Prefacing by saying I wasn't at polan this year so I don't know specifics of what occurred but I know the overall story and accusations. I have known Nicky for several years (can't speak for Roticher as I don't know him as well), and I would be surprised if he continued engaging in negative behaviours after being told not to. He's been a straight laced individual who doesn't engage in conflicts or negative behaviours like verbal/physical assault, harassment or worse. Anytime I've seen him in a situation like this, he is the one to walk away. Most high level players know him too, and I think many would be surprised if he turned out to be such an unsavoury individual that is worthy of a 3-year in person and online ban.

I understand a ban from an event in person where people feel unsafe, however I'm surprised anyone feels unsafe around him, as I'm sure if he was taken aside and told to stop behaving in such a manner that made people uncomfortable, he would. He doesn't get overly intoxicated at events like these, he is an approachable person, and he engages with people when they talk to him. There is no reason why he should be feeling like he wasn't communicated with at the event and also during the judicial process unless those who state they "communicated" with him actually did an awful job on their side. If people did make a decision without talking to the accused, then I would be very hesitant to accept any decision from those individuals.

I, the same as others in this thread, am not accepting them having autism as an excuse. However, there are always going to be awkward interactions just due to the nature that alcohol is served and people get overly intoxicated leading to a lack of control over actions (whether or not they know how to act isn't even relevant). I am not using alcohol intoxication as an excuse either, as I agree with many others that getting too drunk and acting in a Pedro Pascal-esque manner deserves a ban.

People should be mature during situations that occur and raise concerns appropriately, however before full bans, due diligence should be done from investigators and it seems it was not done properly due to the accused never being communicated with. It seems like there was a lack of maturity and forwardness in dealing with the situation, concerns not raised appropriately during the event and a lack of proper investigation.

If Roticher's ban is less, I can only assume a lesser "crime" (if you can call what either of them did a crime anyway).

Banning from an in person event to ensure people feel safe is a very knee-jerk reaction that appears to me to be an overreaction to a minor incident. However, the organisers are well within their right to do so to ensure the event runs smoothly and safely for all involved.

Mirroring the ban to the online league without doing any due diligence is an absolute disgrace, especially when the other main European lan does do due diligence and finds no serious fault worthy of a ban. The feelings of safety to this incident are clearly not severe. If we are banning people for being unsavoury individuals to the degree Nicky was, then the majority of the league should be banned at this point. Plenty of individuals have made others feel uncomfortable in this community, however very few make others feel unsafe. This is an important line to draw, and I feel this is a situation where people were uncomfortable and not unsafe.

we can tell ya fuckin spaz. you obviously dont know your friend very well at all!

Ew

Without knowing how much any of the two "sides" want to actually know more information, I would like to also state this here, where it might help the silent majority to come to an informed conclusion.

I am Jannik or Gideon, the person that made the final call, not to ban the two individuals at question.

The following information is factual and can be confirmed by either myself, the people involved or admins of poLANd or ETF2L.

1. No investigation of any sorts beyond the personal recollections of three people has been used to warrant the ban of both Roticher and Nicky. They have not been (to this day) talked to by any admin of the two organisations. While we applaud both organisations for their amazing work, that in itself is not acceptable and should never be allowed to happen. Due process must ALWAYS involve all sides of each case as no just verdict can be made otherwise.

2. We have spoken to all "sides" of this case in depth and in addition worked through a little more than 100 pages of text with screenshots of DMs and personal recollections. Many of these recollections line up, however in crucial situations, even the recollections of the accusing side don't line up. In one person's recollection someone was invited to join a group going to a restaurant, in the other it wasn't. In one person's recollection someone from the two accused directly harrased someone outside the person, while everyone else confirms it was actually someone unrelated. In one person's collection someone was clearly told to "step away" while the harmed person itself says that had not taken place.

This list goes on and on as there were more than 20 different accounts of important moments that don't line up.

In short: There simply is no conclusive evidence that either all of the reported behavior has taken place and/or that it was actually properly and clearly addressed on site. Many of the accusers seem to believe that somebody else had "clearly adressed the issue" while it is hard to find any proof for that.

We are NOT saying that anyone is lying here. All we are saying is that we are quite convinced that the accusers both believe that other people had confronted more than they actually have and that more things took place than have actually taken place.

This whole situation could have likely been solved by approaching an admin on site and by better and clearler communication on site. But sadly both seem to have never happened.

3. Since AFTER the unban, we have been met with the personal recollection of other people who attended poLANd stating that they also have their doubts about the recollection of the accusing people actually being 100% correct. For those wondering why this was not heard beforehand: This has happened AFTER the unban since none of this was made public before and since there was no investigation before, so just as the banned people still have not been met with the full allegations, these other people could not have shared their point of view.

Important: This has NOT been used to warrant not mirroring the bans (but it would have had it happened before).

These individuals clearly stated that they don't want to say these things in public at this moment in time as they fear being attacked which based on what happened to me and what happened to ÜBERFEST sadly has to be confirmed as a reasonable point of view.

4. There are talks about CCTV footage from on site. To our knowledge that CCTV footage is "beyond inconclusive" as yes it shows the accused walk past or stand close to the person that was alledgedly harmed but given the venue size of poLANd it is simply impossible not to do that.

5. It was confirmed that there has been no sexual harrassment, no physical component involved or anything else along those lines. The accusers confirm that the only misbehavior is "being too much in the personal space of somebody else" and "asking weird questions or making weird comments (non-sexual)".

All of this combined did lead us to the conclusion of not mirroring the ban. Considering what happened after our unban we actually strongly hope that ETF2L and poLANd will follow suit and also change their verdict on the situation as a ban is simply not warranted. I am saying this as a person that has hosted events and leagues across 10 different titles for over 10 years now. We have banned or otherwise excluded a lot of people from participation (including in TF2) but this is not a ban that has any foundation whatsoever.

A good share of this community seems to believe that ideology trumps over investigation and evidence and I want to close by saying that you are following down a dangerous and horrible path by doing so. It will be sooner than you might believe that you will be the banned person based on no apparent evidence if this is the community you want to live in.

so what you are saying is all it takes is 3 people to lie about an incident at lan to get someone banned for a minimum of 3 years without any other form of proof or even talking to the "criminal" to get their side of the story. Are we in highschool?

I'm not taking sides here because I don't know what actually happened if anything at all but this sounds like someone got a little too friendly and when they didn't get the hint of "ye, not interested go away" they got reported for being "weird and stalkie" by this persons friend group. Seeing as how everyone in this community is autistic in some way or another this is not really an excuse in 2026 and Im glad nothing physical or sexual happened as is confirmed above.

The main conclusion I am taking from this is, if you can get people to agree that you got harassed at LAN when there is no proof you can just get people banned. Ye I don't think I am going to any more lans in this community then fuck that.

While I strongly believe that what you assume is quite accurate, I hope that we will be able to help making occurances like this impossible in the future by implementing a better process and working together with the other TOs.

I hope there will be many more events for this community to enjoy and grow together through - even if they are not ÜBERFESTS. That is literally (even though some might not believe me unfortunately) the one main thing we seek to achieve.

The following is an altered version of a couple messages I have sent in non-public discord channels.

I am DCS, Head Tournament Admin for ÜBERFEST, and involved in the project lead. I am not employed by Being Esports. However, I was the one working with Gideon in this process which resulted in the decision of not banning Roticher and Nicky for the event. I was the one who brought this case to the attention of Being Esports and initially reach out to both the accused and the harmed. While I did not make the final call (and I don‘t know if I would have had the stones to make it), I agree with it.

We, and Gideon in particular, invested an immense amount of time. In addition to working through the aforementioned 100 ish pages of documents, Gideon talked to all three people who were directly involved on both sides for over an hour each in voice. I was present in voice in a second voice meeting where we informed the accused of our decision. We sat down with them for another 30 minutes each, explaining to them in detail what we expect from them and how to behave and not behave at our event, should they decide to attend.

I am not saying everyone would come to the same conclusion as we did after the work we have put in. But I daresay we have a much more informed picture of everyone’s feelings, intentions and thought processes than the entities that decided to apply bans.

However, all these conversations and the depth of which personal information was revealed to us were only possible because we agreed to confidentiality (something all three of them wanted and appreciated).
It is simply not our information to share, not from the accused or the harmed side of things.
People online, and especially victims of harassment or of any kind for that matter, would come forward and confide in us admins even less often if they knew their highly private information will be shared with third parties.
While we will not share such information without consent, you should consider the possibility that we were told some things that are not public knowledge which played an important role in the process.

We believe Roticher and Nicky are not a threat and will not harm anyone at our event.

On a personal note, I would love people who are thinking about not attending the event because of our decision to consider the following:

I have been a member of this community for 14 years. 3 of which as an ETF2L Head admin. Some of you have either attended or worked multiple if not all events I have been involved in the project lead in going all the way back to 2015- DeutschLAN, Copenhagen Games, RCADIA, ÜBERFEST. I daresay all of which have been successful and memorable events.
Some of you know me well from these events, others know me well privately.

I like to think that in all these years I have not shown a willingness to put anyone, regardless of gender, age or origin, in harms way.

I like to think that I have always shown a willingness to make controversial and tough decisions if it is the right thing to do.

I have advocated for those who did not dare to speak up against people who were well known members of the community (the very public case of degu & predz for instance).

I like to think that none of you would think I would agree with a decision like this for the sake of revenue money of one more sold ticket (an argument which doesn’t hold much merit to begin with because the likelihood of losing money here is much higher than the one team ticket we sell). I never did this to get rich, and neither is Being Esports.

It is totally okay to disagree with our decision. I value and respect differing opinions, I enjoy them and they make me constantly reflect my own behavior and view on the world. From what I have seen, this is even more true for Gideon.

We can have different opinions on things and still be friends and work together to make a great event happen.
We are not enemies.

You are not working for/attending an event or an organisation that condones, encourages or supports harassment.
You are working for/attending an event and an organisation that creates unforgettable memories for people that will last a lifetime.
You are working for/ will spend time with the awesome TF2 community and its members.

Being Esports has been a godsent for this community, especially at the point TF2 is in its lifespan. An actual company who is willing to risk their financial balance and literally its existence for a game and for a community they have no part in.

It would break my heart if you thought I would be such a person as described above or if we let our differing opinions destroy what we have achieved together since the first iteration of ÜBERFEST and what we could achieve together with Being Esports in the future.

If you do not wish to attend or work the event even after you have read through our statements, fair enough. Obviously we hope to see you all at ÜBERFEST.

I would ask only this: please respect the thousands of unpaid hours we have invested in the past and put in each year to make this happen and do not work against our event - do not try to convince people to boycott it - especially behind closed doors.

2 LANs each year (in EU) is not a whole lot. Please do not seek destroy one of them because you have a different opinion.

I remember now seeing someone who now I can only safely assume is the victim in this case posting on twitch chat something along the lines of "gl everyone except Nicky" - This would have been a month ago or more when a top player was streaming scrims featuring Nicky's team at the time.

I just want to ask why? Why would you post something like this? By doing this you're surely aware that you are potentially going to get even more random people involved in a matter that has nothing to do with them?

If you know more than I do about the situation feel free to share instead of calling me a spaz. From what I know, I think he's been unfairly treated in the form of an online ban and am showing support on a thread where he has very little. I wouldn't even call us friends at this point, more acquaintances as much as you are with him just by being around groups of people who play the game to a high level.

You're right, I may not know him well at all, but put up or shut up and don't call someone a spaz if you aren't gonna clarify something that they have stated they don't know.

Competitive TF2 players try not to act like hopeless virgins around a woman challenge *IMPOSSIBLE*

The organizers of Überfest recently issued a controversial decision. In light of this,The TF2Pickup Mafia has chosen on its own to cease attending the festival. Although the ruling does not impact our team, we have decided it is no longer aligned with our values to continue participating.

PickupMafia has made the decision to no longer attend Überfest. This stems from a recent controversial ruling by the organizers, despite the decision having no direct effect on our group. After reflection, we determined it was best to withdraw voluntarily from future events.

The TF2Pickup Mafia will not participate in Überfest anymore. The decision comes after the organizers made a controversial call that, while not affecting our team, prompted us to reassess our involvement. We have voluntarily chosen to leave the event and wish the organizers and attendees well in the future.

qBowN~ & .jekeb

Following a controversial decision made by the organizers, PickupMafia has elected to stop attending Überfest. The ruling itself does not concern our team directly, yet we felt it necessary to step back of our own volition. This was a collective decision made in response to the direction the event appears to be taking.

In light of recent events the TF2PickupMafia has decided not to attend this year. After careful consideration, we concluded that it would be best for us to step away from the event moving forward.

wildpiggie & cooney

While that is of course saddening to hear, we want to thank you for letting us know through these posts.

We wish you nothing but the best and thank you for attending our other events.