The latest Overwatch update was a big one, adding an “Experimental” game mode, which will only be occasionally available and offer a version of the game with significant changes. Those changes may or may not be ultimately implemented into non-experimental game modes depending on how testing goes.

Shortly after the game client was patched with this and a few other updates, however, players found something that seemed to be what could be called a quality-of-life change: the removal of Ana’s ability to teabag slept enemy heroes. However, after some inevitably lively online discussion, Blizzard has publicly stated that this removal was a bug, and Ana will regain her teabagging ability shortly.

For those fortunate enough to not know what teabagging is, it’s an action most common to first person shooters, but is also seen occasionally in fighters and other competitive games. It refers to a player quickly crouching and uncrouching over another player. It’s considered rude, due to what it represents.

Debate over the acceptability of teabagging generally comes out of a fundamental disagreement over just what the act is. At its best, players are simply taunting the opposing team by utilizing a simple game mechanic, and when understood that way, teabagging could be considered more benign than taunting in chat, for example. At its worst, its representative of a decidedly aggressive, masculine act. As soon as that crouching is understood as the act its representing, there’s genuine reason for it to make some feel uncomfortable.

The ensuing online discussion over the removal of Ana’s teabagging capability followed this train of logic. Given Blizzard’s size as a company, some found it understandable that they would remove a function from one of their game that allows players to behave rudely. Others, who find teabagging to be a longtime, playful tradition in FPS games, found this removal alienating.

With that all said and done, Blizzard has declared in an email to Kotaku that the feature preventing Ana from teabagging slept enemies was a bug, and will be reverted in the next Overwatch update. Of course, there’s always a possibility the change was intentional, and Blizzard was testing the waters to see how its player base reacted. In either case, the change will be reverted within the next two weeks.

Source: Kotaku