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

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Fappy

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

CaitSeith

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Adam Jensen said:
Silentpony said:
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.

Fappy said:
Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?
I second that...
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Marik2 said:
Fappy said:
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.
 

WindKnight

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Silentpony said:
Marik2 said:
Fappy said:
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.
My primary issue right now with esports right now is that a lot of players are, ultimately, distinctly lacking in decorum, maturity and sportsmanship. I mean, one of the top players in the overwatch league got suspended and fined twice for using slurs, and decided to quit rather than rein in his behaviour, and he was far from the only one to get in hot water for bad behaviour... and a number of OW youtubers and far more fans were furious at blizzard for punishing them for shitty behaviour.

We aren't going to see Esports at the olympics until we're sure one of the competitors isn't chomping at the bit to scream slurs or teabag an opponent in front of a worldwide audience.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Marik2 said:
Fappy said:
Can we all just agree that e-sports was a mistake?
Sport culture in general is bad.
Depends on how much money is in the sport. Footy players get away with all sorts of shit but I was a member of a Jiujitsu club for a decade and if I or anyone else pulled a stunt like the shit footy players are getting up to we?d be excommunicated, our Judogi and belts burned and probably blacklisted by every other club and other schools in town. Because outside boxing and kickboxing and MMA, no one is rolling in money in the martial arts world. Reputation and skill is about all the capital schools have so having badly behaved louts and frauds is a death sentence.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Windknight said:
We aren't going to see Esports at the olympics until we're sure one of the competitors isn't chomping at the bit to scream slurs or teabag an opponent in front of a worldwide audience.
Pretty sure there're a thousand more reasons why we're not going to see Esports at the Olympics any time soon.
 

Mcgeezaks

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Windknight said:
Silentpony said:
Marik2 said:
Fappy said:
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.
My primary issue right now with esports right now is that a lot of players are, ultimately, distinctly lacking in decorum, maturity and sportsmanship. I mean, one of the top players in the overwatch league got suspended and fined twice for using slurs, and decided to quit rather than rein in his behaviour, and he was far from the only one to get in hot water for bad behaviour... and a number of OW youtubers and far more fans were furious at blizzard for punishing them for shitty behaviour.

We aren't going to see Esports at the olympics until we're sure one of the competitors isn't chomping at the bit to scream slurs or teabag an opponent in front of a worldwide audience.
Yeah because players of other sports are so innocent. I think you guys are being unfair and biased towards esport. I watched CSGO esports pretty frequently for about 2 years back in 2013-2014 and never once saw anyone ''screaming slurs'' or ''teabagging an opponent'' (Did this even happen? I assume you're talking about IRL).

Have you guys even followed an esport or do you just read the controversies and assume that's just how it normally is?
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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I love competitive gaming but I share in the distaste for esports for a different reason than the one expressed here. In fact, for the exact opposite one. It's not that it lacks decorum but rather that it requires too much of it which causes people to be fake and betray themselves. I remember a fighting game commentator and player who split with Capcom (and went to play guilty gear like a smart person) over complaints regarding them trying to sanitize their community in order to fit in with esports to a degree that it made him feel he was "unable to be black" according to his own words.


In the circles I traveled, being esports is tied to being artificially wholesome. It's a fake thing you do to rake in advertisers and sponsors (you don't have to actually be recognized by the actual esports itself to be trying to be esports). A good example was how the ass slap wrestler from sf5 couldn't use the costume her user liked during a tournament that was being broadcast at espn so he used a weird different one and everyone was like "why isn't he using his usual costume" when that happened.

Additionally, attempts to court esports have seeped into game development according to the creators of dead or alive 6, with them altering the game in a way that esports would feel better with including.


All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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undeadsuitor said:
Dreiko said:
I love competitive gaming but I share in the distaste for esports for a different reason than the one expressed here. In fact, for the exact opposite one. It's not that it lacks decorum but rather that it requires too much of it which causes people to be fake and betray themselves. I remember a fighting game commentator and player who split with Capcom (and went to play guilty gear like a smart person) over complaints regarding them trying to sanitize their community in order to fit in with esports to a degree that it made him feel he was "unable to be black" according to his own words.


In the circles I traveled, being esports is tied to being artificially wholesome. It's a fake thing you do to rake in advertisers and sponsors (you don't have to actually be recognized by the actual esports itself to be trying to be esports). A good example was how the ass slap wrestler from sf5 couldn't use the costume her user liked during a tournament that was being broadcast at espn so he used a weird different one and everyone was like "why isn't he using his usual costume" when that happened.

Additionally, attempts to court esports have seeped into game development according to the creators of dead or alive 6, with them altering the game in a way that esports would feel better with including.


All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
heaven forbid grown men aren't allowed to have slur spewing baby temper tantrums live

wouldn't want to betray who they really are after all

Well, yes, heaven forbid, cause in a free society you should be able to act like an idiot and have it be dealt with like normal and not pre-emptively curtailed for the sake of the feelings of fuck knows who. (probably some corporate market analyst or some overly-religious fanatic in the boonies)
 
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Johnny Novgorod said:
Windknight said:
We aren't going to see Esports at the olympics until we're sure one of the competitors isn't chomping at the bit to scream slurs or teabag an opponent in front of a worldwide audience.
Pretty sure there're a thousand more reasons why we're not going to see Esports at the Olympics any time soon.
That being said, teabagging in front of a live audience of billion people, would be a sight to behold. Damn, now i'm a bit sad.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Dreiko said:
undeadsuitor said:
Dreiko said:
All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
heaven forbid grown men aren't allowed to have slur spewing baby temper tantrums live

wouldn't want to betray who they really are after all
Well, yes, heaven forbid, cause in a free society you should be able to act like an idiot and have it be dealt with like normal and not pre-emptively curtailed for the sake of the feelings of fuck knows who. (probably some corporate market analyst or some overly-religious fanatic in the boonies)
Not gonna have an EVO if it can't pay for itself. Having idiot behavior "be dealt with like normal" involves penalties and bans, straight up. Unless you mean "not dealt with at all", which was the modus operandi back when the prize pool wasn't big enough to come with tax paperwork.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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altnameJag said:
Dreiko said:
undeadsuitor said:
Dreiko said:
All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
heaven forbid grown men aren't allowed to have slur spewing baby temper tantrums live

wouldn't want to betray who they really are after all
Well, yes, heaven forbid, cause in a free society you should be able to act like an idiot and have it be dealt with like normal and not pre-emptively curtailed for the sake of the feelings of fuck knows who. (probably some corporate market analyst or some overly-religious fanatic in the boonies)
Not gonna have an EVO if it can't pay for itself. Having idiot behavior "be dealt with like normal" involves penalties and bans, straight up. Unless you mean "not dealt with at all", which was the modus operandi back when the prize pool wasn't big enough to come with tax paperwork.

Pay for itself? Pfft. Evo makes millions of times more money than it needs to get itself going. Merely the entry fees alone cover that. Back a couple years ago it raked in over 100k just as part of a competition to decide whether or not super smash brothers would be included in the main floor. This is all from the fans and the participants, all of whom desire for the uncensored state of the culture of the event to remain thus. At this point the whole corporate world has not injected itself yet.

The advertisers/sponsors are extra bonus stuff. Tons of people spend thousands of dollars in cross continental flights to participate. The reason these advertisers are there is that companies begun to see Evo as a way of marketing their games or gaming apparel so it's a big advertising circus with a lot more money being thrown around in order to increase the buzz of the showcased games. I actually had sponsorship talks with playasia for this year's evo (since they're one of the few not politically correct sponsors who cherish the anime fighter community) where they were offering to pay the travel and hotel expenses so I know how this works. The amount it costs to host the tourney is nothing compared to the cost of just getting all the talent out and that burden is carried by the players who save for the whole year to get out or who have to be great enough to get sponsored. Also Evo is not that bad with regards to e-sports mentality and sanitization. Stuff like Capcom Cup is more what I had in mind.

CEO is prolly the most ideal tourney you will get, it's an actual tourney and not a fighting game convention mascaraing as one like Evo.
 

Trunkage

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Dreiko said:
undeadsuitor said:
Dreiko said:
I love competitive gaming but I share in the distaste for esports for a different reason than the one expressed here. In fact, for the exact opposite one. It's not that it lacks decorum but rather that it requires too much of it which causes people to be fake and betray themselves. I remember a fighting game commentator and player who split with Capcom (and went to play guilty gear like a smart person) over complaints regarding them trying to sanitize their community in order to fit in with esports to a degree that it made him feel he was "unable to be black" according to his own words.


In the circles I traveled, being esports is tied to being artificially wholesome. It's a fake thing you do to rake in advertisers and sponsors (you don't have to actually be recognized by the actual esports itself to be trying to be esports). A good example was how the ass slap wrestler from sf5 couldn't use the costume her user liked during a tournament that was being broadcast at espn so he used a weird different one and everyone was like "why isn't he using his usual costume" when that happened.

Additionally, attempts to court esports have seeped into game development according to the creators of dead or alive 6, with them altering the game in a way that esports would feel better with including.


All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
heaven forbid grown men aren't allowed to have slur spewing baby temper tantrums live

wouldn't want to betray who they really are after all

Well, yes, heaven forbid, cause in a free society you should be able to act like an idiot and have it be dealt with like normal and not pre-emptively curtailed for the sake of the feelings of fuck knows who. (probably some corporate market analyst or some overly-religious fanatic in the boonies)
a free society does not freedom from consequences. If slurs sold well, it would be dominant. But it doesn't always
 

McElroy

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Windknight said:
We aren't going to see Esports at the olympics until we're sure one of the competitors isn't chomping at the bit to scream slurs or teabag an opponent in front of a worldwide audience.
Pretty sure there're a thousand more reasons why we're not going to see Esports at the Olympics any time soon.
Chinese companies like Alibaba and Tencent have Olympics endorsment in their marketing strategy. Money can buy you those thousand reasons.

The teabagging thing is not a real concern, though. Even young-ish gamer-bros can follow instructions on the arena. The drama would emerge from social media. Speaking of which...
Windknight said:
My primary issue right now with esports right now is that a lot of players are, ultimately, distinctly lacking in decorum, maturity and sportsmanship. I mean, one of the top players in the overwatch league got suspended and fined twice for using slurs, and decided to quit rather than rein in his behaviour, and he was far from the only one to get in hot water for bad behaviour... and a number of OW youtubers and far more fans were furious at blizzard for punishing them for shitty behaviour.
Pro-gamers can be quite immature, yes. It's more prevalent in the West because 1) China has their own circles and own crises. 2) Korea's esport-scene has matured over the years, and on top of that Korean laws regarding slander and libel are much stricter than even in Europe.

However, I must come in defense of the player you're referring to here: Felix "Xqc" Lengyel. His first suspension+fine was from a response to trash talking Tweet by another OWL player (plays the same role as Xqc). Xqc told him, while online on Twitch, to "go suck a dick" and muttered in addition: "you would like it though" (the player in question is openly gay). Immature as hell, deserved the sanction. Now the second and final time before no, not deciding to quit but getting fired from his team and replaced by a Korean, he had been passive-aggressive on Twitter towards one of the OWL shoutcasters, and -- in the blunder of the year -- used an emote on Twitch, TriHard, in a "racially disparaging manner". This was fake news, he used the emote like he (and people in general) would normally. Little did he know that the presence of a black man in the broadcast at the same time would be enough to cause a whole heap of trouble.

Okay, that was that. I frequent Xqc's stream (never given him money, though, and the only time he read my chat message he ended up repeating my typo and just getting everyone confused as heck) and it's... Immature. Real Retardotopia. And what I mean by that is Xqc uses such words and expressions all the time and nothing really disincentivizes him from doing so. Personal streams and social media of the players are definitely NOT the biggest obstacle in the way of esports' mainstream appeal (the games themselves are), but it is an issue to some people. Can we root for and cheer for players who yell "get fucked, trash" at their monitors on a public platform, even if they behave on the big arena? And then if we go deeper, does it reflect the games they play? Sure, Overwatch is PG(-13?), but it's a high tempo team game full of cartoony killing anyway. The professional arena and broadcast production of today deals with your teabag and slur -concern just fine, though.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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trunkage said:
Dreiko said:
undeadsuitor said:
Dreiko said:
I love competitive gaming but I share in the distaste for esports for a different reason than the one expressed here. In fact, for the exact opposite one. It's not that it lacks decorum but rather that it requires too much of it which causes people to be fake and betray themselves. I remember a fighting game commentator and player who split with Capcom (and went to play guilty gear like a smart person) over complaints regarding them trying to sanitize their community in order to fit in with esports to a degree that it made him feel he was "unable to be black" according to his own words.


In the circles I traveled, being esports is tied to being artificially wholesome. It's a fake thing you do to rake in advertisers and sponsors (you don't have to actually be recognized by the actual esports itself to be trying to be esports). A good example was how the ass slap wrestler from sf5 couldn't use the costume her user liked during a tournament that was being broadcast at espn so he used a weird different one and everyone was like "why isn't he using his usual costume" when that happened.

Additionally, attempts to court esports have seeped into game development according to the creators of dead or alive 6, with them altering the game in a way that esports would feel better with including.


All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
heaven forbid grown men aren't allowed to have slur spewing baby temper tantrums live

wouldn't want to betray who they really are after all

Well, yes, heaven forbid, cause in a free society you should be able to act like an idiot and have it be dealt with like normal and not pre-emptively curtailed for the sake of the feelings of fuck knows who. (probably some corporate market analyst or some overly-religious fanatic in the boonies)
a free society does not freedom from consequences. If slurs sold well, it would be dominant. But it doesn't always

Thinking like this would have prevented progressive change like weed legalization, gay marriage, emancipation, suffrage and so on. Sometimes popular opinion is conservative fear-based BS so future-looking corporations can also make a living in eschewing the status quo and carving out their own path. Success of youtubers with crass shows showcase this to be the case.


Basically, I don't think the consequences of people being authentic as they enjoy games would be anywhere close to the degree of bad that scared marketing executives who are not part of the culture themselves paint them as being. A 70 year old churchgoer isn't going to be buying many arcade joystick controllers anyways. A soccermom is not going to be participating in a money match in the latest pantyshot fighter. There's basically no notable consequences to speak of and a whole lot of "conventional wisdom" holding things back.
 

CaitSeith

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Dreiko said:
trunkage said:
Dreiko said:
undeadsuitor said:
Dreiko said:
I love competitive gaming but I share in the distaste for esports for a different reason than the one expressed here. In fact, for the exact opposite one. It's not that it lacks decorum but rather that it requires too much of it which causes people to be fake and betray themselves. I remember a fighting game commentator and player who split with Capcom (and went to play guilty gear like a smart person) over complaints regarding them trying to sanitize their community in order to fit in with esports to a degree that it made him feel he was "unable to be black" according to his own words.


In the circles I traveled, being esports is tied to being artificially wholesome. It's a fake thing you do to rake in advertisers and sponsors (you don't have to actually be recognized by the actual esports itself to be trying to be esports). A good example was how the ass slap wrestler from sf5 couldn't use the costume her user liked during a tournament that was being broadcast at espn so he used a weird different one and everyone was like "why isn't he using his usual costume" when that happened.

Additionally, attempts to court esports have seeped into game development according to the creators of dead or alive 6, with them altering the game in a way that esports would feel better with including.


All in all, competitive gaming rules but esports is a show in selling out and should go away.
heaven forbid grown men aren't allowed to have slur spewing baby temper tantrums live

wouldn't want to betray who they really are after all

Well, yes, heaven forbid, cause in a free society you should be able to act like an idiot and have it be dealt with like normal and not pre-emptively curtailed for the sake of the feelings of fuck knows who. (probably some corporate market analyst or some overly-religious fanatic in the boonies)
a free society does not freedom from consequences. If slurs sold well, it would be dominant. But it doesn't always

Thinking like this would have prevented progressive change like weed legalization, gay marriage, emancipation, suffrage and so on. Sometimes popular opinion is conservative fear-based BS so future-looking corporations can also make a living in eschewing the status quo and carving out their own path. Success of youtubers with crass shows showcase this to be the case.


Basically, I don't think the consequences of people being authentic as they enjoy games would be anywhere close to the degree of bad that scared marketing executives who are not part of the culture themselves paint them as being. A 70 year old churchgoer isn't going to be buying many arcade joystick controllers anyways. A soccermom is not going to be participating in a money match in the latest pantyshot fighter. There's basically no notable consequences to speak of and a whole lot of "conventional wisdom" holding things back.
One assumes you have enough empathy to discern between real consequences and imaginary ones, and to tell when it doesn't matter if there is no difference. Otherwise you're bound to abuse your freedom and you may end up losing it as result.