In the new survival game SOS, a conflict arises that is also brewing in games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or Friday: The 13th: Is there a two-class society between streaming stars and regular players?
Subtly, it has been noticeable for a long time that there is a conflict simmering in today’s gaming: Do games prefer the big streamers at the expense of regular gamers?
Twitch stars are becoming increasingly important for games to be noticed
There is no question that Twitch stars have become an important marketing tool for game companies to stand out from the crowd. Successful Twitch streamers bring large communities with them, with thousands watching them.
The success of games like Friday the 13th: The Game or PUBG can really only be explained by how well these games perform on Twitch and give the streamer a platform to entertain their fans.
The head of Gun Media, the publisher of Friday: The 13th, sums up the shift towards Twitch.
It is about the question: What questions did publishers ask themselves during the development phase:
- In the past, it was: What ratings can we expect from the reviews?
- Today, the dominating question is: “How well does our game perform on Twitch?”
How do you attract streamers?
But how do you get streamers to stream your game?
- H1Z1 held a major tournament in 2015 with $170,000 prize money and invited only streamers.
- Others liked to court streamers, offered partnerships, or involved them in the financial success behind the scenes – the so-called “influencers”.
- Recently, developers have increasingly catered to streamers in front of the scenes: They protect them from stream sniping, ban people who supposedly disturb them in their streams, or grant them special modes.
This open favoritism is increasingly annoying regular players. In PUBG, the conflict was ignited by stream sniping: Should regular players be banned if they supposedly intentionally disturb a major star’s gameplay?
SOS escalates the “streamer vs. player” conflict
In the new game SOS, this special treatment seems to reach a new dimension. SOS is also referred to as “Streamer vs. Player”.
The idea behind SOS is: Players are actors in front of a live audience that they must entertain while fighting for survival. The audience can theoretically give advantages to the “most entertaining player”. In practice, this “most entertaining player” will often be the one who brings the most viewers from Twitch.
In highly publicized reviews on Steam, the game is accused of:
- Essentially being designed to give streamers massive advantages – they could play alongside their own fans and would also be favored by game mechanics because they have the viewers on their side.
- Moreover, developers have been accused of banning those people who annoy Twitch streamers at the behest of well-known streamers.
- Additionally, people who have expressed critical opinions are said to have been banned from the communities.
- The developers are accused of nepotism and favoritism, particularly having a weakness for female streamers.
Such accusations are difficult to prove from the outside. The German gaming site GameStar asked the developer for a statement two weeks ago and has not received one.
It is interesting, in any case, that on Steam the reviews are “mostly positive”. However, the most helpful review on Steam, with over 2300 people who found it helpful, is a critique of SOS and the “stream vs. player” conflict.
The most helpful positive review is found helpful by 11 people.
More about SOS:
Snoop Dogg “plays” SOS, smokes weed and Twitch is okay with it
