were amazed at these gamers caught cheating! Thanks for reading.