Overwatch Twitch streamer and YouTuber Ohnickel has been forced to respond to an intense backlash from the game’s community, after he was wrongly accused of scamming his viewers in a fake competition.
In a now-deleted post, a user on the Overwatch subreddit claimed that Ohnickel had named his as the winner of a $50 Steam voucher in a competition, but that the streamer hadn’t sent him his prize. The user, who posed as the competition’s actual winner on Reddit, claimed that Ohnickel had ignored his emails and had blocked him on Twitter in order to avoid sending the voucher.
The post quickly made its way to the top of the Overwatch subreddit, attracting thousands of upvotes until it eventually reached the top of r/All, with Ohnickel coming under fire as a result. After news of the controversy spread, Ohnickel was inundated with angry messages across social media, including one message which told him to “die you s***,” while his subscriber count also declined as a result. Now the streamer has responded, providing evidence that he had provided the winner of the contest with their prize, while the winner has also corroborated his claims.
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In a video titled ‘The Overwatch Reddit Scandal,’ Ohnickel points out how he had received a tweet from the competition’s winner back in March, which the streamer responded to. The tweet shows the two games the winner purchased using the gift card, Blackwake and Stardew Valley:
Once again i can't thank you enough! keep doing what you're doing! @ohnickel pic.twitter.com/f7PlrTlAep
— Ritchie (@Vitalechz) March 2, 2017
The winner also posted another tweet, which showed a screenshot of an email conversation he had with Ohnickel which included the code for his Steam voucher:
to whoever it may concern, this is an email conversation i had with @ohnickel , i received my prize back in march. pic.twitter.com/ziMKCYOLHL
— Ritchie (@Vitalechz) May 7, 2017
According to users of the Overwatch subreddit who worked to debunk the claims of the fake “winner,” it is believed that a user searched through the winners of Ohnickel’s competition in order to find which ones didn’t have Reddit accounts. Another user claimed that they had offered to buy a Steam voucher for the impersonator, but withdrew their offer after they were asked to send $50 via PayPal instead.
Ohnickel thanked the Overwatch subreddit’s moderators for helping him clear his name with the game’s community, with his video detailing the truth behind the controversy reaching the top spot on r/All.
Watch the video below:
