A new report has learned that a viral video of a 6 year-old child being banned from Call of Duty: Warzone was faked by the boy’s parents in an attempt to progress in a competition held by FaZe Clan. The extensive PC Gamer investigation reveals that a video clip from RowdyRogan, the young COD streamer with 95,000 followers on Twitch, in which Rogan is seen to have his Warzone account banned, was scripted by his parents. This was all part of an attempt to create a viral video of Rogan, one of the tasks set as part of FaZe Clan’s FaZe5 competition.
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The talent contest-style competition sees five winners inducted into the popular esports organisation. As part of the final 20 competitors, RowdyRogan had been tasked to "try and make content that goes viral." Rogan's parents - who work as his managers - attempted to do this via a doctored livestream. The stream was edited to show a ‘permanently banned’ alert (in reality his mother had logged into his account on a different PC to cause a disconnect) and the clip then circulated on Twitter with the hashtag [HASH=2168]#FreeRogan[/HASH]. A ‘reveal’ video posted to RowdyRogan’s YouTube channel the following day explained how and why Rogan’s parents put together the video. "I know there are some people that aren't going to be happy when they find out this was a stunt for the FaZe5 challenge," says Rogan’s father, Harry Drew. "I also don't want to bring any more negativity towards them, Activision has done nothing wrong,” he added, in reference to an outpouring of anger from fans towards Activision for ‘banning’ Rogan. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/23/call-of-duty-warzone-review"] In a statement to PC Gamer, FaZe CEO Lee Trink said “What finalists choose to do with these tasks and how they approach each challenge is also being assessed, not just the quantitative results. A broad challenge is more emblematic of what their experience will be like in FaZe since a key goal of ours is to support our talent’s vision of their individual career.” Trink appears to offer no condemnation or support of the video. For more from Warzone, take a look at Warzone’s Rebirth Island, which will arrive as part of Season One of Black Ops Cold War. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.
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