There is criticism of Activision Blizzard. Professional player and streamer Scump says he has been punished for showing a mobile game on his channel instead of Call of Duty. Streamers who want to play Call of Duty professionally in the league reportedly have to sign contracts that give up control of their Twitch channel. There are also similar accusations circulating regarding Overwatch.
This is Scump and what makes him special: Seth “Scump” Abner is one of the most well-known professionals in Call of Duty and a major Twitch streamer. When he plays the new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, an average of between 18,000 and 20,000 viewers watch the pro.
Scump can not only shine in Call of Duty, but he also has a high entertainment value. Both were evident at a exhibition match where Scump killed Twitch star TimTheTatman so often that he screamed and whined.
It is relatively rare for a professional player to also be a popular Twitch streamer, but in some rare cases, like Scump, it happens. And it apparently leads to problems.
Scump gets punished for “streaming elsewhere”
This is the trouble: Scump has now complained that he got in trouble with the Call of Duty league run by Activision Blizzard.
While the league took a break, he showed the mobile game “Raid Shadow Legends” on his channel and did so in a sponsored stream. Raid: Shadow Legends is a game that buys a lot of advertising on Twitch – it is rumored that they offered WoW streamer Asmongold over $300,000 to show the game.
Scump says he got in trouble with the Call of Duty league for showing the mobile game. He had to pay a fine.
He cannot understand this: After all, it is his Twitch channel and he should be able to do whatever he wants with it.
Scump further says: The league had the players sign contracts at a meeting on short notice without allowing them to involve their lawyers. They wanted them to “sign the contracts in front of their eyes.”
It was announced: “Sign this or you can’t play now.”
He is also afraid that he will be punished for this revelation. Normally, he keeps out of such things, but now he wants to say something. He is fed up.
Streamer gets in trouble for advertising stream two months ago
What kind of stream was that? According to the website Sullygnome, Scump streamed “Raid: Shadow Legends” on Twitch for two hours. During this time, he had an average of 1,400 viewers. This was on September 28. Before that, Scump had played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (via sullygnome).
The stream for which he claims he was punished happened almost two months ago.
However, it is noticeable that Scump has shown 7 different games on his Twitch channel in the last 90 days – 6 of them belong to Call of Duty.
Overwatch pro also talks about an unfavorable contract
This is what an Overwatch player says: In a similar situation to Scump two years ago was Brandon “Seagull” Larner. He was also a professional player for a league from Activision Blizzard, for Overwatch, and a big Twitch streamer.
Seagull says (via twitch):
- For the Overwatch League, streamers were supposed to sign a very similar contract
- They would have to give up the right to choose the streaming platform and stop criticizing Overwatch
- His team rejected this and stopped playing Overwatch in the league
In fact, it was strange in 2018 that a successful pro like Seagull suddenly stopped with Overwatch and became a full-time streamer. At that time, it was thought that it was mainly due to physical reasons.
Seagull gained 20 kg during his time as a pro and developed a sleep disorder.
The professional leagues for Overwatch and Call of Duty are still relatively new. Apparently, a balance must still be found regarding what the pros are allowed to say and show publicly and what not.
An established esports league is the one from League of Legends. However, the young pros also clash with issues there. LoL star Wunder complained at the start of the league about the extremely poor chairs he had to play on. However, those chairs belonged to a new sponsor of the league. Oops:
Bad advertising: LoL pro complains about “fucking shit” official chairs
