Valve founder Gabe Newell and his team originally conceived of Steam as a delivery platform for the company’s titles. “Everyone wants to play in a secured service,” says Jason Holtman, Valve’s director of business development, “and you can’t play securely when someone’s cheating.” So now the company’s engineers are battling cheaters via Valve’s online gaming service, Steam.ĭevelopment on Steam began in 2001, and the service was launched in 2004 in conjunction with the release of the game Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. There’s even a cheat-code black market, where downloadable cheats go for roughly US $10 a pop. The company has discovered more than 200 000 different types of cheating programs being used by gamers online. For Valve Software, the Bellevue, Wash.–based creator of this and other best-selling computer games such as Half-Life and Left 4 Dead, it’s not just a nuisance, it’s a real-life war. He’s using an online cheating program that increases his speed and allows him to see through walls. A mini bracket followed, which Switch ultimately won after beating former Robot Wars competitor Apocalypse, Team MAD's own Orion and John Reid's Tánshè in the final.The battle is taking place in an online action game, Counter-Strike, and the nimble soldier is being controlled by an anonymous player. It amassed nine wins in total across the event, with each robot fighting in a round robin system. The most recent version of Switch competed in November 2021 in a Robots Live! event held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and hosted by Team MAD. Kevin Cleasby and Switch in November 2021. Much like Switch and X/Change, its primary weapon was interchangeable. Microswitch later competed in Motorama in the 30lb division. Kevin Cleasby competed with Microswitch in the 2018 King of Bots UK International Championships, under the name Team Switch, but lost all three of its fights. Kevin Cleasby was also part of Vulcan in the first season of the show, pairing up with Alan Young of Team MAD, who himself applied for BattleBots with Chronic and Orion. For the second season of King of Bots, Switch went undefeated in its two battles, yet due to the unique team format of the show, was eliminated without a loss to its name. In This is Fighting Robots, Switch lost both its initial rumble and subsequent team battle, so was eliminated early from the show. He opted to spearhead his own team for Chinese shows King of Bots and This is Fighting Robots, competing with Switch in both competitions, and various UK live events thereafter.
Team captain Kevin Cleasby previously competed as part of Team Make Robotics, who entered Radioactive into the 2015 season of BattleBots, as well as their more well-known Behemoth for all three reboot series of Robot Wars. X/Change also applied for Discovery Season 6 of BattleBots, though travel issues concerning NIE forms not being accepted for UK teams in time for filming prevented X/Change from competing once more. As such, they were forced to withdraw their application.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic not only delayed the filming schedule, but also prevented international teams from making the journey to the US to compete. Team RC-Kev was revealed to BattleBots Facebook Supporters as one of the accepted teams in February 2020, ahead of filming for Discovery Season 5. X/Change was an upgraded version of Kevin Cleasby's King of Bots entry Switch, featuring modular weaponry including a geared hammer, grappling weapon and drum spinner. Modular by design, X/Change was a four-wheel drive, box-shaped robot with hinged wedges at the front and a selection of primary weapons, hence its name. X/Change was a heavyweight robot built by Team RC-Kev, which was originally accepted to compete in Discovery Season 5 of the BattleBots reboot. Statistics correct as of its most recent appearance on the show, or if not applicable, qualification attempt.