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What's In a Username? the Power of Gamer Tags
An anonymous reader writes "Are pro gamers good because they're good, or just because their usernames make you think they are? New scientific research suggests it may actually be a little bit of both. What's most interesting about this isn't what it says about current players, but how up and coming gamers will choose their own handles in future, both to intimidate opponents — and pull in the audiences that help subsidize their budding careers."
and get beat. choose wisely, Grasshopper.
It could have all been different with one strategically placed "h"...
Just wait until they go up against PussyDestroyer6969
UltraLaser... DoctorDoom...
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Back when I was first to 1500 wins in Warcraft3 and #1 in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 99% win rate in 3v3, I would have people be awed at me when they come into the game. They would just be happy to play against a big name in the game and express it like a kid who meets his favorite sports player or a famous person. They'd say things like,"Man, you're going to win, but its nice to even get a chance to play you." So my name had intimidation factor to it, but I earned that intimidation factor by first being actually good and having a great record. If you play Starcraft2 and you spend more than a few seconds making your screen name, you're doing it wrong :P
That said, I like this screen name more than my ol' gamer tag. If people go visit my website, they can be well on their way to eternal life, and my Bro Jesus will have cool things to say to me when we finally meet.
God spoke to me
If you want your gamer tag to have real power, choose well...like this guy did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It may not be good power but it has power.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
Seems everytime I see a name like xXFooXx and somesuch, that person is cheating. Dunno why they like the xX*Xx paradigm, but for the PS3 Call of Duty games it seems to hold true in my unscientific survey. I know they're cheating when they use names like 001l0l1O1l, they don't want to be reported.
classic
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
lose != loose
It's all in the name.
Significantly yours,
eyepeepackets
aka Killer, Marspoet, et al.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Whenever I see one of those overblown handles that seem designed to intimidate and impress people, my first thought is that the player isn't good enough to do it on his own merits. I prefer names along the lines of how Ian Banks' Culture ships named themselves. To borrow a comment. "Let's see you explain to your admiralty that your fleet was wiped out by the Bureaucracy and the Red Tape, and when you tried to disengage you found yourself trapped by the Complete Lack of Morale and the High Command's Total Incompetency.".
First 10 years or so of online gaming was on a PC, then I switched to PS3. On PS3 it's (relatively) difficult to change your name. On the PC it was trivial.
I used to play a lot of Day of Defeat, and my name usually mocked another player who sounded pretentious. There was a guy named Army Of Darkness, which I made Army of Dorkness. About that time I found a server I liked (coorsbuds), and started playing a lot there. Long story short, I had several names, all starting with Army of. My final name was Army of Silver Bullets, cuz the community wanted all names to relate to coors.
Now, I've had the same name for 4 years, and it's boring.
/ miss my coorsbuds budz .
If a game has a function for it, I hit 'random' until something that seems suitable pops up.
Speaking about the attraction of simple names, Alter told Red Bull âoeIâ(TM)d imagine that simpler names are more memorable, more recognisable, and easier to repeat mentally when people are thinking of the other players who occupy the same gamescape. Itâ(TM)s hard to think of a time when a simpler name would hurt a gamer or a team, but easy to imagine that gamers with very complex gamertags might get lost in the mass of names.â
In-game and in real life, anyone with a *long name can easily find it shortened by the people around them.
It's not so easy for me to imagine that "very complex gamertags might get lost in the mass of names."
Even someone as not-complex as "Nightmare" would easily get shortened to "Night" or even "N" during team activities.
*more than a syllable
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Not a fan (well, I didn't like Consider Phlebas much) but it's Iain Banks. Stuff like this bothers me as much as people writing Tolkein.
Perl Programmer for hire
... handles of League of Legends players in the LCS (highest-profile US and Europe tournaments):
(Spaces added to evade filter)
Crumbzz
Goldenglue
Imaqtpie (best name ever)
Kiwikid
Cruzer the bruzer
Dyrus
TheOddOne
Reginald
Bjergsen
Wild Turtle
Xpecial
Balls
Meteos
Hai
Sneaky
LemonNation
Nien tonsoh
Dexter
Link
Doublelift
Aphromoo
They don't seem too overbearing to me...
So gamers will be popular either because they are known to be good or simply because they choose the right name and get publicity...
So this is like the difference between Morgan Freeman and Kim Kardashian.
up and coming gamers will choose their own handles in future, both to intimidate opponents
Most newbies won't have the experience to choose a good name - hell: most parents don't even have that skill. They will also bring all their own fears, preconceptions and biases to the naming party, too. So most of them will choose names that give the impression of a callow youth trying to grossly overcompensate for their (obvious) inadequacies.
Not only are these individuals easy to spot, their choices are more likely to make them targets for scorn and derision rather than convey the impression they are better than they really are.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Or bad...
But someones username is an easy way to weed out the morons you will want to avoid. Or target.
xxNAMExx or numbers in place of letters. These people are morons. and the more x's or #'s. the greater the moron.
any combination of pwn or own or elite. Or some vauge sexual pun of any sort. these people are children. or have the mentality of a 12 year old.
any obvious 'black' name. little white kid with more money than sense. these make excellent targets to scam. very easy to influence.
for women... sexycutehotsweetbabygirl.. isn't any of those things. you won't want to see any pictures here without eyebleach.
vauge female anime sounding name or avatar on actual males. these people are pretentious pedantic douchebags who live to argue. every single time. Most online forums have quite a few of these.
There's alot more of them i've learned since the days of the 2400 baud bbs. But most of the rest tend to really piss off some segment of the population. Because the truth hurts alot. Some of the country specific trends can get pretty vicious to point out.
As for the article.. I've never noticed any trends that stand out as identifying GOOD players. But i wouldn't doubt there are a few.
It's a rich area for study. Does the name make the player? Or does the player make the name?
. . . because an adult woman was playing an on-line game several hours a day.
. . . because it invoked a sense of light-heartedness when playing.
. . . because young family members always said I was real silly.
It was a clean screen name, it's what I've used for forever.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The best of the best were the best and the names were nothing. Wargod (Wargoat), xxAngelxx, Sith Bandon (Sithz), Propolis, Painball, Selene, Shin Ra. The names were random at best, but when you fought with or against the best of the best, the skill far exceeded the name.The highlight of my years was beating Painball and two of his mates solo as a completely green pilot too stupid honestly to realise I was taking on the best and then some. Later I flew with him, and he was 10x the pilot I ever was. Good times.
A few (6-7) years after I chose my nick, all of a sudden another guy started using it around the web. All of a sudden we ended up in a sort of Cold War rush to secure our (my!) nick on various sites and services. I'm thinking I've won, since his activity has dwindled.
That username gets about 14000 hits on Google, and the majority of them are related to me.
I've fought so hard for it, I get a bit annoyed when people abbreviate it =)
'BotNet' always gets a response, especially if you play like a bot for a minute or two. You either get treated like a badly written 'bot and everyone swarms in for an easy kill, or treat you like an omniscient 'bot and get avoided. Either way, it can be used to your advantage. If nothing else you get some extra shots off while the other team is busily reporting you to the moderators.
Never judge a book by its cover.
When I rolled my priest in WoW I spent 2 minutes thinking about what the worst name for a priest could be, so I name him "Leakage". Can't say I spent a lot of time on it and just created it to amuse myself. Of course that is PC gaming, I don't do console gaming so the idea of locking myself down to a single user name ... I guess I'd put more thought in to it.
sithtingduck?
I wish Slashdot had a "change username" feature...