Alleged harassment, threats of doxxing, hitpiece journalism, 'fake' gamer girls... Oh my!

[Trunkage]

I thought the reason they did it wasnt a social experiment but because the dude couldn't get on a pro-team as a dude, but because of inclusivity initiatives, as a woman gamer he could?

If this was the actual cause of this social experiment, the shit is about to get all the more deep and foul.

I watched a YouTube video that said that's what happened. It was a player named Punisher, who was in the Top500 but never got on a pro-team. He and the woman who played Ellie made the Ellie player up, Punisher played, the woman pretended, and soon Ellie was in the Top500 and was offered a spot on SecondWind as their first female player.
That was the whole point. It was basically a dude pretending to be a woman so he could compete in the women's Olympics, because he never qualified for the men's trials.

I'll see if I can find the YouTube vid...

Okay, I don't understand. He pretended to be a woman AND THAT made him play so well he went up 500 spots? How did pretending to be female make him jump up so many spot?

No no, as a male player he was already in the Top 500 but never got pro-team attention. So he made a fake female account, played, got into the top 500 for a second time and was almost instantly offered a spot in a pro-team.

So a couple of things come to mind. If you see a new player achieve an insane amount of success, wouldn't you immediately pick them up. They have a greater potential than most other players as they could get more training to be better.

Also, if this guy was top 10, wouldn't that be an automatic pick up? Unless he has some socially unacceptable actions. I remember Total Biscuit discussing how his Korean team was in some ways a terrible buy becuase persoanlities matter to generate interest and sponsorship. So he could be a bad buy, annoying fans and sponsors maybe?

I dont understand how this social experiment was going to work. Were they going to show everyone when they got on stage. This has nothing to do with women being good in gaming

Well the very fact the player was faked shows you shouldn't just snatch up a rising star. They could be a cheater or fake.
And from what I can tell Punisher wasn't in the Top 10, but the top 500. Basically in the pro-team recruitment farm, but he wasn't getting recruited. So when the Ellie player came along she was snatched up, without the vetting process, even though she was just as skilled as Punisher.

but you're right it does seem like it wasn't fully thought through.

Didn't I just reread that Punisher/Ellie was top 4 in America? That's when he/she got picked up? Am I reading this wrong?

Sure that's maybe not top 10 world wide but it's got to be worth something. I thought this tournatment was still pretty local in the US with some teams brining in ringers for other countries. US people would always be picked first due to the lesser costs of recruiting them.

Your claim is predicated on the fact that Ellie was picked based on gender. I see a (fake) highly qualified player that should be picked. Being female would be a bonus if it were true.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Seems the experiment was a success if it riled up this many people

Even IF it was "just a social experiment, bro", the question remains: A success for whom?

See that's why the social experiment falls flat. Even those 'experimets' where a brown guy throws a package in a crowded square while screaming 'Allahu Akbar' at least had a clear goal, even if a bullshit one. It was meant to enflame and cause fear and spark a conversation about Islamophobia
But Punisher and the girl playing Ellie say they didn't expect this reaction from the Overwatch community. So...what reaction were they expecting? What was the point? If cause outrage or starting a conversation about pro-gamer girls wasn't the goal, then what?
I think the social experiment is a bullshit excuse to cover up the scam they were trying to pull.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I thought the reason they did it wasnt a social experiment but because the dude couldn't get on a pro-team as a dude, but because of inclusivity initiatives, as a woman gamer he could?

If this was the actual cause of this social experiment, the shit is about to get all the more deep and foul.

I watched a YouTube video that said that's what happened. It was a player named Punisher, who was in the Top500 but never got on a pro-team. He and the woman who played Ellie made the Ellie player up, Punisher played, the woman pretended, and soon Ellie was in the Top500 and was offered a spot on SecondWind as their first female player.
That was the whole point. It was basically a dude pretending to be a woman so he could compete in the women's Olympics, because he never qualified for the men's trials.

I'll see if I can find the YouTube vid...

Okay, I don't understand. He pretended to be a woman AND THAT made him play so well he went up 500 spots? How did pretending to be female make him jump up so many spot?

No no, as a male player he was already in the Top 500 but never got pro-team attention. So he made a fake female account, played, got into the top 500 for a second time and was almost instantly offered a spot in a pro-team.

So a couple of things come to mind. If you see a new player achieve an insane amount of success, wouldn't you immediately pick them up. They have a greater potential than most other players as they could get more training to be better.

Also, if this guy was top 10, wouldn't that be an automatic pick up? Unless he has some socially unacceptable actions. I remember Total Biscuit discussing how his Korean team was in some ways a terrible buy becuase persoanlities matter to generate interest and sponsorship. So he could be a bad buy, annoying fans and sponsors maybe?

I dont understand how this social experiment was going to work. Were they going to show everyone when they got on stage. This has nothing to do with women being good in gaming

Well the very fact the player was faked shows you shouldn't just snatch up a rising star. They could be a cheater or fake.
And from what I can tell Punisher wasn't in the Top 10, but the top 500. Basically in the pro-team recruitment farm, but he wasn't getting recruited. So when the Ellie player came along she was snatched up, without the vetting process, even though she was just as skilled as Punisher.

but you're right it does seem like it wasn't fully thought through.

Didn't I just reread that Punisher/Ellie was top 4 in America? That's when he/she got picked up? Am I reading this wrong?

Sure that's maybe not top 10 world wide but it's got to be worth something. I thought this tournatment was still pretty local in the US with some teams brining in ringers for other countries. US people would always be picked first due to the lesser costs of recruiting them.

Your claim is predicated on the fact that Ellie was picked based on gender. I see a (fake) highly qualified player that should be picked. Being female would be a bonus if it were true.

I'm not sure. I haven't seen anything that Ellie was in the Top10. Punisher may have been, but I can only find they were both in the Top500.

But I think the question is, even if they were both in the Top10, why was Ellie given a pro-spot and Punisher not? I mean if anyone in the Top 10 of any industry isn't employed as a professional, then something is wrong. If Punisher is like #9 and Ellie is #10 and she gets a pro-team deal before him, despite him being on the scene for way longer, then the question of why her and not him does become relevant.

But this is speculation. I have no idea if either were top10, just that they were both top500

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I thought the reason they did it wasnt a social experiment but because the dude couldn't get on a pro-team as a dude, but because of inclusivity initiatives, as a woman gamer he could?

If this was the actual cause of this social experiment, the shit is about to get all the more deep and foul.

I watched a YouTube video that said that's what happened. It was a player named Punisher, who was in the Top500 but never got on a pro-team. He and the woman who played Ellie made the Ellie player up, Punisher played, the woman pretended, and soon Ellie was in the Top500 and was offered a spot on SecondWind as their first female player.
That was the whole point. It was basically a dude pretending to be a woman so he could compete in the women's Olympics, because he never qualified for the men's trials.

I'll see if I can find the YouTube vid...

Okay, I don't understand. He pretended to be a woman AND THAT made him play so well he went up 500 spots? How did pretending to be female make him jump up so many spot?

No no, as a male player he was already in the Top 500 but never got pro-team attention. So he made a fake female account, played, got into the top 500 for a second time and was almost instantly offered a spot in a pro-team.

So a couple of things come to mind. If you see a new player achieve an insane amount of success, wouldn't you immediately pick them up. They have a greater potential than most other players as they could get more training to be better.

Also, if this guy was top 10, wouldn't that be an automatic pick up? Unless he has some socially unacceptable actions. I remember Total Biscuit discussing how his Korean team was in some ways a terrible buy becuase persoanlities matter to generate interest and sponsorship. So he could be a bad buy, annoying fans and sponsors maybe?

I dont understand how this social experiment was going to work. Were they going to show everyone when they got on stage. This has nothing to do with women being good in gaming

Well the very fact the player was faked shows you shouldn't just snatch up a rising star. They could be a cheater or fake.
And from what I can tell Punisher wasn't in the Top 10, but the top 500. Basically in the pro-team recruitment farm, but he wasn't getting recruited. So when the Ellie player came along she was snatched up, without the vetting process, even though she was just as skilled as Punisher.

but you're right it does seem like it wasn't fully thought through.

Didn't I just reread that Punisher/Ellie was top 4 in America? That's when he/she got picked up? Am I reading this wrong?

Sure that's maybe not top 10 world wide but it's got to be worth something. I thought this tournatment was still pretty local in the US with some teams brining in ringers for other countries. US people would always be picked first due to the lesser costs of recruiting them.

Your claim is predicated on the fact that Ellie was picked based on gender. I see a (fake) highly qualified player that should be picked. Being female would be a bonus if it were true.

I believe that Ellie got to the #4 spot in North America, but while the overwatch league is based in North America for the most part it's entirely not true that people from the US get picked first. In fact the majority of overwatch league players are Korean, even on the American teams. #4 in North America might actually be like #200 worldwide or lower.

I think it's also easier to rank up a new account than to try and get an older more established account to a higher rank. So it could be that the smurf Ellie account was at the exact same skill level as Punisher's account, but Punisher was ranked much lower because his account was older and therefore had proportionally more losses.

 

[Trunkage]

I thought the reason they did it wasnt a social experiment but because the dude couldn't get on a pro-team as a dude, but because of inclusivity initiatives, as a woman gamer he could?

If this was the actual cause of this social experiment, the shit is about to get all the more deep and foul.

I watched a YouTube video that said that's what happened. It was a player named Punisher, who was in the Top500 but never got on a pro-team. He and the woman who played Ellie made the Ellie player up, Punisher played, the woman pretended, and soon Ellie was in the Top500 and was offered a spot on SecondWind as their first female player.
That was the whole point. It was basically a dude pretending to be a woman so he could compete in the women's Olympics, because he never qualified for the men's trials.

I'll see if I can find the YouTube vid...

Okay, I don't understand. He pretended to be a woman AND THAT made him play so well he went up 500 spots? How did pretending to be female make him jump up so many spot?

No no, as a male player he was already in the Top 500 but never got pro-team attention. So he made a fake female account, played, got into the top 500 for a second time and was almost instantly offered a spot in a pro-team.

So a couple of things come to mind. If you see a new player achieve an insane amount of success, wouldn't you immediately pick them up. They have a greater potential than most other players as they could get more training to be better.

Also, if this guy was top 10, wouldn't that be an automatic pick up? Unless he has some socially unacceptable actions. I remember Total Biscuit discussing how his Korean team was in some ways a terrible buy becuase persoanlities matter to generate interest and sponsorship. So he could be a bad buy, annoying fans and sponsors maybe?

I dont understand how this social experiment was going to work. Were they going to show everyone when they got on stage. This has nothing to do with women being good in gaming

Well the very fact the player was faked shows you shouldn't just snatch up a rising star. They could be a cheater or fake.
And from what I can tell Punisher wasn't in the Top 10, but the top 500. Basically in the pro-team recruitment farm, but he wasn't getting recruited. So when the Ellie player came along she was snatched up, without the vetting process, even though she was just as skilled as Punisher.

but you're right it does seem like it wasn't fully thought through.

Didn't I just reread that Punisher/Ellie was top 4 in America? That's when he/she got picked up? Am I reading this wrong?

Sure that's maybe not top 10 world wide but it's got to be worth something. I thought this tournatment was still pretty local in the US with some teams brining in ringers for other countries. US people would always be picked first due to the lesser costs of recruiting them.

Your claim is predicated on the fact that Ellie was picked based on gender. I see a (fake) highly qualified player that should be picked. Being female would be a bonus if it were true.

I believe that Ellie got to the #4 spot in North America, but while the overwatch league is based in North America for the most part it's entirely not true that people from the US get picked first. In fact the majority of overwatch league players are Korean, even on the American teams. #4 in North America might actually be like #200 worldwide or lower.

I think it's also easier to rank up a new account than to try and get an older more established account to a higher rank. So it could be that the smurf Ellie account was at the exact same skill level as Punisher's account, but Punisher was ranked much lower because his account was older and therefore had proportionally more losses.

So, I'm trying determine if there was a gender biased. You are providing logical supposition but we don't have any evidence where he/she is ranked world wise. Which would be a detmining factor for me. So I'll put it as a maybe affirmative action gone wrong til we get more info.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Seems the experiment was a success if it riled up this many people

Even IF it was "just a social experiment, bro", the question remains: A success for whom?

See that's why the social experiment falls flat. Even those 'experimets' where a brown guy throws a package in a crowded square while screaming 'Allahu Akbar' at least had a clear goal, even if a bullshit one. It was meant to enflame and cause fear and spark a conversation about Islamophobia
But Punisher and the girl playing Ellie say they didn't expect this reaction from the Overwatch community. So...what reaction were they expecting? What was the point? If cause outrage or starting a conversation about pro-gamer girls wasn't the goal, then what?
I think the social experiment is a bullshit excuse to cover up the scam they were trying to pull.

I mean, most dudes are aware women are treated different on the internet, and can still be surprised at the amount of harassment and doxxing they end up getting.

Based of rumors from elsewhere, I heard that Punisher expected *less* harassment for Ellie somehow.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I thought the reason they did it wasnt a social experiment but because the dude couldn't get on a pro-team as a dude, but because of inclusivity initiatives, as a woman gamer he could?

If this was the actual cause of this social experiment, the shit is about to get all the more deep and foul.

I watched a YouTube video that said that's what happened. It was a player named Punisher, who was in the Top500 but never got on a pro-team. He and the woman who played Ellie made the Ellie player up, Punisher played, the woman pretended, and soon Ellie was in the Top500 and was offered a spot on SecondWind as their first female player.
That was the whole point. It was basically a dude pretending to be a woman so he could compete in the women's Olympics, because he never qualified for the men's trials.

I'll see if I can find the YouTube vid...

Okay, I don't understand. He pretended to be a woman AND THAT made him play so well he went up 500 spots? How did pretending to be female make him jump up so many spot?

No no, as a male player he was already in the Top 500 but never got pro-team attention. So he made a fake female account, played, got into the top 500 for a second time and was almost instantly offered a spot in a pro-team.

I dunno, maybe he was never picked up because he seemed like the kind of dick that would pull something like this. Just a hunch.

Anyway, hindsight is 20-20. Considering all the shit Geguri got put through, Ellie was eminently believable if you weren't immersed.

No that's definitely not the case. Competitive gaming is not a personality/popularity contest. If you're good you're good. (as indicated by the fursuit fighting game player who I referenced earlier)

Overwatch is a Team game. A team player everyone gets along with has much more value than a dick who'd fake something like this, provided the rest of the team aren't similar dicks/of a dramatically lower skill level. That's the nature of team sports.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I thought the reason they did it wasnt a social experiment but because the dude couldn't get on a pro-team as a dude, but because of inclusivity initiatives, as a woman gamer he could?

If this was the actual cause of this social experiment, the shit is about to get all the more deep and foul.

I watched a YouTube video that said that's what happened. It was a player named Punisher, who was in the Top500 but never got on a pro-team. He and the woman who played Ellie made the Ellie player up, Punisher played, the woman pretended, and soon Ellie was in the Top500 and was offered a spot on SecondWind as their first female player.
That was the whole point. It was basically a dude pretending to be a woman so he could compete in the women's Olympics, because he never qualified for the men's trials.

I'll see if I can find the YouTube vid...

Okay, I don't understand. He pretended to be a woman AND THAT made him play so well he went up 500 spots? How did pretending to be female make him jump up so many spot?

No no, as a male player he was already in the Top 500 but never got pro-team attention. So he made a fake female account, played, got into the top 500 for a second time and was almost instantly offered a spot in a pro-team.

I dunno, maybe he was never picked up because he seemed like the kind of dick that would pull something like this. Just a hunch.

Anyway, hindsight is 20-20. Considering all the shit Geguri got put through, Ellie was eminently believable if you weren't immersed.

No that's definitely not the case. Competitive gaming is not a personality/popularity contest. If you're good you're good. (as indicated by the fursuit fighting game player who I referenced earlier)

Overwatch is a Team game. A team player everyone gets along with has much more value than a dick who'd fake something like this, provided the rest of the team aren't similar dicks/of a dramatically lower skill level. That's the nature of team sports.

If someone's such a bad team player where it made them not competitively viable, would they be able to win enough through team play to advance the rankings in the way "Ellie" did though? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe to do anything you need a semi-regular group in overwatch so if someone is that much of a hassle shouldn't they also drag down their other team? (this is a genuine question as I can't say one way or the other and can only go by instinct)

Yeah, I can't fault the guy for being the best, furry or not. Even if I wouldn't take him seriously anywhere else, I would have to in fighting games.

Yes, this, exactly. This is why I love competitive gaming so much. As long as you're good and you genuinely care about the game you will get the respect you deserve in a fair and proportional way.


Anyone who complains just needs to get better and make others respect them through sheer force of will. If some still refuse to they only reveal themselves to be idiots and whatever abuse they hurl at you will only harm them ten times more in the long term. Hence, my overall view here will be that the complainers just couldn't cut it and would have enjoyed life more if they just used the time it took to complain to just practice more.


Very few things in life have such a clear-cut, fair and equal method for resolving issues.

It doesn't matter what group you are as long as you're the best. I wish people internalized that idea and worked towards being the best. Even if you never get there you will be enhanced by the striving in and of itself.

 

[WindKnight]

He probably expected to find some tits on Google image search and have every other desperate dude eating from his hand

But like the worst cereal imaginable he didn't realize he had opened a box of Oopps All Doxxing!

That's what gets me. With all the stories of female gamers being harassed and abused, you still have myopic dude gamers ignoring it all and telling themselves that female gamers get special treatment and have so much easier...

On the one hand, I hope he enjoyed his wakeup call, on the other, he's absolutely made it so much worse for actual gamer girls, and he probably wont have to endure fraction of what they will thanks to him.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

That's what gets me. With all the stories of female gamers being harassed and abused, you still have myopic dude gamers ignoring it all and telling themselves that female gamers get special treatment and have so much easier...

On the one hand, I hope he enjoyed his wakeup call, on the other, he's absolutely made it so much worse for actual gamer girls, and he probably wont have to endure fraction of what they will thanks to him.

You know how no matter what state they are in, whether the victim was engaging in criminal activity or not, or even if the offending party are police or average citizens, Bigots and Racists point to whatever happened in Chicago in efforts to not acknowledge injustices done to the Entirety of the American Black Community?

Punisher just welcomed us all to GamerChicago.

 

[Bad Jim]

I think it's also easier to rank up a new account than to try and get an older more established account to a higher rank. So it could be that the smurf Ellie account was at the exact same skill level as Punisher's account, but Punisher was ranked much lower because his account was older and therefore had proportionally more losses.

Every ranking system I have heard of works in a way that slowly diminishes your old results. Usually this is because the amount of points you win or lose depends on the ranking difference, so low ranked players climb faster and fall slower.

I believe the system changes your rank more if it is unsure about your true rank, but it would only slow down on Punisher's account because it actually did know his true rank rather accurately.

However, Master and Grandmaster accounts are affected by rating decay, so if he did not play as Punisher for a while that account would have a lower rank.

 

[WindKnight]

I think it's also easier to rank up a new account than to try and get an older more established account to a higher rank. So it could be that the smurf Ellie account was at the exact same skill level as Punisher's account, but Punisher was ranked much lower because his account was older and therefore had proportionally more losses.

Every ranking system I have heard of works in a way that slowly diminishes your old results. Usually this is because the amount of points you win or lose depends on the ranking difference, so low ranked players climb faster and fall slower.

I believe the system changes your rank more if it is unsure about your true rank, but it would only slow down on Punisher's account because it actually did know his true rank rather accurately.

However, Master and Grandmaster accounts are affected by rating decay, so if he did not play as Punisher for a while that account would have a lower rank.

For some reason 'old ratings' don't decay in overwatch, and if you, say, started at gold and eventually worked you way up to the game considering you 'master' level, that account would still have your old gold level games 'dragging you down' so to speak. it's been readily demonstrated that a veteran player starting a new account will easily surpass the rating of his old account with his new one.

Its for this reason some high level players will actively create alt accounts to practice new heroes, so the losses and 'poor performances' they incur from using characters they don't know won't be permanently dragging their rating down.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

He probably expected to find some tits on Google image search and have every other desperate dude eating from his hand

But like the worst cereal imaginable he didn't realize he had opened a box of Oopps All Doxxing!

That's what gets me. With all the stories of female gamers being harassed and abused, you still have myopic dude gamers ignoring it all and telling themselves that female gamers get special treatment and have so much easier...

On the one hand, I hope he enjoyed his wakeup call, on the other, he's absolutely made it so much worse for actual gamer girls, and he probably wont have to endure fraction of what they will thanks to him.

I think it's also myopic to focus solely on the harassment. He also got signed to a team for the first time ever too. I would at the very least rank his assumptions as partially correct here. According to reports, a segment of the reaction treated "Ellie" as a champion and celebrated her (which ended up putting more pressure on him but if he was actually a girl that'd have been a benefit she'd enjoy that'd be unique to her).

Overlooking those facts is just as myopic as it was for that guy to overlook the routine sexual harassment that goes on in most games for shiggles and whatnot.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So insiders from Blizzard have told journalists that they were 'tipped off in advance that there was a player impersonating girls looking to get drafted'
I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is true and Blizzard did know for awhile about Punisher/Ellie and in their opinion he was doing this to get onto a pro-team...just saying that throws the 'social experiment' narrative out the window.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

just saying that throws the 'social experiment' narrative out the window.

No it doesn't. The fact that it was obviously not a social experiment is what throws that narrative out the window. It's never a social experiment. If it was, they would have immediately release everything about the experiment. Maybe not the results until they've been processed, but the initial idea, the parameters of the experiment, the length and timeline of the experiment, the expectations etc. There was none of that. Every idiot on the internet can do something moronic and then claim that it was a social experiment. But it takes an even greater moron to actually buy into that explanation.

 

[Fappy]

Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?

 

[CaitSeith]

just saying that throws the 'social experiment' narrative out the window.

No it doesn't. The fact that it was obviously not a social experiment is what throws that narrative out the window. It's never a social experiment. If it was, they would have immediately release everything about the experiment. Maybe not the results until they've been processed, but the initial idea, the parameters of the experiment, the length and timeline of the experiment, the expectations etc. There was none of that. Every idiot on the internet can do something moronic and then claim that it was a social experiment. But it takes an even greater moron to actually buy into that explanation.

Why is people interpreting "like a social experiment" as "a formal social experiment"? "like a social experiment", "it was a prank", "just for the lolz", they are all the same non-committal explanations from people caught on the spot.

Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?

I second that...

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?

Agreed. Whole thing always felt very grimy and scummy to me

 

[Marik2]

Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?

Sport culture in general is bad.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?

Sport culture in general is bad.

Not all sports culture is bad. I played on plenty of teams in high school and college, and there was a great sense of camaraderie and companionship.
I think with all cultures the good parts are good, and the bad parts are bad. I think with professional sports only the bad stories are worth printing so we never hear about the good things that go on.