Game developers can also get banned on Twitch. The channel of the developers of the hardcore shooter “Escape from Tarkov” was banned due to a gesture.
Breaking Twitch rules can often happen in just a few seconds, and a single, thoughtless reaction can have major consequences.
The developer’s channel “Battlestate Games” has now experienced this, as it was temporarily banned on Twitch. Battlestate Games is the developer behind Escape from Tarkov, a shooter that has recently gained significant popularity on Twitch.
A brief sequence of just 2 seconds led to the channel being banned.
Developer “shoots” himself with gesture
Why was the channel banned? In a year-end livestream, the developers of the game “Escape from Tarkov” presented some new content that was integrated into the shooter at the end of the year. This included various items in the game’s store, which can have relatively high prices.
The “Abibas Tracksuit” costs about 4 million rubles in the game (in-game currency). Another developer then asked if the price was correct, which was confirmed. That would correspond to the price of a “mediocre apartment”.
The questioner used this as an opportunity to express his discontent with the price of the suit. He took a pistol, seemingly loaded it, and held it to his head, before pulling the trigger and pretending to be dead. You can watch the corresponding scene here:
Twitch sees it as “hint of suicide”
This is why it violates the rules: Even though the developer’s reaction was clearly meant to be amusing, it nonetheless violates Twitch rules. According to those rules, it is prohibited to engage in or threaten self-destructive behavior, which includes “the threat of suicide,” which was technically fulfilled by the gesture.
The consequence is that the Battlestate Games channel has been temporarily banned. The developers can try to appeal this ban or they will have to wait until the ban expires, but that is likely to take some time.
What do you think of this action? Is this an entirely exaggerated rule that has been interpreted too harshly? Or is it good and sensible that the rules are enforced with such severity?
