Four PUBG players banned for three years from PUBG Corp.’s esports program

Four PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds players have been issued three-year bans from the National PUBG League after being caught cheating.

Christian “Cuhris” Narvaez, Liam “Liammm” Tran, Tyler “DevowR” Sti, and Mark “Tefl0n” Formaro qualified for the NPL preseason using “unauthorized programs” in PUBG. All four players were given “permanent in-game bans” on Dec. 19, and accused of using third-party software in public matches and during the NPL online qualifiers.

The PUBG esports team conducted an investigation into the four players, who have all been issued a three-year ban from official PUBG esports events.

The four players’ teams have also been disqualified from the event: Reapers, Totality, Death Row, and Almost. The next four teams in the overall NPL online qualifiers will replace the disqualified teams. More information is expected soon, a PUBG esports representative said in a statement.

“In the future, players found to have been banned in-game due to the use of unauthorized programs during professional esports competitions will be banned from competitive play for a minimum of three years to a maximum of a lifetime starting on the date of completion of an official league investigation,” a PUBG esports representative wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. “Complete guidelines for a global penalty system will be released at a later date.”

The NPL preseason is ongoing until Jan. 13. The top 16 teams from the preseason qualifiers will enter the first official phase of the tournament series, which is scheduled to begin between late January and early March 2019. The North American league will host five weeks of play broadcast from the OGN Super Arena in Manhattan Beach, California.