Cover-Credits:
Apex Legends pro FURIA’s Jacob “HisWattson” McMillin on 14th September claimed on Twitter that Electronic Arts (EA) has started to blacklist him and that he can’t believe it. The player is known in the community for being outspoken about the game on social media and has argued with Apex Legends developers in the past too. Coincidentally, a series of messages between HisWattson and a hacker/data miner was leaked online where he reportedly asked about attacks on his games. Notably, FURIA placed second in the 2022 ALGS Championship and he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the tournament.
HisWattson wrote, “EA has started blacklisting me from tournaments. Can’t believe I’m being punished for being mad that a guy on a laptop can literally stop me from doing my job whenever he wants.”
Why did HisWattson make the tweet?
On 6th September, a screenshot of alleged chats between HisWattson and a cheater cum data miner was circulated on Twitter where the pro player had asked the latter whether he had any insight on why he was being booted out of his account. The community was unhappy with HisWattson’s decision to collude with a hacker. HisWattson later admitted that he did so to get the hacker to confess that the said hacker was the one breaking into player accounts. However, the pro player had made it very clear that he reached out to Respawn Entertainment's developers but was informed that the security team did not work on the weekends. The pro player also reinstated in a now-deleted tweet that he was not a big fan of Conor “HIDEOUTS” Ford.
After all these events transpired, HisWattson now believes that he’s being blacklisted by EA and Respawn Entertainment since he was reportedly banned from competing in a tournament at Twitch con.
Apex Legends pro TSM Philip “ImperialHal” Dosen replied to HisWattson and wondered if he was blacklisted from all competitions. To this HisWattson said, “As far as I’m aware I am not blacklisted from ALGS. It was for a tournament at Twitch Con.”
HisWattson explained in a comment, “Me saying I hate someone/something isn’t an attack. Also, the “flaming” I was talking about was just going to be me explaining that what ag [hacker] was doing was even possible. I wasn’t going to just bash them on Twitter like I made it sound. I just worded it bad cuz I was angry.”
However, EA released the road map for the ALGS Championship Year 3 and FURIA is one of the 22 invited teams from North America (NA) and HisWattson is still on the team's starting roster.
