It doesn’t pay to cheat.
Fortnite: Battle Royale developer Epic Games has disqualified Damion “XXiF” Cook from participating in the Fortnite World Cup Finals in New York after he was found to have cheated during Week 3 of the North America-East server qualifiers.
Aside from being disqualified from the World Cup Finals, XXiF and three other players were also given 14 day competitive bans and made ineligible to receive any Week 3 prizes.
Epic didn’t name the players involved in the official competitive ruling it posted, but it was easy to infer that XXiF was the one disqualified after his case went viral.
Tyler “ItsHighSky” Tereso first brought XXiF’s cheating to light when he posted a replay featuring XXiF on his Twitter account (warning: NSFW language), in which the latter was shown to be teaming up with two players to score easy kills.
Rise Nation, the organization that XXiF previously played for, also announced that it has dropped him from its Fortnite roster over the cheating incident.
Interestingly enough, XXiF was not the only Fortnite player to be released by Rise Nation, as the organization also cut ties with Ronald ‘Ronaldotv’ Mach as well.
While it is unclear if Ronaldo was one of the three other players that were banned by Epic, he has been under scrutiny as well for allegedly colluding with the same players that XXiF was seen teaming with in the qualifier.
“Due to the recent allegations being confirmed by Epic Games, we’ll be releasing XXiF and Ronaldotv from our Rise Fortnite roster,” Rise Nation tweeted.
“We don’t tolerate cheating within our esports organization and hope our fans continue to support us.”
As a result of XXiF’s disqualification, his spot at the Fortnite World Cup qualifiers has been given to Misfit’s Clix, the next highest ranking player on the Week 3 Finals leaderboard. He’s now one of three players who have qualified for both the Solo and Duos Finals of the event.
Aside from meting out punishment to those involved with XXiF’s cheating case, Epic said they have also taken action against 698 other players for breaking the official rules of the Fortnite World Cup qualifiers.
“We take Fortnite competitive integrity extremely seriously, and we expect all of our players to live up to the standards specified in the Official Rules,” Epic added.
However, many among the Fortnite community feel that the 14 day bans handed out to XXiF and the three other players were too light of a punishment. Some felt that the length of the ban was too short for how much money XXiF could have made, as even finishing last at the US$30 million World Cup Finals would guarantee a player at least US$50,000.
Luminosity’s Ali “SypherPK” Hassan even wrote up a scenario wherein XXiF and his teammate could still make it to the World Cup Finals once their 14-day ban is over. Epic’s ruling of the issue did not say if XXiF or any of the three other players would no longer be able to participate in future competitions, so it could be possible.
The incident is not the first time Epic has to deal with cheating (or accused cheaters). More than a week ago, the developer made 206 players give up their winnings from the Fortnite World Cup qualifiers for cheating.
Even so, XXiF’s case may have already marred the prestige and legitimacy of the Fortnite World Cup, especially when considering that it was another player, and not Epic’s own anti-cheating system for the multi-million dollar tournament, that brought the incident to light.