We recently reported that there have been a series of bans after Season 20 which resulted 7 professional esports players and 210 Axies being banned from the game for 999 days. The Axie team had identified that these accounts were guilty of match-fixing which is against the terms of service for the game. In their statement, the Axie Infinity team also mentioned that they have given a final warning last January and will be enforcing their zero-tolerance policy against match-fixing.
The accounts that were banned include Aremzy of MetaGoons guild, RJB of Axiemptomatic and Axie.gg, Keng #1 Prominence, Arwin of JM Esports, MxZ 20 of Axiemptomatic, xSkyyy of Axie.gg, and #471 Real Deal of PC Esports.
Aremzy Admits Fault
Screencap from Aremzy’s Facebook page
Aremzy took to his Facebook page Tuesday night to release an official statement regarding his recent ban after Season 20 Arena battles in Axie Infinity. He issued an apology and admitted to wrongdoing in the case against him for match-fixing.
Aremzy’s account was not only banned indefinitely from joining any Axie eSports competition but all Axies in the account are now banned for 999 days or just under 3 years. He had 103 Axies in his account at the time of the ban.
In his official statement, Aremzy takes full responsibility for his actions and admitted to the match-fixing. He explains how he got involved in an Axie discord server where the prevalent rule is to cause matches to a draw when they meet each other in Arena. He complied and is aware of his mistake.
He stated “100% nagkamali ako, hindi ko itatanggi yun, tanggap ko yung desisyon nila na ibilang yun as matchfixing/win trading,”
[I 100% made a mistake, I am not denying that, I accept their decision to include what I did as match-fixing or trading.]
Aremzy questioned some parts of Axie Infinity’s ruling specifically why everything in his account including his 103 Axies was banned. He stated that he understood banning his account and the Axies involved in the incident but wonders why were Sky Mavis’ measures so drastic.
However, he said that this will not deter him from actively participating in Axie as a community member and continue to give help and guidance to the rest of the community.
1437’s Official Statement On The Issue
Screencap from 1437’s Facebook page
In related news, top ranked player 1437 also released a statement regarding the Axie Infinity match fixing bans. In light of the bans, many players took to Twitter and Facebook pointing their fingers at 1437 and the MT8 guild accusing them of being the ones who orchestrated the ban. In his statement 1437 clarified that he had nothing to do with the recent round of bans and that this was completely the decision of the Axie team.
1437 in his statement revealed that he had been very focused to get to the top rank of the game and did not have time to review gameplays and report match-fixers. He also explained that there were some who reached out to him for him to report some players but he stated he wanted to focus on his ranking and believed that investigating and reporting cheaters was not going to help him rank up in-game.
He has also invited everyone to review his account, his gameplays for any cheating as he said he is quite open to review. He stated that everyone can view his games and can see for themselves whether he himself engaged in any cheating.
He went on to say “I don’t need to cheat, I don’t need anyone to help me, and I for sure will always do it the right way” and that he had “NOTHING to gain from this.”
Community Feedback
The actual community is quite split on the Axie match fixing controversy but it has definitely created quite an uproar. So much so in fact that even Eniego has expressed his frustration on Twitter at how some Philippine community players are reacting with some cursing or being downright rude.
Many community members are actually supportive of the bans, seeing this as a step towards a more fair environment for all players and would deter further attempts at exploiting or gaming the system to their advantage.
There are others, however, who question the ban on all the Axies as these are NFTs that have real-world value. Some have stated what happened to the decentralization of assets when the same said assets, the NFTs, can easily be banned from use making the asset dead in the water so to speak. If they can’t use the Axies, players have stated they should at least get their assets or their money back.
On the extreme side, there are those who feel the bans are completely unwarranted. Some even claim there is no possible way to get hard and definite proof that any cheating even happened. Some are even demanding the Axie team to reverse the ban altogether so that these players can at least get their investments back.
We’ll have more on this story as it develops.