The first batch of SCS quarter finals finished last night. Beyond enjoying the comp Siege during the wait for closed SI Quals, I found player handles to be a huge inconvenience. It’s incredibly hard to follow the action when the names of the players are different from what the casters are calling them. SCS is obviously a tournament run from passion with the intent to have fun, but I feel this has hit a breaking point. The crazy names like “Hardhat,” “Newcastle,” and “RizzlyBear” present a problem for not only the viewer but also the casters and production, the player themselves, and risk unrelated brands reputation.
When a whole team is being represented by wholly unrelated names the viewer experience takes a drastic hit and the casters end up working overtime just for unnecessary player shenanigans. Not only is it confusing for viewers coming across competitive Siege for the first time, it also creates unneeded chaos in late round scrambles. If someone hasn’t watched Siege in a long time, not an unlikely occurrence given the boost Solar Raid gave the game, how are they to know who J90 is? Doubly so if that’s not his name in the match they’re watching live? Was that Azian getting the big 2k to close out the round? In the heat of the moment I couldn’t remember if he was Ying or Yang.
It’s all fun and games for the players since they know who’s who, but for everyone else it’s just a pain in the rear. Even as someone who’s watched this game for 7 years now, it’s hard to keep track of which player is which during a late round execute. The names, which should make it easier to understand what’s going on, only add to the chaos.
Of course it isn’t only the viewers who are left in the lurch by the wacky names, the casters arguably bear the brunt of the hassle. Having talked to casters who worked in SCS, people who have had to cast matches with these players hiding behind random names, they find it a challenge just as much as the viewers do. While some of the casters find the names funny if done right, it serves more as an annoyance than anything else. I only can imagine that having to remind players that Vamos.LG is Kixhro every 20 seconds disrupts the flow of casting.
From the tournament production’s point of view the names raise concerns around the viewer experience, as running the tournament is both about cool competition as well as people getting to enjoy watching said cool competition. Tournaments like SCS can’t do much to control the names of players beyond obvious profanity, but it does add unnecessary work to create those post game stats graphics. Considering how difficult running a flawless show can be already, players making everyone else’s lives more complicated to be unique isn’t as hilarious as they think.
Almost everyone I talked to also noted how the fake names get in the way of building a player’s brand. Now for some of the bigger NAL players, that might not be a problem. Iconic will still have a large presence regardless of what moniker he has in SCS. But for T2/T3 players in the event that aren’t known, who have no reputation yet, these fake names put a wall between the player and the gameplay. Was it really Reverse making that play or was it someone else? Maybe it’s not worth the trouble to find out who that dlwlrma.S2 really is. Creating artificial barriers between a player and their gameplay just isn’t a smart move.
Building a brand isn’t exactly the most popular activity in Siege, especially in T2, but it still matters. Obviously not everyone can become known through being a firebrand like MrB, but building a profile for yourself helps get eyes on you. That gets harder when it’s hidden behind a fake name. Obviously people paying attention will know actress Ana De Armas didn’t join 100 Thieves and beat Parabellum in SI Open Quals. But that won’t stop a layman that doesn’t pay close attention from getting confused.
I’m not saying players can’t have fun with their in game names. Guessing who ArcTrooper Yeti or BigBadNadian is isn’t hard nor does it affect the broadcast. Even FoFoSanXD gives enough context for an educated guess. But who the hell is TheSlaw.AST?
No, really. Who is that? I didn’t have stream audio on so I have no idea.
Risking Outside Brands
Not the most sexy topic, but one that has to be addressed.
For most players in an org, they still represent the organization regardless of their handle. RizzlyBear.OXG still represents Oxygen Esports whether he’s Dream or not. When it comes to unsponsored players, the situation changes. In the unfortunate event that an unsponsored player does something unsavory under a fake handle, it could damage brands unrelated to the Siege space.
Not to bully Hat because I think he’ll actually do something like this, but to more highlight the hypothetical situation, if AnaDeArmas.100T does something that gets the player canceled or banned, it isn’t just Hat facing the public’s ire. 100 Thieves and Ana De Armas are likely to catch some of that flak as well.
We all know random people on the internet are dumb. Some can barely put 2 and 2 together, so don’t tell me they’ll have the sense to flame the right person. They’re already sending hate and death threats to someone they don’t know on the internet!
In this hypothetical where Hat gets canceled or banned, he would have just created a defamation case against himself. He has unwittingly damaged 2 huge brands by “representing” them while commiting whatever act got him canceled/banned. In the age or optics and PR, these kinds of entities, companies and celebrities, won’t take kindly to that.
This creates brand hazards and can give Siege a bad name. Why would 100T want to enter the Siege scene in the future if this kind of thing happened? Will Ana De Armas start ragging on esports because she got dragged into some random incident? We’ve seen incidents where an individual accidentally drags a brand into the mess with disastrous consequences for the brand. By mentioning G2 in his infamous tweet, Ocelote connected the drama of him being friends with Andrew Tate to G2. The end result was Ocelote stepping down as CEO of G2 after the org lost a Valorant Partner slot along with a reputational cost to both.
These are very real concerns. Not ones I believe will come around, but much like Conflict of Interest, having the possibility of such events is too much of a risk already. To quote an infamous movie: Even if there’s a 1% chance of trouble,
The safest and best course of action is to just have players play with their real handles. This keeps things simple and safe for everyone involved. It actually benefits the players to have their real name put next to their cool plays. It’s a win-win-win as the viewer, player, and production all benefit when players use their real handle. So can we please have normal names?