Cheating in video games is not a new thing. There have been repeated instances of cheaters surfacing across popular esports titles like CSGO or Valorant. However, it’s also not rare for players to be wrongly accused of cheating due to a few lucky plays or visual glitches, and that’s exactly what happened in the case of Filipino content creator Mika Daime, according to Riot.
Daime is a prominent Valorant streamer from the Philippines and a celebrated personality on Facebook Gaming, with a follower count of over 138,000 on the platform.
When professional Valorant players Matt ‘Wardell’ Yu and Keven ‘Player 1’ Champagne came across a clip from Mika’s Valorant gameplay, they were both swift to suspect her of cheating and proceeded to accuse her of using aimbot and wallhacks.
While Vanguard has done a great task at keeping cheaters at bay, there have been instances of hackers occasionally slipping through the anti-cheat system by Riot. This further helped fuel the suspicions against
Mika Daime, and the community exploded with accusations against the Filipino star across social media platforms.
The controversies got to a point where Riot finally decided to intervene. “Normally, we don’t want to add to the publicity of any individual case, but because this one’s getting a little out of hand: Mika is innocent,” a Riot Dev said. “We’ve completed a thorough investigation of Mika’s gameplay, and while the clips might be suspicious individually, we’re confident that cheating software was not utilized for the accused sessions.”
Even after the confirmation from Riot’s side, the community stood divided on their opinions. The Dev’s comment was showered with downvotes on Reddit as fans started criticizing Riot’s stance regarding the incident.