The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) announced today that effective immediately, all sanctioned videogame competitions will require pre-tournament drug testing to weed out contestants using the new video game performance enhancing drug VIAGameRA, or simply “Vx” as it’s called by gamers.

According CPL spokesman Hugh Jassoll, “Vx has really taken us by surprise. It was relatively easy to track at first through Xbox Live of all things. We suspected a few players were up to something because we noticed that their GSIRs (GamerScore Increase Rate) were through the roof! When you graph out the rate of acceleration of gamerscore, a typical person hovers around 1.00, these guys were averaging over 2.0 which is, you know, exponential! Now only was their performance superhuman, they were keeping it up for very extended periods of time.”

Sarcastic Gamer contacted several doctors in the Los Angeles area for comment but were ultimately unsuccessful in finding a doctor that knew (or would admit to knowing) anything about VIAGameRA. At an apparent dead end, we caught a lucky break. We got an anonymous tip pointing us to a Dr. Lee in Chicago. Dr. Lee had just opened a competitive gaming lounge in downtown Chicago after relocating there from South Korea. Doctor Lee, it seems, has a reputation for associating with champion level competitive gamers.

Sarcastic Gamer tasked Lono (who already lives in the area) with infiltrating Lee’s close knit circle of regulars at Lee’s gaming lounge, but ultimately Lono couldn’t hold his own against the gamers and was repeatedly dismissed by them as unworthy. After numerous attempts over a number of weeks, an undercover Sarcastic Gamer reporter going by the codename “The Ferg” was finally able to make contact posing as a Bawls delivery driver. Apparently Vx users are quite adamant that their Bawls be handled in a very specific manner and unbeknownst to us, The Ferg turned out to be the best man for the job.

It didn’t take long for The Ferg to earn the trust of gamers and see them openly taking pills in his presence with each additional bottle of Bawls they consumed. The Ferg reported typical gains of 1,500-2,250 gamerscore in an 8 hour period, saying they “appeared superhuman once a controller was in their hands. At one point, I could swear one of them got an achievement while sitting at the dashboard!”

The Ferg reported that as these prolonged Vx-induced gaming sessions went on, the gamers’ voices seemed to get higher while their vocabulary seemed to degrade, consisting mainly of racial, sexual, and homophobic slurs almost always including ending with words “your mom.” One gamer even had what appeared to suffer a convulsion after a 12 hour Vx bender; his body unable to keep up with the false stamina produced by the drug. As he dropped to the floor, controller at his side, The Ferg reported his eyes appeared glossed over but his empty hands were still making very purposeful controller movements. It’s as if his hands were working independently of the rest of his body, unaware he had passed the point of breakdown.

After receiving first hand reports of the dangers Vx presents to competitive gamers, we can’t help but side with the CPL and their screening program. The testing is designed to help level the playing field, but if the professional sports past is any indication of what lies ahead for professional gaming, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Sarcastic Gamer will report more on this topic as we learn it.