Sometimes a controller breaks and it’s frustrating. Sometimes a controller breaks and you’re forced to remap buttons in the middle of a tense come-from-behind win at a major Call of Duty tournament with $US200,000 ($285,552) on the line.
That’s what happened to Gen.G’s Chance “Maux” Moncivaez this past Sunday at this year’s Call of Duty Pro League Finals in Miami. The second round of the grand finals against opponents eUnited had just gotten underway when Moncivaez ran into trouble with his Scuf Dualshock 4 controller. Specifically, a trigger button stopped working. “Literally had to keep playing and change my settings from default to flipped cause my trigger wouldn’t work,” he tweeted as soon as the tournament ended. “Couldn’t even fucking throw a goddamn trophy.“
Gen.G, which had previously come up from the lower bracket to sweep eUnited 3-0 in the first round, lost the first match of the second round handily. Moncivaez appeared furious during the livestream as the team was preparing for the next game. Gen.G went on to lose the next two matches as well, ultimately ceding first-place to eUnited in the second round just as forcefully as it had contested the opposing team in the first.
“My controller somehow broke before the first map started and I call a ref immediately and he hands me a fucking paper clip… I’m so fucking hurt,” Moncivaez said on Twitter afterwards.
While a fully functioning controller may or may not have changed the eventual outcome of the tournament, this situation clearly led to all sorts of frustrating hypotheticals for a player whose team was so close to clinching its first major title after rising out of relative obscurity in the pro Call of Duty scene since the year prior.
Moncivaez was adamant in a Twitch stream yesterday that Gen.G was owed a restart following his controller issue, but he admitted that he also could have handled it better. Perhaps the worst part about the whole fiasco? He had a backup controller.
“I was under such an obscene amount of stress in that moment that I just didn’t think to put my other controller in, and that was on me,” he said.
To clear the air, Gen.G put out an official statement congratulating eUnited on its hard-fought and well-deserved victory. However, the team also said that it plans to address the issue and how best to handle controller malfunctions in future matches with league officials.
Gen.G will be one of the favourites going into the Call of Duty World Championship next month, and it would be a shame if any part of it were tainted by technical hiccups. Everyone involved will also likely be extra mindful of having extra Dualshocks at the ready. And, of course, actually remembering that they packed those extra controllers and should grab one if the need arises.
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