Don’t want to get insulted as a woman in Overwatch ? Just change your gamer tag. At least that’s what a lady claims in the Overwatch Reddit.
Insults and hostility are unfortunately often part of everyday life on the internet and especially in gaming. Especially in competitive multiplayer games, most players have likely experienced being insulted or having some stupid comment thrown at them.
Again and again, there is the assumption that women are particularly often victims of hostility. If a woman identifies herself in an online game, she often becomes the first target in search of mistakes within her team.
This is what she reports: Claudiamilli shares that she has been playing Overwatch since the beta. She considers herself an average player, maybe slightly below that – just a solid placement in the gold tier. When she experienced a loss in ranked games, she often became the target of insults and hostility. She attributed this to having used her real name as her Battle.net name.
In the meantime, she has changed her name to that of a male protagonist from a book. Since then, she claims, she has not experienced any more hate directed her way.
A lot of support from the community: The post went “through the roof” in the Overwatch subreddit. The thread received more than 14,300 upvotes, and numerous women commented that they had experienced similar situations.
Since they started using a neutral or male gamer tag in Overwatch, the number of insults and hostility has drastically decreased.
But that’s manageable, as it means she no longer has to read comments like “I hope you get raped”.
Many female players explained in the comments that this is why they do not participate in voice chat, as they have had bad experiences there. Once recognized as a woman by their voice, they often became victims of hate and sexist insults, or received requests for nude pictures or similar.
Less endorsements as a disadvantage: However, according to Claudiamilli, there is one small downside. Since using a male name in the game, she receives significantly fewer endorsements (recognitions) from other players.
But that’s manageable, as it means she no longer has to read comments like “I hope you get raped”.