For those unaware, there has been some controversy lately concerning Blizzard's Overwatch Contenders League and a player known as Ellie. This player quit their contender team, Second Wind, after an online harassment campaign was determined to reveal her true identity, and as it turns out, this Ellie character was a fake person created for a so-called social experiment, though the purpose of this experiment remains unclear.

In fact, much of the situation remains unclear. We do now know that Ellie was a fake name and account, with many believing a player known as Punisher was behind her creation. However, Overwatch developer Blizzard stopped short of confirming this one way or another. But the developer does state that the player behind the Ellie identity has not previously appeared in any Overwatch Contenders or Overwatch League teams.

More than that though, it seems as if Second Wind - or at least a portion of the team - was in the know concerning Ellie's real identity. Blizzard also went on to confirm that Second Wind did request that Ellie's true name not be published on the Overwatch Contenders League website, but also that Second Wind did not even provide Blizzard with the player's true name, just the Battletag.

"After investigating the matter, we found that 'Ellie' was a fabricated identity and is a smurf account – created by a veteran player to obfuscate their identity. The owner of Ellie’s account is a player with no current or prior involvement with any Overwatch Contenders or Overwatch League team. 'Ellie' was never formally submitted to the active roster of Second Wind and never played in a Contenders match.

As part of the process to officially add a player to a Contenders or Overwatch League roster, we do background checks to ensure that players are who they say they are as well as meet other eligibility requirements, and will take action against players if we discover any behavior that warrants it."

How much further this controversy goes remains to be seen, as many may still clamor to know Ellie's true identity. And considering Overwatch was one of Twitter's most talked about games in 2018, this seems sure to keep people talking for less than ideal reasons.

Taking all of this into consideration, it's hard to say how this will impact the popular team-based first person shooter. It seems possible that this controversy dies over the next few weeks, but it wouldn't be a surprise if this Ellie controversy had long-reaching consequences. Overwatch has previously been no stranger to controversy and drama, but it's easy to see how this Ellie "experiment" could be especially damaging.

Overwatch is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: Game Informer