Following his suspension for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) earlier this week due to allegations that he’d levelled another player’s account for $US1300, professional League player Yu “XiaoWeiXiao” Xian has come clean. He says he didn’t realise he was committing a “severe” offence.
Xian’s team, Team Impulse, issued a statement last night confirming that he’d levelled another player’s account in exchange for money — a process known as “elo boosting”. League of Legends developer Riot Games draws a hard line on elo boosting, which is understandable. As I explained in a comment on my original story about Xian’s suspension: “Elo boosting means that people would get into ranks they’re not experienced enough to play in, which would destroy the legitimacy of the game’s ranking system by turning it into a pay-to-win environment.”
Impulse’s statement included a personal address from Xian, which says he wasn’t aware of the severity of the offence:
Hi, I’m TiP XiaoWeiXiao, I feel very sorry to everyone. Because of my ignorance, I did not realise ELO boosting is a such severe incident, so it happened. I assure you guys, this was the first time and last time I would ever do such thing. I sincerely apologise to all of our fans, Riot Games, and mostly my teammates. Sorry, I didn’t live up to your expectations.
The Team Impulse statement qualifies Xian’s elo boosting by saying it’s an isolated incident. “To our knowledge,” the statement read, “this is XWX’s first and last offence — this was an isolated incident that neither the players, management, nor the organisation as a whole were aware of or involved in.”
Riot said earlier this week that it’s investigating Xian’s case. The developer has yet to issue a ruling.
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