[UPDATE]

James “2GD” Harding has released a statement explaining his side of the story.

[ORIGINAL STORY]

If you’ve been following the Shanghai Major, one of four “Major” tournaments that Valve have recently launched, you’re probably aware of the myriad of problems that it’s been going through.

The tournament has suffered long delays and loads of technical problems on both the streaming side of things and within the game itself.

Now things have been worsened for fans, as Valve has fired the host for the Major, James “2GD” Harding, after only one day of hosting. Initially no reason was given, only James himself revealing that he had been fired for a yet undisclosed reason.

This caused a huge backlash within the community as James “2GD” Harding is a favorite within the DOTA 2 eSports community, specifically because of his high level banter towards pro players and other eSports personalities.

Unfortunately this seems to be the cause of his firing. In a rare moment, Gabe Newell himself visited the DOTA 2 subreddit and gave his brief statement on the matter.

From his post:

James. We’ve had issues with James at previous events. Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake. James is an ass, and we won’t be working with him again.

Fortunately for the community there was silver lining to this situation, as he also stated that they fired the production team behind the English streams, who have been causing most of the technical hiccups that have been made, and will be replacing them as soon as possible.

James “2GD” Harding has yet to tell his side of the story, but will most likely do so sometime later today.

The Shanghai Major is currently on Day 3 of the group stages, with the main event being held between March 2-6.