McCree Renamed to Cole Cassidy

[cocomen2]

So imgame character was rapist too?, but with new name comes clean backstory.

[Doffen]

Now I, finally, feel comfortable buying Overwatch.

I always hoped that you one day, would join Overwatch. Welcome

[Video Games]

I will do no such thing!

Dang. Alright

[Indigenously Abled]

What's more cringe, the faux outrage that led to the change, or the faux outrage over the change?

Cringeception.

[Very Tired]

I would be fine with this is they at least gave McCree one of those fake glasses, nose, and moustache things to wear. Play off this thing as a joke and pretend McCree is in witness protection or something.

[plz delete account]

McCree Renamed Cole Cassidy
Blizzard has revealed the new name of McCree: Cole Cassidy! This change goes live October 26th.

<div style="min-height: 580px; max-width: 550px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true" data-theme="light"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Meet Cole Cassidy.<br><br>Rides into Overwatch October 26. <a href="https://t.co/CT6PmaNXNs">pic.twitter.com/CT6PmaNXNs</a></p>&mdash; Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/1451624387732512770?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>

would've been much cooler to get McCowboy Dude

[Fullmetal89]

Peak corporate cringe posting. Beating a dead horse at this point, does anyone even play Metawatch.

[vincink]

Can you explain why Blizz has fallen that low when they remove anecdotes to raper bastard or are you just a degenrated keyboard hero that has to share his hate because you are pretty dumb?

Like many things that get renamed because of social justice authoritarianism, the name itself is tied to what it refers to in-context. A passel of pixels in the shape of a Western character in a video game is called McCree. Players don't generally know or care that it has significance beyond the name of a character in a video game. And in fact, even if they do know that it's named after someone at a video game company, it has no bearing on how they interpret its in-context meaning. If I said the name "Gordon Freeman", likely the first thought to a gamer is, the mute protagonist from the Half Life series. If I tell you he's named after Freeman Dyson, you might think that's interesting but you still think of Gordon Freeman as the mute protagonist from the Half Life series and merrily continue swinging the crowbar when you play the Half-Life games.

The "low" that Blizzard has slipped to is that without any hesitation, they memory-hole'd the names of characters whose names were only ever connected to the in-game characters themselves and not their namesake in the minds of their paying and playing customers. The players are ultimately punished here even if Blizzard did not intend to: McRee, a name memorable to all the Overwatch players, is now verboten, and is now replaced with this approved name.

I'll grant you that it is extreme to be emotionally traumatized by the change but both the optics and effects of it are clear. Blizzard is behaving like a chef who so far had served an excellent meal but then served a side-dish a few did not like. Upon seeing their sour-faced responses to the side-dish, the chef scrambles like mad to fix the main course and other side-dishes because in his mind he assumes the whole meal might be offensive-tasting to them and others. In the end, it was only a few patrons who disliked the one side-dish but now the quality of the rest of the meal suffers as do those who were enjoying the meal without issue. Why must the many suffer for the few?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

People should always call him McCree, just to remind ATVI about all the hypocrisy they are spewing.

What Hypocrisy exactly?

[Indigenously Abled]

I would be fine with this is they at least gave McCree one of those fake glasses, nose, and moustache things to wear. Play off this thing as a joke and pretend McCree is in witness protection or something.

Groucho Marx glasses would make this the best change the game has ever had.

[Kumorii]

will probably be called McCree for quite a while. Wouldn't surprise me if casters, depending on event producer, will be banned from using that name though.

[Ragashii]

Will still call him Mcree. It rolls of the tongue much nicer than the stupid name they gave him.

[Doffen]

will probably be called McCree for quite a while. Wouldn't surprise me if casters, depending on event producer, will be banned from using that name though.

The Sundance Butch would have been better.

Such a missed opportunity.

Fun fact though. Butch Cassidy's, which the new name is clearly based on, actual real name got this nice middle name:

LeeeeeeeRooooooy.

[Drynix]

So is there any in-universe reason for this change? Or is it just "this was his real name all along" or something along those lines?

For a really long time there has been a Sombra voiceline taunting McCree along the lines of "Hey there McCree, if that is your real name" hinting that she knows it isn't his real name.

Been there since Sombra release.

[Al Gorefiend]

Like many things that get renamed because of social justice authoritarianism, the name itself is tied to what it refers to in-context. A passel of pixels in the shape of a Western character in a video game is called McCree. Players don't generally know or care that it has significance beyond the name of a character in a video game. And in fact, even if they do know that it's named after someone at a video game company, it has no bearing on how they interpret its in-context meaning. If I said the name "Gordon Freeman", likely the first thought to a gamer is, the mute protagonist from the Half Life series. If I tell you he's named after Freeman Dyson, you might think that's interesting but you still think of Gordon Freeman as the mute protagonist from the Half Life series and merrily continue swinging the crowbar when you play the Half-Life games.

The "low" that Blizzard has slipped to is that without any hesitation, they memory-hole'd the names of characters whose names were only ever connected to the in-game characters themselves and not their namesake in the minds of their paying and playing customers. The players are ultimately punished here even if Blizzard did not intend to: McRee, a name memorable to all the Overwatch players, is now verboten, and is now replaced with this approved name.

I'll grant you that it is extreme to be emotionally traumatized by the change but both the optics and effects of it are clear. Blizzard is behaving like a chef who so far had served an excellent meal but then served a side-dish a few did not like. Upon seeing their sour-faced responses to the side-dish, the chef scrambles like mad to fix the main course and other side-dishes because in his mind he assumes the whole meal might be offensive-tasting to them and others. In the end, it was only a few patrons who disliked the one side-dish but now the quality of the rest of the meal suffers as do those who were enjoying the meal without issue. Why must the many suffer for the few?

The chef analogy holds if we were discussing a title blizzard released that flopped or was bad tasting, like WC3 reforged I suppose. I wouldn't compare company misconduct becoming global outrage to a side dish.
More like, the chef you loved and thought cooked up some amazing food had a few sous chefs working for him who were into touching kids. So now they have to rename an item on their menu called "tasty tots" to "diced fried potatoes"

[Amnaught]

So is there any in-universe reason for this change? Or is it just "this was his real name all along" or something along those lines?

It's an in-universe thing. He didnt like his name, he didnt like who he was, so he changed it.

I sincerely had my fingers crossed that be would be the first trans hero in Overwatch. But they already pissed enough losers off I guess.

[Zuben]

I dig 'Cassidy', not so much 'Cole'. Whatever, there'll probably be a period I keep referring to him as 'Jesse' or 'McCree' until I get used to the new name.

Now that I think about it I'd have liked "Joel Cassidy" more.

[Nerovar]

To me, the most surprising thing about this is the fact that there are still people who play Overwatch for some reason.

[Linkedblade]

So the sexual predator rode off into the sunset and then he changed his name and snuck back after dark?

Would have been better to just ninja-fix the name. This statement is just stupid.

This happens plenty, except irl they come back with a female name.

[Elegiac]

Dunno why they went with what sounds like a pornstar name when Jesse Shimada was right there, but okay I guess.