The Overwatch community has its fair share of problems, but nothing that other communities haven’t also dealt with. Still, when the popular streamer aimbotcalvin revealed that he owned four of the top 20 spots in competitive Overwatch, fans were a little more than peeved. It has gone on to become a huge debate within the community, one where other players feel cheated that top ranking players can essentially steal spots from the top 500 – an Overwatch ranking – while many players constantly struggle to break into the prestigious spot. However, plenty of other games have smurfs too – they just don’t care.

Smurfs have been around for as long as competitive gaming has existed. In WoW’s infancy, it started as high levels invading low level areas. Then, once Warsong Gulch was put in, they realized they could take all their high level money and make an insanely broken level 19, the perfect level to sit in the bottom level bracket and murder noobs. While this was done maliciously, in competitive online games, it is often done for fun or fans, not to punish less skilled players.

In League of Legends, streamers have made hundreds of hours of content by doing “Bronze to Challenger” Twitch streams. Imaqtpie in particular is known for starting from scratch to climb back up to the top. For professional players, it isn’t so that they can stomp noobs; it’s because it gives them something to do and because they enjoy climbing ranks. Other streamers like Nightblue3 do it to try out crazy ideas and champions. Few people would have thought to throw Ezreal in the jungle, but he was one of the first to take super off meta champions and play them in unique roles, something he could only do at lower ELOs where it is punished less heavily.

Overwatch also doesn’t have the numbers that League of Legends does. With a smaller community, spots are much more competitive, and it is easier for players like aimbotcalvin to get four different accounts into the top 20. For Overwatch, as the community grows, the quality and skill of competitive players should eke aimbotcalvin out of his numerous spots. It should be enough of a challenge for him to keep one account in the top 20, let alone four.

To solve the real problem of smurfing, Overwatch simply needs to let their community catch up with them. As more streamers take to the game, it will become more acceptable for smurfs to climb the ladder as a part of streaming, and as the game grows in popularity, it will encourage more talented players to step up. It can be frustrating, but it isn’t exactly a problem with the game. Chalk it up to growing pains.