Pro e-Sport Team Root Gaming Cheats in SMITE

Written by: (@jkkennedytv) | March 6, 2013 11:23 am
55 Comments

The e-Sport pro team Root Gaming cheats by breaking the SMITE terms of service during the myRevenge $1000 tournament.

Gamers everywhere very seldom read the terms of service that is released along with almost any game, but it is a real thing. We like to view the terms of service as a safety net that the game development company creates as part of all that law jargon and often times we do not feel that it applies to how we game. However, when Root Gaming cheats by breaking the SMITE terms of service during a $1000 tournament, hosted by myRevenge, it starts to make players question what the punishment should be.

For those not aware, it is often times against the Terms of Service to allow anyone other than yourself to access your account. The SMITE terms of service section which Root Gaming breaks reads:

other esports esports Root Gaming Admits To Cheating4. License Restrictions and Limitations. If you are granted a limited, personal use license in accordance with Section 3 above, such limited, personal use license is subject to the following restrictions and limitations as well as all other terms and conditions of this Agreement (collectively, the “License Limitations”). You agree that you will not, under any circumstances:

(a) sell, sublicense, assign, rent, lease or sell your Account or password or otherwise authorize third persons to access your Account or use your password; – SMITE Terms of Service

This type of conduct would typically go unnoticed, however, one member of the team known as MattyPocket publicly admitted that his team switched accounts with each other during the tournament to supposedly prevent a possible DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack which has occurred occasionally. Other than an IP check of the accounts, not much more is needed to prove Root Gaming broke the SMITE terms of service.

Root Gaming Cheats By Breaking SMITE Terms of Service, Questions Ethical Side of e-Sports:

However, this public admittance to the event sparked up a new conversation among the e-Sport community of SMITE on the ethical activity of the team and how the professional teams should conduct themselves in the e-Sport world. Root Gaming has been involved with a few other issues recently including a racial slur during a live stream, but this event actually alters the game.

When participating in any sport on a professional level, part of the strategy is to learn and understand your opponent. Teams will often review a past match with the opponent as well as watch films on that team and its players’ styles. However, outside the internet, players cannot simple switch their jerseys or names and confuse the opponent. In this instance, this is exactly what Root Gaming did during a prize money tournament.

From Root Gaming Breaking the SMITE Terms of Service to Root Gaming Cheats?

Discussions around the event break away from the terms of service discussion and into the reality that this can almost be viewed as Root Gaming cheating. Players go into the game and part of their actions are based on the expected play style of their opponent, but when they have switched accounts and they appear to be suddenly playing in different positions and with completely different roles, it changes the entire dynamics of the team.

The fact that this was a $1000 tournament and the team in question urged the tournament administrators to disqualify their opponents in the final match due to game connectivity issues, which they did, really makes one wonder what the future of e-Sports would be like if this continued. Root Gaming may have won the tournament overall, but currently members of the community are questioning if Root Gaming cheated or not.

The question boils down to: Did Root Gaming cheat? Should players be disqualified for impersonating another player even if it is their own teammate? Where do you stand on this issue?

Pro e-Sport Team Root Gaming Cheats in SMITE
  • http://twitter.com/Cleon222 alex brown

    yes they cheated but only too avoid DDOSing and do we know if maybe they announced that they were going to be playing on eachothers accounts to the tournament administrators and opponents?

    • RimRim66

      As someone who knows some of the players who played in this tournament really well, I have been told by them that they were not aware of them switching accounts. This is a pretty big deal considering that having a different player is playing on a different account during a tournament. I mean it’s part of the teams practice to know how certain players play. If they suddenly play differently because it’s a different player, then it screws up the game.

  • Davey Sawatzky

    I think this sort of thing should be run through the admin’s for the tournament and if they are not the same thing some one from the games staff as well before hand (this is how it is done in SC2 and it works) and the other team should be made aware, I don’t know that I would take their winnings but the players involved should have the accounts in question penalized and tournament rules should be revised to handle this sort of situation.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kendrick-Panh-Washington/583384072 Kendrick Panh Washington

    I wouldn’t consider this cheating, but it is breaking ToS. So getting in trouble for cheating? No. As for the ToS, then yes, it clearly states you’re not allowed to do it. As for what happens because of the ToS violation, I don’t know. Some games suspend the account for a few days or weeks, others don’t do anything except fine in-game currency. Then again, I’ve seen games permaban the original users account as well as the persons account that they let use (Mike used Rons account, Mikes account and Rons original account are both banned).

  • Emilio Aguinaldo

    MyRevenge is part of SMITE Team? 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=847030234 PJ Cannon

    So they win by bitching that BLG NA is having connection issues and getting them DQed and they also cheat? They just don’t know when to quit do they…..Nice job putting such a horrible name on SMITE in the eSports light guys. ROOT please kick all them from the team and start over.

  • Clifford Dutka

    Breaking ToS isn’t cheating, it is breaking ToS. Cheating is abusing a system to gain an unfair advantage over an opponent. This unfair advantage could be gained with or without breaking the terms of service.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Rookie918 Steve Hunter Robinson

    It’s hard to give an opinion without all the facts. Were both teams in the same room? Were the teams together or in their own homes? I, for one, wouldn’t call it cheating since the above article mentions that opposing teams would do their research before-hand on every player the other team had. So even if there was player switching then it wouldn’t matter which account they were playing on. In all fairness to the accused team, the organizers of this tournament should have taken additional steps to ensure that this sort of “cheating”, as you call it, is avoided especially since this was a cash prize (the highest of all prizes in esports terms).

  • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

    If I’m the team owner, do I own the accounts or do my players own the accounts?  If one of my  players leave my team, do they take the account with them?  If the players own the account and take it with them when they leave, then yes it is a form of cheating. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/stradus.woods Stradus Woods

    Frankly I think it needs to be looked at what they want for esports.  If that don’t want stuff like this to happen they should punish very hard to warn people away from it right away.   What ever they do they need to make a clear choose in the manner hard and direct stance to show whats acceptable and whats not.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/bkdornbusch Brian Keith Dornbusch

    its the same thing as switching players in say a hockey match. You need to be flexible and changing to win not know exactly how someone plays.

    • http://www.JKKennedyTV.com/ Justin Kennedy

      In a hockey match, you see who they switch with an adjust. In this situation it was done secretly and essentially, hides who is playing who. This makes it a world of difference since half the preparation in sports all over is understanding your opponents as players or as coaches. You can not be flexible when you have no idea of the change.

      • Niriw

        So team A runs a certain strategy, Team B prepares for it, but then on the match, Team A decides to run a completely and never seen strategy against Team B, under your reasoning just there, that’s cheating, because Team B lacks flexibility
        Edit: a typo

  • http://twitter.com/ManetN Meeelvin,

    I dont think it really matters, the real problem is the DDOSING reallly. Let’s say in a hockey game, a spectator shoots a player in the leg, so then the player is unable to play? Right? But in hockey, there are other teammates who can substitue for said damaged player! It’s the same with DDOS, someone that has nothing to do with the game, makes a player unable to play, shouldnt a substitute be allowed to join in. The only thing slightly wrong with this is that ROOT maybe should tell the people they’re up against, who plays who. But all in all, i dont think that nobody should get banned nor returning any price money, only thing is to give ROOT a slap on the wrist and tell them to directly announce sudden changes in accounts. 

  • matt mccloskey

    this is a stupid article…stfu

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=556370350 Jason Keizer

    To me I don’t really care, if its still the same people playing that entered and not some ringer they bought in just for 1 round (In all sports there’s a too many players on the field rule) but the rules do state “You agree that you will not, under any circumstances” 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=77202596 Ryan Augustine

    As a game tournament administrator for small tournaments, I have accounts tied to a player.  The account is not what is in the tournament, it is the player.  So for a player to play under someone else’s account, this would break the rules of my tournament, and thus DQ them.  Teams would be allowed a sub, but that sub would be playing under their own account.

    Additionally, this is in the TOS.  It shouldn’t have to be a rule when it is already required to play the game.

    DDOSING is a problem, and should be fixed by the game, or the tournament administration.  These are all issues, and become a bigger issue as eSports grow into a profession.

  • http://twitter.com/Darmonizzt Darmonizzt

    Provided the right people were made aware of the situation, it shouldn’t be called cheating.  In fact, to title the article as such is poor in my opinion.  ”Was ROOT Gaming Cheating?” would fit much better.  Yes, they broke ToS.  Did they cheat?  It’s up to My.R Admins to decide.  They should decide carefully, as it’s happened before to another player who had his account completely suspended by HiRez and just used another teammates account.  Until the game is live and outside of Beta, it is hard to get mad at anyone for anything in my opinion.

    • Charros15

      I remember back when zap got in trouble w/ hirez and wasn’t supposed to be in a tourney yet still played in it on another account.  Even though he got in trouble and defied the punishment he still was allowed to stream on HiRez’s channel.  Which made me lose respect for HiRez.

  • http://twitter.com/PhiliusF Philius

    Titles rather misleading, Plus why does it matter who’s playing under what name, This would be no different to if MattyPocket had a name change straight before the tournament, or they brought in a no name sub. The enemy should be playing there own game, not worrying so much who there opposing and get on with what they believe they need to do to win the game. What does a team do when there against a new team where they dont know there strats etc etc. they just take a defeat? No they put there heads down and get on with it. Aye yes it was against ToS which is then between HiRez and the ROOT team. This is a pathetic attempt to taint the ROOT name in all honesty. 

    • http://www.JKKennedyTV.com/ Justin Kennedy

      I am not sure how many sports you have participated in your life, but having been involved in sports throughout most my life, knowing your opponent was one of the biggest things you did. You watched films, you looked at their records, you determined how they play and what they play like. This is part of the game and it is an integral part. Many people forget that sports take place off and off the field.

      Since Root is considered one of the best teams, you would be expected to practice and plan to beat them. When said team suddenly masks who they are and everything is out of whack that is very shocking and not ethical (and against ToS here).

      If they were to actually switch roles and characters they play, you would still have a basic understanding of their individual play style, but in this case it was a matter of thinking they had switch roles, when in fact they actually had not and thus they (on purpose or not) tricked the opponent.

      • URDustin

        Anatoliy and Matty play the same roll and the same gods. The whole notion that a team would have prepared against ROOT differently because they would of had 1 player subbing can not be determined by you. You should ask the other teams ROOT played against if they had different ways of playing against matty as opposed to anatoliy, its a hard call because they play so same role and the same gods and the way you should play the gods is quite “cookie cutter” pending on who the lane partner is.

        • http://www.JKKennedyTV.com/ Justin Kennedy

          Thank you, and you are right about asking the teams who play against Root. In fact, the only reason I decided to write this article was due to a few hours of discussion with said other teams and that they do believe the players actually play quite different especially from an agressive/defensive play style stance.

          • Kerviel

            They did not cheat and I don’t seen why that word would even be used.  Like you stated in your own article, it IS just like wearing another players jersey, the clothes are just a shell of the player.  As long as the person wearing it is a register member of the team, does it matter if they are wearing number 6 or number 43, or playing on account MattyPocket or Anatoily.  Sure perhaps they could have disclosed it earlier to the officials, but what’s to say it’s not a friend of one of these teams that is initiating the DDoSing.  It was just better kept private as it does not really affect the gameplay at all.  If they are reviewing past videos, most if not all of those videos is going to include MattyPocket in the roster so the video they are reviewing would more closely match what to expect than a game with a sub taking place.  Yes what they did is against ToS, so that is up to Hirez to deal with if they wish, it has no bearing on anything else outside of that.  It is really no different than playing on a secondary account because your main account is unplayable for one reason or another.

          • URDustin

            What said other teams you have not mentioned any other teams in this article. Please put up more evidence in this half done work i have written essays with more supporting facts than this in middle school.

      • DrossRocket

        So, you’re saying if a pro football team (Team A) was studying Team B’s strategy, come game day Team A recognizes Team B’s line up and formation as a passing play which they pass to player X, but Team B decides to run the ball instead with player Y. Team A can call that cheating?
         
        Deception is a part of sports.  You being a “sports man” should know that.

        • Jado Cast

          The only thing I can think of that happened to me in competition that is sort of similar was Tennis Team matches in High School and College.  When we went up against certain teams where we were heavily favored, the opposing team would flip their roster so their #1 was their 6 player, #2 was their 5 player and so on.  Then the doubles match would flip too.  This would give them a better chance of beating a better team where the same level of talent and skill was a disadvantage.  They would lose anyways, but the match was a lot closer than it should have been where otherwise it would have been a blow out had the #1 seed played the #1 seed and so on down the roster.  Later the rules were changed so this was heavily discouraged.  Is it cheating?  I think it is questionable, just like the accusation in this article.  The headline does appear sensational, but there is something not right about what RooT is doing either.

  • URDustin

    You serious? This article is a joke. It didn’t hurt anything by them doing this. Root gaming is a team they represent themselves as a whole what matter does it make what account they play on? These matches are custom matches not public matches its not as if they are boosting elo on another account for some one to be satisfied with their epeen. These cases make me laugh, this one and the ones before on this topic of team mates sharing accounts for the good of the team and the game. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/gabriel.martin.5682 Gabriel Martin

    Rules are rules if you don’t follow them, then you deserve what ever punnishment you get. While I can’t really call what they did cheating I can certainly call it dishonnest and that has no place in any professional evironment.

  • http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex

    somewhat strange case, if its against the Terms of Use its easy. Or am i missing something here?
    They prepare that the username belongs to a certain person for a reason.
    If they switch players why prepare at that dedicated level.

  • http://twitter.com/ROOTJerbie ROOTJerbie

    So, I’ll try to explain this as best I can. In no way, shape or form did we cheat.  I wholeheartedly think that is such a bad word to use.  We didn’t wall-hack, map-hack or gain any sort of advantage from changing accounts — hence why we didn’t mind talking about it.  At any given point a player can play any given god within Smite so the craziness of saying, “We have an advantage because now we’re unsure what he/she’s going to play is affecting us”, is silly.

    The SINGULAR reason accounts were swapped, with people on the team roster and never done in the middle of a game, was because anytime they logged on immediately they were DDoS’d which for those of you who have had it happen to you — sucks.  It was simply to discourage the same attack over and over since whoever is paying a website money to DDoS has a really bad habit of doing it during tournaments.

    Concerning the finals game three, every team is given a set amount of time to set up and start their games.  Unfortunately BLG.NA went over the allotted amount of time.  There was no ‘urging’ on our part as we just asked what the timer was.  How one urges admins to a favorable outcome would mean that the admins are listening to the players rather than making executive decisions, correct?  This was not the case.  MyR has a timer set and BLG.NA went over said timer.  It’s that simple.

    Hopefully this clears up the issues a bit. :)

  • Irish Person

    this in no was swayed the results of the tournament

  • http://twitter.com/realgoofydude realgoofydude

    I like how he says the DDos happens occasionally, if Matty isnt DDosed every game he is every final match.

  • aa

    .

  • http://twitter.com/alundrasc2 Alicia

    It seems incredibly irresponsible to publish an article with such a sensationalist and misleading title and banner. The article itself also seems quite one-sided and lacks evidence to support some of the claims that were made.

  • http://twitter.com/SingleM4lt Mikael Ångman

    The real story here, unless you’re looking for sensationalist headlines (like the “SMITE Kills League of Legends” headline), is how esport players and streamers keep getting DDoS’ed.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Gerrettie-Jr/1287578323 Bill Gerrettie Jr

    Very inappropriate title. In the video I hear no admission to ‘cheating’, and here in the comments I notice a response from a team member who states they did NOT ‘cheat’. Stating emphatically they admitted to cheating with absolutely NO proof… Makes me wonder what kind of litigation you may have opened yourself up to. Even journalists aren’t allowed to outright lie and perform character assassination pieces with no repercussion.

    • http://www.JKKennedyTV.com/ Justin Kennedy

      I am sorry that you feel that way. The definition of cheating seems to vary in many places, but they all seem to revolve around a few main concepts: trickery, deceit, and unfair advantage.

      Lets exclude the fact that the Terms of Service was most definitely broken, and lets look at the facts. Root members admits to purposefully giving authorization to use each others accounts for the intent of deceit or trickery (regardless of who they had intended to deceit or trick).

      Then we take into consideration the unfair advantage portion. By attempting to trick or deceit the so called DDOS people (which accounts signed into does not matter as it is IP related and they would just DDOS them all), they also tricked all people who they played against during the event through their account swapping. This creates an unfair advantage on their behalf as the teams did not go against the players they had perceived to be going against.

      Since in sports, a large portion of the event takes place in practice and preparing for you opponent play style (especially that of a high ranking team), the fact that they were tricked into not knowing who they went up against provided an unfair advantage in favor of Root Gaming.

      In addition, many people have made the claim here today that the above paragraph is not a part of the sport, but that is in fact entirely wrong. Anyone who attempts to state that studying your opponent is not a part of sports would be either attempting to derail the conversation or actually has very little experience with this side of the competitive scene.

      In addition, other readers have equated this with swapping out team members or substitution, but this is no where near that as the opponents of Root were 100% unaware of the switches taking place, and were tricked into believing that each player was who was listed.

      Now, if you so wish to continue to declare that I have zero proof of any sort, and that I am opening myself to some sort of litigation, be my guest, but I have nothing to worry about and my role here was not one of character assassinations nor did I lie in any way.

      I presented to the community a harsh truth of what happen and how that impacts the scene. If we wish to see a scene grow and not be held back by favoritism of fans, then we should immediately consult the ethical truth behind these actions.

      In final regards to the DDOS situation that is brought up to derail the topic. It is a mute point as Hi-Rez and no one else has control over this situation other than the player and their associated ISP. I do not know how they managed to get themselves identified and so easily targeted, but I believe precautionary measures must be taken on their behalf that does not affect the game or sport environment.

      • Irish Person

        im not sure if you have played smite before but with all the different gods it would be useless to learn a persons playstyle cuz it is different for every god

      • Niklas Hassgren

        The account change is not cheating. It’s a simple rulebreak that they got banned for. It’s a stupid rule in the terms of service (still a rule) that they broke and ofc they should get banned for it since It’s a rulebreak. But calling them cheaters and make a big fucking picture about It Is just wrong. Stop write missleading topics to make people think they are cheaters, It’s reporters like you everyone hates that just write missleading to get someone to read it…

      • Del Patrowski

        Here’s the way I look at it guy……Regardless of the account swap, 5 members of Root beat everyone else.  
        Done.  Article=lame.  You=too much time on hands.  

      • joe

        But for you have to find their ip before you can ddos. If they are on an account you are not tracing then you have the wrong ip. Keep telling us more about stuff you know nothing about.

  • Ryukenshory

     I’ve lost a lot of respect for Gamebreaker for this.  Cheats?  Please.  How in the frick is that cheating?  They switched accounts?  That’s not cheating.  They didn’t gain an advantage from it.  They didn’t break the game.  So, lets say they switch their normal mid with someone on side lane.  Are they cheating?  Must be.  It’s not who they were expecting.  That’s not fair.  /end sarcasm. 

    Again, all respect has been lost Gamebreaker.  GG.  Unsubbed on twitch. 

  • Charros15

    The whole football argument is better used as this:  Player A is a starter on the team and Player B is a sub.  To illustrate what happened in the tournament is that A put on B’s jersey to play the game.  So the other team saw B on the field(unless the team was told ahead of time what was happening).

  • http://www.facebook.com/dmbrandon Brandon Nance

    Real talk:  This is disgusting.

    Edit: I mean the article.

  • http://twitter.com/raekinthedruid Jessica

    This is nothing new from these guys. When they were Juice, they had a player log in to another’s account in the middle of a game during WOGL and received suspensions then. 

    I’m happy to see someone else bringing light to the sketchy decisions this team consistently makes.

    • Irish Person

      i dont think thats entirely true about the middle of the game

  • GreenCleanBaby

    regardless of the reasoning (ddos claims) it should be against the tournament rules to simply change accounts and pretend someone else is playing when they’re not. the other team and tournament organizes should’ve been notified.

    people having their ip identified by packet sniffing via p2p programs is something that’s been going on a long time. there are preventative measures you can take so you don’t have to mislead — or cheat — tourmanent opponents and organizers. sure, they may cost a small amount of money, but these are tournament-sponsored players, right?

  • GreenCleanBaby

    regardless of the reasoning (ddos claims) it should be against the tournament rules to simply change accounts and pretend someone else is playing when they’re not. the other team and tournament organizes should’ve been notified.

    people having their ip identified by packet sniffing via p2p programs is something that’s been going on a long time. there are preventative measures you can take so you don’t have to mislead — or cheat — tourmanent opponents and organizers. sure, they may cost a small amount of money, but these are tournament-sponsored players, right?

  • Niriw

    Even though I don’t agree with what they did, this article is made in a way it misleads people into thinking ROOT is a bunch of cheaters, it doesn’t present the facts in a proper way, the image by itself should have never existed, there is no background about why, you didn’t went ahead and explained about the ACTUAL REASON for the disqualify on the finals, you just wrote a sensationalist article

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004825063018 Dawn Zh

    Misleading title much? say hi to google search block and firebox blocks stupid tabloid

  • http://www.facebook.com/daniel.defrancesco.7 Daniel DeFrancesco

    That is what journalists and reporters do, they want readers so they make good titles. I think they should have been disqualified along with the other team. Mattypocket is a funny name, since him and root are all up Hi-rez’s you know what, as well as the holders of both tournaments. It is biased. 

    • Irish Person

      the holder of the tournament just realize what not a big deal this is

  • http://openid.aol.com/jpuffer87 Justin Pfeifer

    So many Root Gaming fan boys in these comments what they did was cheating
    1. To deceive by trickery
    2. To deprive by trickery
    3. To Mislead; Fool

  • Del Patrowski

    This article is so biased it’s gross.  
    To imply Root’s team purposely tried to cheat is extremely misleading.  
    You should be ashamed of this dribble you call journalism.  
    If you wanted to say that they broke the terms of use…..fine. 
    If you want to say that they made an error in judgement….also fine. 
    But if you follow the tournaments, streams, and players; I’ll tell you that the players in Root didn’t get there by cheating……….they got there by kicking everyone’s ass in Smite.  And despite what this pathetic article may lead you to believe, they did it fairly.  

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