• Join SGO
  • Meet Our Team
  • Review Policy
Sunday, March 26, 2023
  • Login
Sports Gamers Online
  • News
  • Features
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Previews
  • Esports
  • Games
PATREON
No Result
View All Result
Sports Gamers Online
  • News
  • Features
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Previews
  • Esports
  • Games
PATREON
No Result
View All Result
Sports Gamers Online
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Features
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Previews
  • Esports
  • Games

Home » Sports » SGO Investigation: NHL Gaming World Championship EXPOSED

SGO Investigation: NHL Gaming World Championship EXPOSED

Michael Straw by Michael Straw
Jan 25, 2021
Reading Time: 4 mins read
1 0
A A
0
2
SHARES
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterPost on Reddit

Competition is competition. It brings out the best in all participants. But what happens when those same participants try to find loopholes in the system in order to find success?

That’s apparently the case for a number of participants in the NHL Gaming World Championship.

You might also like

MLB The Show 23 Brings Team Affinity Back to Diamond Dynasty

SGO Weekly: Wrestle Story, Street King Racing, Knock Out 2, & More! (3/17/23 – 3/23/23)

Finding the Right Competitive eSports FPS Game For You

According to screenshots posted by Twitter user GreaseFactory16, members of the “Top Players” server on Discord came to an agreement to avoid playing each other in order to stay highly ranked during qualifying. This involved players backing out of games after seeing who the opponent was in the pregame lobby.

One of the users, NugeTV, even stated that there was “no reason” to give each other losses to which others in the discussion agreed.


When reached out for comment on the matter, EA declined. However, two sources with direct involvement with the tournament stated to SGO that both the NHL and EA Sports were said to be “livid” behind the scenes when the conversations were made public.

One source even added that the NHL has “lost some trust” in EA’s ability to handle the league’s future hopes for its esports division which includes a league similar to that of the NBA 2K League.

But why are the top NHL players doing this in the first place? Wouldn’t they care about this information getting out to others?

The reason: it was happening to them on a daily basis. When lower-level players would see that they were going up against some of the best in the world, they would immediately quit. The only games these players were getting in were against other highly ranked players, possibly opening the door for less-skilled players to find themselves higher on the leaderboards.

Though it gives an understandable excuse for the dodging, it doesn’t make it right. It just exposes the broken system that was put in place for the event.

To combat the “gentleman’s agreement” among the game’s top players, EA Sports released a patch that disabled in-game voice chat — which then hides usernames — during HUT Competitive Seasons and HUT Champions. This includes the GWC.

#NHL19 News: Patch 1.6 will be coming to @EASPORTSNHL tonight at 2 AM PT/5 AM ET.

This patch will disable in-game voice chat in HUT Competitive Seasons games to prevent players from seeing the opponent's Online IDs before the puck is dropped.

Details: https://t.co/3AY9stkaoV pic.twitter.com/8ucoiECWok

— Tyler Horsfall (@TheFlopFish) March 20, 2019

Since then, various people involved have told SGO that it’s been a much nicer experience going into a game blind regarding their opponents. That said, players still have the expected ability to back out of a game if the connection is detected to be poor before loading into the contest.

Speaking of connections, the NHL GWC has been plagued by server issues since the start of the event on March 13. In addition to the gaming of the system, players trying to legitimately move up the rankings have found themselves being kicked out of games during normal play and receiving a loss for their troubles.

Even when on the winning side, some found themselves being given losses due to the game viewing the disconnects as quitting.

GWC player Lightsout0021 is one of those competitors who has experienced disconnects multiple times.

“Towards the end of a game, I lost connection and got the loss,” he said.

He added that even after reaching out multiple times to EA about the incident, he received no response from anyone involved.

https://twitter.com/lightsout0021/status/1106427107922595840

And just when you think that’s everything wrong with the event, there are EA GameChangers involved in the tournament. Now, the issue isn’t the fact they are eligible because everyone should be able to participate. Where the potential problem sits is how they built up their teams.

A handful of these participants have received free HUT Packs, thus getting free players. With no restrictions on how the rosters were built or what players could be used, the HUT-based GWC has been a free-for-all of rosters. While packs from EA stopped around December when the decision was made to go with HUT for the format of the GWC, there was nothing in place to stop players who received free players from using any of those players in the tournament.

“Even if they didn’t receive a lot of great players, it’s still unfair to us who spent our own money to build our rosters,” a player who wished to remain anonymous said.

EA has also declined to comment on the matter of players using promotional players for their roster.

With any sporting event, the results mean nothing if they aren’t achieved in an ethical and legitimate way. The same goes for esports.

For EA Sports and the NHL, there’s clearly work to be done if this esports partnership is going to continue and grow in the coming years.

The NHL GWC qualifying runs through April 7.

Continue Reading
Tags: frontpagenewsNewsNHL 19NHL Gaming World Championship
Share1Tweet1Share
Previous Post

LeBron James’ Tattoo Artist Moves Forward in Lawsuit Against Take-Two Interactive

Next Post

Electronic Arts Lays Off 350 Staff Members Including NBA Live Community Manager

Michael Straw

Michael Straw

Michael Straw is a gamer who just happens to be an experienced journalist. In his near decade-long career, Mike has traveled across the United States to cover some of the biggest events in gaming and sports, including E3, PAX, as well as the NFL and NHL Drafts. His work covering gaming and sports led his content being featured on Fox Sports 1, SI.com and others. He was once the second-ranked player in the world in NHL 09 on Xbox Live, and is a huge pro wrestling junkie.

Recommended For You

MLB The Show 23 Brings Team Affinity Back to Diamond Dynasty
Baseball

MLB The Show 23 Brings Team Affinity Back to Diamond Dynasty

Mar 25, 2023
Wrestle Story SGO Weekly
Sports

SGO Weekly: Wrestle Story, Street King Racing, Knock Out 2, & More! (3/17/23 – 3/23/23)

Mar 24, 2023
Next Post
EA

Electronic Arts Lays Off 350 Staff Members Including NBA Live Community Manager

Upcoming Games
March 14 Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC WWE 2K23
March 24 Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch MLB The Show 23
April 7 Xbox Series X|S, PS5 EA Sports PGA Tour
October 13 Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch WRC Generations
March 26 PC Franchise Hockey Manager 9
VIEW ALL GAMES

Recent reviews

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Meet Our Team
  • Join SGO
  • Privacy Policy
  • Review Policy
  • Store
Contact us: [email protected]

© 2014-2022 SGO Entertainment

  • News
  • Features
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Previews
  • Esports
  • Games

© 2014-2022 SGO Entertainment

Welcome Back!

Sign In with Facebook
Sign In with Google
OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In