Elias Olkkonen lost his professional career at the age of 14 due to a ban in CS:GO. His story led to a review of the tournament rules by Valve.
Who is it about? This is about the then 14-year-old Elias Jamppi
Olkkonen. At that time, he bought a second copy of CS:GO for a LAN party for his friend and sold this account to his friend later that same evening.
However, this account was later banned. Since the copy came from Jamppi’s account, this had serious consequences for his professional career.
Since then, Jamppi has been allowed to participate in tournaments not directly organized by Valve. However, due to the ban, he could not participate in the Major tournaments that are among the most important in the scene. This made him unattractive for most teams.
In 2020, he sued Valve. Initially, he sued the wrong company. Although the court and Valve agreed that Jamppi was not at fault for the ban, they upheld their ruling.
Jampii’s story brings about change
What rule was changed? Due to the previous ruling, Jamppi decided to switch to the competitor Valorant, as his ban had no effect on his career there. Nevertheless, it seemed that his story prompted Valve to reconsider their regulations.
In April 2021, three months after Jamppi’s switch to Valorant, Valve announced on their website that they would be changing their tournament rules. In their statement, they said:
Up until now, players could not participate in official Valve events if they had received a VAC ban in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. These guidelines had not been updated since the game was released, when all VAC bans were still relatively new. However, there are some bans that are already eight years old, so we have decided to update the rules. From now on, a VAC ban will only be a reason for disqualification in two cases: if it was imposed within the last five years, or if it was imposed at any time after participating in an official Valve event.
Counter-Strike Blog
Due to the timing, it can be assumed that Jamppi’s case may have at least triggered Valve to reconsider its rules for the first time.
Despite Valve’s announcement, Jamppi chose not to return to Counter-Strike but to remain loyal to Valorant.
What is Jamppi doing today? Jamppi has been playing for Team Liquid since February 25, 2021, and has remained loyal to the game Valorant. His signature agents primarily include initiators like Breach, Sova, or KAY/O. Although he no longer plays Counter-Strike professionally, he is very successful in Valorant. Last year, he was able to win the VCT EMEA League with his team (via Liquidpedia).
Even though Jamppi has turned his back on Counter-Strike at least at a professional level, he was still able to effect a change in the regulations. However, he caused a chuckle when he did not directly sue Valve but accidentally a German company. You can read how this happened here: CS:GO player sues Valve for €266,000, but the wrong one
