Anders on HUNDEN-case: I find it very questionable that the players didn’t knew about the cheating
We have spoken with the prominent CS:GO expert Anders, who gives his take on the scandal and the potential consequences for the CS:GO scene.
Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen was one of the original 37 coaches who was banned by ESIC back in September 2020, owing to their involvement in the “spectator bug scandal”. Back then HUNDEN stated that he acted alone and no one knew about the cheating.
However, the situation took a big turnaround when HUNDEN in an interview with TV2 Sporten earlier this month shocked the Counter-Strike scene by claiming that some Heroic players knew about the usage of the coaching bug.
We have been in contact with the renowned CS:GO expert and caster Anders “Anders” Blume to get his perception of the situation and if he believes HUNDEN is telling the truth.
Do you think it would be a possibility that HUNDEN speaks the truth about numerous Heroic players knowing about his usage of the "specatator bug"?
Unfortunately I do think it's possible. I've been trying to come up with an analogy to help me understand the situation, and here is what I came up with. If I go to a casino to play the roulette and a friend of mine tells me to pick 17, then 21, then 3 then 25 and they all turn out to be right 4 times in a row, at some point I have some kind of responsibility to understand that something is wrong here.
I do find it very questionable that the players could have played with someone who just knew more than they could have, but the problem will always be proving it.
Anders (to the right) questions the fact that the Heroic players didn't knew about HUNDEN's cheating when it happened
Will this have an effect on CS:GO in general?
The optimist in me wants to believe that every time we have a scandal like this, we build up some kind of collective experience that makes our game stronger for the future.
If ESIC can build a record of dealing with these and future such situations responsibly and gain the trust of both the fans and the players, then that is obviously a hugely important step in the right direction in terms of having a professional standard for the game. That is also why it's so important that ESICs arguments, in this case, are super strong, because if they screw it up, it has really bad implications for future rulings.
I guess my hope is that Counter-Strike functions as an anti-fragile system, meaning it becomes stronger by taking damage. The danger I think is that if there is too much damage in a short amount of time, it can lead to a general dissolution of the fanbase and a feeling that it's all just a joke anyway, which I think would be a huge loss.
We have made a timeline over the entire situation concerning the scandal-ridden coach, so you can get a better understanding of the occurred events and the different claims and accusations by both HUNDEN and Heroic. Find it in the tweet below:
This was the Heroic roster when HUNDEN used the "spectator bug" back in May 2020:
Casper 'cadiaN' Møller (Still representing Heroic)
Martin 'stavn' Lund (Still representing Heroic)
René 'TeSeS' Madsen (Still representing Heroic)
Nikolaj 'niko' Kristensen (Now representing OG)
Johannes 'b0RUP' Borup (Now representing MAD Lions)
We have tried to reach out to Heroic to get a comment on the article. However, without any success.
