eSports and virtual sports continue to grow year on year across various platforms, while they also continue to increase in revenue, fanbase, and events. One area that requires more investment and effort is the prevention of threats to their integrity (Schöber and Stadtmann, 2022). Just as traditional sports have experienced deviant behaviours and breaches of sportsmanship, so too have eSports and virtual sports. This is particularly apparent when we see individuals compete at the very top of the eSport and virtual sport environments who are willing to engage in behaviours that are outside of the spirit and rules of fair play and ethics. These issues pose threats to the integrity of eSports and virtual sports landscapes, jeopardizing fair competition, community trust, and the assurance of a level playing field.

These integrity issues range across multiple topics such as governance, anti-doping, match-fixing, politics, corruption, performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), gambling, discrimination, and cheating. Some of the more well known examples of cheating or hacking in these sports include, admitting to using Adderall (prescription stimulants) when competing in CS:GO (The Guardian, 2015), modifying data files on Zwift to make it look like you produced the watts (Richardson, Berger, Smith, 2022), match-fixing competitive games in StarCraft II and finally, being caught with the file open of codes to cheat during a live event on livestream – “word.exe” (ESPN, 2018).

Some of the more well known examples of cheating or hacking in eSports and virtual sports include, admitting to using Adderall (prescription stimulants) when competing in CS:GO (The Guardian, 2015), modifying data files on Zwift to make it look like you produced the watts (Richardson, Berger, Smith, 2022) […].

There was also a controversial integrity case where Cameron Jeffers was accused of cheating in the British Cycling Zwift Championships. It turned out that he did cheat on Zwift leading up to the competition by ‘botting’, but not directly during the competition itself. Cameron stated he used an ANT+ Simulator to climb the 50,000m in game to unlock the best available in-game bike, which means he didn’t personally operate Zwift to unlock the bike. As a result, he was disqualified and stripped of his title, fined 250GBP and received a 6 month suspension of all racing, even in non ‘eRacing’ competitions (Maker, 2019). Regardless of the cheating, one could also question why athletes need to resort to cheating as a way to seek a level playing field in the virtual world and are able to use the best performing (in game) equipment.

Regardless of the cheating, one could also question why athletes need to resort to cheating as a way to seek a level playing field in the virtual world and are able to use the best performing (in game) equipment.

Over the last few years, examples of these integrity breaches are becoming more and more frequent with some platforms experiencing it more than others (Richardson, Smith and Berger, 2023). Furthermore, there is currently little effort being made to dissuade potential cheaters or those who simply want to cause chaos for other players.

Possible threats in the virtual sports and eSports landscape #

There are several factors which have led to the current situation in virtual sports and eSports. This is not a definitive list, but these are some of the threats that I perceive to be the greatest to the landscape of virtual sports and eSports.

1. There are no collaborative and unified punishment procedures across (eSport) federations and platforms for cheaters in virtual sports and eSports. This means there is inconsistent and ranging sanction lengths for bans and suspensions across federations and games.

2. A large number of eSport federations exist, each participating in different leagues, games, and events, and operating on a range of platforms. This makes comparing rule books and organisation structures difficult without having to factor in different time zones and international laws for these events.

3. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) does not conduct drug tests on any eSports or virtual sports players, teams, or events, and there is no mention of eSports or virtual sports in their charter, goals, or mission (WADA, 2020).Therefore, will there truly be “clean” virtual sports when there are no anti-doping efforts in this virtual space?

4. There is little to no effort being made to promote anti-doping education and training to players, teams, and organisations. Some eSport federations have mentioned anti-doping on their websites but this varies federation to federation. Some provide links and documents to materials, while others have written just one or two sentences.

5. The eSports Integrity Commission (ESIC) (2023) is the only entity enforcing drug testing and rules in the eSport and virtual sport space. However, not every federation avails of them and not every game utilises them. ESIC can only do so much in this space and must focus on the threats which are more likely to occur such as gambling, hacking and or match-fixing, rather than banned substances due to the nature of esports and virtual sports.

6. Gambling and gambling related harms are a growing area of concern for the virtual space due to the gamblification of games, which now incorporate gambling elements (Macey and Hamari, 2018). There is next to no education or harm reduction communicated to parents or the users of these games. This means that the mechanisms suggested to help with problematic gambling are underutilised and weak at best. Finally, the industry has little independent regulation to counteract these potentially harmful behaviours.

7. Verifying the identity of the player behind the avatar is challenging, as people can bring in a ‘ringer’ (i.e. a person highly proficient at a skill or sport who is brought in, often fraudulently, to supplement a team) for the team who is a significantly better player, or competes in an event which is graded by age or sex, thereby gaining a physiological advantage or having more experience, which is unfair to competitors (Motorsport, 2020).

8. Software and hardware modifications of game code and equipment to enhance performance and competitive abilities. The use of aim bots (Spijkerman and Ehlers, 2020), trigger bots, ghosting, attacking services and or modified controller, keyboard or indoor bike can all have a direct impact on the competition if not detected by in-game anti-cheat mechanisms.

9. The prevalence of of ADHD medications (e.g. Adderall) use when some players are diagnosed as being autistic and or are from a neurodivergent background, but also when they are not. The use of these drugs is prevalent within esport and virtual sport communities particular in the younger age groups. However, if they are all banned outright it will displace many who participate in these games (Rosenthal, 2021). Nevertheless, there is a perceived and subjective performance enhancing benefit from using these drugs. Therefore, it is important to not indiscriminately ban people who need these drugs for medical use and remove those who are doping to illicit an unfair advantage over their competitors.

From this snapshot of the landscape, it is clear to see that the field of eSports and virtual sports has many issues which needs addressing to protect the integrity of this landscape. There are additional issues which I haven’t gone into detail with such as energy drinks, discrimination, and bullying. More research needs to be done to help counteract the mentioned issues and to help platforms, organisations, game developers and the community detect and remove cheaters, hackers and dopers.

Two members of the Virtual Sport Network attended an online panel to discuss these issues outlined. This was the panel talk on “doping in esports” discussed and hosted by the Human Enhancement and Drugs Network (HEDN) and Sport & EU.

The Virtual Sport Network members included.

• Dr Andrew Richardson, Research Associate, Newcastle University (England)
• Professor Anne Tjønndal, Nord University (Norway)

Who were joined by fellow panellists.

• Professor Zsolt Demetrovics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary), University of Gibraltar (Gibraltar)
• Ian Smith, Commissioner, Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC)

References #

DOT Esports. 2017. What is match-fixing in esports? [Online] Available at: https://dotesports.com/general/news/what-is-match-fixing-in-esports

ESIC. 2023. ESIC – Esports Integrity Commission. [Online] Available at: https://esic.gg/

ESPN. 2018. ESL India confirms forsaken used cheating software. [Online]. Available at: https://www.espn.co.uk/esports/story/_/id/25056792/esl-india-confirms-forsaken-used-cheating-software-launches-investigation-others

Macey, J. and Hamari, J., 2018. Investigating relationships between video gaming, spectating esports, and gambling. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, pp.344-353.

Maker, R. (2019, October 4). British Cycling Strips Zwift Championship Winner for Cheating. DC Rainmaker. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/10/british-cycling-strips-zwift-championship-winner-for-cheating.html

Motorsport. 2020. Daniel Abt sacked by Audi Forula E team after cheating in virtual race. [Online] Available at: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/e-sports/esports/daniel-abt-suspended-from-audi-formula-e-drive-after-cheating-in-virtual-race/ [Accessed: 3 March 2024].

Richardson, A., Berger, N. and Smith, P., 2023. Perceptions of Cheating and Doping in E-Cycling. Sports, 11(10), p.201.

Richardson, A., Smith, P. and Berger, N., 2022. Zwift’s anti–doping policy: Is it open to cheating?. International Journal of Esports, 1(1).

Rosenthal, R.R., 2021. A tough pill to swallow: Making the case for why esports leagues must adopt strict banned substance policies to prevent disability discrimination. Va. Sports & Ent. LJ, 20, p.76.

Schöber, T. and Stadtmann, G., 2022. The dark side of e-sports–An analysis of cheating, doping & match-fixing activities and their countermeasures. International Journal of Esports, 2(2).

Spijkerman, R. and Marie Ehlers, E., 2020, November. Cheat detection in a multiplayer first-person shooter using artificial intelligence tools. In Proceedings of the 2020 3rd International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Systems (pp. 87-92).

The Guardian. 2015. Anti-doping in eSports: World’s largest gaming organization will test for PEDs. The Guardian. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/anti-doping-in-e-sports-worlds-largest-gaming-organization-will-test-for-peds#:~:text=While ESL competitors had never

WADA. 2020. Anti-Doping in a New Era Leading Strategic Plan. [Online] Available at: https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/wada_strategyplan_20202024.pdf