The career of former CS:GO pro Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat lasted less than half a year, but he managed to write e-sports history in this short time. Though not necessarily in the way he had probably dreamed of.
What kind of player was that? In April 2018, the American esports organization OpTic decided to set up an Indian CS:GO team. This was at a time when the Indian esports scene was largely played out in internet cafes, so it was a big deal.
OpTic’s Nick “Ashes” Ridgeway said at the time they were passionate about building and supporting new, exciting regions.
After the tryouts, for which there were countless applicants, the 5 members of OpTic’s Indian CS:GO team were finally determined. One of them was Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat, who caused what is probably the biggest scandal in Indian e-sports in his four-month career.
In addition to forsaken, the team consisted of:
Image: OpTic Gaming via HLTV and eXTREMESLAND 2018 via Twitter
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Only one map before victory
How was OpTic India’s career? After a successful start of OpTic India and first victories in smaller tournaments, the newly minted team managed to qualify as the only representative of their region for the eXTREMESLAND 2018 Asia in Shanghai, the first major LAN tournament of their career.
The first match against Malaysian team FrostFire ended in a disastrous 16:6 for OpTic India. But in the next game, against the Vietnamese team Revolution, the tide seemed to turn. OpTic India won the first map and secured the lead on the next map.
CSGO2Asia Editor-in-Chief Nikhil Hathhiramani said at the time OpTic India was just one map away from victory. But then everything went wrong. A technical break was called in the middle of the match, which was supposed to last over an hour.
Forsaken is caught live
The career ended so bitterly: As it turned out, forsaken’s teammate Marzil called the break due to technical issues. However, the officials took the opportunity to take a closer look at the support player’s computer, as the AnitCheat software had sounded the alarm: forsaken, who had been suspected in the past, was apparently cheating.
The e-sportsman was still trying to somehow save the situation. After initially unsuccessfully trying to stop the tournament admins from taking a closer look at his PC, he was finally asked to Alt+Tab out of the game.
It was immediately apparent that another program was running on forsaken’s PC: “word.exe”. However, the program was not Microsoft’s writing program, but an aim assist that the player activated using a special button on his mouse.
forsaken made one last desperate attempt to simply delete the program – in front of the referees and up to 6,800 spectators watching the tournament (via escharts). As if that weren’t enough, there’s also a video of the humiliating moment:
From great hope to memes
What happened after that? OpTic India was immediately disqualified and the team was disbanded shortly thereafter. As it turned out, this wasn’t the first time forsaken had resorted to cheating software. OpTic India’s victory at the ESL India Premiership 2018 Finals was retrospectively revoked and forsaken received a 5-year ban from the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC).
There was a lifelong ban from Valve – as is well known, they don’t take much fun.
While forsaken has completely retired from the public eye, the rest of his team has continued to pursue careers in esports and still achieved some – legitimate – success in new teams. Antidote and Marzal have now switched to Valorant, while haiVaan is active as a streamer.
YouTuber Rohan “HydraFlick” Ledwani spoke to forsaken’s ex-teammate haiVaan about the disgraced player in 2021. He said he didn’t know what happened to forsaken, he hadn’t spoken to anyone from the team since the fiasco at eXTREMESLAND and he even flew home alone.
Apparently, OpTic had put forsaken on the first plane home while the remaining team members had to wait a few more days for their return flights. Meanwhile, events surrounding forsaken went viral.
Viewers not only dug up suspicious old clips of the player, they also pounced on the name that forsaken had tried to use to camouflage his cheats. “word.exe” became a meme and made the rounds in the CS:GO scene, where it became synonymous with cheats.
To this day, Google spits out videos and articles on forsaken for the search term “word.exe” before it comes to the writing program (as of June 2023).
Ex-colleague says: “He got what he deserved”
This makes the story particularly bitter: OpTic India should be an opportunity for a region that had not been able to establish itself in esports until then. Because although India had many talented players, there was a lack of opportunities: budding professionals had hardly any opportunities to get hardware of the necessary caliber.
The investments of an American organization like OpTic should change all that, put India on the big international stage. Now the project had failed miserably and the country’s reputation as an e-sports location was massively damaged.
It didn’t help that Bubun “The Guru” Panday, captain of the team that knocked OpTic out of the ESL India Premiership 2018 Finals and who contested a replay of the finals, was also accused of cheating.
The anger at forsaken, which stood as a huge disappointment for the nation, was correspondingly great. Angry fans reportedly even discussed ambushing the player at the airport upon his return.
It was particularly painful for his teammates, whose dream seemed to be shattered from one moment to the next. Marzil can be seen in a video from 2021, in which he recalls the exact moment: he didn’t know whether to be angry or sad. About his former colleague he says:
He broke a lot of things for a lot of people. But none of that will come back, so there’s no point in yelling at him. I think he got the punishment from social media that he deserved. To be cast out and remembered as the person who destroyed Indian Counter-Strike esports. This will haunt him no matter where he goes.
At OpTic, too, people were anything but enthusiastic about how forsaken had single-handedly driven the big project to the wall. After all, they wanted to establish themselves in a new region before everyone else, wanted to be a “first mover”. OpTic’s Hector “HECZ” Rodriguez first spoke about the incident in 2020 and recalled:
When we were scouting in India and it turned into a disaster, forsaken because of that damn cheater. This brand [OpTic] to wear and do that, he was damn lucky I wasn’t there.
“If I could, I would uninstall it immediately”
Why was he cheating? forsaken deleted his entire social media presence after the scandal, but agreed to an interview with AFK Gaming and also released a statement about his cheating.
The player apologized to his teammates and said he felt guilty for depriving them of their chances. Speaking about the reasons for his cheating, forsaken said there wasn’t any financial or family pressure, he just wanted “to be perfect in every aspect of the game”.
He had confidence in his decisions and his understanding of the game, but not in his ability to aim. To compensate for this shortcoming, he chose the wrong path.
I betrayed the trust of the people who believed in me. I’ve smeared the country’s name, and I know that’s unforgivable. It’s nobody’s fault but me. No one but me should have to bear the hate and blame for this.
What would he have done differently? Forsaken also admitted that he regrets starting Counter-Strike in the first place. Nothing good came of it. If he could go back, he would uninstall the game the same day that he started. Now he has lost the one thing that he had put above all else for so long.
I know my career at CS is over. All I can do is try to make something of my life so that I’m able to help my family. I never thought of doing anything other than Counter-Strike. I will try to work on my mistakes and become a better person.
We will probably not find out whether forsaken managed to start over again. However, it is unlikely that he will attempt to return to the world of esports once his ESIC ban expires.
The Lithuanian professional Vilius Malinauskas recently found out how quickly a career in e-sports can be over. The 22-year-old was not guilty of anything in terms of play, but managed to ruin his career with his behavior outside of the tournament scene.
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