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@Riot (and anyone else who can help) - CLG: Crime and Punishment (Questions and Thoughts)

Arctic Wolf·8/13/2014, 2:11:51 AM·1 votes·1,508 views

As many of you have by now heard, CLG is currently in some serious trouble with Riot due to account sharing whilst in their Korean boot camp. Essentially, due to a miscommunication with Riot when requesting lvl 30 accounts for practice in Korea, the CLG members (Seraph excluded because he is Korean) were all given Tournament Realm accounts instead of accounts for the live servers. Upon further internal investigation by Riot, it was found they should have been given accounts to the actual live server. However, while Riot was working on getting those accounts up for CLG, the members of CLG (minus Seraph) acquired live accounts elsewhere to be able to continue with their planned practice regimen. Due to how the Korean server is set up in accordance with Korean laws, one needs either a Korean Social Security Number (KSSN) or an Alien Registration Number (ARN) in order to create an account for the server. This makes the account sharing essentially a form of identity theft, as even if you cannot use the account to locate the associated KSSN or ARN, you are assuming the identity of the person who created the account when online. This account sharing is essentially in violation of rules and regulations set forth by both KeSPA and Riot Games.

#Due to the multiple rule infractions, here are the current and potential punishments:

  • Players Doublelift, Aphromoo, Dexter, and Link are banned from participation in all KeSPA and Riot Korea affiliated tournaments for 2 years starting August 8th 2014, including but not limited to OGN Champions, OGN Masters, and NLB.
  • Players involved in account sharing will each be fined $1250.00 USD for being in violation of Section 10.2.7 of the official LCS ruleset as well as the official terms of use
  • The CLG Organization may face up to a 5-year ban from participating in Korean affiliated tournaments* (Not definite yet, this depends on KeSPA and Korean rules/laws and their decisions as they are not under affiliation with Riot)

Note that because Seraph is a Korean citizen and was not a participant in the account sharing, he is excluded from all punitive measures

#Thoughts:

So here's how I see things: the players accused are guilty of account sharing, that much is true. However, I feel it is important to take into account some of the external factors which greatly influenced these events. According to the sources, I find it most important to note that the CLG organization actually requested the correct form of accounts needed for their boot camp, which due to a miscommunication at Riot were not granted. Tournament accounts were instead given to the players, greatly limiting their potential scrim partners and eliminating the possibility of soloq. With the players under the strict regiment of MonteCristo, I would SPECULATE that he used his ARN (given to him as a Korean resident and OGN employee) to create 4 accounts for which the non-Korean members of CLG could use while awaiting Riot to fix their mistake, and keep to their demanding schedule. While the players of CLG most likely realized this to be in violation of certain rules, I doubt that after a 14+ hour flight to Korea they would be willing to disobey their coach to not use the accounts given, especially since they also would want to make the most of their trip as they have a limited amount of time there. While Riot Games claims that the Tournament Realm accounts provided temporary measure for practicing, I question how much a team can really practice on the tournament servers? It is not a simple matter to coordinate scrims with other teams who would have access to the tournament servers as they would already have their own extremely strict practice schedules and scrim schedules. While this may have been adequate for practicing in NA, as CLG would have the ability to easily acquire scrim partners, that is not the case in Korea. Furthermore, given that Riot stated that there was miscommunication, I believe it may be possible that CLG didn't even know Riot was in the process of issuing live accounts. By not accepting access to the live server, CLG members would be denied soloq time which would adjust and adapt them to the meta of the Korean server, allow participation in scrims, and utilize the time allotted for the boot camp schedule. It is also a possibility that by refusing to use the accounts, players would have felt as though they were letting down the CLG organization--everyone from their fellow players to coaches and management, and especially the fans. Given these factors, it is quite likely that the players of CLG felt they had no other choice, lest they potentially allow days to be wasted while live accounts are being set up for them, if they even got them at all (depending on whether they had notice of their arrival or not).

At this time I want to note that I am not upset about Riot issuing fines for account sharing as it is clearly in violation of rules and regulations; however, I am concerned about the fines being issued to the individual players rather than to the CLG organization as a whole when it could have been someone in the organization ordering the players to go along with this and players doing so because of the pressure of time and being required to play as a team. I also worry about the future implications of the sanctions imposed on the players by KeSPA. I would guess @Lyte would agree with the main idea of this statement (from a behavioral standpoint) in that it is much easier for someone to say 'no' when a situation might negatively affect ONLY them, however this becomes much more difficult when refusing a request can potentially harm others, especially teammates/friends. Also, I do not mean to accuse Monte of providing the accounts shared, I was merely using him as an example as he would be a person with the ability to create accounts for CLG and has a vested interest in seeing them succeed.

#Questions:

  1. What does this mean for CLG when it comes to potentially participating in Worlds?
  2. Why punish the individual members of CLG and not the organization as a whole?
  3. Would this situation have been improved with more thorough investigation behind the account sharing? (i.e. whose account were they sharing, were they forced into sharing, why were the members not initially given live accounts, etc...)
  4. Can/would Riot revoke punishments (either their own imposed or working with KeSPA to have penalties lessened/removed) if further investigation shows Riot is more at fault than expected?
  5. Would Riot be willing to re-evaluate the part they had to play in this fiasco?
  6. Is it possible that a different member of the CLG organization could be at fault, other than the players?
  7. Are there any actions being taken by Riot to prevent something like this from occurring in the future?
  8. Have any fines been imposed on the person(s) who provided the accounts for CLG members requiring them?

I would love to get the input from a Rioter or two, or anyone who might happen to be more knowledgeable than I and able to explain/elaborate on the questions and concerns I have raised.

(For those unfamiliar with the situation, more info can be found here: http://na.lolesports.com/articles/league-legends-competition-ruling-counter-logic-gaming-0 and http://www.ongamers.com/articles/riot-games-imposes-strict-punishments-on-counter-l/1100-2090/)

7 Comments

MackleDoge8/13/2014, 2:20:23 AM1 votes

  1. It means absolutely nothing in terms of participating in Worlds.

  2. Because the individual members broke the rules....?

3)You need to re-read what happened, because CLG was never without accounts to play on. When Riot realized their mistake they gave CLG access to TR accounts to play on as a temporary solution while live accounts were prepared and made available to them. CLG did not have to use shared accounts but chose to regardless.

  1. If they were then they would, but they aren't. CLG broke the rules and should be punished. They had an alternative option that allowed them to do what they needed to do without violating any contractual terms or rules and selected to not do so. Riot making a mistake and coming up with a temporary solution to resolve it does not mean CLG gets a free pass on violating any relevant rules or terms.

  2. Quit asking the same question.

  3. I'm sure that the CLG organization was aware of what was happening and while they are at fault for not using the alternative method provided the CLG players still knowingly violated the rules. Multiple people breaking the rules doesn't mean that some of the people that broke the rule shouldn't be punished.

  4. Probably paying more attention and not making clerical errors. It seems pretty obvious that somewhere on Riot's end things were miscommunicated and that is something they will have to discuss internally and improve on.

  5. None that have been officially announced because the fines are specifically an aspect in regard to Challenger level and Professional players. However I'm sure that the accounts have most likely been permanently closed, as is a common occurrence in instances of account sharing.

Trinityunicorn8/13/2014, 4:06:13 AM1 votes

My initial thoughts after reading this, then reading the esports article is, I can't get over why what was done cannot be overlooked due to circumstances. This all sounds so legalized and exaggerated to me. These guys made bad decisions or good considering how you look at it, about their practices. However the penalties from some authorities seem rather harsh. They can probably easily afford the $$ penalty but the 2 year ban is just ridiculous. Here's why, as I read the rules about needing numbers to create an account, inside I was thinking, I wonder how many babies, kids way too young to play, wives, grandmothers etc, had accounts in Korea? I'd be willing to bet if you did a sweep a huge amount of lol players would be violating tos.

Circumstances: CLG's whole purpose in the trip was to get ready <practice> for worlds. Super important to them. Important enough to fly across the world to do it. I'm sure a huge amount of "fans" would have and DID offer to help them. They're being criminalized for something so miniscule and yet so damaging to them because of rules. I liken this to the lady spilling hot coffee in her lap and McDonald's getting sued for the coffee being too hot AND the lady due to having a good lawyer won an absurd amount of money. IT's twisted!

There is no criminal activity, there was no malice involved, and no harm done. I wish I was on their jury cause I'd vote they're innocent. Charges dropped.

I have no idea what the rule in Korea is about needing such personally identifying information just to play the game. I think in the States that would be a death to the game itself <alot of us wouldn't play if you required our ss#>. Most of the rules concerning gaming are made with the PURPOSE of detering cheating, detering exploitation and gaining an unfair advantage. Lastly they are also in place to discourage stealing ideas/info about the game. They are made to keep the company from being taken advantage of and to keep the players on an even playing field. So they weren't doing malicious activity with the accounts in someone else's name, they weren't boosting elo for someone for a fee, they weren't trying to get ahead in any way except trying to practice, to get ready for perhaps the biggest challenge in their careers.

Riot made a mistake, no one is punishing them for that. I see they fined them, that was pretty light I guess, the players can probably afford it, yet I don't even see a reason for that. It was all at the discretion of the officials. " LCS officials may assign penalties at their sole discretion" They decided that it had to be punished in some way. Are they Riot employees, former gamers, ???????

In the end I hope for CLG's sake that it works itself out for them. No victims, no villans, just kind people trying to work it all out.