I don’t care if his name changes. Just make it work. And you better not kill off his character or change his personality.
note that the only people who really complain about change are men lol
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They named the character after an employee they recently had to fire, presumably for sexual harassment.
Blizzard is currently involved in a massive lawsuit after a 2 year investigation that showed that they allowed women to be harassed and mistreated. There is even suicide involved.
The real Jesse McCree was seen taking part in a group called the Cosby Suite, where one of the biggest abusers named in the suit would harass women. McCree was part of that group and praising the harasser. He has since been let go. He did not work for the Overwatch team. The character was named after him and he gave his permission for the name, but it was not named to honor him.
Some of the female developers have wanted things to be changed in-game in addition to sweeping reform to how they handle harassment and pay disparities in the workplace.
This name change is part of that.
- They said they will be working with the content teams in non-English areas to ensure the new name is appropriate.
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I know many of the details are decidedly not public yet, but a quick question, will partial names be allowed in future? i.e. I think a few fans would love to see Jeff Kaplan remembered in the game, as an example could he be named Jeff ‘cowboy’ Deadeye?
apparently being referenced in an ongoing civil suit = convicted of a crime.
99% of people here don’t even understand the difference between civil and criminal cases. this is just low information social media mob rule.
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No hints or allusions to the new name for Cowboy here.
As to if we believe it’s worth it…
We believe it is the right thing to do to represent the values of the talented and diverse game development professionals for whom Overwatch is a labor of love.
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Your kid won’t potentially have his victims working to make him cool stuff, hopefully.
It’s not just the players feelings that need to be considered, but the female developers too. What will help make them feel safer in their workplace after the abuse they had to endure?
This is an easy symbolic gesture that will likely make them feel better. But more change is 100% needed this is too small on it’s own, but still helps improve their work environment.
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1. What will happen to your old YouTube videos with the previous hero name?
Previous content will remain unaltered. This affects content moving forward, both in game and out (as soon as we’re able to implement in game).
2. Will you be send strikes to everyone for using previous hero name, ban channels and delete all community content?
No. We understand that it’s going to take time to get used to Cowboy’s new identity. Heck we’ve been working through adjusting our language internally to reflect the change (referring to him as Cowboy).
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So i guess Joel McCree it is.
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Just change his first name to Joel 
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His name is now Gregory McGree.
I will hear no complaints.
The bar for “getting sent to prison” is a bit higher than the bar for “not having a cool cowboy named after you”.
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I know you guys said that you cannot give hints as to the new name.
But can you at least tell us, with absolutely no intended hints or obligations, that you are still aware of his existing lore that his name may not have been McCree anyway?
Sombra says this to him as a voiceline, and there is old promotional matieral where his name is Joel.
Obviously this doesn’t mean you’d stick to that either, it’s just a possible pen name. But I think it would make some of us feel better about the consideration you are giving the name if we knew careful consideration invovled all of his old lore.
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I am really glad you are being as vocal as you are allowed to be
Dont feel bad about all the toxicity here…as sad as it is, its normal on the forums
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Canceling and censoring, nice values guys. Nice values…
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Please no
This change isn’t necessary.
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You don’t know what censorship is.
Censorship : The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
It is what it is, even if you don’t like it.
I would prefer if he at least keeps “Mc” in his name so we continue with the meme names like McRightclick, McFlash, etc.
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Censorship implies there is an outside agency with authority over the artists forcing them to change or remove something, rather than the artist modifying their own artwork because of their own desire to have it reflect their own values (or at least the values they want others to think they have).
That’s not the case here, as far as anyone can tell. You need to emphasize that it’s self.