It’s E3 season, and the gaming community is looking at conferences that are announcing what’s coming within the next year. Twitch streamers are also part of this, and they’ve been hosting viewing parties in their channels to comment on conferences with their fans.
Top Twitch streamer Michael “shroud” Grzesiek was hosting one yesterday, but he interrupted his stream during Microsoft’s presentation of Flight Simulator 2020 to ban one of his subscribers. They were saying that shroud was being sponsored to livestream the event, which made him mad.
“Hey, Corporal,” shroud said while pausing Microsoft’s stream. “Where are you? I’m not getting paid for this, but I wish. Get the fuck out of my chat. Get the fuck out of here.”
Shroud had nothing on his stream signaling that he was being sponsored. When another company pays for something to be on his stream, he always leaves an indication such as a hashtag with “ad” in the title or constant bot messages in his chat reminding his viewers that he’s being paid to stream that content. The most recent example in shroud’s channel was when he streamed mobile game Brawl Stars and also used that hashtag on social media to clarify the sponsorship.
Saying that a streamer is being sponsored when they have nothing signaling that’s the case is accusing them of breaking Twitch’s Terms of Service. Even though there’s nothing specific about sponsored content on that page, Twitch demands streamers who promote any content to make it clear that content is being offered by a third-party. It’s understandable that a big streamer like shroud gets mad at such a claim.
Shroud kept streaming E3 normally after that, pretending the viewer’s comment never happened.
