One of the top Apex Legends pro players and streamers, Jacob ‘HisWattson’ McMillin, has come under scrutiny from the community after a series of leaked messages he sent to a notorious hacker and leaker.
HisWattson was signed to Furia’s professional roster ahead of the ALGS World Championship 2022, where they finished second, and HisWattson was named MVP.
However, as well as his skill in the game, McMillin has also earned a reputation for speaking out about the game itself, and has had public spats with Respawn developers in the past.
On September 5, tensions between HisWattson and Respawn sparked again. He complained that the security team for Apex Legends was unavailable on weekends, leaving him unable to stream due to targeted attacks against his games.
I've just been informed that nobody on the security team at Apex works on the weekends. I'm having an issue that stops me from being able to stream the game, and I was told I have to wait until 9am Monday for one of them to look into my problem. There's no way this is real life
— FURIA HisWattson (@HisWattson) September 5, 2022
Sparking debate with his post, other professional players and streamers argued that he wasn’t being fair, and that it can’t be expected for developers to work weekends for the sake of one player’s issue.
“The devs have lives too,” said streamer Nokokopuffs. “99% of people with your problem would have to submit a ticket and wait/play a game of email tag. Waiting 1-2 days isn’t so bad.”
HisWattson messages to hacker leaked
The following day, a hacker and leaker in the Apex community shared a screenshot of messages that HisWattson had sent, asking for help with the attacks on his games.
“I just know you’re a shady dataminer guy and you responded to both my tweets while not following so I thought you might know what’s going if it’s malicious,” he asked the leaker.
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When the leaker responded that he should ask Respawn developer ‘Hideouts’, HisWattson responded “I hate hideouts too and I want to clown him on Twitter.”
HisWattson responded to confirm the messages were real, and doubled down on his comments. “All of what I said is public information. I hate EA. I hate hideouts (but I usually only go after him specifically when he says something first).”
It also appears that the hacker/leaker admits to being responsible for, or having knowledge of, the attacks against HisWattson’s matches.
Former Apex Legends pro Snip3down slammed HisWattson for the messages. “Going out of your way to reach out to a known cheater, asking him to help you to ‘mutually benefit’ by fueling your dislike towards EA and a specific member of their team specifically to flame them publicly is 100% out of pocket.”
This is not what happened. I dm’d him to try and find out why my account was being kicked out of games. When he made it clear he wasn’t going to tell me I closed the dm. The “hate” I was going to post was just going to be me explaining that what he was doing is even possible.
— FURIA HisWattson (@HisWattson) September 6, 2022
TSM member Albralelie said HisWattson was “speed running a ban from EA sanctioned events.”
“You seriously need to start thinking through what you’re doing man.”
Had I know this was going to be a public conversation I would have worded it a lot better. Me “clowning” them was just going to be me explaining that was was happening to my account has been a thing since the game came out. I only mentioned hideouts because he mentioned him first
— FURIA HisWattson (@HisWattson) September 7, 2022
EA, Respawn, and Hideouts himself have not responded to the leaked messages or response from HisWattson.