Winner of $20,000 Old-School RuneScape Tournament Disqualified For Cheating

Every video game has its cheaters, even when there's nothing at stake besides a new digital shiny. When there's $20,000 at stake, though ... then the folks in charge need to make sure their security is double- and triple-strong.

That apparently wasn't the case with the Deadman Autumn tournament in Old School RuneScape. The community has leveled concerns ranging from "targeted DDoSing, allegations of staff favouritism, broken game mechanics, and unfair disqualifications." That's from Jagex's official statement, most of which is also alleged in a Reddit post from a player.

Jagex's statement praises the concept of the tournament and the staff for their hard work. But even though "Allegations of a varying nature have emerged over the past few days," only the last survivor of the tournament has been disqualified and his account(s) banned, due to having only circumstantial evidence of other misdeeds. That raises the question of what to do with the $20,000 in prize money, and Jagex has yet to come to a decision on that front:

A few ideas we have at the moment are another charitable donation, dispersing the money among the finalists, or carrying it over to the next season (or a combination of all of these).

Going forward, the developer will discuss internally how to police such events in the future and respond appropriately to future infractions. Maybe they need to nuke a few more million accounts.