Valve accused of double standards over Paris CS:GO Major stickers

The team and player stickers for the upcoming BLAST Paris CS:GO Major (May 8 to 21) were finally added to the game on May 4, and while most of the community is happy with it, not everyone is satisfied with the final product. Jérome Coupez, CEO of player agency Prodigy, alluded on Twitter on May 5 that Valve had double standards during the validation process of pros’ autographs.

“Some players’ signatures not validated by Valve… without receiving any information & them using the previous one by default… for the last CS:GO Major,” Coupez wrote. “It’s disappointing, especially when they validate an Eiffel Tower for non-French players but not for the only French ones [attending the Major].”

Related: These are the best BLAST Paris CS:GO Major stickers

With his tweet, Coupez hinted that the only two French players attending the Major—Vitality’s ZywOo and Dan “apEX” Madesclaire, who also happen to be represented by Prodigy Agency—weren’t allowed by Valve to refer to the Eiffel Tower in their autographs. If this is true, it does seem like a double standard, because Fnatic’s rifler Dion “FASHR” Derksen and FURIA’s players KSCERATO and Rafael “saffee” Costa clearly referred to the Eiffel Tower on their stickers, as you can see below.

The validating process has been a problem since players started to submit their autographs for BLAST Paris Major stickers during the RMRs in April. Several Brazilian players such as paiN Gaming’s Rodrigo “biguzera” Bittencourt and Felipe “skullz” Medeiros, and Fluxo’s João “felps” Vasconcellos and Adriano “WOOD7” Cerato complained on Twitter that Valve didn’t allow their initial signature, as first reported by HLTV’s Brazilian vertical Dust 2 Brasil.

Although it’s unclear why Valve denied their initial autographs, it’s reasonable to presume it happened because the players broke one of Valve’s three instructions when it comes to autographs:

• Autographs shouldn’t be a work of art nor take longer than five to 10 seconds to be replicated.
• The autograph must be written by the players and not by someone else. “It’s ok if the autograph doesn’t look amazing, as long as it’s yours,” Valve states.
• Autographs that contain computer-generated art, fonts, overly-complicated art, or designs that players can’t recreate when signing mousepads are typically rejected.

These are the rules, but some players clearly got away with more complex autographs, while Valve denied the work of others and used their art for the last CS:GO Major they attended as Coupez said, or made changes without letting players see the final result until it was released, as Ninjas in Pyjamas’ Fredrik “REZ” Sterner claimed on May 5 as well.

Dot Esports have taken a look at all the 120-player autographs for BLAST Paris Major and identified several that don’t necessarily fit Valve’s rules above. The autographs made by Heroic’s cadiaN, Bad News Eagles’ Flatron “juanflatroo” Halimi, GamerLegion’s Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek, ENCE’s Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia, MOUZ’s Christopher “dexter” Nong, and FORZE Andrey “Jerry” Mekhryakov are seemingly impossible to be replicated in five or 10 seconds, but they’re some of the players who got away with it nonetheless as you see below:

When analyzing all these pieces of evidence, it does look like Valve enforced the rules to just some of the players attending the BLAST Paris Major but not to all of them. The developer, however, hasn’t addressed any of the complaints.

Dot Esports has reached out to Valve but received no response by the time of publishing.