Aydan “Ghost Aydan” Conrad is attracting attention in Fortnite for all the wrong reasons after Epic Games banned his smurf account used to attain a new world record for eliminations in trios. Conrad put on quite a show in acting proud at his accomplishment, though we now know that it was done in the worst possible way by putting a skilled opponent against a group of newer or less skilled players for his selfish benefit.

Smurfing hurts any game in which it can be done, and in order for Conrad to have one excellent game, 42 other players were forced to have a negative experience that is not representative of the skill level of other players within their matchmaking range. Epic Games, like most developers, consider smurfing to be an exploit that goes against the terms of service and the spirit of competition. Below is the video of Conrad’s match, which at first was incredibly impressive, but now reeks of dishonesty.

What is troubling here is that Conrad is part of Ghost Gaming, a prominent esports organization founded in 2017 that competes at professional events on a regular basis. This kind of behavior should be contrary to what any esports organization stands for. Esports has been rising steadily in popularity and revenue for decades, and with fierce competition among the best players in the world, there is no room for this kind of behavior.

However, smurfing is still popular for various reasons across several games. The first reason is evident in this case, where Conrad was able to exploit the system to temporarily present himself as a superior player. In the short term this grants him more clicks and views as viewers flock to see this tremendous feat, and even in the long term it does not seem like there will be any consequences unless he continues to smurf.

Via: reddit.com (u/shaz1994)

RELATED: Fortnite Viewership Hits Lowest Point Of The Year

In other games smurfing is done with a different goal in mind. In games like Dota 2 or League of Legends, a high-level player can create a new account and quickly climb through the competitive ranks with the goal of selling that account later to another player who wishes to play at a certain rank.

On the other hand, smurfing is not always done with malicious intent. For years it was a known issue in Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm that an existing long-time player could create a new account, play a few quick match games and then dive into ranked mode to secure a higher rank than their original account. This was an issue for so long that many players would turn to smurfing in frustration to see where they would place in ranked mode and would then keep those as permanent accounts.

Via: fixfortnite.com

Ghost Gaming has not commented on the matter following our inquiry, but it would be great to know what, if anything, they plan to do about this behavior.

Source: Reddit.com

NEXT: Fortnite: The Return Of Greasy Grove and Moisty Mire Is A Major Flop