Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's appearance at a video game tournament on Sunday has drawn scorn from local players of the Dota 2 - one of Malaysia's most played online game.
Much displeasure was expressed in the comments section of the Facebook and Instagram posts by Team Secret.
Team Secret, a top European Dota 2 team, who were special guests at the tournament and posted a picture of themselves with Najib at the event.
Najib was the guest of honour at the Malaysian Cyber Games (MCG) tournament , which is a Putrajaya-backed event.
The team captioned their photo: "We had the great honour of meeting the Prime Minister of Malaysia today!"
However, this did not fare well with Malaysian Dota fans who launched broadsides against Najib.
Trolling begins
On Team Secret’s Facebook page , netizen Wei Han wrote: "He (Najib) has more secrets than Team Secret."
This is the most favourite comment, gaining 7,300 ‘likes’ as at 4pm today.
Netizen Fakhri Baharuddin used Dota 2 Hero Alchemist to poke fun at Najib.
“Najib farms faster than Alchemist," he commented.
Muhammad Aizam described Najib as Bounty Hunter, another Dota 2 hero.
"Bounty hunter of malaysia [...] Beware."
Both heros have special money-making skills against other Dota 2 characters.
Netizen Bz Lau commented that Team Secret should feel embarrassed being photographed with Najib. The comment garnered more than 500 ‘likes’.
Team Secret joined Umno?
The flak continued on Team Secret’s Instagram posting of their time with Najib.
Netizen danielthelee96 quipped that Najib would be the next captain of Team Secret while man_kingtom lamented: "GG! (Team) Secret joined Umno."
GG, a short form for “good game” is often used by Dota 2 gamers, denoting the end of a game.
We had the great honour of meeting the Prime Minister of Malaysia today!
A photo posted by TeamSecretDOTA2 (@teamsecretdota2) on
Instagrammer fadzlanmokhtar slammed Najib over the RM2.6 billion found in his bank account, while kiang_yit did not miss the chance to appeal to Team Secret to ask: "Where is the RM2.6 billion?"
Najib has denied ever using public funds for private use, and insisted that the RM2.6 billion is a political donation. The corruption investigation is on-going.
Popular topic in US forum
One Dota 2 players also trolled Najib on the same issue from 10,000 km away, through an article posted on popular American forum Reddit .
Titled ‘Malaysian PM seeks donation from Team Secret’, the satire article described how Najib found a new way to raise funds for Umno after gaining US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) from an Arab donor.
In the satire, Najib seeks cooperation with Team Secret and even suggested to change the team name into 1Secret, an obvious reference to Najib's ‘1Malaysia’ slogan.
Gaining attention from Dota 2 players, the article also made reference to prime minister’s wife Rosmah Mansor and the slained Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.
The Malaysia-themed discussion rose to become the second hottest topic on Sunday in the American forum.
Political mileage
Dota 2’s popularity among Malaysian youths is gaining the attention of politicians, who are now seeking to reach out to the demographics through organising cybergame contests.
The Selangor and federal governments organised various tournaments last year.
The MCG last weekend was jointly-organised by Tune Advertising and Umno-linked NGO Suara Anak Muda 1Malaysia, which is led by Umno Youth exco Armand Azha Abu Hanifah.
Other sponsors are Ministry of Youth and Sport, Ministry of Communication and Multimedia, Malaysia Commission of Multimedia and Communication, Multimedia Development Corporation, Telekom Malaysia and Astro.
The winners of MCG would be chosen to represent Malaysia to compete in international e-sport tournaments.
However, a veteran Dota 2 player told Malaysiakini Najib's move to get his game on is backfiring as gamers feel politicians are invading their space for political mileage.
"So a lot of players reacted by expressing their displeasure to the global Dota 2 community,
"Hopefully, Dota 2 professional players will be more circumspect in the future when dealing with authoritarian regimes."
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