In online media, such as *Overwatch*, the author has become an entity that can directly meddle with the work itself, changing the work's shape, erasing the shape it once had, and affecting the players' engagement directly with it. *Overwatch* is not unique in that companies modify their intellectual property (IP), but it is part of a more general trend where companies carefully control and adjust their IP. For example, the developer, Riot Games, completely rewrote the backstory of *League of Legends* (Riot Games 2009–present) in 2014 (Plunkett 2014). Or, more recently, for the free-to-play game *Genshin Impact* (miHoYo 2020), the developer adds and modifes content such as new characters, mechanics, and events every couple of weeks to keep players playing and spending money on additional in-game content. Online technology, with more games being connected to the internet, enables developers to erase and modify their product directly at a frequent pace. It is important to keep in mind that *Overwatch* is also an esports game, so Blizzard Entertainment has certain priorities higher in their hierarchy than others, such as making sure the heroes are interesting as fctional beings from a narrative point of view, but also that they are well-balanced as game pieces for esport players. This may result in paradoxical outcomes such as Mercy's overhaul to change players' in-game behavior, which conficts with her original narrative backstory. There is much power in the capability of directly changing the structure of a work as it is being engaged with by others, interrupting their agency to traverse the text how they want. There is even more power in being able to modify a text at rapid frequencies, forcing players to have to accept the characters exactly as the developer intended in order to play the game. It is thus perhaps time to acknowledge that the author is back, knocking on your door to come out and play—exactly in the way they want you to.

### Notes

#### References

Articles from the 2019 International DiGRA Conference held in Kyoto, Japan., 5 (2): 1–33.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

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# Player Reception of Change and Stability in Character Mechanics

*Tanja Välisalo and Maria Ruotsalainen*

*I felt as if these changes undermined everything I knew from my favorite hero at her core. Being fair, fun, and balanced.*

Change is a constant element of online games, and *Overwatch* as well as its playable characters have been through multiple changes since the launch of the game in 2016. The above quote is from a discussion on the offcial *Overwatch* forum commenting on the signifcant changes made to the mechanics of the character Mercy. It expresses the personal signifcance of *knowing* a game character, emotional engagement with the character, and the affective reaction to changes in that character's mechanics. In this chapter, we examine the relationships players have with the playable characters of *Overwatch* and specifcally the role that character mechanics have in these relationships. Changes to game characters are a topic of avid discussion in

University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
M. Ruotsalainen Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© The Author(s) 2022 67 M. Ruotsalainen et al. (eds.), *Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch*, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0\_5

T. Välisalo (\*)

*Overwatch* communities and evoke articulations of the meaning of game characters for the players. Thus, approaching the player-character relationship through these discussions gives the opportunity to understand how players themselves construct their engagement with characters through character mechanics. Through our analysis we ask: what can change and stability reveal about the relationship between players and characters?

Change in game characters often means changes in game mechanics, as exemplifed in the changes to the character Mercy, but it can also mean narrative changes and reveals of new information, such as the reveal of another *Overwatch* character Soldier:76's homosexuality in a short story released in 2019 (Chu 2019). Also, the interpretations made by the players can change over time through different fan discourses and practices. Addition of new characters is a change that can alter the experience of the game as a whole. In our previous research we have demonstrated that *Overwatch* game characters evoke affective engagement in players and fans and that narrative and mimetic (human-like) elements of the characters are intertwined with game mechanics in the reception of these characters (Välisalo and Ruotsalainen 2019). Here we continue further into analyzing the exact nature of this engagement, through the lens of "change". In this chapter we focus on change in relation to game mechanics, whether as alterations in characters or addition of new characters, but we will also include mimetic elements of the characters in how they connect with the mechanics. Analysis of change and stability in game characters is ever more necessary, with the proliferation of transmedial content—*Overwatch* is not merely a game but a center of a transmedial world consisting of an offcial website containing character biographies, comics, short stories, animated videos, and esports (Koskimaa et al. 2021).

Our interest lies in the study of how audiences engage with game characters. Nevertheless, to study reception we also need to take into consideration the media content. In order to understand the possible modes of engagement with the playable heroes of *Overwatch* we analyze two heroes in more detail, tank hero Reinhardt and support hero Brigitte. Several *Overwatch* heroes could offer unique insights into the reception of game characters; we chose Reinhardt and Brigitte because they are near opposites in terms of change and stability: Reinhardt is a character who has been in the game from its launch in May 2016 and whose mechanics have stayed fairly unchanged. Brigitte was introduced in February 2018 and her mechanics have gone through multiple changes. Reinhardt and Brigitte have similar mechanics, which makes discussing these particular characters together all the more apt. The stories of these two are also heavily intertwined: Brigitte is Reinhardt's loyal squire but also his goddaughter. Due to *Overwatch* being a transmedia product, our character analysis is necessarily crossmedial and multimodal, since *Overwatch* characters, including Reinhardt and Brigitte, have multiple instances in different media and in different narratives and products across the whole *Overwatch* transmedial world.

#### Theory

Digital game characters' most evident difference to fctional characters in other media is their technologically interactive nature, which allows players, depending on the game, to infuence them in multiple ways. Fictional characters have been theorized for decades in literary studies (e.g., Forster 1962; Phelan 1989; Smith 1995; Michaels 1998) and flm studies (e.g., Eder 2010), but theory on game characters specifcally has emerged alongside the proliferation of game studies (e.g., Klevjer 2007; Yee 2014). The relationship between fctional characters and their audiences (readers/ viewers/players) across media has been interwoven in character theorization. This relationship has often been discussed as "identifcation" or "engagement" (Smith 1995). In game studies, the understanding of this player-character or player-avatar relationship has been accompanied and infuenced by an understanding of game characters also, or even only, as sets of abilities or tools for simulation (e.g., Newman 2002, 2009). Other studies have in turn reconciled the different aspects of game characters through their character defnitions (e.g., Klevjer 2007; Vella 2016) or further presented models for analyzing the player-character relationship (e.g., Bloom, this volume; Lankoski 2011). Felix Schröter and Jan-Noël Thon (2014) have suggested a model for analyzing game characters which combines different modes of character representation (narration, simulation, communication) with modes of player experience (narrative, ludic, social) to form three dimensions of game characters as intersubjective constructs: characters as fctional beings, characters as game pieces, and characters as avatars. For our study, the separation of narration and simulation as modes of representation, and narrative and ludic experience, are particularly useful, since our analysis excludes in-game communication between players.

The emergence and proliferation of transmedia storytelling (Jenkins 2006, 2011), where stories are told through multiple media with each media using its own strengths making a unique contribution to the whole, demands an understanding of characters that are not limited to one media. We understand the transmedial world created through these different media is an abstract content system existing as a mental construct in the mind of its creators and audiences (Klastrup and Tosca 2004, 2014). In these transmedial worlds characters can traverse across media and some transmedial worlds can even be described as character-driven (Tosca and Klastrup 2020), such as *Overwatch*. However, despite the ideal of balanced transmedia, where each part equally contributes to the whole, most transmedial worlds are actually unbalanced, having one "core text" (Mittell 2015, 294). In unbalanced transmedia the core text has most weight meaning that events or elements featured in its transmedial expansions are not necessarily taken into account in the core text which can lead to inconsistencies in the narrative world (Harvey 2015, 91). We are interested in how players negotiate their interpretation of game characters and their mechanics in the transmedial world of *Overwatch*, where the actual game is the evident core text.

In order to grasp the different dimensions of characters across the transmedial world of *Overwatch* we turn to James Phelan's (1989) theory of fctional characters, which frames characters as combinations of their mimetic, synthetic, and thematic components. The mimetic component describes the ways in which the character is human-like, identifable as a person. The synthetic component is, in essence, the artifcial or constructed nature of the character. The thematic component includes the character traits that have the potential to connect to particular themes through representation. All three components are present in *Overwatch* characters whether they are portrayed in the game, comics, animations, or written texts, but in this chapter we focus on the mimetic and synthetic components as in the reception of narratives, the focus constantly alternates between the mimetic and the synthetic (Phelan and Rabinowitz 2012, 113). While the fctional narrative layer in the actual game is fairly thin, both components are still present, even though the synthetic components of characters may be more pronounced. An important feature of the synthetic component is that it cannot be reduced to game mechanics, but encompasses all the ways a character is artifcially created through design, graphics, animation, voice acting, narrative, and so on, be it in the game itself or in the different transmedial expansions around it.

#### Materials and Methods

In order to understand character reception among players of a particular game we must begin with an understanding of the characters themselves. We analyze the characters ReinhardtReinhardt and BrigitteBrigitte through materials both in the game and in the broader transmedial world. In-game materials include all the representations of the characters in the game (heroHero gallery, skins,1 voice lines, emotesEmotes, sprays2), character mechanics, and gameplay. This material is gathered through close-playing the game and analyzing the gameplay with these particular characters. Other materials include all relevant information about the characters on the offcial Blizzard Entertainment website, such as character description, description of mechanics, background story, introductory videos, animated short stories, comics, and short stories. These materials include both narrative and non-narrative content. Even though *Overwatch* gameplay does not replicate or depict events described in the background stories of its characters or other fctional narratives from its transmedial diegetic universe, it does draw from them in multiple ways. The game maps are connected to the lore and often to particular characters. However, in order to win, and also in order to not get reported for bad behavior by other players, each player is expected to follow the main goal of each map, a goal that has no narrative explanation or connection. Different character elements, such as voice lines and skins reference their character's histories. In addition to these, there is an abundance of unoffcial player-created material, such as fan fction and fan art, that were excluded from our analysis, since here we focus on the offcial content.

We traced the player-character relationship using two types of research data: online discussions and a survey. We collected discussions from *Overwatch* discussion forums on the Blizzard Entertainment website using search terms "favorite" and "favourite" to fnd and gather relevant discussions (Välisalo and Ruotsalainen 2019). The consequent dataset consisted of forum messages posted between February 21 and June 20, 2018. The dataset consists of 19 discussion threads (175 pages) with a topic related to players' favorite game characters. The forum data was analyzed focusing on reasons for character preferences using open-ended coding with Atlas. ti software resulting in 223 individual codes, which were further grouped into 9 code families to fnd relevant themes in the data. When analyzing the online discussions on favorite characters the reasons given were categorized as follows: personality traits (80 mentions), mechanics (68), lore (60), character's function or role in the game (51), voice lines or voice actor (24), appearance (24), other media related to the character (13), broader themes related to the character (13), and player's affective relationship, empathy or sympathy for the character (11). In addition to this dataset from the *Overwatch* forums, we also analyzed an individual discussion thread from the same forum focusing on the hero Brigitte and her changes taking place in July and August 2020. This thread consisted of 93 pages and the analysis was done by using close reading.

Survey data was gathered using an online survey aimed at *Overwatch* players and Overwatch esports audiences using opportunistic sampling. The survey link was shared on different social media services. From August 2018 to November 2019 the survey gathered 428 responses (excluding 12 empty survey forms). The majority of survey respondents were male, 22.1%, female, with 2.1% identifying differently, and 2 not answering the question. Quite expectedly, the majority of the respondents were between 15 and 28 years of age (78.7%). The majority of the respondents had also played the game for at least a year (84.1%). The survey was created as part of a larger research project on *Overwatch*, so only some of the questions pertain to characters specifcally. These questions also had to be updated while the survey was running, since new characters were added during its run (Wrecking ball, Ashe, Baptiste), one for each role. After the survey data was gathered, two more heroes, Echo (damage hero) and Sigma (tank hero), have been added to the game. In this paper, we focus on responses to three open-ended questions, namely one asking for reasons for choosing a favorite gameplay-based, one asking for reasons for choosing a favorite lore-based character, and "How do you feel about the new heroes added to the game after its launch". The answers of the survey were analyzed using close reading.

#### Reinhardt: Steadfast Warrior

Reinhardt's background story is told through an animated short story *Honor and Glory* (Blizzard Entertainment 2017). The story is framed through a scene of Reinhardt and his squire Brigitte drinking beer in an empty tavern in a demolished town. Brigitte is telling Reinhardt he does not need to go back to fghting with Overwatch, that he has sacrifced enough already. This launches a fashback, where we see Reinhardt as a young member of an elite fghting team, preparing for battle. He scoffs at his commander Balderich von Aldin's decision to join Overwatch, a secret squad, for fghting in a secret society brings no glory, and Reinhardt clearly values glory. In the following battle, we see him recklessly rushing forward against his commander's orders, leaving his team behind. Finally, their troops are forced to retreat. Reinhardt is deep in the enemy lines and in trouble, but Balderich stays on to save him. He then sends Reinhardt to help others while he stays on to hold back the enemy, sacrifcing himself in the process. Back in the current day of the story, Reinhardt tells Brigitte: "I have been called. I must answer. Always."

Through this story, young Reinhardt is portrayed as arrogant, overly confdent, thirsting for battle, and especially the glory that comes with victory, while old Reinhardt has been changed by the lessons he learned and the guilt over his fallen commander, and has become someone following his duty above all. The battle is a turning point, where he learns to take responsibility for others.1 Reinhardt is essentially transformed from a glory-seeking warrior to a steadfast soldier, guided by his values. Reinhardt represents a narrative stereotype of an old soldier, once more returning to the battlefeld because he is needed—but also just to prove he still can do it. Even though old Reinhardt's portrayal in the animation is somber and steadfast, voice lines in the game create ambivalence as to whether Reinhardt has really learnt his lesson: "Fortune favors the bold", "Honor! Justice! Reinhardt!", and "Honor and glory" seem to portray the side of Reinhardt's personality that takes risks and loves the thrill and glory of battle, while in the narratives those are attributes of his younger self. These kinds of contradictions contribute to the humanness of the character, strengthening their mimetic component (see also Pearson 2007, 47).

Reinhardt (see Image 5.1) is one of the most popular *Overwatch* characters (Välisalo and Ruotsalainen 2019). On the discussion forums, one commentator explains their preference for Reinhardt as follows:

My favorite hero is Reinhardt, because he saved Torbjorn, and he's fun to play with. His lore's pretty hefty, especially since he was part of Uprising. I love his skins so much, Crusader and Lieutenant Wilhelm, along with Wujing being my favorites.

Reinhardt is a character whose history is constantly referenced in the game, also in the form of skins. In the skins menu the historically signifcant skins are accompanied by a short text imparting information about the characters' past (see Image 5.2). This way, even the players who do not follow any narrative transmedial content are exposed to the characters'

**Image 5.1** Reinhardt as an old man, as he appears in the "current" time of *Overwatch*

background stories. However, the historical skins are not necessarily meant to realistically capture a particular moment in the fctional world's timeline: they are more reminiscent of costumes than actual depictions of the characters in a particular historical moment, further setting the game apart from any narrative progression. "Balderich" skin is the armor worn by Balderich von Alder, Reinhardt's fallen commander, and "Greifhardt" skin is the same armor after being left behind and deteriorating, both versions seen in *Honor and Glory*. It seems that Reinhardt himself could not really have worn these armors. The third skin seen in the animation is the "Crusader" skin (Image 5.2), the armor worn by Reinhardt as a young man. This is also a skin where Reinhardt's face can be seen and he is portrayed as a young man. Choosing this skin means playing another, younger version of Reinhardt, which is a deviation from the place in time where *Overwatch* characters mainly exist in the game. This anachronistic or fantastical use of skins creates a confict in the narrative representation of Reinhardt drawing the player's attention to the synthetic component of the character: it is evidently the designer's choice to implement these "costumes" and the player is made aware of that, at least in the case of young Reinhardt.

**Image 5.2** Reinhardt's skin "Crusader" in the skin menu with the accompanying background information

Reinhardt is depicted throughout the Overwatch transmedial world as a hypermasculine character with an exaggeratedly muscular form and wide shoulders, a typical manner of depicting playable game characters who are male (Dill and Thill 2007). His armor is partially responsible for his size but he is depicted as a big man even without it. His weapon, rocket hammer, is massive as well, further underlining hypermasculine stereotypes. Appropriately for his size and age, Reinhardt is fairly slow in his movements and becomes even slower when using his shield-like *barrier feld* ability, which he uses to protect his team while they damage the enemy. His slow heavy gait is emphasized with the player's camera tipping from side to side. When playing the character for the frst time, the player's attention is frst drawn to this camera effect as a synthetic component of the character, before growing used to the camera movement. This is a case of simulation that creates an embodied experience as this massive old warrior, thus, affecting the player's understanding of the character as a fctional being (cf. Schröter and Thon 2014, 56), but also impacting the game mechanics—Reinhardt is slower than many other characters and his slow movements and diffculty to see behind him when holding his shield make him dependent on his team.

The balance between defensive and offensive actions while playing Reinhardt can be challenging. Reinhardt's offensive mechanics are aggressive and showy, luring the player into an aggressive play style, along with his personality as an aggressive and energetic fghter present in voice lines such as "Bring! It! On! I live for this!" or "Again! Again!" A typical nontactical or less experienced style of playing Reinhardt can be described as "charging with guns blazing" using his *charge* mechanic and abandoning one's team, as young Reinhardt does in *Honor and Glory*. A more prudent play style with Reinhardt is one focusing on protecting and enabling his team; this demands the player to use his aggressive actions sparingly, since they cannot use his offense mechanics, *rocket hammer*, *fre strike*, and *charge* while maintaining his shield. Blocking damage can make it diffcult for a Reinhardt player to achieve medals,2 even though blocking damage is sometimes shown as a fgure at the end of the match, when up to four players are highlighted for their achievements. This does not mean that a Reinhardt player cannot get recognition from their team or other players, but this protective, non-aggressive mode of play does not by default bring glory. Nevertheless, this combination of abilities can also be a pull-in factor as articulated by a respondent in our survey who gave this as a reason for choosing him as a favorite—"The balance between dmg/tanking/ frag"—or on the *Overwatch* forum:

Everything about him just suits my play style. I like being a protector, an initiator, in the front line, smashing faces with hammers

Reinhardt's mechanics have experienced relatively few changes since the game's launch. What is noteworthy is that even though Reinhardt is a popular character in *Overwatch*, and was the most popular lore-based character in our survey, there are relatively few discussions and comments about him in comparison to many other characters. One explanation is the stability in his design, which further supports some of the core elements of his personality, being steadfast and dependable, but also uncompromising and resistant to change. When Reinhardt dies in-game and is respawned he never expresses self-doubt or refection, merely his tireless attitude in voice lines such as "Again! Again!" and "I will not give up the fght".

#### Brigitte: Introducing a New Playable Character

In the *Overwatch* hero gallery, Brigitte is described (see Image 5.3) as follows: "Brigitte Lindholm, squire to Reinhardt Wilhelm, is a former mechanical engineer who has decided to take up arms and fght on the front lines to protect those in need". Brigitte is the only character whose hero gallery description directly mentions another character. She is introduced through Reinhardt, making their connection evident, even to players who do not engage with transmedial expansions to the game. In her character story on the *Overwatch* website, Brigitte is described as caretaker to Reinhardt. This role is in the forefront in stories about Reinhardt published before Brigitte was a playable character, the animated short story *Honor and Glory* as well as the web comic *Dragon Slayer* (Burns and Nesskain 2016), where Brigitte attempts to keep Reinhardt away from battle. These stories represent a feminine stereotype where a female character is portrayed as avoiding confict and preferring security. When Brigitte was introduced as a playable character, she no longer shies away from battle, but fghting is framed as her helping Reinhardt (or "those in need of protection") and motivated only through that goal. In the frst voice line in the video introducing Brigitte, she says: "When my godfather was called back to Overwatch, I tried to convince him not to go. He

**Image 5.3** Brigitte in the *Overwatch* hero gallery

wouldn't listen. In the end, I can't let him fght alone." (Blizzard Entertainment 2018a).

Brigitte's background is revealed more thoroughly in the animated short story *Origin Story: Brigitte (Blizzard Entertainment 2018b)*. It is revealed she is the daughter of Torbjörn, another Overwatch hero, and that Reinhardt is her father's friend whom she has known all her life. Brigitte's origin story reveals her childhood dream of becoming an engineer, echoing her father's interest toward mechanics, but unlike Torbjörn she focuses on "armor fabrication and defensive systems", in line with her role as a support hero. Her voice lines in the game, "I'm getting good at this" and "This is all part of the learning process", repeatedly emphasize how she is a beginner in combat and is still evolving.

With Reinhardt the player needs to constantly balance the offensive and defensive mechanics and playstyles, whereas with Brigitte these mechanics are intertwined. Brigitte has a *rocket fail* which functions as a dual mechanic with an obvious impact of the action itself (damaging the enemy) and a passive consequence of that action (healing nearby allies). The dual mechanic complements Brigitte's personality in an attempt to soften and smoothen her aggressive abilities through the ultimate goal of healing. Brigitte's versatile mechanics are also seen as defning her role as a healer as in the following comments:

Brigitte. No doubt. I've been waiting for a "Tanky Support" since launch. (…) People have been complaining about her stun, but I think the lockdown part of her kit is what makes her fun, and capable of protecting the backline in a way that no one really can.

Nevertheless, Brigitte's initial reception in the player community was mixed. In our survey, many negative comments focused on her. Brigitte quickly became part of the team composition perceived to have the best winning possibilities. She became a required pick for the optimal composition in professional and high ladder play.3 The complaints were mainly about her abilities: a number of our survey respondents felt Brigitte was "broken" and too powerful while simultaneously not requiring much effort from the players playing her ("Brigitte is too rewarding with how easy she is to play"). One respondent in our survey even said Brigitte made her stop playing for a while, even though they were playing in a semiprofessional team. Some of the criticism was targeted at adding two support characters in a row, since Brigitte was introduced only a few months after another support hero, Moira. Only one of the complaints concerned the fctional elements of the character, while still criticizing her abilities as well:

Brigitte—an awkward addition. Not only does everyone make fun of her backstory with who's her real dad and no one pronounces her name right, her character is impossible to 1v1 with her heal on attack and shield. Not to mention another character that can stun lock

After Brigitte was established as part of the optimal team composition, negative posts with a hashtag #deletebrig started appearing on multiple platforms, including Twitter, the offcial *Overwatch* forums, and Reddit subreddits. Players, including some professional players, even started naming their main or alternative game accounts with the name Deletebrig. Those partaking in the #deletebrig movement considered Brigitte to be too powerful, particularly in relation to the amount of skill she required to be played effectively. She was also seen to dictate the pace of the game too much. Brigitte was branded as "low-skill hero", having very low aim requirements, since aim is often perceived as the hallmark of skill. Simultaneously, other heroes who do not require aiming skills, such as Reinhardt, do not get classifed as "low-skill". There might be several reasons for this: the main tank role, which Reinhard performs, is generally considered as one of the hardest and most impactful roles in the game, even though many main tanks are not aim-intensive to play. It is often perceived that playing the main tank role requires initiative, leadership, and in-depth understanding of the game, while these considerations are not always extended to the support role. Furthermore, Reinhardt's classic design as a hypermasculine tank could further infuence the positive opinion many players have about him.

While the name of the #deletebrig movement suggests that its supporters wanted the character deleted, the criticism was mainly targeted toward Brigitte's abilities, rather than the whole character. Nevertheless, those who opposed the movement discussed Brigitte as a character who was more than just her abilities—someone with a background story, personality, and a particular aesthetic. This suggests different ways of engaging with the game and its characters: those who equate the character almost fully with her abilities, character as simulation, and those who focus more strongly on the character's narrative representation (cf. Schröter and Thon 2014; see also Blamey, this volume). Similar ideas are echoed in Ragnhild Tronstad's (2008) examination of play and characters in *World of Warcraft*, where she argues that a character's appearance cannot be treated independently from their capacities, as both together create the fow of the play, but in different forms of play one might take preference over other: in role-play the character appearance and background have a more important role, while in what she calls regular play, knowing the character's skill sets and mechanics, is more important.

Even though it appeared the criticism was mainly targeted against Brigitte's abilities, Brigitte's voice actor, Matilda Smedius, also received hate mail for the character even though she was not responsible for designing Brigitte's abilities.4 Smedius gained celebrity beyond that of a typical voice actor, not based on her professional work but on character mechanics which are beyond her control. One reason can be the transmedial expansions which promoted the voice actor by making her narration the only dialogue in Brigitte's introductory video and origin story. This intertwining of actress and character in character reception can be understood through parasocial relationships with media fgures, where "the user responds as in a typical social relationship" (Giles 2002, 279), but it also emphasizes how the character's synthetic component can become foregrounded in the player's emotional engagement with the character, when we understand the focus on voice acting as focus on the synthetic.

Apparently, as a result of community feedback, Brigitte's abilities have been under constant change since her launch.  Many of these changes took place during the running of our survey, and this is evident in comments about her being too strong and "being constantly nerfed5 for that reason, just bad ability design from Blizzard", thus, focusing on the character as an artifact, their synthetic component, rather than their narrative or simulation. However, players who enjoy playing Brigitte would sometimes see these constant changes as an attack to everything Brigitte is and represents. In a discussion thread in the offcial *Overwatch* forum one player organized "Brigitte's funeral" after Brigitte received her 19th change since her introduction to the game. The player wrote:

This marks Brigitte's fnal resting place. Some of us have had memories of joy and happiness with her; some have had disagreements with her. No matter what you believe, I hope you can acknowledge she touched us all in some way or another.

Other players joined the discussion, echoing similar sentiment, for instance by writing:

She's undeniably signifcantly worse than before the latest changes, but that's completely irrelevant. It's not about her being "good" or "bad", but rather about her having anything left of what made her Brigitte and not interchangeable with some random healer archetype. They can balance characters without gutting what makes them unique and gives them character. Well, apparently they can't, but it'd be perfectly possible.

Thus, for some Brigitte players the constant changes in Brigitte's abilities did not only make playing her less enjoyable, but changed her as a character to an extent they perceived her as "dead".

The criticism and discussion surrounding Brigitte foregrounds the character's synthetic component, but simultaneously, draws our attention to the character's mimetic qualities, particularly her narrative representation as someone who is not quite there yet, who is learning and evolving, which seems to correspond with the state of her mechanics as constantly changing and evolving.

#### Discussion

Reinhardt and Brigitte as fctional characters have life stories that are heavily intertwined, and they also share similar aesthetics and game mechanics. The differences between them lie in their production and reception. Reinhardt was one of the original game characters, available to the players from the game's launch. His mechanics have stayed unchanged, loyal to his portrayal as the steadfast soldier, and the transmedial content built around him has so far not forced any signifcant changes to the perception of his personality but has rather emphasized his existing traits. The one major event that changed Reinhardt is far in the past and is depicted as one more reason for his steadfast nature.

Conversely, Brigitte was launched as a game character almost two years later and her mechanics have been repeatedly altered on several occasions. While she existed as a fctional character from early on, her story was heavily built around Reinhardt and has not really been feshed out from that starting point. In the fctional world of *Overwatch*, she is described as someone who is still learning, and who is constantly undergoing change, but thus far she has been unable to progress, and is, quite contrary, stuck in the eternal learning phase in the narrative stagnation point where Overwatch gameplay is located. Thus, in terms of changes to mechanics as well as narrative development, these characters have been treated quite differently.

Methodologically, the players' relationships with characters like Reinhardt, who do not elicit an abundance of comments or discussion by players, become more visible and understandable by contrasting to the reception of a character like Brigitte. The reception of these characters has been extremely different. For the most part, Reinhardt raised only positive comments in our survey with respondents expressing enjoyment of the familiar mechanics, enjoyable gameplay, and his personality. Analysis of Reinhardt's character shows how both mechanics and narrative can foreground the synthetic component of the character. Conficts in the narrative representation can draw the player's attention to the character's synthetic component. Player's ludic experience (Schröter and Thon 2014) can also orient their focus toward the synthetic component when they are learning character mechanics and gaining understanding of their part in the construction of the character.

Simultaneously, our survey included multiple negative comments on Brigitte, and the negative reception to introducing Brigitte as a playable character even took the form of a social media campaign. Brigitte represented a change to the balance of gameplay and to the familiar collection of heroes. The constant changes to her mechanics may also make it more diffcult to engage with her. Here the synthetic component of the character was foregrounded through reception.

Conversely, in actual gameplay, the experience of playing Reinhardt can be one of the constant struggles between following impulses and making strategic gameplay decisions. Reinhardt's aggressive personality and the corresponding abilities constantly lure the player into charging and abandoning one's team, forcing the player into balancing between the offensive and defensive mechanics and play styles. With Brigitte, this kind of struggle is not present since her offensive and defensive mechanics are intertwined. The perceived ease of playing Brigitte by some players may also derive from this intertwinement of the character mechanics.

The different attitudes toward Reinhardt and Brigitte, and, on the other hand, the different attitudes by those liking and disliking Brigitte suggest different ways of engaging with the game characters. While in narratives and media products the focus can fuctuate between the mimetic and the synthetic character components (Phelan and Rabinowitz 2012), the reception by individual players and player communities can also foreground one over the other. Negative perceptions in one area, in Brigitte's case the mechanics, can draw the focus on the synthetic component of the character, including not just how the mechanics are designed but also other areas of character creation, like voice acting. The criticism directed toward Brigitte's voice actor, Matilda Smedius, is particularly interesting in comparison to how Reinhardt's voice was highlighted in our survey as a reason for liking the character, but without any mentions of his voice actor.

As more and more games are created not as stand-alone products, but as parts of a transmedial world, it is necessary to consider how the relationships between players and characters are affected by this transmedial context. Our analysis shows how in game-centered transmedial worlds such as *Overwatch*, transmedial expansions, while not necessary for understanding the game, can make the design of a particular game mechanic more understandable and as such can affect the experience of playing a character, as in the case of Reinhardt, and deeply affect players' engagement with a particular character, as in Brigitte's case.

Change, whether it is the introduction of new characters or a change in mechanics, or the perceived need for change, reveals the affective relationship the players have with heroes. In the case of characters in transmedial worlds, such as Reinhardt and Brigitte, combining character analysis and different forms of data on player reception has enabled us to show how the relationship between the mimetic and the synthetic component is not fxed, but can change over time in both production and reception of characters and how it can alter from player to player and from a community of players to the next.

#### Notes

#### References

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# Competing in *Overwatch*

# "KKona where's your sense of patriotism?": Positioning Nationality in the Spectatorship of Competitive Overwatch Play

*Marko Siitonen and Maria Ruotsalainen*

This chapter analyzes the discursive construction of nationality and ethnicity in the context of the *Overwatch World Cup 2019* and especially among the discussions of the world cup's spectators on the live-streaming platform Twitch. Drawing on the positioning theory and the concept of banal nationalism, our study demonstrates how esports fans are active negotiators and co-creators of the esports discourse. The analysis illustrates what kind of role nationality and ethnicity take in this environment, in other words what they come to mean for those participating in the discourses defning them.

M. Siitonen (\*)

University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
M. Ruotsalainen Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© The Author(s) 2022 89 M. Ruotsalainen et al. (eds.), *Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch*, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0\_6

#### Nationalism and Esports

In this study we follow Billig's (1995) conceptualization of nationalism, which forefronts the banal forms of nationalism alongside so-called hot or heated nationalism. Billig argued that the way nationalism is traditionally understood in research literature is by references to the extraordinary—for example to extreme right-wing movements or the creation processes of new nation states. As a counterpoint to these approaches, Billig introduced the concept of banal nationalism, which refers to the many ways in which nationalism is made into being and upheld through repetitive everyday phenomena. This includes the way nationalism is normalized, and embedded into our everyday life through media, symbols, and texts. In short, it is socially constructed in everyday social interaction. While banal nationalism can appear mundane on the surface, it can become heated or hot nationalism fast (Billig 1995). We furthermore align with Anderson's (2006 [1983]) conceptualization of nations as imagined communities, socially constructed sources of a sense of 'us', and something that keeps on being adapted and transformed by its stakeholders through communication.

Banal nationalism is particularly visible in sports and sports coverage, where national symbols such as fags are constantly displayed in order to enhance and normalize the sense of national belonging (Billig 1995). The relationship between nationalism and sports is a well-studied phenomenon. Several studies have shown how sports has been used as a tool in nation-building and evoking the nationalist sentiment (Bowes and Bairner 2019; Crawford 2004; Hong 2013, King 2006).

In the context of esports and competitive gaming, nationalism and its displays have been less studied, nor has competitive gaming always been understood through the lens of sports. The concept of esports itself was only introduced in around 1999 (Wagner 2006) and debates concerning whether esports is truly a sport continue to this day (cf. Hallmann and Giel 2018; Taylor 2012; Witkowski 2012). Some of the competitive gaming communities also resist the term 'esports' as it is seen to commercialize and 'tame' the activity of competitive gaming (Ferrari 2013). However, some notable esport events like the World Cyber Games, launched in 2000, have framed themselves similarly to traditional sport competitions, and thus aimed to evoke a sense of national belonging from the viewers as well as the players (Taylor 2012; Szablewicz 2016). In more recent years, the frst Overwatch World Cup, held in 2016, utilized a similar formula. Turtiainen et al. (2018) note that nationalism was a particularly strong element in the construction of the tournament broadcast. They argue that the event was *sportifed* in many of its aspects, meaning that it drew from the representation of traditional sports (cf. Heere 2018; Jonasson and Thiborg 2010; Thiborg 2011). This was visible for instance in the display of national symbols and the way the event was narrated by the casters (Turtiainen et al. 2018). Similarly, Szablewicz (2016) highlights how in China esports operates as a state mandated spectacle whose primary function is to display nationalism and ideology.

Nationalism in esports has also been studied from the viewpoint of individual actors, such as fans and spectators. For example, Välisalo and Ruotsalainen (2019) point out the importance of nationality of favorite Overwatch esport players for the fans. Zhu (2018, 130) draws attention to the way masculinity, nationality, and ethnicity intersect in esports, paying particular attention to how 'Asian' players are constructed as both feminine and physically inferior to 'Western' players in discussion boards. Given these previous studies, it is clear that nationalist sentiment can be present in esports, but more studies are needed on the topic in order to understand the ways esports operates to reproduce the mechanisms of banal nationalism. In this study, we address this question by examining the way nationalism and its intersections with ethnicity are discursively constructed by esports viewers in the context of a large, international tournament.

#### Positioning Theory

Concepts such as nationality or ethnicity should not be understood as something abstract located within individuals' minds, but rather as being progressively negotiated by actors who engage in discursive practices. Here, we focus our analysis on so-called *positioning* (Davies and Harré 1990), which may be understood as a conceptual tool for facilitating linguistically oriented analysis of social episodes. At its heart, positioning is a process wherein people negotiate 'rights' and 'duties'. These are defned as "shorthand terms for clusters of moral (normative) presuppositions which people believe or are told or slip into and to which they are momentarily bound in what they say and do" (Harré et al. 2009, 9). Both nationality and ethnicity are examples of such 'clusters'. We may position ourselves as well as others, and any so-called frstorder positioning may be contested (second order positioning). Overall, positioning can be seen as being constructed as layers upon layers, where ongoing positioning may be related to positioning that occurred before, in a wholly other discursive practice (Harré and Van Langenhove 2010).

Positioning theory utilizes the concept of jointly produced storylines or unfolding narratives as something through which we make sense of who we and the others surrounding us are. It is through these stories that we learn to separate ourselves and others into social categories, and further allocate meanings to those categories. Social encounters may develop along multiple, interlinking storylines, and actions people take may carry multiple meanings and tie into multiple storylines simultaneously (Harré et al. 2009). For example, in the context of this chapter, the grand storylines could be those of (e)sports, media events, nationality, and ethnicity, all intersecting with one another.

Positioning theory has also been used to understand the issue of cultural stereotyping (Van Langenhove and Harré 1994). Instead of seeing cultural stereotypes as relatively stable cognitive models, a positioning viewpoint shifts the focus on stereotypes as social constructs. By making stereotypes public within a conversation, actors use them as rhetorical devices in the process of positioning. In the realm of discourse online, for example, Devlin (2016) illustrated how participants on Russian online political message boards used national or ethnic insults drawing on stereotypes as a way to construct the cultural other and to demarcate boundaries between 'us' and 'them'.

In this study, we use the tenets of positioning theory as a kind of analytical lens that helps us understand the construction of banal nationalism in the context of esports. The premise of our study is that concepts such as nationality and ethnicity are ultimately mental constructs that need to be not only imagined, but also 'modelled' into being (Anderson, 2006 [1983]). Often, this is done via communication acts that appear mundane or ordinary (Billig 1995). These premises ft well with the idea of jointly produced storylines inherent to positioning theory. As a discursive approach, positioning theory instructs us to focus our attention to those instances, where the self, others, and relationships with other people are made visible (constructed) in actual social interaction.

Our study contributes to the emerging work on how nationality and ethnicity are made visible and relevant (discursively constructed) in online contexts, here specifcally within the realm of esports. More specifcally, our analysis focuses on the *Overwatch World Cup 2019* and the live discussions of the world cup's spectators on Twitch. We chose this particular event for our analysis since earlier research has demonstrated both the national elements in the broadcast (Turtiainen et al. 2018) as well as the importance of nationality for the fans of Overwatch esports (Välisalo and Ruotsalainen 2019). Our study seeks to answer the following research questions:

Over the next paragraphs, we briefy introduce Twitch as a context of social interaction. Then, we present our method and describe our analytical approach, before moving on to the fndings.

#### Twitch as <sup>a</sup> Platform

Twitch (www.twitch.tv) has been a forerunner in shaping the so-called live-streaming culture. As Johnson and Woodcock (2018) point out, Twitch has had a marked impact on the video game industry on the whole, enabling new marketing strategies as well as new forms of digital economy. In early 2021, Twitch had reached an average of nearly three million concurrent viewers, with close to ten million monthly streamers (https:// twitchtracker.com/statistics). While most of the content of Twitch comes from individual players or streamers, the platform has also been a major actor in helping live-streaming esports scale up to the kind of media entertainment it is today (Taylor, 2018).

An integral part of the way Twitch spectators interact among themselves as well as with streamers is its chat function. The Twitch chat combines text with graphical icons called emotes (also: emoticons or emojis). Emotes have a textual label, but the way they normally are presented in the chat are as small images (Image 6.1). Some emotes are only visible in other than text format with a browser extension such as *Better Twitch TV* (BTTV).

Many of the emotes used on Twitch, such as generic smileys, are similar to the ones used across other digital communication platforms. However, some of them are either specifc to Twitch, or have originated there, and can be considered to be internet *memes*. Internet memes are here understood as units or building blocks of culture (Shifman 2013), which are collectively negotiated, remixed, and recirculated in social media discourse (Milner 2016).

Gillespie (2010) argues that platforms such as Google and YouTube are the "the primary keepers of cultural discussions as it moves to the internet" (p. 348) which means they also face questions of responsibility on how these discussions evolve. Gillespie further asserts that by branding

**Image 6.1** Examples of Twitch emotes in their graphical and textual format. (Source: https://www.twitchemotes.com)

their service as 'platform', a term that suggests technical neutrality and progressive openness, these companies seek to diminish this responsibility. Following Gillespie's framework of platform politics, Ask et al. (2019) note that initially Twitch was committed to this neutrality in their approach to the user-created content, but once they were acquired by Amazon.com in 2014, more strict guidelines started to appear. Amazon has shown signs of taking responsibility for what kind of discussion happens in twitch. For example, the popular 'pogchamp' emote was changed once the person it previously displayed became associated with opinions furthering violence (Kelly 2021).

Nevertheless, most of the responsibility of what kind of discussions take place in individual Twitch channels is still left in the hands of channel moderators. Since it is well-known that Twitch chat may include harassment such as sexism (Nakandala et al. 2017), and racism (Gray 2016), tournament broadcasters of the Overwatch World Cup 2019 included chat moderation. Twitch moderation typically includes both human moderators and automated algorithms. Algorithms for example time-out or ban users using words that have been black-listed and delete messages containing these words (Cai and Wohn 2019). Moderators and the moderating guidelines hold considerable power on what can and cannot be said in the chat and this also infuences who gets to participate in the discussion and who is excluded (Grimmelmann 2015).

### *Overwatch World Cup 2019* as <sup>a</sup> Setting

Overwatch World Cup 2019 was the fourth of its kind. A total of 28 national teams participated in the tournament, which was organized between October 31 and November 2 as part of Blizzcon in Los Angeles, USA. Blizzcon is an annual convention of the game publisher Blizzard Entertainment that centers around the publisher's games. While all World Cup matches were played in the Blizzcon or its vicinity, the preliminary qualifers and the group stages were not played in front of a live audience. Throughout the tournament all the matches were broadcast live on Twitch. During the frst days there were fve overlapping streams (cf. channels) due to a number of games being played simultaneously. Due to the way spectatorship is split among multiple channels, it is impossible to accurately tell how many viewers the 2019 World Cup had. Still, one indication of the popularity of the tournament is that the semi-fnal that we analyze later on in this chapter gathered approximately 146,000 viewers on the offcial stream.1

#### Data and Analysis

Studies drawing on positioning theory usually follow a social constructionist epistemology, and can be grouped under the broad umbrella of discourse analytical research interested in 'locally' negotiated meanings (Harré et al. 2009). Our study, which is interested in the discursive coconstruction of nationality and ethnicity in the context of esports, adopts a similar analytical stance.

The data of our study consists of the public Overwatch World Cup 2019 Twitch broadcasts and the live chats connected to them. Both authors of this chapter as well as one research assistant followed the tournament live, and recorded matches and their chats as they were being played. In the end, we had 11 recordings totaling 500 minutes of video footage. We also gathered the chat logs of each recording in text format with the help of an automated tool *Chatty* (https://chatty.github.io/), which is freely available online.

As a frst step of the analysis we engaged in a round of so-called data reduction (Guest et al. 2012). After deliberation we chose to focus on two matches. First, we chose the USA versus South Korea semifnals match for the reason that it had the highest number of viewers in the entire tournament, and featured a team from the country where the tournament was organized (USA). Another reason for including this match was that both USA and South Korea have a long history or rivalry in the context of the Overwatch World Cup. Second, we chose the Finland versus The Netherlands group stage match. Since most of the tournament games came from the group stage, this match represented a 'standard' match. It was played between two teams that did not rank high in the overall predictions, had fewer viewers, and therefore represented a less 'heated' matchup in the tournament. As an added beneft, the authors could understand both countries' languages and cultural context well enough to catch up on the more subtle meanings possibly hidden in the chat.

The USA versus South Korea match recording was 127 minutes long. The log fle of the chat for this match was 206,312 words long. The Finland versus The Netherlands match recording was 48 minutes long. The log fle was 30,794 words long.

The analysis was conducted by both authors. We began the analysis by watching and re-watching the matches, as well as closely inspecting the log fles. During this initial critical reading, we engaged in continuous discussions on the types of positioning we could identify in the data. We took a multimodal approach (Kress 2010) to our analysis. In the case of Twitch, there are several modes, such as writing, images, speech, and moving image, that together act as the building blocks of the social event. For the purpose of our analysis, the way different semiotic modalities interact or are combined is of importance. For example, we concentrated on how text and images join together to create new meanings. This kind of interaction is called inter-modality, or intersemiosis (O'Halloran 2011).

As Gee (2010, 117) argues, no discourse analysis is ever based on all the features present in a text, but rather aims to focus on the aspects of data that are relevant in the context and for the given task. Of course, the choice of what to include as relevant is ultimately a matter of theoretically informed qualitative interpretation. Due to the vast scope of the data, it was not feasible to 'code' every single line of chat or emote posted by the tournament viewers. Instead, based on our initial reading, we focused on those passages that included discursive positioning of the self or the other, and where this positioning was linked to nationality or ethnicity. After a further round of critical reading and discussions, we settled on four themes that pervaded the data and through which we can explore the discursive construction of nationality and ethnicity in the context of esport viewership. Over the next section we will explore these themes further. First, we will show how the visual and symbolic environment of the tournament sets the stage for the discursive construction of nationality. Second, we discuss the use of ethnically loaded memes as focal points, around which positioning occurs. Third, we explore how 'the other' and, therefore, the self are explicitly constructed. And fourth, we show how national languages may be used as a tool for in-group positioning.

#### Findings

#### *Visual and Symbolic Positioning of Nationality*

In line with an earlier study of the Overwatch World Cup 2016 (Turtiainen et al. 2018), our analysis shows that nationality was constructed through a variety of means during the tournament. These include the use of national fags in the visualization of the matches, using standardized jerseys with fags, as well as narrative means, such as the way the teams or players are presented in video highlights. The broadcast, especially after moving from online-only matches to those played in a physical setting, used similar tropes as traditional sports in setting the stage. An example of this comes from the beginning of the match between the USA and South Korea that was played in front of a live audience. After the Korean players were already seated, team USA entered the stage with the audience waving US fags and chanting "USA, USA". Simultaneously, the chat reacted to the scene, as if echoing the live audience's chanting. On top of loud, pompous music, the caster was shouting: "Put your hands together for … the Unites States of America!".

During tournament gameplay, nationality was continuously being enforced by presenting national fags on the screen both beside the team names as well as underneath the battle tag (nickname) of individual players (Image 6.3). In addition, in-game characters of playing teams were dressed in special 'skins' (cf. player uniform), allowing the whole team to be uniformly colored. This kind of extra layer of positioning by the tournament broadcasters is made even more relevant when one imagines the event without them—for example, most players' battle tags are not easily retractable to their nationality, and the in-game characters are also otherwise identical on both sides. Without such cues, a random viewer entering the match would certainly not be able to make out who is playing whom.

Throughout the tournament, spectators also made use of the possibility of including national fags into the Twitch chat. Combined with specifcally highlighting nationality in messages such as "go USA from FRANCE", this allowed spectators to refexively position themselves while simultaneously positioning others. Put together, this type of banal nationalism (Billig 1995) contributes to the jointly produced storyline of nations battling each other.

**Image 6.2** Team USA entering the arena

**Image 6.3** Visual cues constructing nationality during the gameplay broadcast

While the broadcast clearly utilized national tropes and symbolic means similar to other established sports, most of the audience involvement was not as straightforward to decipher. Instead of a uniform, non-contested storyline, the audience could be seen as fuctuating between affrmative and ironic or counter discourses concerning nationality and related concepts such as ethnicity. Over the next section, we will explore a key example of such a discourse—the construction of 'Kkona'.

#### *The Ambivalence of Ethnically Loaded Memes*

In addition to nationality, also ethnicity was a relevant theme in the data. An interesting example of multimodal discursive construction of ethnicity comes from the way the meme known as 'Kkona' was used by the spectators (see examples below for the graphical representation of Kkona). 'Kkona' was a recurrent message/emote in the chat during the USA versus South Korea match, featuring over 4000 times in the chat log. The origin of the emote is a picture of a US American long-time streamer whose on-screen nickname is Kkona. The emote itself was removed from Twitch in 2018, but its use in textual format continued, and at the time of the tournament, the emote was included in the browser extension *Better Twitch TV*. Kkona is generally understood to refer to a stereotypical American "hillbilly" or "redneck" (Urbandictionary.com 2020; Levvvel. com 2020). Throughout the chat, Kkona was used both for refective frstperson positioning of the self, and interactive positioning of the other. The positioning of the self is visible in chat lines such as:

• "Let's go brothers, In God we trust "

The use of 'brothers' and 'my boys' suggests that the speakers align themselves in the same in-group as the US players, and use Kkona as a tool of self-positioning. In the frst quote the use of the sentence "in God we trust", the offcial motto of the USA, further strengthens this. The second quote demonstrates the use of Kkona in relation to Donald Trump, who was the president of the USA at the time of the tournament. In the chat, Kkona was also often used with proverbs and punch lines widely connected to Trump (such as "Make America great again").

The third quote above has the number '7' following the text Kkona, which adds a possible racialized dimension to the use of the meme. Number seven, which can be seen as a graphical representation of an arm doing a military salute, can also be read as referring to a banned emote, 'Trihard7' (Image 6.4). This emote became notorious after it was spammed in the Twitch chat during a *Hearthstone* competition every time an African-American player Terrence "TerrenceM" Miller was shown in the camera (see, e.g., Fletcher 2020). Utilizing the number seven with the emoji Kkona can be read as a form of defance for the ban of Trihard7. Unlike Trihard7 in the case of TerrenceM, Kkona in our data was not spammed for any particular player but rather in connection with anything related to the USA. In effect, Kkona constructs and refers to a particular kind of (white) American identity, thus being both ethnically and nationally loaded.

Throughout the chat, Kkona was also used in a sense that can be interpreted as ironic. For example, when the live audience was shown in the stream, and some members of the audience were seen holding fags of South Korea, the chat erupted with comments such as:

There appears to be a sense of ridiculing the idea of national belonging here and perhaps even the way the event itself is constructed to evoke national belonging. The third quote includes the 'Kappa' emote. The Kappa emote generally stands for indication of irony or sarcasm (Dictionary. com 2020). Its inclusion here suggests that while there clearly is

**Image 6.4** Trihard7 emoji

nation-building at work among spectators, there are also levels of irony or sarcasm related to this.

The ambivalent meaning of Kkona was further visible in the way it was utilized as a tool for building counter discourse to that offered by the offcial stream. An example of this comes from the US versus South Korea match, where between games the Twitch stream displayed advertisements. Among the advertisements of technology, game, and phone companies commonly seen in similar broadcasts, there was also a recruitment video by the United States Air Force. The video states that today "planes are piloted from the other side of the world" while showing video footage of a soldier sitting in front of two screens in an army base, almost as if playing a video game. Overall, the video uses glorifying language in describing members of the US air force, including statements such as: "We are not just pilots and engineers, we are pioneers", and "Join us and be the future". While audience reactions to most ads in the chat data was rare, or simply signaled boredom, the comments to the recruitment video showed a different level of attention, including comments such as:

• "HELP US COMMIT WAR CRIMES "

Here, Kkona continues to be associated with the USA, but takes on a much more condemning tone. While during the gameplay Kkona was often added to chants of "USA, USA" when team USA was performing well in the game, here it becomes connotated with practices of "liberating oil", "bombing innocent civilians", and "committing war crimes". While it is clear that it is a particular kind of US Americans who are being positioned here, it is not clear who is doing the positioning—the use of Kkona in this context could be seen as either interactive or refexive positioning. When looking at the way chat participants use Kkona throughout the match, multiple ways of using the emote are revealed: In some cases those who in other instances use Kkona in a positive way turn it around in this particular situation; in some cases those who in other instances cheer for USA (without Kkona) use Kkona here negatively, perhaps to signify a kind of 'American' they do not want to identify with; and some of the cases remain highly ambivalent, allowing multiple interpretations of the use of Kkona.

#### *Positioning the Other*

The context of the World Cup, where teams representing nationalities were in competition with each other, provided a clear framework for conceptualizing 'the other'. This basic setup was also refected and reinforced in the chat. For example, in the US versus South Korea match, messages positioning Koreans included such as:

In the above excerpts, both 'haksal' and 'carpe' refer to the player tags of players in the Korean team. This kind of positioning of the Koreans is akin to the way Zhu's (2018) description of how Asians are often perceived within 'Western' esports communities. According to Zu, Asians are othered through both feminization and roboticization (2018). This was visible in the chat through physical description of Asian players ("tiny Asians" "cute") and framing them as 'OP' (Overpowered), a term used to describe powerful videogame characters, strategies, and so on. Another theme that was visible in this type of positioning was the so-called fetishization of Korean players and South Korea as the promised dreamland of esports (Taylor 2012). In the chat the skill of the Korean players was often the focal point of how they were positioned.

In addition to positioning Koreans as players, the chat included messages positioning their fans. Again, this kind of positioning often evoked certain existing stereotypes and concepts, such as referring to kpop (Korean pop-music) fandom or the concept of 'weabu' or 'weeb', which is often used to describe a Western person obsessed with Japanese culture or Asian popular culture at large:

At the same time, the chat also positioned the American fans as a distinct group. This kind of positioning was, again, done mostly with the help of negatively loaded descriptions, such as the stereotype connecting US Americans with junk food and obesity:

In the Finland versus The Netherlands match, there was an interesting case of positioning Finns as the 'exotic' other by both the casters and the chat participants. The casters began the segment by speaking about Finns and wondering what Finnish people do in their spare time: "I believe they fsh. They fsh and they complain about the cold". They then moved on to discuss a particular Finnish player, 'Taimou', spending time in his home country, roaming the countryside, and going "Full on Kkona, the Finnish version". The chat then picked up on the discussion, including messages such as:

This kind of discourse can be seen as including both interactive and refexive positioning, which together outline the storyline of 'Finnishness'. It resonates with the widely circulated myth of Finns being distinct from other (West) European national groups, as well as the myth of their taciturn and reserved communication style (for a critical review of the myth, see Olbertz-Siitonen and Siitonen 2015).

#### *In-Group Positioning by Using National Languages in an International Chat*

While the offcial streams were broadcasted in English, and the vast majority of the messages posted in the chat used this language, there were also occasional messages in other languages present. This was especially apparent in the Finland versus The Netherlands match, where both teams came from countries where English is not an offcial language. In this match, the chat included a number of messages such as "Min hart kan dit niet aan" ("My heart cannot take this"), and "hyvä pojat hyvä meno" ("good job boys, good going"). It is perhaps noteworthy to add here that moderators allowed the use of national languages in the chat. This is not to be taken for granted on channels that are aimed at an international audience, and where, for example, English is used as a lingua franca.

Using a playing team's national language can be seen as a prime example of frst-order positioning in this context. Even though the posters may be aware of the likelihood of the majority of the international audience not understanding what is being said, using the national language of one of the playing teams effectively positions them as a member of the same ingroup as the players.

Some of this kind of frst-order performative positioning (Harré and van Langenhove 2010) where spectators used languages of the playing teams utilized memes. Spectators evoking memes in playing teams' national languages could be seen as engaging in a kind of double in-group positioning. Not only does one need to understand the language in question to participate in the construction of the meme, but one also has to be versed in a specifc subculture. For example, in parts of the match where the opposing team was dominating, some apparently Finnish spectators posted "FIRST WE GIVE THEM SIIMA, THEN WE \_PULL\_ MATTO ALTA". This combination of English and Finnish could be roughly translated as "First we cut them some slack, then we pull the rug from under them". While the idiom "to pull the rug from under (someone)" can be used in both Finnish and English, this particular version of the meme deliberately combines both languages. It originates from the context of another popular game, *Counter Strike: Global Offensive*, and specifcally the Finnish team ENCE.

Positioning theory argues that whenever someone positions themselves, they inevitably imply a positioning of 'the other' as well. At times, this parallel nature of positioning was even clearer than normally, a kind of challenge or gauntlet thrown down at the perceived adversary. For example, at the point in the match between Finland and The Netherlands where The Netherlands was leading 2–0 on a best of fve match, the theme of colonization started appearing in the chat:

Messages such as these utilize both the national language as well as the history of the nation in question to intentionally position participants into in- and out-groups. These messages are also connected to a meme playing with the colonial history of The Netherlands. We can see a similarity to how Kkona is used, where in-group members formulate an ambivalent message concerning their own group or position.

Overall, while not abundant in the data set, the use of national languages in an international (English language) chat was a consistent discursive tool that participants used to engage in intentional and deliberate positioning. Here, a parallel may be drawn to other contexts such as international business, where there is often a shared (third) language, but people may still opt to use their mother tongue in certain situations as a symbolic tool with which identifcation and community may be strategically constructed (e.g., Lauring 2008).

#### Conclusions

This study contributes to our understanding of how esports producers and viewers discursively construct nationality and ethnicity in the context of esports. From the visual presentation to the way the audience reacts, the whole production may be seen as following familiar tropes related to constructing nationality in the context of sports (Billig 1995; Bowes and Bairner 2019). However, the analysis also shows that this construction was not uni-dimensional, nor uncontested. Often, the contents of the chat could only be interpreted as being ironic and even producing a satiric counter discourse to that offered by the tournament organizers, similar to what has been witnessed in the feld of contemporary politics and activism (Day 2011). For example, the pompousness often related to emphasizing nationality was ridiculed in many ways by the spectators. Also the case of 'Kkona', and the way the colonial history of The Netherlands was used by chat participants, illustrate how the same messages may be used both for refexive and interactive positioning, and to simultaneously affrm and undermine existing storylines related to nationality and ethnicity. In several instances the audience could be interpreted as occupying a position of frst and foremost belonging to player culture(s), and only secondarily belonging to a national or ethnic group. We argue that this kind of behavior is connected to a broader tradition of 'trolling' prevalent in-game cultures (Cook et al. 2018). Here, provocative messages can be seen as a kind of 'bait' or challenge to other participants. The ability to understand and use memes signifes the boundary of the in-group, with those who become offended or do not understand their use being left on the outside (Manivannan 2013). This also functions as a way of constructing a normative order amongst spectators which is furthermore strengthened by practices such as spamming the chat with memes, thus possibly hiding the individual messages which do not follow the established use of memes.

While the setting of the World Cup emphasizes nationality as a key category for grouping participants, our analysis shows how ethnicity may also become relevant. From the way the South Korean players and fans were characterized to the way Finnish players and Finns in general were discussed by the casters and the chat, our analysis shows that when positioning nationality, the question of ethnicity is never far behind (Bairner 2015; Rowe et al. 1998).

Finally, our analysis highlights how national languages were used as a tool for frst-order self-positioning. In an international environment where English is used as lingua franca, the use of other languages carries a message in and of itself. As Brubaker (2013) argues, language may serve as a kind of central category in establishing societal inclusion and exclusion, inherently intertwined with ethnicity and nationhood. This fnding works as a reminder of the importance of language for nation-building (Anderson 2006 [1983]).

Our analysis of language in use contributes to the literature on how online contexts such as Twitch allow people to locally negotiate new social practices, or what one could call digital literacy in its broad, action-oriented meaning (see, e.g., Barton and Hamilton 1998). Understanding, let alone participating in, the discourse surrounding the World Cup requires a certain level of digital and game literacy (cf. Milner 2016 on literacy required to participate in memetic discourse).

Our study also serves as a reminder of the kind of challenges that interpreting memes represent. Since memes are constantly evolving and being negotiated also from situation to situation, the interpretation relies heavily on contextual cues and knowledge. We also witnessed how memes that were originally constructed to operate in a visual mode may continue to exist in another modality (text), once they have become established enough.

As always, our study has its limitations. When large competitions such as the Overwatch World Cup are streamed to the public, there are always several unoffcial streams that accompany the main one, often with multiple languages. It would have been interesting to follow the Korean, Finnish, and Dutch streams of the event in addition to the mainstream where the offcial language was English. This could have opened the door to other kinds of analyses, such as comparing the positioning done in the 'national' streams against the main channel. However, due to practical reasons such as language profciency, and the way smaller streams are easily lost in the multitude of Twitch programming, we ended up focusing on the offcial streams only. Future studies could explore the way smaller, linguistically or nationally oriented streams may interact, or whether there are apparent differences in their discourse.

#### Note

1. It must be mentioned here that the Overwatch World Cup 2019 was played under the infuence of a public debate related to Blizzard Entertainment as a publisher. The debate began in October 2019 in another one of Blizzard Entertainment's games, *Hearthstone*, where a tournament winner and two hosts were suspended from the esports scene for voicing out support for the then ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong. This caused a public backlash against Blizzard Entertainment. Most of the chats we recorded included messages related to the situation in Hong Kong. These ranged from the simple "Free Hong Kong" message to a variety of often humorous alterations similar to what have been observed in other contexts such as Reddit (Dynel and Poppi 2020). Since this event and the related messages represent rather 'heated' nationalism instead of the everyday positioning we wanted to focus on in our study, we decided to leave them out of the focus of this study.

#### References

*Journal of Cross Cultural Management* 8, no.3: 343–361. https://doi. org/10.1177/1470595808096673

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

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# A Region of Contenders: Overwatch in Brazil

### *Mayara Caetano*

#### Introduction and Background

In February 2021, Blizzard Entertainment decided to close the South American branch of its professional *Overwatch*. For the majority of the game's global audiences, this came as a surprise—why were the owners removing one of the largest and most active populations from professional competition? This chapter provides possible explanations for the above by analyzing perceptions of *Overwatch* in Brazil via its public media materials before the close-down. It explains how PC-based play in particular has had diffculty thriving in this cultural context, suggesting that some arguments propagated within esports practices might not translate to reality or having a misinterpretation about how and why structures matter if the aim is broadening and diversifying esports scenario.

Since infrastructural, socioeconomic, and cultural aspects infuence the agency of individuals, a critical examination is needed to evaluate public reports on the country as well as data from the offcial regulating committees, which measure technology, accessibility, and digital inclusion in the nationwide context. It should be noted that, following Blizzard Entertainment's decision, when referring to the "region" or South

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America (SA), this most commonly means Brazil and does not refect other countries or their players' experiences.

Marketing and media reports tend to promote Brazil as a promising land for esports, with masses of highly engaged people. According to Statista reports published in January 2021, the Brazilian gaming and esports markets generated 31 million Brazilian reals (US \$5.4 million) in revenue in 2018 (Statista 2021) and this is expected to reach US \$1.17 billion by 2023 (Statista 2021). Esport Charts, (Esport Charts 2021) in turn, presented the country as an attractive opportunity for teams operating on both the local and global scales because it has an engaged audience, professional players, and online performers across gaming platforms1 and segments.

Beyond the above data, Brazilians exhibit communitarian patterns of behavior such as extensive support toward intense backlashes. Despite Brazilian Portuguese being the dominant language, people also consume English content and manage to fnd ways to understand what is being said. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, the Brazilian gaming community started breaking records. In 2020, Gaules, (Esport Charts 2020a) a variety streamer in Twitch, was the second most-watched channel in the world with 133.6M hours watched (Esport Charts 2020c). LOUD, a gaming organization, reached the billion mark on their YouTube channel and when it transitioned to Twitch, maintained an outstanding performance (Esport Charts 2020b).

The picture drawn by fnancial success tells little about the structural context for the country, however. The local player archetype that has been the basis of decision-making and investments is usually developed using data from only one city, Sao Paulo.2 This can overlook the full picture of what is being played, who is engaging, and how.

As Penix-Tadsen (2019) pointed out, games are being appropriated around the world in the most peculiar and unexpected ways. At the same time, however, play is also restricted due to various practical realities such as lacking infrastructure (e.g., Messias et al. 2019). According to ICT Households (2018), during the past decade, Brazil has gone through an accelerated process of Internet access and is gradually drawing closer to the numbers found in more developed countries.3 Within this period, Internet access has climbed from 18% to 67%. On the other hand, inequalities have remained critical (ibid., p. 250). For example, socioeconomic indicators such as formal education, age, area of residence, and class strongly predict the quality of service and its use (ibid., pp. 222–228).

The analysis aims to better understand how some of the Brazilian infrastructural inequalities combined with decisions made by *Overwatch* stakeholders resulted in the perishing of the game's Brazilian competitive scene.

#### Methodology

The methodology applied here is content analysis combined with an experimental sentiment coding of materials related to Brazilian *Overwatch*. Five keywords—*Overwatch*, Brazil, Contenders SA, Team Brazil, and *Overwatch Cup*—were combined and used to collect the data which form the corpus of analysis. The words were inserted into the search engines of YouTube and multiple local media outlets: ESPN Brazil (esports), e-SportTV (Globo, esports), +MaisEsports, Vice Brazil (technology), DotEsports, The Enemy Brazil, and MGG Brazil (former Versus Esports). Spanish results were not included, as Spanish is not an offcial language of the country, and therefore these results would likely not represent the Brazilian sentiment.

From YouTube, a sample of 57 videos from 16 channels in Brazilian Portuguese, plus seven videos in English, was selected based on the quality of their content as sources for the discussion. A podcast in Brazilian Portuguese was included because it captured perceptions of the game during its release and the expectations for the *Overwatch League*.

The background materials (not included in the content analysis or sentiment coding) include offcial statements by Blizzard Entertainment on their site, blog, YouTube, and Twitter. Media coverage includes sites and blogs from both established and independent media venues and the Wiki registering the composition of the teams and tournaments. Governmental reports and *Overwatch* Regulation were also consulted. They provided a general view of the competitive *Overwatch* scene on the international and local levels, which often lack proper documentation for future knowledge.

All the sample data were initially read, listened to, and watched in order to familiarize with the content (see, e.g., Braun and Clarke 2006). Videos and podcasts were not transcribed but notes were taken from their arguments and discussion. From them it was possible to distinguish the main categories by frequency (Table 7.1).

All the videos (57) and the podcast episode (1) were then coded with the six thematic categories. Each time one of the six instances surfaced, a note was made manually (see, e.g., Basit 2003). The complete table of sources and codes are openly accessible via [https://osf.io/kh9ue/?view\_ only=51cf0573cc0c42ecb93da4afd4ac3941].

**Table 7.1** Thematic categories and its description

#### **Overwatch** *Categorization Overview*

After the categorization of the videos and podcast, the data provided insights about perceptions of *Overwatch* as a game in general and in four competitive domains: *Overwatch Contenders*, Contenders SA, *Overwatch World Cup*, and *Overwatch League* (Table 7.2). The former was produced only by Brazilian channels, typically based on the players' personal experiences from ranked play.

Looking at competitive tournaments, the *Overwatch League* was mentioned only three times in the Brazilian materials, one of them being sponsored coverage. However, the tournament received extensive coverage by the English media. Although the *Overwatch World Cup* is an international event, it was a subject covered exclusively by Brazilians, generally about the Brazilian national team. This can be related to a desire for validation and to attract investment to the local scene. Nevertheless, the *Overwatch Contenders* and Contenders SA were poorly covered despite being announced as important local venues for competitive talents. The Englishspeaking sources briefy mentioned them, and the Brazilian sources had mainly general explanations of the tournament format and player interviews.

Two videos were related to *Overwatch* but did not ft into any category. They addressed vulnerable working conditions in the esports ecosystem and the fact that being in "emerging regions" increases those circumstances.

**Table 7.2** Summary analysis for the coverage of *Overwatch* (*continued*)

*Overwatch*

*Infrastructure*

*Working conditions*

*Competitive nonprofessional play*

*Community*

*Business*

*and professionals*

#### *Sentiment Coding*

After the content categorization, a sentiment analysis was carried out. This approach allows an evaluation of the emotional valences presented in the language, words chosen, and people's expressivity by their tone of voice for example, modifying the intonation to stress some argument or opinion—and body, such as facial expressions.

Expressive emotional communication4 cues have been investigated and measured, for example, in the felds of psychology and computer science (Barrett et al. 2019; Saberi and Saad 2017). They can be helpful for accessing nuances while using scales and quantitative parameters. In this chapter, however, sentiment coding was applied in an experimental qualitative setting.

Automated sentiment coding was applied to the dataset using NVIVO 12.5 However, while evaluating the results it was noticeable that passages were incorrectly classifed, even when unambiguous.6 Because of these limitations, the automated results were discarded, and the sentiment codifcation was reperformed manually paragraph by paragraph.

The emotional range adopted was based on the standard of the software NVIVO, which has the degrees (very and mostly) positive and negative, along with neutral and mixed. The latter was used in passages that could have multiple interpretations. For example, the company showed interest in the SA region during their press talks (positive); however, the lack of planning in 2018 received criticism (negative). Player-viewers identifed with the heroes of the game (positive) but lacked identifcation with the professional players (negative).

The result was 475 nodes which helped to create a nuanced perception about *Overwatch* in Brazil using media coverage produced by professional established media, independent creators, and offcial coverage (Images 7.1 and 7.2).

The highest combined positive values were attributed to Community (38), which supports the previously cited beliefs of the active Brazilian esports community. The lowest values were attributed to Business (66), which mainly relates to Blizzard Entertainment's organization, strategies, management, and accountability.

**Image 7.1** Distribution of sentiment coding. Mixed codes were combined with the neutral ones, neither of which had report value in this study

**Image 7.2** Distribution of sentiment coding per category

### Results

In this section, the outcomes of the thematic and sentiment coding are presented via a narrative analytical report with a focus on two selected areas: players (including the "Competitive Non-professional Play" and "Working Conditions and Professionals" themes) and the community (including the "Community" and "Infrastructure" themes). The idea is not to comprehensively examine all themes and their sentiments, but rather to illustrate with examples why the Brazilian *Overwatch* scene did not take off as expected. At specifc points, direct references are provided in footnotes.

#### *The "Path to Pro" in an "Emerging Region"*

The technical structure of the SA server was generally considered weak, with constant disconnection and instability issues (Blizzard Forum 2018). Competitive players felt that it was hard to fnd people on the same level to have balanced matches. Match outcomes thus felt random, causing frustration and a sense of stagnation. A new grouping system, in turn, was considered promising, but in the SA, this also meant long queues to play.

Playing with friends or groups of acquaintances was considered the best option for playing *Overwatch*. Many streamers, in turn, gave up performing live because there was an increase of *smurfng*7 accounts created to *gank*8 streams by annoying and provoking adverse reactions, which would be clipped and spread to *strike*9 a streaming channel. The streaming platforms and game owners did not respond to such events, which made many streamers frustrated.

Despite the above diffculties, enough players were ready to play in Brazil to form a competitive community. They are mainly driven to win and master the game mechanically, ranking top in their countries and infuencing the decisions of the representatives in the *Overwatch World Cup*. This commitment sometimes transformed high-level players into analysts and coaches.

Teams in Contenders SA mostly consist of Brazilians, but also include Argentinians, Uruguayans, Chileans, Colombians, and Mexicans. Other nationalities are under or not represented. Although SA is generally perceived as *Latin*, internally, there was fragmentation and few joint efforts. Brazilians tend to care a lot about how NA perceives them.10 They were considered the "inspirational region," with players frequently endorsing them in terms of skill. Brazilian players in Contenders SA trained mainly on the NA server because to them there was not much to be learned in the SA.

Going over-server, however, brought issues of connectivity and language. Negative experiences on the NA servers were toned down even if explicit xenophobic (Viana 2019) behavior was reported as anger toward players on the SA servers. Offensive behavior was nevertheless also interpreted as a learning process, which would make them better players. This perception might have been fueled by unsatisfactory playing experiences, and the assumption that excelling involves pain, sacrifce, and will be eventually rewarded by fulfllment.

Neus et al. (2019) have suggested that esports audiences online pursue completive knowledge gain. However, the Brazilian professional play data, such as those of the *Overwatch World Cup*, did not yield evidence for any such motivations. In general, the professional scenes were discussed as entertaining, and the enjoyment was derived from social and aesthetic aspects.

A former Director of the local *Overwatch League*, Nate Nanzer, said in an interview in 2017 (Falcão 2017) that the product was inspired by the Football World Cup (FIFA) where qualifed delegations attend an event at the international level for a broad and enthusiastic audience. Perhaps the event that better corresponds to this is the *Overwatch World Cup*, as reported by Turtiainen et al. (2020). Team Brazil attended the event from 2016 to 2018 but never passed the frst stage. Many expressed this underperformance to be related to the low-level working practices11 and the competitive potential of the SA.

According to the Brazilian *Overwatch Contenders* Regulation document,12 reams "may enter into services agreements with Players in connection with Player participation on the team. Any such contracts must comply with applicable laws." Viana (2018b) found that the average Brazilian Contender player did not have a formal work contract, salary, or other benefts. The local regulation also favors *Overwatch League* teams in conficts, as they can buy out any player from a Contenders team with 25% of the upcoming *Overwatch League* player's salary (Chui 2018a, b). The uncertainty and fragility of labor conditions produced by the above naturally impact the team's competitive focus as they are at risk of their players being bought out. Notably, there were also no compulsory or planned practice schedules in the "professional" teams. Organizations with written contracts keep a percentage of the prize earnings, however.13

An open letter14 signed by all the teams offcially included in the frst SA tournament made it clear that they were all amateurs and students, and none of the players in the SA plays for a living, which made it diffcult for them to play in the tournament. The matches were scheduled to take place during the day, which for many players collided with their work or study schedule. The local tournament organizers did not consider this a problem: "We appreciate your suggestions regarding the schedule for the upcoming *Overwatch Contenders* South America, and we will defnitely take it into consideration for future seasons." The response attracted the attention of the esports media, however, and the organizers agreed that matches would be pre-recorded in the SA to make it possible for all of them to participate from their own homes.15 No public comments were allowed (to prevent the results from leaking) (Viana 2018a).

Such events relate to the labor diffculties discussed in Peuter and Young (2019). According to them, digital gaming labor can be "a formidable source of fnancial value generation in contemporary capitalism" (p. 748), particularly in a country where the level of youth unemployment (18–24) reached a worrying 27.1% in the frst term of 2020 (Fraga 2020), becoming one of the worst years in historical records.16 Likewise, according to Woodcock and Johnson (2019), gaming opportunities (despite their problems) have been "an important element of contemporary youth employment dynamics, especially for those disaffected by, or unsuccessful in, traditional education or career paths" (p. 814). Playing is an unregulated labor activity in Brazil, but people are willing to pursue their professional aspirations presented by Contenders as a "path to pro"—or, as jokily referred to as in the data, "path to poverty."

#### *The Brazilian* **Overwatch** *Community Around the Competitive Scene*

According to the fndings of Freeman and Wohn (2018), players start teams with friends because they have already proven to be trustworthy. This pattern was followed when *Overwatch* was launched in Brazil. Here, *soft skills*, which are related to personality and nationality, are more important than competitive abilities (pp. 107–108, 110). Players thus beneft from their existing social connections, creating an endogenous environment that may dissuade people outside the founding groups.

According to the data analyzed in this chapter, and in line with the above, already-popular players acted as gatekeepers, joined the most stable teams, had better working and playing conditions compared to their peers, performed on the international stage, and did not suffer the consequences of misconduct (Rigon 2017) while playing professionally. In the sentiment coding, the "very positive" attributions were related to this ambience of camaraderie and support, which can balance the eventual burden, stress, and uncertainties of their working position. Social capital was closely related to their longevity and infuence.

The sources referenced this group as one that was established and had become popular in other games, from which they moved to *Overwatch*. This allowed them to make use of their existing personalities and national fame, thus granting them media attention before competitive success. Accordingly, a common explanation that was given for the group's survival was their popularity on wide-ranging online platforms. Social media presence is an asset, and Blizzard Entertainment, with other related stakeholders, understood the group's market potential.

The community around the Brazilian competitive scene is also an institution with infuence and power (see Chee and Karhulahti 2020). Systematic engagement in online communities can also be a laborious activity with high emotional demands, however (Guarriello 2019). In 2018, the elected Community Leader of the Brazilian *Overwatch* claimed to have been harassed by members of the Team Brazil delegation in the *Overwatch World Cup*. 17 Allegations also arose from the community, as the people allied with the competitive scene (Team Brazil) and did not think the leader was credible enough to fulfll the position. These events refect the overall instability and conficting opinions within the community, which was reported as an element that made "liking" *Overwatch* diffcult.

Blom (2018) proposed that *Overwatch* consists of a universe that is shared in the community: everyone can consume and interact with Overwatch media, and this may connect them to the community. This shared, connected, but not codependent universe fnds support in the Brazilian context, with the caveat that accessibility plays an important role. In the podcast (*Poligonal*, Vice-Brazil, 2017), the hosts and guests discussed the price of the game in the country; one of the guests mentioned that people often engage with the *Overwatch* universe not by playing, but through comics and animations. While this may have sometimes led them to start playing and participating in other game events, it was often too expensive for the regular Brazilian player. The price of the game was reduced eventually,18 but the free weekends remained as the only moment when fnancially disadvantaged players could participate. In Brazil, the price of global media versus local income is part of a complex historical problem.

#### Conclusions

The goal of this chapter was to better understand the Brazilian *Overwatch* and its competitive scene. I applied systematic content analysis and experimental sentiment analysis on Brazilian Portuguese and English qualitative materials specifcally to map out the reasons for the game's local competitive shutdown.

The fndings indicate Brazilian *Overwatch* to have suffered from poor working conditions, infrastructural issues, and conficts in the community. The frst can be illustrated by the "path to pro" project, launched by the company to strengthen emerging regions like Brazil. The initiative did not achieve its aims, and the reasons behind its failure are mostly related to Blizzard Entertainment's decisions and lack thereof. An example of the second point is that there were no improvements on the local infrastructures: people had signifcant and permanent negative playing experiences due to various technical issues and the simple lack of equipment. Third, the community—that was also addressed in many positive terms—had numerous problems of internal validation (who belongs and has the opportunities to belong) with symptoms of polarization due to the local power dynamics, which produced conficts of interest. This made commitment to *Overwatch* diffcult for larger audiences. Finally, I should add that the country also has its own structural adversities, which can impact the player base.

Although this work presented a perspective on Brazil, its reality and struggles are connected to other esports markets too (see Woodcock and Johnson 2018). Nevertheless, I argue that the vulnerabilities of participation in Brazil are (or were) more severe. The currently dominant esports business models like those listed by Scholz (2020) and Scholz and Stein (2019) do not seem to work equally in peripheral regions such as Brazil, as *Overwatch* demonstrates. Thus, regardless of those discourses, and even persuasive marketing reports, elements such as place and structure cannot overcome in fragile structures.

While writing this text in 2020, the fnal paragraph included uncertainties about the future of the Contenders SA project and *Overwatch* in Brazil more generally. Before this fnal version, an announcement was made in Reddit in February 202119 about the closure of the regional division. The reaction in the comments and social media accounts of former professional players, casters, and audience was a mixture of disappointment and resignation. The sensations of these Brazilian *Overwatch* players can be characterized by the game's opening cinematics: "*Everyone knows Overwatch got shut down.*"

#### Notes

team, planning strategies, training, coaching, and other competitive competences could not be developed.

#### References

Emotion From Human Facial Movements." *Psychological Science in the Public Interest* 20, no 1: 1–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930.

confusoes-do-lancamento-do-dreamcast-no-brasil-e-tudo-sobre-overwatchno-podcast-poligonal. (Accessed October 11, 2020)

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

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# Gender and Toxic Meritocracy in Competitive Overwatch: Case "Ellie"

*Usva Friman and Maria Ruotsalainen*

#### Introduction

#### *Case "Ellie"*

*When we originally contacted Ellie, there was nothing that would spark suspicion. They seemed to be very genuine and willing to work with us on calls and within private messages. Due to the fact that we do not have any physical contact with our players, we wanted to verify their identity but also wanted to respect their privacy as well. We genuinely had no idea of what was to come, and at the time we underestimated how important it would be to set an example as the frst team to take on a female player for Contenders.* (Second Wind 2019b)

On December 21, 2018, a North American Overwatch Contenders league team Second Wind announced via Twitter that they had signed a

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U. Friman (\*)

new DPS player to their roster. The newcomer went by the handle Ellie, and was—it seemed at the time—a prominent woman player, who had reached the fourth rank on the North American competitive ladder. As it is extremely rare to witness a previously unknown player to reach that kind of a placing in such a short amount of playtime, this gathered considerable attention from both esports media and the competitive *Overwatch* community.

Overwatch Contenders is a part of the *Overwatch* esports ecosystem. At its top lies the Overwatch League, a multimillion franchised global league owned and operated by the game's publisher Blizzard Entertainment. Similarly operated Contenders is a second-tier league, divided into multiple regions. For the players, whose ultimate goal is often to be signed by an Overwatch League team, North America is one of the more notable ones in terms of visibility and career prospects. In principle, both are mixed gender leagues, as they have no gender regulations for players. The reality, however, is quite different. In the Overwatch League, there has so far been only one woman: Kim "Geguri" Se-yeon from South Korea, representing Shanghai Dragons from February 2018 until the end of the 2020 season. The Contenders players too are overwhelmingly men, and at the time Ellie appeared, there were no women in the North American Contenders teams. This is another reason why Ellie suddenly showing up on the leaderboard and being recruited by Second Wind drew much attention.

There was an instant reaction to the recruitment announcement from both the competitive *Overwatch* community and game media. Reactions varied from cheers to suspicion and hostility, including threats of "doxxing" and open disbelief about Ellie's identity and existence. Attempting to prove the doubters wrong, Ellie started a Twitch channel and streamed some of their gameplay. The community, however, judged Ellie's gameplay as highly inconsistent, further fueling the arguments against their legitimacy as a player. A number of well-known community fgures suggested that Ellie's account was played by multiple people, proposing a number of men players who they suspected could be hiding behind the handle.

On January 2, 2019, only twelve days after the recruitment announcement, Second Wind (2019a) announced that "due to some unforeseen reactions, Ellie has opted to step down from the team". The same day, team owner Justin Hughes (2019) posted a Twitter statement reprimanding the community of their reactions toward Ellie, claiming that while the team had "wanted a player, […] it seemed like the public wanted something else". According to Hughes, Ellie had been treated as "a symbol of empowerment" and "their Messiah", while "on one side, we had people questioning her legitimacy, issuing threats, etc." At this point, it appeared yet another woman had stepped down from competitive *Overwatch* due to misogynistic harassment and threats. This again quickly drew the attention of both game and mainstream media, and the community discussions rekindled a new fame.

Ellie had stepped down, but the story was far from over. Two days later, on January 4, at the time Cloud9 team *Overwatch* player Becca "Aspen" Rukavina announced on her Twitch stream that "Ellie" did in fact not exist, but was a "social experiment" devised by a man player called Punisher. After this, the story of Ellie started to unravel and was again a target of lively discussion and speculation both in the media and among the community. The following commotion also led to yet another statement from Second Wind (2019b) on January 5, quoted at the beginning of the chapter, further explaining their reasons for recruiting Ellie and their reactions to the community response.

### Gender and Toxic Meritocracy in Overwatch and Competitive Gaming

There exists a great amount of earlier research on the role of gender in game cultures and competitive gaming (on the latter, see, e.g., Maric 2011; Groen 2013, 2016; Ruotsalainen and Friman 2018; Ruvalcaba et al. 2018; Voorhees and Orlando 2018; Witkowski 2018; Zhu 2018; Siutila and Havaste 2019; Hayday and Collison 2020; Taylor and Stout 2020). A large part of this work is focused on women (e.g., Groen 2013, 2016; Ruotsalainen and Friman 2018; Ruvalcaba et al. 2018; Witkowski 2018; Siutila and Havaste 2019; Hayday and Collison 2020), as they are perhaps the most visible and largest group of marginalized gamers. The GamerGate movement, initiated in August 2014, signifed an extreme harassment campaign targeted particularly against women and non-binary game creators, journalists, critics, and researchers, and affecting everyone identifying with gender identities marginalized within hegemonic game culture (Braithwaite 2016; Mortensen 2018). Although research on gender and gaming has been conducted from at least the 1980s (Richard 2013), since GamerGate, the various issues women face in gaming have received increasing attention in game and mainstream media, player communities, game companies, and institutions, as well as in research. While the public attention and extensive discussions have led to some improvements, such as esports leagues and gaming events creating and enforcing codes of conduct to tackle gender-based harassment, many of the problems persist—as can be seen from Ellie's case.

*Overwatch* was developed and also marketed as an inclusive multiplayer frst person shooter (Cullen et al. 2018; Hayday and Collison 2020; Hawreliak and Lemieux 2020), including a wide roster of playable heroes representing a variety of genders, ages, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, and reaching audiences who do not usually engage with shooter games (Välisalo and Ruotsalainen 2019). According to Emily Jane Hayday and Holly Collison (2020), the diversity of representation in *Overwatch* exemplifes how developers can attempt to increase social justice in games and esports by moving away from highly sexualized representations of women and instead creating role models within the game, thus encouraging more women to participate. Amanda Cullen et al. (2018) point out how *Overwatch* also includes characters representing disabilities, further illustrating how major developers can create popular titles with diverse characters.

Despite the diversity of playable characters in *Overwatch*, the game's playerbase, and its professional esports scene in particular, remain largely dominated by men. In the Overwatch League, there has only been one woman player, and women's participation is also rare on the lower competitive tiers. In a previous study (Ruotsalainen and Friman 2018), we found that the community had noted the lack of women in the Overwatch League. Potential reasons for this were discussed being structural and cultural, such as the fact that FPS games in general have been a genre dominated by men, meaning there are less women gamers who have spent enough time developing their skills up to the required level, and also the culture being hostile toward women (for similar fndings from other games, see also Siutila and Havaste 2019).

While women are actively playing digital games, their opportunities for participation in competitive gaming, particularly esports, is still extremely limited, both in terms of presence and in terms of ways of participation. In a previous study (Ruotsalainen and Friman 2018), we analyzed how women who play digital games negotiated their own participation (or, more commonly, the lack thereof) in competitive gaming, and how women participants in competitive *Overwatch* were discussed within its community. In the study, women's reasons for not participating in esports were not only directly related to the nature of games played and competitive play. Women also chose not to participate because of reasons related to gender and the toxic nature of the community: they did not consider esports to be a feld accommodating to women, but rather misogynistic and hostile.

The cultures and communities surrounding esports and competitive gaming are defned by a combination of hegemonic, geek, and athletic masculinities (e.g., Taylor 2012; Witkowski 2012, 2018). In the context of *Overwatch* esports, one can also fnd traces of "kawaii masculinity" which centers around juvenility and cuteness of the men players (Ruotsalainen and Välisalo 2020; for kawaii masculinity, see Jung 2011). For women competitors, this environment is challenging to navigate, as they are constantly placed at the crossroads of the contradictory requirements to simultaneously perform the role of a competitive gamer, embracing the hegemonic masculinity, and that of an "other", the one marked as an outsider of the scene because of their gender. As Emma Witkowski (2018) describes it, "for women engaging in such expert gaming endeavors, their gender performances (while varied) are made alongside productions of hegemonic sporting masculinity as a gender performance that is locally dominant, associated to traditional sports, and aligned to male body skill superiority, antagonistic competitiveness, and heterosexual virility". Women competitors' gender is often overly emphasized (e.g., Cullen 2018; Witkowski 2018) and their presence is interpreted through problematic gender-based stereotypes (e.g., Siutila and Havaste 2019). When competing, women are seen not only representing their team, but their gender, whether they succeed or fail (Ruotsalainen and Friman 2018). Women entering the scene as gamers, streamers, and competitors also face gender-based harassment and discrimination (e.g., Fox and Tang 2017; Uszkoreit 2018; Ruvalcaba et al. 2018; Richard and Gray 2018).

Opportunities for participation in esports should be, in theory, equal to all genders. Indeed, there are strong beliefs upheld within esports communities that there is nothing stopping women from participating—if only they are good enough players to make it. Christopher A. Paul (2018) calls this assumption the "toxic meritocracy in gaming": a system which excludes women and other marginalized player groups by not acknowledging the specifc circumstances negatively affecting their opportunities, and leading those who thrive to falsely believe their success is solely due to their effort and capability. In competitive *Overwatch*, women do not only have to play well enough to proceed through the ranks and get noticed by potential teams through their skill and achievements, but they are also met with hostile community members every step along the way, from team members harassing them on voice chat throughout the match—or even throwing the game entirely after realizing there is a woman in the team to having to publicly and humiliatingly prove they are a real person playing their own account (e.g., Choi et al. 2019). Because of the misogynistic and hostile culture, many do not deem it worth the effort in the frst place, which further decreases the number of women as competitors.

In this chapter, we discuss the confuences between toxic meritocracy and gender in the public discussions related to competitive *Overwatch*. Asking how the player's assumed gender is seen to affect their opportunities for engagement in this scene, we analyze online news stories and community discussions concerning "Ellie"—an imaginary competitive gamer woman created as a "social experiment" by a man player. Our analysis will show how the idea of meritocracy is strongly upheld within the community—all the while the entire question of Ellie's legitimacy as a player is being reduced to their gender.

#### Reading Case "Ellie"

#### *Data and Method*

Considering how the whole "Ellie" situation was created and then already over within a timeframe of two weeks (from December 21, 2018, to January 4, 2019), there was a surprisingly large amount of material related to the case available for this study. Our primary research material consists of online news articles and Reddit discussions, both collected between January 10 and March 11, 2019. In the current hybrid media system (cf. Chadwick 2013), these kinds of discussions are rarely limited to one platform. The news stories and community discussions were often formed around or linked to other (social) media content, such as Twitter posts or Twitch clips. We used these as our secondary research material to contextualize our reading of the case.

The news material consists of 86 articles written in English and published between January 3 and February 8, 2019, on international online media platforms. They were collected by an online search using search phrases "Ellie" + "Second wind" and "Ellie" + "Overwatch". The range of the material was further expanded by the method of snowballing, in practice by following the path of links within the articles to fnd new ones. The news material mostly contains publications focused on gaming and esports such as *Kotaku*, *Game Informer*, and *Dot Esports*, but also includes mainstream media outlets such as *The Washington Post*, *The New York Times*, and *Forbes*. It is worth noting that because the material was collected afterward, many of the stories had been updated to refect the new information on Ellie's identity, affecting the way Ellie and the events were described in this material—and our reading of the case. In the analysis section, we will refer to the news story material by the publication name and date.

We chose the subreddit r/Competitive overwatch as our source for the community discussions on the topic due to it being the most active discussion platform for *Overwatch* esports. The material was collected using the search function within the subreddit to fnd the discussions containing the word "Ellie" in their title. In total, we collected 21 discussion threads. In the analysis section, the discussion posts will be referred to by the thread identifer (D1–D21 in chronological order) and the post number (at the time we collected the material).

We analyzed the primary research material using refexive thematic analysis, a method emphasizing the active and refexive role of the researchers throughout the analysis process (Braun and Clarke 2006, 2019). The analysis was conducted in stages. We began the process by reading and coding the material to fnd the most relevant themes from the perspective of gender and meritocracy. In refexive thematic analysis, "a theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set" (Braun and Clarke 2006). We did not only look for explicit themes, but also aimed to identify latent ones—the underlying ideas, assumptions, conceptualizations, and ideologies beyond what was explicitly expressed. In this process, we defned three central themes across the two material types: (1) Ellie's character, (2) agency, and (3) women players. After defning the main themes based on the initial coding, we further explored the data within each theme, identifying and coding relevant subthemes, that is, the various nuances in the discussion, which we will describe in the following sections.

### Gender, Performance, and Suspiciousness: (de) Constructing "Ellie" as a (Fake) Woman Gamer

It is common for women esports players to be seen as representatives of their gender rather than gamers and individuals (Ruotsalainen and Friman 2018; Cullen 2018). In the news material, Ellie was most commonly described through their performed gender, often simply as "a female gamer". Occasionally, Ellie's reduction to their presented gender was taken to an extreme level in these descriptions: "Late last year, tier two professional Overwatch team Second Wind announced that they'd signed a female player" (*Rock Paper Shotgun* 1/5/2019) and "An Overwatch team has found their female player was an imposter" (*Eurogamer* 1/8/2019). In these examples, Ellie is objectifed, reduced to "the team's female", dismantling them of any personality or agency.

Ellie was also often described through their performance. Ellie's competitive rank was commonly mentioned, and they were described as an extremely skilled player: "Ellie frst appeared on the Overwatch scene in early December, quickly shooting up the ranked ladder to Grandmaster and eventually Top 500. Her skill was incredible, and she managed to play high DPS and tanks extremely well" (*Newsweek* 1/4/2019). Ellie's rank and skill level were discussed as the reason why they were noticed and picked up for the Contenders league: "No other information on the player was available at the time other than she was a teenage girl on North American Overwatch leaderboards ranked #4. Her rank, and impressions of her skills after Second Wind's team members played with her online, were enough for the Contenders team to sign Ellie" (*USGamer* 1/7/2019). The same reason was also used to describe why Ellie was noticed—and deemed as a suspicious character—by the community: "Doubters pointed to Ellie's account age—relatively low-experience for having a high rank—as grounds for suspicion" (*Dot Esports* 1/3/2019). For the most part, being a skilled and high-ranking player was not used as a praise, but rather as a basis for justifable suspicion. This happened especially when Ellie's gender was added into the equation, as high-performance play and related expertise are not usually considered areas available to women (Witkowski 2018).

As soon as Second Wind announced Ellie's signing, a discussion thread was created in the Competitive Overwatch subreddit (D1). The community members' reactions to the announcement varied from excitement to suspicion. While some discussants expressed their happiness for a new and prominent woman player being signed, many were doubtful about Ellie and their identity. Multiple commentators argued that it was suspicious for Ellie to appear out of nowhere, be totally unknown to most, and to be playing on a new account with such high win rates. Some commentators explicitly denied that their suspicions had anything to do with Ellie's gender and argued that they would be doubtful of any new player coming out of nowhere and performing particularly well, bringing up examples of famous (men) players who had at some point been suspected of cheating. The crucial difference was, as pointed out by some discussants, that Ellie was not suspected of cheating, but for either faking their identity or having someone else, for example a boyfriend, play their account. This shows how Ellie's perceived suspiciousness was tied to their gender rather than their actions. Geguri, too, had to go through a humiliating process of proving herself against misogynistic suspicions and accusations when frst appearing in the competitive scene. Two professional men players even promised to quit their careers if Geguri would be able to prove her skills to be true and so they did (Choi et al. 2019).