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Isn’t this the fighting game equivalent of twinking?

This guy DemonDan14 makes these videos where he “welcomes” new characters to Street Fighter 6 with Zangeif.

He creates new accounts so he can show off against new and low rank players, while he himself is actually a master rank Zangief player.

If you play fighting games you may have come across some of these videos





I am loathe to even post them, but for the sake of discussion I have.

I know in Souls games and some other games this kind of thing (twinking) is looked down on, and it’s clear that while he’s better then a lot of players , he’s actually nothing special at all - evidenced by the fact that he can’t make any highlight reels against good players, and is a total no name in the tournament scene. But he gets kicks out of picking on new and/or bad players for views I guess, or for the self confidence boost? Maybe his life is shitty and this is the only thing that makes him feel good? I have no idea.

He hides players ranks and changes his name, and when I called him out on his channel he hid my comments lololol, I mentioned that he was doing this against platinum rank players in the bison video, because one of those Bisons was ME! I was platinum rank and when I saw the video I was like wow this makes so much sense now, he was playing like a complete asshole, obviously just looking for clips. Yes I’m not good enough to beat Master rank players, but I don’t think it’s in good taste or the spirit of the game to act like this.
so yes, full disclosure, this is personal to a certain extant, but everything I’ve ever read over the years seems like this kind of behavior is very much scum bag territory. This seems to be the fighting game equivalent of twinking.

What do you guys think? Is this in the spirit of the game? Is this the FG equivalent of twinking in Dark Souls? Am I just being a butt hurt bitch about all this?
 

Pejo

Gold Member
I'm not, nor was I ever, good enough at fighting games for this to factor into my enjoyment, but I get clowned on by clearly advanced players now and then when I go online. I remember when I used to play Rocket League, it was always annoying when high tier players would make new accounts just to go freestyle on new players and casuals. I think they called it "smurfing".

But yea gaming youtubers are a known quantity at this point, and they will do whatever they need to in order to get views, so this doesn't surprise me. He's also only showing clips where he wins, so I'm assuming he got blown up a few times along the way. He probably got buttmad when it happened too, so there should be some solace in knowing that.
 

BlackTron

Member
Yup! Buying ranked bronze Overwatch accounts and smurfing my way to the top with Roadhog. Good times.
For some reason I don't really give a shit about Overwatch because it's a dynamic team game and I just played with randoms in QP all the time anyway.

But a game like Starcraft where it's 1v1 and you're pretty much ruining one noob at a time for fun, it strikes me similar to the mindset of a cheater.
 

Eimran

Member
Smurfing is the term usually given and yeah it's kinda of a dick move
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Twinking is just outfitting a given low level character with the best possible stuff they can equip, usually acquired by a higher level character and then transferred as they aren't things they usually gain easy access to, usually in MMOs. So it's worse than this which is just a skill gap, rather than an OP character on top of a skill gap. Of course MMOs are so long running that twinking and competing in different level caps is also a thing, twinks are fighting twinks rather than destroying newbies like this guy so in that sense this is much worse. I guess it's up to the individual. Don't be trash like this guy.
 
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EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Twinking is the MMO term for hooking up a new character with expensive high level gear. Most likely derived from twinks in gay relationships, who can often be the recipients of sugar daddy dynamics.

Smurfing is the term for using a low MMR account when your true MMR is much higher, allowing you to crush every game instead of playing on an even field.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Yeah this is usually called smurfing and is an issue in games where there can be massive gulfs in player skill like RTS meaning the lower skilled player has zero chance of winning.
 
Ahhh, ok Smurfing

Shit need to get my terms in order lol

And ya I even managed to take a round off him, it it still stings that he’s finding success posting videos like this. Sometimes life just ain’t fair.
 

BlackTron

Member
One of the things I liked so much about the old Halo CE demo was that you just got a random assortment of people dropping in and out of the game constantly. I would literally just fight an entire team until the one badass showed up and we have an epic fight surrounded with "extras" sorta like Jedi fighting in the middle of a giant battle. You get so distracted with each other, every last shitty battle droid becomes a threat.

To me this is a more fun test than just endless noobs, or just people at my skill level. Yeah I want to stomp noobs but not to intentionally trap them alone in a game with me like a predator. It should be dynamic tug of war with opportunities for heroes on both sides to intervene. This made the fusion of real time skills and on the fly tactics endlessly fun. TLDR noobs are still an important ingredient, but notlikethis.gif
 
One of the things I liked so much about the old Halo CE demo was that you just got a random assortment of people dropping in and out of the game constantly. I would literally just fight an entire team until the one badass showed up and we have an epic fight surrounded with "extras" sorta like Jedi fighting in the middle of a giant battle. You get so distracted with each other, every last shitty battle droid becomes a threat.

To me this is a more fun test than just endless noobs, or just people at my skill level. Yeah I want to stomp noobs but not to intentionally trap them alone in a game with me like a predator. It should be dynamic tug of war with opportunities for heroes on both sides to intervene. This made the fusion of real time skills and on the fly tactics endlessly fun. TLDR noobs are still an important ingredient, but notlikethis.gif

This reminds of me the epic showdowns in the battlefront games where 2 hero characters are fighting each other while the larger battle rages on, players everywhere fighting but a badass lightsaber battle happening in the midst of it all
 
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