Okay, there’s no question that Twitch has it’s share of drama. It’s been going on for a while and honestly it’s horribly pathetic. I’m going to go on a pretty gnarly rant AGAINST Twitch and how they’ve created their own monster and all the stupid shit that needs to be addressed.
I suppose this rant comes partly as the result of seeing a bunch of stupidity that really has occurred over the exploitation of Twitch as a platform to make money. The last straw for me was seeing Karina get banned today. I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of what she does, but I get it and found her mildly entertaining from time to time. I have no idea what she says most of the time but it’s obvious that she managed to create a reasonable audience for herself. Some say she viewbotted to get to where she did and without a doubt that is an issue. Also, she has a fairly “cancerous” chat which is unmoderated and contains a high degree of questionable things. Obviously, Twitch has policies about these things in place but I’ll address this in a bit as well. At any rate, the ban probably is an accumulation of those things along with a lot of bad gaming content or even no gaming content.
And here’s the thing. What constitutes “good content?” I think that whole thing is so arbitrary. You see, Twitch has this nebulous, abstract model of what ought to be the “ideal” channel (like a Kripparian). However, the reality is that outside of a few competitive players, you really can’t get that level of a community. Instead, most people on Twitch has to evolve their own methods to get and retain followers. Not everyone is going to be a top notch gamer and not everyone watching wants to just see a top notch gamer. They want to see a mixture of high end playing along with a good personality.
The reality is that most people are something in between, especially when it comes to partners. Yet for those who are dedicated enough to make a go at turning a situation like Twitch into a full time opportunity, they have to do something special in order to attract and sustain attention. And most people just can’t sit around playing one game the rest of their life. That’s just not realistic nor healthy. And what happens when the interest in that game dies? What happens to the individual?
So here’s the thing: the platform that Twitch has created is great in providing people with the chance to make money for what their passionate about. I have no issue with that core idea. In implementation though, it’s fucking shit.
It’s fucking shit because many people don’t look at Twitch just as a way you can share in the advertisement/subscriber revenue in having a lot of views. Instead, it becomes a drug addiction for some and gets abused where people mis-view it as (bluntly stated) a way that you could just stay at home and play games rather than “being an adult and having a normal job.” I’ve already ranted about the numbers issue in dealing with the reality of being a full time Twitch partner. But this whole idea of gaining money from partnerships has poisoned the minds of people into abusing the system through exploits like viewbotting, sexualization and poor behavior.
And here’s the thing. Certainly, the individuals are part of the issue. But Twitch has to accept some form of retribution and do something since they too have managed to exploit the problem themselves. You might say, “Well, Twitch runs the platform and they have ToS.” I say fuck that. Most people never read ToS and don’t really give a care. The problem is that Twitch hands out subscriber buttons to virtually anyone these days and even those people who don’t bother streaming end up keeping their buttons.
So what about those who subscribe to these channels? Yes, we can pull our subscriptions but Twitch already made their pathetic money from the situation. Also, when the community as a whole bans a channel that you’re subscribed to, you as the subscriber are the one getting ripped off. Obviously, you should choose wisely in whom you want to support but it’s still frustrating and people who subscribe ought to get their money back.
What are my proposals then?
1) Enforce a minimal amount of hours of streaming per month. If a person simply doesn’t go live, the subscriber button goes away and they must re-apply.
2) Stop handing out partnerships to everyone. Either allow everyone to have subscriber buttons or make it extremely hard to get them. For instance, force admins in the chat to ensure that the base quality of the stream meets a certain etiquette over a period of a month. Don’t base the subscriber effort sheerly on numbers. Base it on the quality of the stream and a desire by the community to upvote the streamer to gain a subscriber button.
3) Don’t just ban streamers outright. Give them fair warning. Call them up immediately. Have an admin in the chat shut down the chat temporarily and warn the streamer immediately about any problems. Give the streamer a real chance while their streaming to understand their issues.
4) Don’t play favorites for streamers that have high numbers. As a person who has worked in ad tech I get the importance of numbers. Also, as a very vocal engineer about the problems of the current tech industry, I want to point out that vanity numbers are meaningless. All streamers deserve the same chance no matter what. There are no exceptions.
5) Stop worrying about the content that people are playing. I say open the flood gates or hire more admins to enforce this abstract notion of what ought to be a good stream and act like Big Brother. In short, open the flood gates. If the only real reason you’re worried about content is due to advertisers, then fuck them. Seriously, fuck the advertisers. Half your advertisements are shit anyway and most people who are gamers are smart enough to use AdBlock. So you’re fucked right there already. Instead, do a better job on the advertisement aspect in the first place and let streamers be the ones dictating the type of content on their system. Besides, if you’re still worried about advertisers after the whole no-advertisement sub thing, then you’re really a fucking retarded company who can’t see their own hypocrisy from their anus.
6) Don’t say you’re doing this for the children. Stop lying to everyone. You never do anything for the children. That’s why there’s a legal disclaimer on channels that people can assign.
7) Again open the flood gates in all content. Your biggest problem is that you’ve been moving into a heavily ambiguous zone with mixed types of content. Many people simply cannot stick with a single game and expect that to be their livelihood. And you recognize it already because you have a Creative and Music section. If you’re too fucking cheap to hire a few hundred admins to monitor every single channel, then loosen up your nazi policies and let people just be people. You have unrealistic expectations and no reliable mechanism for enforcing them.
I suppose the end story for me is that I want Twitch to stop being hypocrites about what their doing. There’s so many issues that are coming out of it that I’ve relegated myself to only watching very few channels. I honestly don’t care about drama and don’t want it. For some people it’s their cup of tea. But I think if you want to control things, you have to do a far better job at figuring out what the fuck you really are. Stop saying you’re just gaming. That’s like what 20 people?
Also, the way people are using Twitch to turn gaming into an even worse scene burns me. Why does everything have to be competitive? Why does a game have to be popular on twitch to be cool? You’re just a platform for streaming but you’ve done a lot of damage in other ways to the gaming industry. So either shape up or get the fuck out.