After squandering millions on Unknown 9: Awakening, which flopped so badly it led to layoffs at its studio within weeks, Bandai Namco faced fresh embarrassment with the chaos of the French qualifiers for the “Dramatic Showdown” tournament.

This is strange and dishonest context to add to the article. You know what other game recently flopped so badly that it led to layoffs at its studio within weeks? Most of them.

Bandai Namco also failed to recognize this exploit shortly after release. If a game includes a mechanic that can be easily exploited for a guaranteed win, players will take advantage of it, after all, there are no consequences, and it leads to victory. This, ultimately, falls on the game designers.

In fighting games, the line often used here is, "This game was played for money." Yes, it falls on the game design. If you didn't want it to show poorly in your competition/marketing event, then you should have been observing how high level players interacted with the game and removed the ability for them to do this stuff.