One of the most successful Apex Legends data miners is seemingly quitting for good.
That1MiningGuy said his farewells to the Apex community on Twitter earlier today shortly before deleting his account altogether. He passed the ownership of his Discord server, The Mine, to one of his admins.
“I’m out for real,” his farewell tweet said. “[Desu] is now running the Discord. I’m tired of the spotlight, and not being able to have fun. GGs. This is the last tweet this account will send out. Back to a regular fucking life for me. Been a fun year, but the stress is bullshit I don’t need.”
His decision to step down followed a controversy involving some members of the Respawn staff and the Apex community. That1MiningGuy tweeted legacy files from Titanfall’s Smart Pistol as a joke with former producer Drew McCoy and some fans believed the weapon was actually coming to Apex.
Over his data mining career, That1MiningGuy tried to remind his followers that his findings reflected the content on the game files, but that they shouldn’t be taken at face value. “Don’t get emotionally attached to this” was one of his favorite catchphrases, in reference to the mutable nature of his information.
Before quitting for good, he passed the ownership of his Discord server to one of his “trusted advisors,” the caring nickname he gave to his closest mods. He also completely deleted his Twitter account.
This isn’t the first time the data miner threatened to stop his activities, but it’s certainly the most drastic. He took a break from his activities earlier this year but ultimately chose to return to his community. An eventual comeback isn’t impossible this time, but it’s extremely unlikely.
That1MiningGuy was in the epicenter of a controversy earlier this year after a still image of an upcoming plot twist made its way to the internet ahead of time. Fellow data miner iLootGames leaked a screengrab from the then-upcoming Stories from the Outlands trailer that revealed Forge’s assassination by the hands of Revenant. That1MiningGuy retweeted the image, sending the picture to his tens of thousands of followers.
Some members of the Respawn staff shared their discontentment with the leak that ended up spoiling a significant twist and That1MiningGuy took it personally. Although the image didn’t come from him, he felt he played a role in spoiling the news by retweeting it, even if the video was reportedly released early for a brief amount of time.
He didn’t mean any harm to Respawn, however. In a previous interview with Dot Esports, he said that retweeting the still image was his biggest regret as That1MiningGuy and that he’s never seen himself as Respawn’s nemesis. “The intent has never been me versus Respawn, in my eyes at least,” That1MiningGuy told Dot Esports.
Following the controversy, he found support from an unlikely voice within Respawn. McCoy, former Apex project lead, was one of the most vocal members of the staff on Twitter and viciously advocated against leaks. He also sent That1MiningGuy an email, which “was one of the big reasons I decided to stay and adjust how I did things instead [of quitting].”
Although he’s changed his mind about giving up in the past, the intensity of his departure today points toward a final decision. After the previous squabble, he took some time off social media. This time, however, he actively deleted his Twitter account, passed ownership of his Discord server, and changed his Discord username—a violent rupture from his That1MiningGuy persona. His comeback is unlikely, to say the least, and Apex fans may have to say goodbye to the self-appointed “Dataminer Extraordinaire.”
