Overwatch Team Discovers Female Player Was a Male Imposter

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There was a round of articles last week regarding North America’s first female Overwatch Contenders player, “Ellie,” who supposedly quit due to toxic harassment. Having been quickly courted by a professional esports team, Second Wind, many claimed she was a male player’s “smurf” (a high-level player posing as an inexperienced one) account. While the media initially framed this as an incident proving rampant sexism in esports and gaming, it turns out that “Ellie” was, in fact, a man: a male player called “Punisher” may have run the “social experiment” as a hasty means of going pro.

It looks like this "social experiment", if it was actually intended as such, was an attempt to make some kind of point about women in esports, but it was heavily criticised. Liz Richardson, boss of Overwatch website Overwatchscore, said it will have "lasting ramifications" for women who already face an uphill challenge in esports. "Now, more than ever, any girl that tries to go pro will get this gigantic amount of scrutiny and will be practically forced to reveal aspects of their personal lives just to prove they're a woman."
 
Since when does anyone have to prove anything to anyone for any reason in public non-criminal matters? Phasenoise hits it on the head in one.
This is rank stupidity.

This obsession with humanizing a player into a celebrity is entirely nonsense. If a horse was great at overwatch no one should give a damn.
 
PhaseNoise said:
Why would a player need to prove they are a woman? There's one league which applies to all genders - so it is irrelevant.
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The thing is all the pro players are on a list with their full name, this person only had an alias so everyone wanted to know who the hell it was. Apparently they were suspecting shenanigans and were not disappointed. They're trying to make this some kind of sexist thing when in reality it was just someone not following the normal procedures and getting called out (and again, the suspicions of everyone turned out 100% correct).
 
LigTasm said:
The thing is all the pro players are on a list with their full name, this person only had an alias so everyone wanted to know who the hell it was. Apparently they were suspecting shenanigans and were not disappointed. They're trying to make this some kind of sexist thing when in reality it was just someone not following the normal procedures and getting called out (and again, the suspicions of everyone turned out 100% correct).
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But I really don't understand the angle that it somehow harmed women gamers. It doesn't, at all.

Don't get me wrong, there's a ton of shit we have to deal with online which is annoying and just sucks, but this ain't it.

The "uphill battle" is nonsense in my experience. The environment is shitty a lot of the time (in general online - dare to use a mic around 12 year old shut-in boys, and you get lots of asinine remarks), but competitive teams want good players. They want to win - period. I've seen no evidence that if there was a stellar OWL-level female they'd just cross arms and say "nah, we'll lose some games as long as we can have some more dudes in the lineup". That's just nonsense.
 
Esports are like plus-size "models" - they both encourage unhealthy behavior.

They reallllllly should've gone with a different term besides "sports"....
 
I wouldn't call smurfing an experienced player impersonating a lesser experienced player, as people like Kaffee and Seagull would disagree. Smurphing on WoW was when players would lock characters to a specific level so they could pvp or raid content at that level while farming the best gear for that bracket, and that was years before overwatch ever came out. In wow it isn't really about skill of play but instead level of play so a person can have a Max leveled character but not be good at pvp.

The advantage of it in Overwatch is not being identified as a top level player thus harrassed while playing the game, also in Overwatch certain brackets have specific styles that work or don't work in Bronze a good player can carry a less competant team to where in Plat and above you can't do that, you have to play meta and react to meta to win like switching to Briggetta to counter dive comp and such. So it's more level of play rather than skill.
 
Smurphing on WoW was when players would lock characters to a specific level so they could pvp or raid content at that level while farming the best gear for that bracket, and that was years before overwatch ever came out. In wow it isn't really about skill of play but instead level of play so a person can have a Max leveled character but not be good at pvp.
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I've always seen that practice called "Twinking" or "twink character" since the first days of WoW.
 
Jaer44 said:
I've always seen that practice called "Twinking" or "twink character" since the first days of WoW.
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You're probably just forgetting what things were like back when WoW was the only MMO on the market. As the first MMO, a lot of terms were appropriated from other games and genres and redefined. Just like WOW redefined online gaming forever with it's revolutionary gameplay.
 
So what. Danica Patrick already proved this point. As a woman, different rules apply.

Unfortunately that means that it's harder to get started because of bullying/preconceptions, but once one makes it into the upper realms, it also means (if you're also reasonably attractive) more income than men with similar results in actual competition due to marketability. (The same applies to better looking men in the "marketability" department.)

There will never be TRUE equality, but we're still far from being fair at the moment either.

Remember that all teams are there to make money either by winning, or by getting sponsors. So they have to balance being the "best", because there can only be one, with being the "marketable".
 
Abhaxus said:
You're probably just forgetting what things were like back when WoW was the only MMO on the market. As the first MMO, a lot of terms were appropriated from other games and genres and redefined. Just like WOW redefined online gaming forever with it's revolutionary gameplay.
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WOW was not first by a long shot. It was like 4 years after Everquest and a week or two after Everquest II. It was never the only MMO on the market, though it was the most popular for a long time. Only thing revolutionary about it was that it pushed mmo gaming mainstream due to it's popularity.

Why should anyone care that this guy was not a girl? I suppose misrepresentation can be an issue, if the person's sex at all had anything to do with the activity at hand. Which in this case it did not. He abused the perception of his sex as female to assist getting on a payroll. I applaud that sort of behavior. Anything that pokes fun at, or works around any competitive or financial advantage granted by a person's sex is a good thing imo.
 
LigTasm said:
The thing is all the pro players are on a list with their full name, this person only had an alias so everyone wanted to know who the hell it was. Apparently they were suspecting shenanigans and were not disappointed. They're trying to make this some kind of sexist thing when in reality it was just someone not following the normal procedures and getting called out (and again, the suspicions of everyone turned out 100% correct).
Click to expand...
The main issue with this is that they thought someone being abnormal is somehow worthy of investigation. Seriously explain to me why this "investigation" over an abnormality is normal or remotely healthy.
 
"Now, more than ever, any girl that tries to go pro will get this gigantic amount of scrutiny and will be practically forced to reveal aspects of their personal lives just to prove they're a woman."

Which is why dragging innate characteristics like race or gender into broader discussions is stupid.

But shine on, identity politics FTW
 
bbf said:
So what. Danica Patrick already proved this point. As a woman, different rules apply.

Unfortunately that means that it's harder to get started because of bullying/preconceptions, but once one makes it into the upper realms, it also means (if you're also reasonably attractive) more income than men with similar results in actual competition due to marketability. (The same applies to better looking men in the "marketability" department.)

There will never be TRUE equality, but we're still far from being fair at the moment either.

Remember that all teams are there to make money either by winning, or by getting sponsors. So they have to balance being the "best", because there can only be one, with being the "marketable".
Click to expand...

This is a pretty accurate assessment IMO. I sadly think many women / girls just give up because of the (ironic term ahead) "douchebag effect". There are a lot of young men who have no idea how to behave in general, and even less so around a female on the internet. It does wear you down, and many think Screw It - not worth the harassment.

But, this is no different than any other sport, honestly. I played college hoops, and if I stopped when someone hurt my feelings, I'd never get off the bench. I would expect no less of "esports".
 
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Jaer44 said:
I've always seen that practice called "Twinking" or "twink character" since the first days of WoW.
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Yeah that was another term for it. I heard people call it Twinking back in BC and WotLK afterwards around Cata they, newer players, started calling it smurphing, as they started the whole you could account lock characters to an expansion, hence where I believe the newer term came in, also famous players started using alt accounts for the same reason as during wrath they started the recruit a friend mounts, which left alt accounts for people to play as extra farming accounts. Either way I heard the term before Overwatch whether it came from another game or not, it's still not the right description for the term.
 
Abhaxus said:
You're probably just forgetting what things were like back when WoW was the only MMO on the market. As the first MMO, a lot of terms were appropriated from other games and genres and redefined. Just like WOW redefined online gaming forever with it's revolutionary gameplay.
Click to expand...

yep, twinking was used in Everquest long before Wow. giving a low level character gear farmed at no risk by a high level character. it's the entire reason "bind on pickup" gear came to exist. and Wow was FAR from the first MMO.
 
PhaseNoise said:
I played college hoops, and if I stopped when someone hurt my feelings, I'd never get off the bench. I would expect no less of "esports".
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Exactly. People have no more power over you than what you grant them. Adversity isn't new. What is new is some expectation these days that people shouldn't have to face any in their day to day lives :confused:
 
horrorshow said:
Esports are like plus-size "models" - they both encourage unhealthy behavior.
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On a first kneejerk reaction I would agree but on second though, I wouldn't say sports like boxing is any healthier. And there are plenty of other games where couch potatoes can be good at like pool, golf or bowling.
 
This doesn't harm female gamers in the slightest, anyone who tries to argue it does needs to be mentally evaluated. What does harm female gamers are female gamers who are put on to "Show" teams for their looks, not their actual skill. In gaming you are either Good enough, or you are not good enough. Sex has nothing to do with it.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
This doesn't harm female gamers in the slightest, anyone who tries to argue it does needs to be mentally evaluated. What does harm female gamers are female gamers who are put on to "Show" teams for their looks, not their actual skill. In gaming you are either Good enough, or you are not good enough. Sex has nothing to do with it.
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RTFA

"And Overwatch players have hit out at the "Ellie" account, too. In one of the top posts on r/Overwatch, redditor hydra877 said: "Now, more than ever, any girl that tries to go pro will get this gigantic amount of scrutiny and will be practically forced to reveal aspects of their personal lives just to prove they're a woman."

Yeah. That's certainly not going to hurt any female gamers. at all.
 
Gorankar said:
WOW was not first by a long shot. It was like 4 years after Everquest and a week or two after Everquest II. It was never the only MMO on the market, though it was the most popular for a long time. Only thing revolutionary about it was that it pushed mmo gaming mainstream due to it's popularity.

Why should anyone care that this guy was not a girl? I suppose misrepresentation can be an issue, if the person's sex at all had anything to do with the activity at hand. Which in this case it did not. He abused the perception of his sex as female to assist getting on a payroll. I applaud that sort of behavior. Anything that pokes fun at, or works around any competitive or financial advantage granted by a person's sex is a good thing imo.
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I am seriously going to say the fact anyone cared to find out was sexist, what if, they we're LGBTQ, a guy that identifies himself as a girl....now you opened a worse can of worms.

Who cares honestly?

A good player is a good player, sex only matters when it concerns who at the end of the day you are sleeping with every night that you identify as sexually attractive, anything else should be determined based on performance not some random physical identifier.

There is such a thing as going to far and people really need to stop being so sensitive because in the end it shouldn't matter, it shouldn't matter what skin color or sex a President has/is, he/she is either qualified or not qualified to some degree over the other candidates, period the end.
It's bad when politically correct is not being politically correct.
 
Nafensoriel said:
The main issue with this is that they thought someone being abnormal is somehow worthy of investigation. Seriously explain to me why this "investigation" over an abnormality is normal or remotely healthy.
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I hate to break it to you cupcake but identifying abnormalities is exactly how you find anything wrong in the history of ever. If the rules state that you put your name and you're the one out of 1000 other players that don't, someone is going to check you. And obviously the process was on point because this person wasn't who they said they were. Amazing, right?
 
viscountalpha said:
Yeah. That's certainly not going to hurt any female gamers. at all.
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Why does anyone have to prove they are a women, though? Other than virtue signaling morons, what difference does gender make as to what kind of a player you are?

Seriously - please answer that. It's been asked multiple times now (what difference does it make) but none of those insisting it does have really answered why.

Someone might be mean to you on the Internet? That's hardly a gender specific problem. Assholes are everywhere.
 
What is this? "Now, more than ever, any girl that tries to go pro will get this gigantic amount of scrutiny and will be practically forced to reveal aspects of their personal lives just to prove they're a woman."

That statement doesn't even make any sense. No they won't. That's groundless. Made up problems. Why?

To carry on PhaseNoise and Nafensoriel's sentiment, "wat?"
 
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