#1 EU Valorant Player Banned for Cheating, No Overwatch 2 in 2021, and Activision Sued Over Theft
The #1 Valorant player in the EU was BANNED for cheating, but says he’s being bullied! Plus, Overwatch 2 isn’t coming in 2021, and can Overwatch and the Overwatch League survive another year without the new game? And, Activision sued for ripping off a Warzone Operator design, down to even hiring the same hair stylists to make her look exactly the same!
Riot Bans #1 Valorant Player in Europe For Cheating
Riot Games have banned Valorant pro Yasin ‘Nisay’ Gök after he was found cheating in ranked matches. Turkish club, Beşiktaş Esports, have dropped the former #1 Ranked EU player in light of the one-year ban. What’s crazy though, is compared to other esports and even previous infractions by some current Valorant players when they were playing Counter Strike, 12 months seems fairly light when you dig into the reasonings for the bannings. At one time, Nisay was top of the European leader boards, making this a shocking ban on it’s face alone. The news was announced by Riot Turkey in a tweet, that when translated said that Nisay had been detected using cheats by the fraud protection team of Riot and that he will be removed from all Riot-sanctioned events for the next twelve months, a real issue considering the European Valorant Champions tour has already started this week.
Overwatch 2 Not Coming in 2021
During an earnings call yesterday, Blizzard announced that not only would Diablo 4 not be releasing in 2021, but Overwatch 2 also has been delayed past the year as well. The numbers seemed really, like, REALLY good for Blizzard as they reported a 25% growth year over year. They made $2.2 in income over 2020, and listed over $6.6 billion in digital revenue, which during the pandemic kind of makes sense. Some more highlights from the revenue call include Call of Duty premium sales up 40% year over year, WoW is having a great time since the release of the Shadowlands expansion, and Candy Crush (bet you didn’t know that Blizzard owns Candy Crush) was once again the top grossing franchise in US app stores.
Activision Sued For Ripping Off Warzone Operator Design
Warzone has been in the spotlight a bunch this week, both for the positive after banning over 60,000 cheaters due to a social media outcry over the tsunami of hackers, and also for the negative, due to a HUGE lawsuit filed on Thursday against Activision, the makers of Call of Duty Warzone. The lawsuit alleges that Mara, a popular Operator, was a ripoff of a character that a writer and photographer created for a story he wrote years prior to the release of the game.