Analysis of recent Valve controversy

Here is a breakdown of this situation. A TLDR summary: evidence shows that Valve created a rule that team organizations are to punish players. TNC punished Kuku. Valve accepted that punishment. A regional power attempted to punish Kuku above and beyond what his organization had punished him. Valve then punished TNC and Kuku further for not complying with the regional non-Valve punishment. No notice was given to TNC about expecations for complying with regional punishments that were not issued by Valve.



**1) Valve accepted the punishment of Skem and Kuku as sufficient and made a clear rule that punishment flows from the team organization and Valve is the only one who decides if such punishment is sufficient.**



This can be seen in several ways. First, because Skem who said it in an official match got punished and Valve emailed Burning saying that such a punishment of a fine and apology was enough. [Source.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DriNi9lVsAATKtX.png). Kuku did worse than that though because his manager then went on Weibo and tried to lie to get Kuku out of trouble. Kuku's manager admitted to doing that and Kuku then apologized for his behavior (a second time, this time more genuinely according to some). Kuku was also fined and was sanctioned by having to pay 50% of his winnings to a charity to promote international acceptance/anti-racism.



Valve issued their initial public statement after TNC admitted they lied and tried to cover up for Kuku and then sanctioned Kuku. Valve's statement accepted such a punishment as sufficient: ["Going forward, we expect all teams who participate in our tournaments to hold its players accountable, and be prepared to follow up with strong punishments when players represent Dota and its community poorly.".](http://blog.dota2.com/2018/11/the-major-and-professional-dota-players/) They call on the **organizations** to punish the players which TNC did.



Valve's statement put rest this controversy momentarily because it was clear Kuku was punished by his org as Valve directed and Valve did not make any further statements. It was supposed to be the end of this issue. Valve made clear their future policy is that orgs punish players. Player was punished. Case closed.



**2) Fast forward to regional qualifiers.**



Rumors start to circulate that someone in the Chinese scene, organization, or government was saying that Kuku could not attend the major. This is an outside punishment above and beyond what Valve had already put to rest. Someone in power in China was seeking to exclude Kuku and cause additional punishment to him above and beyond what Valve had made clear was sufficient when Kuku was punished by his org.



The nature of the punishment and whether it was an actual ban, or merely statements from someone in China or the Chinese DotA organizations is unclear. **What is clear is that Valve believed the ban/punishment was real.** How do we know this? Because in their second statement that admit that they told TNC they would NOT face a DPC punishment for replacing Kuku and the only reason they would allow such a leniency was because Kuku was unable to attend due to factors outside his own control. "



["TNC contacted Valve last Tuesday, asking if they would get a DPC point penalty for replacing Kuku; we told them that they wouldn’t."](http://blog.dota2.com/2018/12/tnc-and-the-chongqing-major/).



This is similar to the issue with 33 from NIP where the reason 33 couldn't attend a Malaysian event was because of factors outside of 33's control. **This confirms that either a ban or some other outside pressure was being placed on Kuku forcing him to be unable to attend.**



So we know some form of outside-of-Valve punishment existed against Kuku.



**3) How does Valve deal with a regional power attempting to influence/control their own DPC weighted tournament and contradict Valve's position that orgs are responsible for punishing their players?**



Valve issues a statement yesterday INCREASING the punishment against TNC and banning Kuku from attending.



They cite two reasons for doing so: First, TNC/Kuku mishandling the situation on multiple occasions and that the team attempted to "lie about it or try to create cover for an individual player." This is a clear reference to the prior incident with TNC's manager that was admitted and part of Valve's original statement calling on the organizations to punish players, which TNC did. See point 2 above. This was not a new issue but this led to Valve increasing the punishment against TNC and Kuku despite it not being new. This was not, as some people have claimed, Valve saying that TNC was lying about the "ban" because as we can see from point 3 the "ban/punishment" was real.



Second, they cite to their own assumption that Valve made when TNC contacted them to ask about a possible DPC penalty. ["TNC contacted Valve last Tuesday, asking if they would get a DPC point penalty for replacing Kuku; we told them that they wouldn’t. We assumed that they were then working on a plan to replace Kuku with another player. However it seems like TNC is currently not taking proper responsibility for their actions, coupled with the attempted cover up by the team, so we are now stepping in directly and banning Kuku from attending this event."] (http://blog.dota2.com/2018/12/tnc-and-the-chongqing-major/)



The flaw with this is very clear. Valve assumed something but never stated clearly to TNC to replace Kuku. They assumed what TNC was doing by asking a question of them. We know that they did not order TNC to replace Kuku because if they had it would have been included that in their post. This was not a case of Valve ordering TNC to do something and them refusing to do so, which would show them disobeying Valve. Valve then makes a second assumption saying that TNC's recent posts seeking clarification about if Kuku was actually banned or not was TNC "not taking proper responsibility for their actions." It was not proven that TNC was not already working on a replacement while also seeking clarification on if such a ban/punishment existed.



Valve made two faulty assumptions here. None of which are TNC's fault. And they used that as a flimsy excuse to claim that TNC now deserves additional punishments and to make the ban on Kuku confirmed when that is what the local influencers wanted the entire time.



**4) The pressure from China and others**



Pressure from Western casters started to mount and pressure from the Chinese scene in return began putting Valve in a very awkward position. [Valve just launched Steam in China three days ago.](https://sludgefeed.com/steam-to-launch-in-china-despite-regulatory-environment/).



The question arose: Valve had already accepted TNC's punishment and indicated punishment for DotA related misbehavior was to come from the ORGANIZATION not external event organizers or local governments. Would Valve now allow Chinese pressure to force Valve to issue additional punishment on Kuku and TNC?



The answer is yes. Valve has allowed a local government and/or local pressure to force their hand in applying additional punishment above and beyond their own original statement. We know this because the original statement was for the orgs to punish the players. Now the punishment is that + a ban and DPC penatly to TNC. This has tarnished the DPC system by showing that if political pressure is placed on Valve they will increase punishment on players/orgs instead of standing strong with their initial punishment. Their reasons for claiming the additional punishments are flimsy and non-existent, based on poor assumptions by Valve employees and old information already taken into account.



**5) Why is this a major problem?**



Valve has been clear in the past that punishment comes after clear directions from Valve on what to do. See the Solo incident (where he was caught matchfixing but was not banned for life form Valve events **because a policy was not in place prior to Solo committing his infraction.)** Valve later did lifetime ban players who committed this infraction after the policy was in place.



Valve did not clearly communicate a policy to TNC about replacing Kuku. In fact, Valve's statement #1 where they appeared to accept the punishment by the TNC organization in compliance with what they themselves laid out as their policy [("Going forward, we expect all teams who participate in our tournaments to hold its players accountable")](http://blog.dota2.com/2018/11/the-major-and-professional-dota-players/) directly contradicts any assumption Valve made that TNC should know to replace Kuku. TNC was clearly given no direct guidance and what guidance they had by Valve was that punishment for this kind of behavior was up to the **organizations** and **Valve** to impose.



**This is the new rule going forward: If your org hears rumors of a ban against your player, you better comply with non-Valve punishments by replacing that player. If you do not replace that player you will be deemed to have "not tak[en] proper responsibility for [your] actions" and you will be punished more by Valve directly for failing to comply with rumored regional non-Valve punishments.**



A TLDR summary: evidence shows that Valve created a rule that team organizations are to punish players. TNC punished Kuku. Valve accepted that punishment. A regional power attempted to punish Kuku above and beyond what his organization had punished him. Valve then punished TNC and Kuku further for not complying with the regional non-Valve punishment. No notice was given to TNC about expecations for complying with regional punishments that were not issued by Valve.

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