An Overwatch League player who told a 17-year-old streamer that she was his teammate’s “second wife” has been fined one month’s salary and denied a bonus payment, his team announced today.
The streamer in question was Aspen, a successful Overwatch player who is partnered with esports organization Cloud 9. During a match streamed on Aspen’s channel yesterday, Chengdu Hunters DPS player Zhang “YangXiaoLong” Zhihao, 22, dropped a comment into Overwatch team chat with a message that he said was from another member of Chengdu, tank player Ding “Ameng” Menghan.
“Hey aspen,” Zhihao wrote in Overwatch’s in-game team chat. “Ameng say u r his second wife.”
Aspen grimaced, facepalmed, and laughed off the remark, writing “LUL” in the chat. Menghan, who was also in the match, responded with a question mark, seemingly taken off guard by the comment. Shortly after, he apologized for his teammate’s behavior. “So sry,” he wrote in an Overwatch DM to Aspen, which she viewed publicly on stream. “He like to play jokes... He brain problems.”
Zhihao’s team, the Chengdu Hunters, have proven to be one of the most exciting teams in Overwatch League this season, with an uncanny knack for unpredictable, meta-defying comps that somehow work. Today, the team apologized and said that Zhihao has been reprimanded for his comment.
“On behalf of the Chengdu Hunters, we apologize to Aspen and all people involved,” the team wrote on Twitter. “We have already severely reprimanded and educated our player, YangXiaoLong, on his misbehavior.”
Zhihao will be fined a full month’s salary, as well as a bonus he would have received for playing during stage two of Overwatch’s second season. If he makes a similar mistake in the future, Chengdu said, “the punishment will be doubled.”
“Chengdu Hunters will take this as a lesson to more thoroughly educate each of our players, and prevent such incidents from happening again,” the team wrote.