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How to limit the risk of eDoping and avoid potential sanctions and enforcement in eSports? What solutions shall be adopted in terms of cybersecurity?
As part, the series of articles on eSports, my colleagues Giulia Zappaterra, Ludovica Mosci, and Deborah Paracchini review the issue of eDoping in an article that was initially published on IPTItaly.
What is the eDoping in eSports?
The eSports market has grown at a tremendous pace over the past few years becoming a half billion dollar industry. Competition between players is at the highest levels and marginal gains can make the difference between winning and losing. Cheating is, therefore, a high temptation for many players.
Some of such players are going for “eDoping”. This is not the classic doping to strengthen physical and concentrations potential, but it refers to the fixing of machines used for tournaments i.e. the manipulation of either software or hardware to give the player a specific advantage within the game. During the last years in fact, not only has game software been modified, but also keyboards or mouse settings have been altered to perform a series of actions with a single click.
However, there are also doping activities that do not require any form of modification. For instance, the “stream sniping”, requires that players watch the live broadcast of the match in which he/she is currently playing to get an insight into the opponent.
As it this was not enough, eSports are also not exempt from cyber attacks since there have even been distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in which a network or a specific player where players’ acts are so overwhelmed that they are forced to slow down or shut down.
And with technology constantly advancing, it’s a never-ending battle which requires a commitment on all fronts. So what shall be done to limit such risk?
Prevention from eDoping – The adoption of a cybersecurity protection system
One way to protect games and tournaments from eDoping is the implementation of cybersecurity technical and organizational measures.
During the years, game publishers and tournament organizations have implemented technical measures to detect and prevent eDoping as well as to punish those who employ such means. For instance, some entities have developed tools to determine whether matches on their platforms are manipulated, while others have elaborated the anti-cheat system that detects any modification done to the game’s files. The same level of security is also applied to tournaments, where the game equipment is owned, controlled and provided by the tournament organizer or where the player is authorized to use its own peripherals, the latter is controlled on the functionality of such devices.
In this context, it is essential for companies within the eSports industry to build cyber resilience systems together with organizational measures such as incident response schemes able to remediate adverse impacts on the business and to protect the brand reputation, and post-incident remediation plans which can mitigate the impact from any claim or other liabilities.
Indeed, if there are no organizational measures aimed at reducing the risk of cyber-attacks, no technical measure would be sufficient. Human errors are the main source of cyber attacks, but the lack of internal organizational controls enable such human errors to actually become a risk of the eSports industry.
Persecution of eDoping activities – Enforcement and sanctions
When a cybersecurity protection system is not adopted or does not work properly, eDoping can result in numerous consequences for both the accused player as well as the team for which the player operates for.
In fact, eDoping activities can result in the ban of players (or even the team) from a tournament or from the relevant league, with heavy consequences from an economic standpoint, also in terms of negative publicity. Sponsorship contracts can, therefore, be immediately terminated with an economic loss not only for the sponsor but also for tournament organizations and teams, if the agreement is properly drafted.
At the same time, in case eDoping is considered as a criminal offense (for instance a cybercrime), the issue could be brought in front of criminal courts with consequences also from a reputational point of view. It comes as no surprise that bans and fines – known to be considered as a way to discourage illicit behavior – might also apply.
With this regard, it is interesting to consider that no specific independent authority/regulator has been identified so that eSports tournaments are usually self-regulating. For instance, FIFA – for its e-football events and tournaments – developed a single global regulatory body in order to ensure the quality of tournaments and the competition in the game and consistency in rules and code of conducts across different games.
In light of the above, every day the need for a regulation on eSports and consequently against eDoping activities is more pressing. With this regard, some experts are pushing towards a global eSports regulation which would require the identification of sanctions applicable on players across all games and countries in order to prevent the cheating player from participating in other tournaments.
It is therefore clear that eSports tournaments have major potentials, but need to deal with considerable attention from the security standpoint also in order to avoid the results deriving from eDoping.
On the same topic, you may find interesting our “Top 3 predictions for eSports in 2019” and you can read our eSports law book “The legal challenges of eSports“.
