It’s not about me. It’s not about you.
It’s about respecting the victims and taking a stand against someone who did some really bad stuff.
Team4 can’t do more than that. But it’s important that they do.
Never said it was about anyone, especially not myself.
Just pointing out that for the most part it’s a futile gesture and nothing more.
It doesn’t do anything to address the underlying issue and problem of the situation.
It’s just a quick move to make it look like they are caring, when as pointed out, the developers probably don’t even think of the jerk when they are working on the character because they’re separate entities.
I’ve already pointed this out in the original post, and how it feels having a similar situation with my name and a horrible person, so I do have some (minor) relative experience.
The only way to truly respect the victims would be to remove/retire the character entirely.
When the name is changed, the developers will still know they’re working on the "McCree’ character just with a different name. It’ll still be McCree even in their minds and probably separate from his name sake.
If they make a new character, it’ll just be “McCree’s Replacement” they’re working on. There is no escaping that no matter what happens, he will always be McCree to the developers.
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There is no debate though
His name is gonna change, arguing is pointless
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how many of those victims are actual victims?
Vic Mignogna comes to mind in stories like this. I’m not denying that anything happened or not, I just like the courts to have the final say that these things did happen.
This, this is honestly what they felt like.
They didn’t name him McCree to honor the coworker, but that the name just sounded cool and fit the character.
Similar to Seth Killian, the Japanese thought his name was amazing and use it to name the final boss of Street Fighter 4.
The abuse and harassment was done (as far as we can tell) by and large outside of the Overwatch Team. However, we do know from testimonies that when victims went to HR to report the abuse they endured - they were moved to different projects or teams entirely. While this could be as simple as “I’m moving you from the Art team to the Encounter Design team”, it could also very well include “Moving you from the WoW Art Team to the Overwatch Art Team”.
We also know that the Overwatch eSports scene had at least a bit of misogyny going on behind the scenes, at least in the form of unbalanced work-loads.
The Overwatch Team cannot possibly fight against the corruption of their higher-ups without a union.
The abuser who shared the same name as The Cowboy has since been let go (to my knowledge), however - that does not erase or lessen the trauma that his victims are forced to deal with every day. As someone with PTSD, I know how easy it is to relapse from past trauma.Getting rid of a direct reference to the abuser, is meant to help the victims by lessening the amount of reminders they receive.
Ask yourself, why do you NOT care for the abused?
Don’t try and pull the “I’m speaking for them” card. You are not. Neither am I.
This is their choice. We need to respect that.
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Yes, and what I was saying was… what does changing the name do for the underlying issues that happened, and are still happening at Blizzard?
How are they being addressed?
What is being done to change and better the environment to move forward.
I do agree though, Blizzard and the entire Industry needs to unionize. Devs need protection from the more exploitative practices such as crunch. Not to mention having your name scrubbed from anything you worked on if you leave before it’s released. That’s just disgraceful.
Changing the name does NOTHING, it’s not even a piece of mind. All involved will know what character they are working on, and who his crappy namesake was even if the name is changed. Nothing will change that.
I never spoke for the abused, I spoke from a place of relative experience.
I know what it’s like to have PTSD, and as I wrote originally I share the same name as a sexually, verbally, and mentally abusive man, my craplord of a father.
Do you think seeing my full name put the people he mistreated into PTSD?
The answer is no, because they are thinking/seeing me, a different entity from my father.
(Sorry there is a lot of lingering pain and issues there. He died not even a year ago)
The same thing happens between working on a fictional character and the character’s name sake.
There has to be a separation between the character, and the real life person. Simple as that, and most people subconsciously have and make this distinction. They know that this is McCree, the outlaw with a heart of gold and NOT their co-worker.
(This is just a broad example… I’m not saying everyone does but it is a common trait/way of thinking)
The post your link ALSO does not speak for the abused.
Look at the wording used, the decision was made with the people who work on Overwatch in mind.
This decision was not made by the Overwatch team, nor was it written by them.
This is a boiler plate PR message, spin… something to make people feel better while they ignore the underlying issue. Though once again, this is just me being a cynic toward most Corporations.
Though letting him go is a good start. Though, if he is found truly innocent, his career should not be ruined. (This is a reference to the similar events with the actors above, where in their case the allegations were false but careers destroyed. I AM NOT DEFENDING HIM)
I will always call him McCree in game i dont care what they mame him or who gets “triggered” (god i hate that word) over a sple name, to me he is McCree and always will ne McCree
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time will come when you will get reported for being toxic or something.
If Blizzard had a singular intelligent person in their higher ups they could have easily killed two birds with one stone here. It’s been hinted that McCree’s name is not his actual birth name, therefore they should have made a little lore event revealing his actual name, but WITHOUT making a public statement about the real dev. The people who wanted it changed and the devs who are reminded of him (Despite the names being very common, sorry for all you Jesse or McCree folk out there.) and they also don’t bring attention to the person in the process. Let’s be real here, I’d wager maybe 5% of player knew he was named after a dev, and that’s a generous estimate.
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They just wanted us to praise them but it backfired. they have this thing for worship.
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I’d say more people thought he was inspired by the old Light Gun Games than a real person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrDcWrGvTt8
Hell, they could have done event where he finally gets a code name. That would have been fine.
Exactly, they made the announcement public as part of a PR campaign. It’s that simple, why else make such a big thing about it. It’s a common marketing strategy, to give the appearance of being more than a faceless corp.
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So soon after word of them shredding evidence too? Hrmm I do wonder if that’s just all a wacky woohoo coincidence?
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could be tax evasion bills 
The name change was in the works for longer before the public statement was let out(pro casters were referring to him as “cowboy” weeks in advance). Stop with your conspiracy theories.
Nobody is going to see Blizzard shredding documents then see the OW team announcing this and think “omg wow Blizzard must now be in the clear!”
Calling something “virtue signaling” as a way to discredit actual decent change has no substance. You’re not making an actual point when you say that. It’s more of a dog whistle than anything.
In any case, as clearly stated many times, this change isn’t for the players, it’s for the people working on the game. If that bothers you, you’re free to stop playing. Work environment and company morale matters.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ky0_5gB0U
With that, I’m going to bed!
It’s been an enjoyable discussion.
That’s basically all companies these days. Very few people are dumb enough to look at it at face value anymore.
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it´s only 17:34 where i am 
Supposedly, the pro-casters thing was a personal issue after the news about the real life person came to light.
They didn’t wish to glorify or offend anyone at the time and were being careful.
It’s also been stated there is no proof it’s for the developers.
The statement they used is similar in composure to any other time Blizzard, Activsion, or any other large dev/publisher had been caught with their pants down… almost to the point it’s fill in the blanks.
This portion is coming from a cynical point of view of all these corporations.
Hell, Activision-Blizzard has already called in the Union-Busters a month ago, so there are more underlying issues and morale problems then we know off, just the stuff that has boiled to the surface.
https://kotaku.com/activision-blizzard-hires-union-busting-firm-as-workers-1847386654
Great, who cares! Like I said, nobody is going to have their view dramatically by this. The optics of the decision matter far less than the actual decision itself anyways.
This was a good change to help the people working there move on. As I said before, work culture matters. The OW team, who isn’t really in any of the accusations is trying to move past this.
Maybe they were pressured by blizzard to push this out after they were caught shredding documents. Again, it really doesn’t matter for the reasons stated above