VTV3 Speaks Out on Esports Law and Organizational System After Penalties for Himass and TanVuu

Himass sat still in front of the screen. Not because he was waiting for a match. The penalty from Krafton had just been announced: a ban from all international PUBG tournaments. One sentence. No description of the violating act. No article referenced. No processing record disclosed. I replayed the clip of the announcement three times, and only on the third pass did I notice something most people overlooked: during the livestream, nobody asked about the rule. Everyone only asked why it was these two. That question was enough to fill an hour of discussion. But it was not the right question. Fans hate the truth, but I do not go on air to be loved. And the truth here is: the controversy around Himass and TanVuu is not really about two players. It is about a system where the rule-maker is also the tournament organizer, and also the issuer of the penalty, a system with no second instance, no independent arbitration panel, no transparent appeal mechanism. VTV3 has spoken out. But what matters is not what they said about the two players, it is that they finally touched the biggest blind spot in Vietnamese esports for years. To understand why this story escalated to the point that a national broadcaster had to step in, it needs to be placed in a wider context. PUBG is a title published by Krafton, operated under a live-service model. That means the publisher holds three roles at once: writing the competition rules, organizing the tournaments, and issuing the penalties. In traditional sports these three roles belong to three different bodies. A federation writes the rules. An independent organizing committee runs the event. A disciplinary panel rules on violations, usually with its own appeal tier. Esports does not operate that way. And only when a dispute arises does anyone realize how much that difference matters. The penalty against Himass and TanVuu is not an isolated event. It is the expression of a governance architecture. When Krafton decided to ban two Vietnamese players from the entire international tournament system, they did not need to consult any national federation, because Vietnamese esports has no independent federation strong enough to stand in between. They did not need to publish the minutes of a disciplinary council meeting, because that council is one they appoint themselves. They did not need to explain which clause was violated, because that clause is written by them and can be interpreted as they wish. That is the starting point of every controversy. When the story broke, a wave of reaction swept through the community. Millions of signatures were collected to demand justice for the two players. National streamers such as Do Mixi and PewPew spoke up. One player was reported to have cried and deleted the game in frustration. The story escaped the boundaries of a routine administrative case and became a public event, carried onto national television. And when VTV3 reported on it, they did not merely recount the facts. They raised a larger question: if this system is not transparent, where does fan trust go? Before going deeper, one thing needs to be clear. VTV3 did not rule that Himass and TanVuu were guilty or innocent. They did not conclude who was right or wrong. They asked about process: what specifically did the two players violate, and how did the processing unfold. This point is extremely important. Because if a national broadcaster demands procedural transparency, the issue is no longer whether the punishment was heavy or light, but how the system justifies itself. I used to fear being wrong on air, until I was wrong and understood that I was born to speak. And in this case, what I want to say is very clear: if a verdict is issued without a published indictment, that is not justice, it is an administrative order. Esports can accept administrative orders in tournament operations. But it cannot accept administrative orders playing the role of the judiciary, especially when the targets are players with influence over an entire generation of young gamers. What is notable is that VTV3 is not alone. The online community agreed with their analytical framing, even if not with every conclusion. People began debating not whether Himass and TanVuu violated anything, but how the esports organizational system needs to change so that similar disputes do not recur. That is a turning point in public thinking. For the first time, an individual event opened a structural discussion. Krafton holds the power to write rules, organize tournaments, and issue penalties within the same system, with no independent cross-check mechanism, and that is the structural blind spot that makes every esports dispute prone to repetition. This is not a moral judgment of the publisher. It is an observation about system design. And every system design can be improved, if there is enough pressure from the community and the media. VTV3 did exactly what the media should do. They did not pick a side. They picked the process. They did not chant for the release of the two players. They demanded to know which clause was violated. That is the difference between an emotional writer and a principled one. And it is also why this event can become a turning point for the Vietnamese esports market, rather than just a social media drama lasting a few weeks. There is one aspect most people overlook. The penalty is said to relate to an event described as a showmatch, an exhibition match. This detail changes the entire picture. Because if the punishment applies even to exhibition events, the question is no longer whether the two players violated anything, but whether the rule system is tiered by the nature of the competition. A showmatch does not carry the same competitive stakes as a world championship qualifier. Applying the same penalty to both types of events raises the question of proportionality. The management teams of both Himass and TanVuu filed appeals. This means an internal review mechanism exists. But that mechanism is run by Krafton itself. In other words, the appellants must convince the very party that signed the penalty that they were wrongly punished. In legal terms, this is called a structural conflict of interest. No one can be plaintiff, judge, and jury at the same time while still guaranteeing absolute fairness. I am not saying Krafton deliberately acted unfairly. I am saying that even if they wanted fairness, the current architecture makes it hard for the public to believe in that fairness. Transparency is not a privilege. It is a necessary condition for any competitive system to exist. Without transparency, every correct decision is doubted, and every wrong decision cannot be proven. One detail is worth close analysis. The penalty reaches all international PUBG tournaments. This shows Krafton holds cross-event disciplinary authority, not just within one tournament. In traditional sports, a punishment extending beyond the borders of a single event usually has to be issued by a global federation, after an independent investigation process. Here, Krafton is the global federation, the organizer, and the disciplinary body all at once. This concentration of power is administratively efficient, but it places the entire burden of proof on a single party. This leads to a paradox. In esports, high transparency can weaken speed of handling. Without an independent federation, without a multi-tier adjudication process, a publisher can react far faster than a cumbersome apparatus. But the price of speed is trust. When fans do not know which clause was violated, they must either trust or not trust, with no third option. And a system that people can only trust or distrust, without verification, gradually loses its legitimacy. A comparison with football is useful. FIFA, UEFA, and the AFC each have their own disciplinary committees, with appeal processes that can reach the Court of Arbitration for Sport. A punished player can sue before CAS if they believe they were wrongly treated. Esports has no CAS. No international sports court handles disputes between players and game publishers. That is the legal gap the Himass and TanVuu case exposes. And when that gap exists, every dispute risks becoming a power dispute, not a truth dispute. Fans are not arguing about evidence, because there is no evidence. They are arguing about who has the right to make decisions. Such a debate cannot have an ending, because there is no objective standard to measure it against. That U19 tournament taught me a lesson: the silence of the editor is a crime. I remember 2026, watching a historic move in the U19 national final, and not a single journalist wrote about it the way it should have been written. That silence buried a moment worth remembering. And now, as VTV3 breaks the silence around the Himass and TanVuu penalty, I realize the same lesson is repeating at a larger scale. The media has no duty to judge. But the media has a duty to ask questions. The question VTV3 raised is not a hard one. It is the question any judicial system must answer: what is the accusation, what is the evidence, what was the process. Without those three answers, every punishment is merely the will of whoever holds power. And here, the power holder is a corporation. That corporation has business interests tied to the image of the tournament system. That corporation also has interests in protecting the competitiveness of the league. These interests can coexist, but they always risk conflicting with the interests of the punished player. What the community is doing, with millions of signatures demanding justice, is not unreasonable pressure on Krafton. It is an expression of the need to know the truth. A mature esports scene cannot rest on fans blindly trusting the publisher. It must rest on mechanisms that allow doubt to be resolved by data, not by faith. But this is where I have to say something hard to hear. Not every community reaction is reasonable. When some people loudly conclude that Himass and TanVuu are innocent, even without information about the violated clause, that is also a form of judgment without basis. Justice is not one-directional. If we demand transparency from Krafton, we must also demand of ourselves not to conclude before the evidence. This is the line many participants in this debate have crossed, on both sides. What is interesting is that VTV3 avoided that trap. They did not say Himass and TanVuu were innocent. They did not say Krafton was authoritarian. They said the process needs transparency, and that standard of transparency must apply even to showmatch events. That is a principled position, not an emotional one. And in a media environment where emotion usually beats principle, such a position deserves recognition. Look at the contrast between esports regions. In South Korea, the country with Asia's longest-standing esports ecosystem, federations such as KeSPA once played an important role in standing between publisher and players. In China, major tournaments often involve state regulatory bodies, creating a second layer of oversight. In Vietnam, which model is taking shape remains an open question. This incident can be a catalyst that shapes that model, if the stakeholders are wise enough to turn a dispute into an opportunity for reform. I was once asked in a livestream whether I worry that constantly questioning big organizations will isolate me in the industry. My answer has not changed: if an industry can only function when no one asks questions, then that industry lives on fear, not on trust. And fear is never a sustainable foundation for any ecosystem. What many people do not realize is that this affair has an international dimension. The context described in community discussions suggests an element related to a match between Vietnam and Korea. If true, the story is not just internal to Vietnamese PUBG, but an event with a confrontational character between two esports regions. This raises the sensitivity of the case, because it can easily be pushed into national confrontation, while the essence of the problem is system governance. I worry that part of the community is redirecting the debate from the rulebook to the national flag, and that will weaken the very cause they want to defend. If there is indeed a Vietnam-Korea confrontation element, the wise handling is not to escalate national emotion, but to demand that Krafton publish the processing procedure for both sides. Once the process is public, no side needs to invoke patriotism. The evidence will speak for itself. And if the evidence is not strong enough, the system will collapse under its own weight. There is one thing I want to say plainly, even if it upsets some people. The growth of Vietnamese esports in recent years has outpaced the maturity of its governance systems. We have players of sufficient stature to stand on the international stage. We have a massive fan base, capable of generating millions of signatures in a few days. We just won Vietnam's first esports medal at an Asian Games. But we still do not have an esports governance system with cross-check mechanisms, independent appeals, and clearly defined information-disclosure standards. The gap between competitive strength and institutional strength is characteristic of emerging esports regions. Vietnam is not alone in this condition. But precisely because of that characteristic, incidents like the Himass and TanVuu penalty risk repeating, across many disciplines, many publishers, if the structural root is not addressed. Individual penalties can be appealed and changed. The architecture does not change just because of one appeal. What I hope for in the next stage is a serious discussion about establishing independent arbitration mechanisms for Vietnamese esports. Not necessarily an old-style federation, because that model may not fit the specifics of esports, where the publisher holds intellectual property rights. But at minimum there must be a panel with representation from the publisher, players, organizers, and independent experts, empowered to review controversial penalties. Such a panel may not have binding legal authority, but its existence would create a healthy pressure for transparency. This is not a far-fetched proposal. Other regions have gone ahead. Major leagues in Europe and North America have similar models, albeit imperfect. What matters is that someone starts. And events like the Himass and TanVuu penalty, painful as they are, are opportunities to begin. I understand there is a school of thought that esports should let publishers self-govern, because they know the rules best, can react fastest, and have the incentive to protect the competitiveness of the league. That argument is not wrong. But it overlooks a reality: the publisher is also a party with business interests, and any party with interests can be influenced by those interests when making decisions. This does not mean publishers are bad. It means no single party should handle all its own disputes. In law, it is said that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. Krafton may have handled things correctly. But because the process was not disclosed, the public cannot see that. And when the public cannot see, trust is replaced by suspicion. That is the price of discretion, and it is always more expensive than people think. An empty stadium, but I still hear the echo of myself. During the pandemic days, when tournaments were postponed and I streamed alone about matches nobody watched, I learned that the voice of the person holding the mic does not disappear when no one is listening. It accumulates, and at some point it finds a way out. This event is proof. For years, some of us have been asking questions about how the esports system operates. We were brushed aside, called radicals, told we did not understand the industry. Now, when a national broadcaster asks the same question, that question can no longer be brushed aside. I believe what happens next depends on three factors. First, how Krafton responds to the appeals: whether it discloses the specific clause and the processing procedure. Second, how the community sustains pressure: whether it keeps focus on the process issue, or lets the debate drift into personal and national confrontation. Third, how the media continues to pursue the story: whether it asks further structural questions, or merely waits for the next development to report. If all three factors converge in a positive direction, this event can become the start of a new standard of transparency for regional esports. If not, it will fade in a few weeks, like many other dramas, and everything will return to the starting point until the next case. I do not want to see that. But I am also not naive enough to believe one discussion is enough to change an architecture. What I can do, in my role, is not let the story be buried. I do not need to know the final outcome. I only need to ensure the right questions keep being asked, until they are answered satisfactorily, or until the silence itself becomes an answer clear enough for the public to draw its own conclusions. Do not tell me to analyze objectively. I love Vietnamese esports, and love is not objective. I want to see an esports scene where young players can believe they will be judged fairly, where disputes are resolved by argument rather than by power, and where fan trust is built on transparency rather than blindness. The Himass and TanVuu penalty, painful as it is for two individuals, may be the price needed for the whole system to look at itself. And if, in the end, after all the appeals, all the social media noise, all the analyses like this one, the system still changes nothing, then at least we will know one thing. We will know the problem was not that no one spoke loudly enough, but that some systems, designed not to need to listen, will not listen until pressure comes from more directions. That is the next lesson, and it is also what I will keep watching, not to be loved, but to do my job.