The Electronic Sports World Cup is the last major tournament for Call of Duty: Ghosts. The next edition of the record breaking first-person-shooter series, Advanced Warfare, drops on Monday.
So hopefully, it’s the last time we’ll have to deal with a bomb glitch fiasco.
Today at ESWC referees awarded Vitality, a local French team, a round win in search and destroy against American team JusTus due to a reported instance of the bomb glitch.
The problem is, it’s entirely unclear the bomb glitch actually happened—in fact, evidence points otherwise.
The bomb glitch prevents a player from defusing the bomb, causing them to pick up the bomb before the animation cancels a second or two into the action. Most tournaments deal with this by replaying rounds or awarding rounds in circumstances where it’s clear the bomb would be defused had the glitch not occurred.
The problem with this case? Video shows the Vitality player never actually picked up the bomb before 7.5 seconds were left on the detonator, the time required to actually defuse it.
This video shows the Vitality player reach the bomb in time, but never actually managed to start the defuse animation by hitting the X button. When the glitch occurs, it cancels the defuse animation, but doesn’t prevent it altogether. The player was still moving at the 7.5 second mark when he reached the bomb and didn’t start the animation until much later, with around 5 seconds left, nowhere near enough time to actually defuse the bomb.
Many players, even those not on either team, expressed distress regarding the decision, especially due to the seeming hometown bias involved in the decision.
How the ref awarded the round to vitality: No replays, not a clue about call of duty, just heard someone speaking French then gave the round
— ShAnE (@TCM_ShAnE) October 31, 2014
ESWC released a screenshot showing the “double check” made by the admins to confirm their decision, but it was a key flaw: while it shows the player at the bomb in time to defuse it, he hasn’t started the defuse animation at the tipping point—in fact, it looks like evidence of the opposite.
The double check made from admins based on video confirms the decision taken on match between Justus and Vitality pic.twitter.com/opm7kzzt1K
— ESWC (@esworldcup) October 31, 2014
The bomb glitch has an animation which occurs when the x button is hit. Those screenshots he hasn’t even hit the button yet. It’s obvious
— Chris Duarte (@ParasiteFPS) October 31, 2014
Needless to say, in the fiery Call of Duty community, where trash talk is not just the norm, but expected, this has caused quite an uproar.
Terrible sportsmanship from Parasite calling us cheaters, and refusing to shake our hands. GG’s to the rest of their team, esp @enable_!
— TOMMEY. (@TommeyJT) October 31, 2014
Dude got so nervous he missed the x button and called bomb glitch lmao. It’s hysterical at this point.
— Chris Duarte (@ParasiteFPS) October 31, 2014
Whether any actual “cheating” occurred is certainly up for debate. It’s possible Vitality maliciously tried to use the bomb glitch excuse to win them the round after failing to defuse in time, but it seems more likely they believed they got the defuse off in time, but the glitch prevented it from going through.
It’s possible the glitch, which looked like it happened with some five seconds left, would have allowed the Vitality player to defuse in time, but the video evidence seems to contradict that assertion. Whatever the case, ESWC making a unilateral decision to award the round seems wrong—the round should at least have been replayed.
It was a hugely important round. The score was 5-3 in favore of Vitality when the incident in question occurred. The referees gave Vitality their sixth point in Search and Destroy, effectively handing them the win in the decisive fifth map of a best-of-five series. The admin decision ended not only the round, but the series.
Vitality was still leading that match, even if they lost the round. Duarte himself said he hoped the tournament would replay the round, with JusTus down 4-5 and Vitality still in the driver’s seat. But the ref decision gave JusTus no recourse, no chance to play it out on the field.
Team Coolermaster, the group favorites, beat JusTus 3-1 in the next series. Losing to Vitality—and by proxy, the referee’s decision—effectively eliminated JusTus from the tournament.
JusTus and their fiery player Chris “Parasite” Duarte did not play out their last series after suffering elimination, leading ESWC to apply a forfeit loss to all of their games to even out the standings.
@ParasiteFPS @Karma2rings it’s disrespectful you didn’t play your last match just because you were out.
— Matthew (@FormaLnV) October 31, 2014
It’s a disappointing way for a tournament to end. It’s understandable Duarte and his team feel cheated. But as Matthews “FormaL” Piper, star player of EnVyUs, one of the favorites to win the tournament, says, it’s disrespectful and unsportsmanlike for JusTus to drop out altogether.
The one thing every party can agree on, even ESWC: It’s high time Ghosts is on its way out. Infinity Ward should feel ashamed they left such a game-breaking bug in a major game title for so long. It’s amazing the esports scene managed to keep trucking along for nearly half a year with it affecting nearly one third of all games in the Search and Destroy gametype.
