Twitch.tv: Clean your streams of titillating titty titles off our screens

Candy Crush

Now that Amazon has taken over, only allowed game for streaming will be Candy Crush Saga.

Everything else is "family unfriendly".

Yay progress!

Twitch was a site that grew with and was shaped by its community. One outcome of that was that it was irreverent and sometimes even a little crude. (Sometimes a lot but there will always be jerks - whatever the situation.)

When they were sold to Amazon, the usual rhetoric was spun:

"We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch."

-- Emmett Shear (Twitch CEO, 25/8/2014)

"Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community."

-- Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO)

Glad to see they've kept their 'independence'. And, of course, censoring content that might not be 'family friendly' is certainly 'think[ing] differently' and always makes everything 'better'.

So thanks guys - bang up job of staying true to the uploaders and viewers who helped define and grow the site. Moves like this just scream out how much you 'believe in [your] community'.

To the specific case, it is clear that this policy update is really just Amazon trying to cover their asses .

There are already age-restricted sections of Twitch so there really is no reason that a game like this cannot be pushed behind this existing barrier. Well, no reason beyond trying to avoid backlash from the 'family first'/'family values' type groups who seem to have an opinion on everything and everyone and are all too eager to berate you when you don't share their views.

And why would a supposedly independent site focussed on gamers be worried about what a bunch of finger-wagging busy-bodies who have nothing at all to do with the gaming "community" think? What are they going to do? Boycott Twitch? I'm sure that an "action alert" from a bunch of 50-60 year old balding white men with bad facial hair is going to hurt viewer numbers.

What could they possibly be worried about? They say they are committed to providing a "safe, welcoming, inclusive community platform where everyone can feel comfortable and have fun". I respect that and so applaud their efforts to prevent minors accessing inappropriate contact. But why can't this content be managed by the same mechanisms? I mean, if the age verification checks are sufficient for the current content that is deemed inappropriate for minors (like GTA V) then what's the big deal? If they aren't then maybe they should look at that.

But, of course, Twitch isn't independent. They are owned by Amazon and so the content uploaded to and viewed on Twitch reflects on the parent company. And, while, Twitch may not have any services that would be impacted by the beards and perms that run these professional wowser groups, Amazon does and they would rather avoid the bad PR.

So, in the end, what does "independence" really count for when your decisions have to take into account the impact on the parent company's image? (Or when those decisions are made for you by them.)

use full

Finally, a useful image to accompany the article.

ef-ing hell

It may be worth pointing out here that ef (like many Japanese "visual novel" titles) could well fall foul of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so it would be highly inadvisable to stream or even watch it south o' the bonny border.

Ef is an awesome little VN wouldn't steam it though lol.