OpTic Gaming has been stripped of its second-place finish in a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tournament after officials ruled that one of its players, Ian “Bahawaka” Crowe, abused a glitch allowing him to see through walls.
During game eight at the PUBG Invitational at IEM Katowice, Crowe moved next to a wall in a very specific way that made it transparent.
Team Liquid player Scoom showed how to do it on Twitter, saying it was “kinda hard to do accidentally,” as it requires a series of specific movements, including holstering your weapon.
On Reddit, Crowe stated he was only moving that way due to poor noise quality from his headphones. “I hopped in the corner to get as close as physically possible to their car rotation to track its movement,” he wrote. “If you watched the match live or are familiar with the terrain, there’s no benefit to having vision of that hill during that scenario.”
In a ruling, IEM cited point 5.6 of its rulebook: Intentionally changing your character’s angle to look through a texture or object is prohibited. Since many glitches—including this one—are known but still not patched, the rules have to act as a moderator that ensure no one is breaking the intended boundaries of the game.
Without the points they won in game eight, OpTic fell from second overall to fifth—a drop from $12,000 in prize money to zero.
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