Ninja/TwitchNinja has apologised to a Fortnite opponent who bested him, after the popular Twitch streamer accused his foe of stream sniping, then threatened to get them banned from the game.
The whole thing kicked off after Ninja was eliminated in a game of Fortnite, prompting teammate Dr. Lupo to say “watch for the emote”, in reference to the player who had just killed Ninja.
Epic GamesWhen the player did emote – which is a common thing to do after killing someone in a game of Fortnite – Ninja interpreted the move as stream sniping, believing the player only emoted because they heard Dr. Lupo telling him to.
If you’re not aware, stream sniping involves watching your opponent’s stream so that you can see exactly where they are at any time. It’s obviously considered a dirty cheat tactic, and is widely condemned by the gaming community.
Ninja, thinking he had been stream sniped, decided to take action. He swiftly reported the player to Epic in an attempt to get them banned from Fortnite, and immediately began disagreeing with players who pointed out that his opponent probably wasn’t stream sniping.
The player in question was soon identified as IcyFive, who began to fear that he really would have his account banned for no reason. He tweeted he did nothing wrong, and claimed to have a video that proves it.
For his part, Dr. Lupo took to Twitter to say that he never suspected foul play, and quickly distanced himself from the mess.
I didn’t think you did, all good on my end.
— DrLupo (@DrLupo) November 11, 2018
You ever have a friend that goes on a rant? You probably know it’ll just make it worse if you try to go against it. Easiest course of action for not creating drama all over the place (worse than it is now) was to just let him blow off steam and move on.
— DrLupo (@DrLupo) November 11, 2018
In the face of overwhelming evidence, Ninja dropped the matter and apologised to IcyFive on Twitter.
That’s if you can call the below an apology. I mean, the words “I’m sorry” are in there, so that’s something.
I’m not sure Ninja needed to tell the dude to “stop milking it” though.
I don’t understand why you raged, called me an idiot and said you were going to try and get me banned. I know that you can get me banned cause of how much power you have within epic. You are the face of fortnite.
— IcyFive/51L (@51LYouTube) November 11, 2018
The good news is that IcyFive gets to continue playing Fortnite and the rest of us can go on with our lives. Meanwhile, Ninja is up for Content Creator of the Year at the 2018 Game Awards.
So… yeah.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.