FireCore 4 a disaster

Following FireCore 4, ColdGame players and FireCore owner Karl Batson have shared their stories of what turned out to be a disastrous event in which cheating took place and prizes were surprisingly lowered.

Yesterday, ColdGame spoke to fragbite.com about their trip to the FireCore 4 event, sending some surprising criticism in the organizers' direction. Broken promises of prize money and accusations of a tournament official cheating stood out in particular.

Playing against a team in which FireCore owner and tournament administrator Karl Batson was on, ColdGame had noticed that something fishy was going after a couple of rounds into the game.

Players of ColdGame fragbite.com have talked to said they thought it was highly unprofessional of a tournament official to use illegal third-party software in their game, but they did not care as they won the encounter 16-2 and wanted to go home.

The team progressed further into the tournament, ultimately losing to Free Agents in the grand final. A second-place finish was originally said to award them $930, but instead the team received $450, only to have it taken away from them shortly after.

This was reasoned by that four teams who had signed up for the event did not show up. According to ColdGame, teams with other tournament administrators in them had not paid entry fees either.

Moreover, the tournament officials informed the team after the final game that $78 would be deducted from their prize money because they were given a discount on the entry fees.

This came as a surprise to ColdGame, who had spoken to the organizers beforehand about their lack of funding. According to the team, the organizers said they would be able to help them out, but they were not given the impression of prize money deduction.

The $450 that was given to ColdGame for a brief moment was used to pay Free Agents for their first-place finish. The organizers argued that ColdGame will receive $310 through wire transfer. 

Fragbite.com furthermore reached out to Karl Batson, who sent them a lengthy letter earlier today. Batson, among other things, explains that Neil "Neil_M" Murphy was the organizer of this specific event and that he let him use the brand for sponsor purposes.

Speaking on the cheating incident, Batson says it was nothing serious, but admits that it was an unprofessional act.

"I was not aimbotting I had wall hack on and off throughout the game vs ColdGame, I did not cheat to try and win and yes it was for fun and the people who were watching behind me seemed to find it funny. I did not try to hide it and at the time most of ColdGame seemed to find it funny too, they still won 16-2 and also my team had 2 players who had not played CS in 6 years, 1 player had not played in nearly a year. I did not cheat against any other team.

I know this is unprofessional and I appologise if anyone has taken great offense to these actions."

On the topic of the prize money, Batson affirms ColdGame's statement that teams with tournament officials in them had not paid the entry fees, thus lowering the entire prize pool.

"UK LAN events have always been based on how many teams turn up. We had 4 teams not turn up to this event; but this was not the main source of the problem. Neil had let other people either play for free or at a discounted price. This of which he failed to tell me."

Batson goes further into the details and figures in the letter sent to fragbite.com. Read it by clicking here.

French side iGamerz took third place and were rewarded $155 for their efforts. Although Murphy was supposed to be in charge of the prizes, Batson ended up spending his own money.

On a concluding note, Batson writes:

"I went downstairs back into the LAN centre to pack my stuff up at 01.30 AM and bearing in mind I had 3 hours sleep over the weekend and a 4 hour drive back home and work at 8am for a 12 hour shift I was getting more angry and upset. I couldn't lash out and hurt people with my anger as that isn't the right thing to do, instead I got so angry I broke down, could not fight my tears and all this because of someone elses fault and that my company has pretty much went bust now and the ideas and plans I had in the near future I more than likely would not be able to go through with."

To read Batson's entire letter, please refer to fragbite.com.