Rumor: Overwatch pro player Ellie is a "social experiment"
What is the truth regarding Ellie and Second Wind, the Overwatch League Contenders team?
It's pretty early in the year, but let's file this into the box of crazy for 2019. It's only rumor for now, but people close to the situation are claiming that Overwatch professional player "Ellie" was a social experiment gone wrong.
Our story published earlier told of a player for Second Wind, a team in the minor Overwatch League called Contenders, who stepped down after constantly being harassed about her identity. On the team roster, she's listed simply as "Ellie" instead of having a full name like the other players on the roster. Reported on Dexerto, esports insider Rod Breslau claims to have messages that confirm Ellie is a 17-year-old girl with little Overwatch experience.
Regarding Ellie:
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) January 4, 2019
- Ellie has said in private messages to teammates in the last hour confirming she has not been the one playing, she is a 17-year old girl but is 'not good' at OW, no Second Wind players/mgmt knew
- Blizzard is currently holding a meeting with SW players/mgmt
This story is additionally confusing because, now, everyone will have to wonder how this player ended up on the team's roster with no players and no one on staff knowing. The owner of the team even released a response in defense of Ellie.
Cloud9 streamer Becca "Aspen" Rukavina, in a live stream that happened today, claims that she knows that Ellie is a social experiment created by gamer Punisher, a top-500 Overwatch player. It's not available on Twitch at this time, but there's an alleged stream where Ellie had Punisher on stream to show that he wasn't, in fact, Ellie. Props to Shacker Chandler55 for the clip.
There's no official update from Punisher at this time. Consider all of this rumor and stay tuned for additional updates.
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replyCharles Singletary Jr posted a new article, Rumor: Overwatch League player Ellie is a "social experiment"
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Harf Life 3 Comfirmed!
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Regarding #3.
There is no money being made. Please stop acting like that is what drives us. Been doing this for five years. Not one cent of a profit. We aren’t even running ads right now. Not sure how “clickbait”-motivated we are given where our revenues are coming from.
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You said we published it to make money.
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We tagged it rumor. This is a slow news week.
I don’t know what you want me to tell you. This article is not what is driving our traffic today. It was a news story that people are talking about, so we joined the conversation.
I have fixed the headline to correct the OWL error.
I am just tired of this refrain that clickbait is keeping us in business.
It’s me. If I give up, this site dies. So please be less of a jerk about it.
I am not defending Greg’s terrible posts, btw.-
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You call out an entity that has nothing to do with the news story.
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Yup, we got the headline wrong. I corrected it.
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Sean Hannity'd
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Your posts are bad and you should feel bad.
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Who are the control groups in these social experiments?
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slasher is pretty much the Wojnarowski for esports, hes as good as confirmed
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Seems real: https://clips.twitch.tv/AffluentTalentedCaterpillarPeanutButterJellyTime
The rest is in the full video
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The Contenders website says there are three regular seasons a year, followed by a regional playoffs and a $3.2m prize pool per year.
There's also a two-way in place for Contenders with OWL. They're also both run and controlled by Blizzard.
I get that they're not OWL, that it's a minors, but it seems like it's in the same family, is it not?-
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Thanks, that's a lot more information than I originally found on the website and the wiki!
However I don't think "not professionals" really applies here. This is a bit more than a beer league hockey tournament, has two-way contracts with OWL etc... And to deny the connection to OWL seems disingenuous to me considering they're both owned by the same parent company. I understand these are two separate leagues (Teams plus seasons is a league in my opinion) but it's all Blizzard Overwatch Leagues, just not THE Blizzard Overwatch League.
They really should have named that something different.-
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Sorry, I think I was being unclear.
The word League itself has a meaning is what I'm getting at. Saying there are Overwatch leagues would mean one thing, saying Overwatch League would mean another (or you're crap at capitalization). In your for instance if I said Baseball league, that could apply to a whole heck of a lot of baseball leagues. You wouldn't instantly assume I meant MLB. Whether blizzard wants to say it's an "Official League" or not doesn't really matter, it's run with a league format and operated by Blizzard.
As for what is considered professional, players in the Contenders are allowed to accept sponsorship deals (Official rules 8.1) That would be a key difference between professional and amateur. Although, it's kind of shitty that they're not allowed to show their footage. And to further draw connection to professional, the official rules of the Contenders it out as a route to OWL (2.1.8 is agreeing to be part of the OWL selection process, 2.3 is all about two way players). In section 3.10 they talk about contractional agreements, something an amateur player wouldn't really have to deal with. Hell, 8.3 deals with Blizzard using you for promotional material.
Anyway, armchair semantics but it does seem like a professional league, just not a well paying one. With a direct connection to OWL. Operated by Blizzard.-
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Oh, of course there's a difference between hobbyist and professional. But I don't think there is a magic amount of money that is the difference.
Contracts, sponsorship, the path to becoming what is, in your estimation, a professional, the retaining of advertisement rights, the entire structure laid out in the official Contenders rules... Those are the things that mark the difference between a hobbyist and a professional to me. But it's really semantics. If you don't view them as professional, that's fine!
Also, again I wasn't talking about league format. Just the word league.-
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Right on, we'll. Thanks for telling me your thoughts on it!
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Removed League from the headline. Replaced with Pro. I know Tiers and whatnot. I edited this on my phone while flying to CES.
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Sort of?
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