Mixer Streaming Service - shut down/sold to Facebook. MS keep the tech.

I'm not sure what the big question is here. IP owners and media conglomerates blah blah will pay ridiculous money for "reach", eSports among the young in particularly has exploded, playing games well to earn a living is a legitimate career possibility (just as much as being a footballer or a doctor or a train driver or a pilot or whatever a kid wants, the point is the barrier to entry is literally zero) and games are making huge long-tail profits from monetisation like lootboxes, DLC etc., so if you get enough people onto your "games a service" or platform you're looking at LTV (lifetime value) proceeds per customer of potentially thousands of dollars. Times that by millions of users and you're looking at an investment of millions of millions of dollars for BILLIONS in revenue. This isn't about getting someone to buy a game anymore, it's about getting them to download it, try it, and make it part of their social routine (kids hanging out on fortnite or FUT) etc and then pouring regular small spends (pocket money) into that experience. All of this is free or low money at the point of entry but games have the unique ability to garner literally $infinite revenue over potentially years and publishers have finally realised this possibility thanks to the feedback loop of the Internet and social media (relevance / shared experience). This is what happens when football clubs form and you have nationally televised events, what happens when you have music that can be recorded and distributed. Games have just reached peak mass market / hysteria and spending follows. Imagine if we could have streamed our most intense Pokemon battles while playing those over the Internet (no friends required), instead of a few people maybe gathered around a GameBoy, well now you can do that with games on mobile devices. It's important to consider this is also part of "video game playing" becoming more than a past-time and becoming a sport, that is because people value the skill required to be good at a game and enjoy watching it being done well, whereas that wasn't really a thing in the past even though competitive scenes existed in for example Japanese arcades, that was all underground.

I do think the popular streamers deserve credit for how they appeal to their audience because it is not easy to sit on camera for hours and make gooseberry fool up / crack jokes / self-narrate, it's just a new kind of media that arises from something that was always there; smack-talk and the experience of social gaming but now you can do it all in remote locations, simultaneously over the Internet with millions of participants, all just for being willing to talk about a game or good at it or a bit of both. And with a medium that has for some time been chastised as childish or nerdy or something you don't talk about, it just all spills over as the old media loses relevance or the "voice of reason" dies off, "gamers" are having kids now and think nothing of it, it's just like reading a book or watching TV. It's only going to grow but personally (although I don't watch any streamers - I do find it helpful to check streams on PS Store for example to see how a game actually plays before buying it digitally, whereas previously I would read a review or have to watch a DVD or something or go to a demo pod) I like seeing these new media/presenters or hosts or performance artists or whatever they are grow.

It's just hard to reconcile that with equally ridiculous talents that pull in money like actors or footballers or what have you, it's all celebrity culture/hysteria/coying for role models, a new form of that, but it is still big money all driven by an economy / consume-share loop that is plain to see by just how much the industry is worth these days. That it's generating sub-industries, more than just a few websites or magazines etc. or occasional awful TV show but a whole new media of its own that finally makes sense for the medium. (Writing about video games? C'mon!)

Photek wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:Why the strawberry float should "No girls allowed" Ninja get $1m for playing Apex Legends for a week, when the devs who actually made that game will only ever see a fraction of that? The whole system is utterly out of whack.

Oh you’re one of those. “Why do premier league footballers earn more than fire fighters” “why do TV presenters earn more than nurses?” etc ad infinitum.

Except that doesn't parse with what I said at all, and is in no way comparable. Fire fighters aren't creating something that footballers are then getting paid millions of for people watching them use. Nurses aren't creating things that TV presenters then use to get paid for, unless we start to get really abstract and say that a nurse helped them take care of their body which they then use for work, but that's not what anyone would argue anyway.

Streamers, to me, comes across like bootleg football streams. Like someone set up their own camera on the side the pitch and started broadcasting their own commentary. If that happened today, it would get shut down, because obviously there are well protected TV broadcasting rights. In the current scenario, the money from people who watch football on TV goes to broadcasters like Sky, but they've had to pay the football leagues and the clubs to be able to show those games, so that revenue finances the clubs and the players, it goes back to those who generate the entertainment. Imagine if the alternative was true, though. Anyone could turn up, set up their own match broadcast, and they'd get paid by people watching the streams, but they'd have no obligation to pay any money back to the clubs whose games they're recording, aside from the ticket costs of the game they're at. It's massively beneficial to the chancer with a camera and a headset, but the ones doing the actual generation of entertainment, producing the product people want, aren't getting compensated. Sure, fans of these streams might go and buy tickets to a few games themselves, maybe even but some team merchandise, but a better arrangement for the clubs and players is to have a guaranteed cut of revenue from the broadcast of the games, and I don't see why streaming video games should be any different.

Knoyleo wrote:

Photek wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:Why the strawberry float should "No girls allowed" Ninja get $1m for playing Apex Legends for a week, when the devs who actually made that game will only ever see a fraction of that? The whole system is utterly out of whack.

Oh you’re one of those. “Why do premier league footballers earn more than fire fighters” “why do TV presenters earn more than nurses?” etc ad infinitum.

Except that doesn't parse with what I said at all, and is in no way comparable. Fire fighters aren't creating something that footballers are then getting paid millions of for people watching them use. Nurses aren't creating things that TV presenters then use to get paid for, unless we start to get really abstract and say that a nurse helped them take care of their body which they then use for work, but that's not what anyone would argue anyway.

Streamers, to me, comes across like bootleg football streams. Like someone set up their own camera on the side the pitch and started broadcasting their own commentary. If that happened today, it would get shut down, because obviously there are well protected TV broadcasting rights. In the current scenario, the money from people who watch football on TV goes to broadcasters like Sky, but they've had to pay the football leagues and the clubs to be able to show those games, so that revenue finances the clubs and the players, it goes back to those who generate the entertainment. Imagine if the alternative was true, though. Anyone could turn up, set up their own match broadcast, and they'd get paid by people watching the streams, but they'd have no obligation to pay any money back to the clubs whose games they're recording, aside from the ticket costs of the game they're at. It's massively beneficial to the chancer with a camera and a headset, but the ones doing the actual generation of entertainment, producing the product people want, aren't getting compensated. Sure, fans of these streams might go and buy tickets to a few games themselves, maybe even but some team merchandise, but a better arrangement for the clubs and players is to have a guaranteed cut of revenue from the broadcast of the games, and I don't see why streaming video games should be any different.

Except it's not like that.

There is no "official Fortnite" broadcast that is organised and run by the owners of that product, so there cannot be a "bootleg" equivalent. That could be the way things go I guess, streaming companies come to an arrangement with the developers or publishers of games to enforce that a cut of the revenue goes back to them, or that a "streaming license" is set up which requires someone like Twitch to buy packages allowing their streamers to use certain games etc. But that isn't the way it currently works.

There is also the argument that the entertainment value that people are coming to streamers for is everything surrounding the game - their personality and interaction with their audience etc. If someone is doing something funny with a stream and engaging viewers to the point where they want to chuck them cash then who has "earned" that money? If I make a podcast about the Premier League where I talk about the games and surrounding drama each week, do funny contests and bits, invite the audience to join in and interact in various ways, and it turns out to be really successful and make loads of money, would you then call on me to send some of that money back to the premier league - the people "producing the product" that I have built my entertainment around?

I do think there are important things to discuss around how streaming works and how the funds are distributed, but I think it's a hard problem to solve and it's difficult to hold current streamers to a standard that doesn't actually exist yet. As of today if you buy a game you can stream that game and the money you earn from the stream, or that someone pays you to be on a particular platform etc. when you stream it - that's yours.

I guess you could go down a route like commercial business or development software - with various tiers and subscription costs depending on how you want to play? A one off cost just to buy the game, a flat additional rate based on the numbers of viewers you have, a varying percentage cut of any stream revenue based on various factors, "stream subscriptions" sold like DLC or season passes - "£39.99 to stream for 6 months" etc.

Jenuall wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:

Photek wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:Why the strawberry float should "No girls allowed" Ninja get $1m for playing Apex Legends for a week, when the devs who actually made that game will only ever see a fraction of that? The whole system is utterly out of whack.

Oh you’re one of those. “Why do premier league footballers earn more than fire fighters” “why do TV presenters earn more than nurses?” etc ad infinitum.

Except that doesn't parse with what I said at all, and is in no way comparable. Fire fighters aren't creating something that footballers are then getting paid millions of for people watching them use. Nurses aren't creating things that TV presenters then use to get paid for, unless we start to get really abstract and say that a nurse helped them take care of their body which they then use for work, but that's not what anyone would argue anyway.

Streamers, to me, comes across like bootleg football streams. Like someone set up their own camera on the side the pitch and started broadcasting their own commentary. If that happened today, it would get shut down, because obviously there are well protected TV broadcasting rights. In the current scenario, the money from people who watch football on TV goes to broadcasters like Sky, but they've had to pay the football leagues and the clubs to be able to show those games, so that revenue finances the clubs and the players, it goes back to those who generate the entertainment. Imagine if the alternative was true, though. Anyone could turn up, set up their own match broadcast, and they'd get paid by people watching the streams, but they'd have no obligation to pay any money back to the clubs whose games they're recording, aside from the ticket costs of the game they're at. It's massively beneficial to the chancer with a camera and a headset, but the ones doing the actual generation of entertainment, producing the product people want, aren't getting compensated. Sure, fans of these streams might go and buy tickets to a few games themselves, maybe even but some team merchandise, but a better arrangement for the clubs and players is to have a guaranteed cut of revenue from the broadcast of the games, and I don't see why streaming video games should be any different.

Except it's not like that.

There is no "official Fortnite" broadcast that is organised and run by the owners of that product, so there cannot be a "bootleg" equivalent. That could be the way things go I guess, streaming companies come to an arrangement with the developers or publishers of games to enforce that a cut of the revenue goes back to them, or that a "streaming license" is set up which requires someone like Twitch to buy packages allowing their streamers to use certain games etc. But that isn't the way it currently works.

There is also the argument that the entertainment value that people are coming to streamers for is everything surrounding the game - their personality and interaction with their audience etc. If someone is doing something funny with a stream and engaging viewers to the point where they want to chuck them cash then who has "earned" that money? If I make a podcast about the Premier League where I talk about the games and surrounding drama each week, do funny contests and bits, invite the audience to join in and interact in various ways, and it turns out to be really successful and make loads of money, would you then call on me to send some of that money back to the premier league - the people "producing the product" that I have built my entertainment around?

I do think there are important things to discuss around how streaming works and how the funds are distributed, but I think it's a hard problem to solve and it's difficult to hold current streamers to a standard that doesn't actually exist yet. As of today if you buy a game you can stream that game and the money you earn from the stream, or that someone pays you to be on a particular platform etc. when you stream it - that's yours.

I guess you could go down a route like commercial business or development software - with various tiers and subscription costs depending on how you want to play? A one off cost just to buy the game, a flat additional rate based on the numbers of viewers you have, a varying percentage cut of any stream revenue based on various factors, "stream subscriptions" sold like DLC or season passes - "£39.99 to stream for 6 months" etc.

I was mainly trying to tie it in to the football analogy, but streaming isn't really that far removed from a lot of bootlegged media, in that it is pretty unregulated, and open to everyone.

I don't think bootlegged stuff is necessarily all bad. Plenty of my favourite albums have been bootlegs, and they're a great way of ensuring a record exists of one off events and performances, but there's no getting around the fact that they do not directly compensate the original creators.

Equally, I don't think the model of football broadcast rights is an admirable model. Its grossly anti fan, and promotes obscene crony capitalism.

In an ideal world, streaming would remain open to all, low barrier to entry beyond the streamer's own ability to afford the tech, and there wouldn't be exclusivity agreements for the right to broadcast certain games, etc. But there needs to be a set up where games devs can share directly in streaming revenue, because ultimately, it's their product.

There's definitely a bit of my own prejudice I have to make an effort to put aside in all this. I don't value what streamers do. If I want to watch a steam of a game, I just want gameplay footage without a person on camera in the corner, or them talking over it, interacting with the chat, and with animated gifs popping up on screen when people subscribe or donate. I don't want that stuff, and I don't think it adds value. But others do, and so I can't say that these streamers deserve nothing, because some obviously go to a lot of effort to cater to their audience, so if people want to give to them, then that's fine. I just think there should absolutely be a mechanism to also pay the creators of the games that these streamers use to draw viewers in.

Edit: in the case of your premier league podcast, are you actually broadcasting the games? If not, there's no reason to need to compensate the clubs or players involved. If you are then yes, absolutely. Basically, could someone use your podcast as an alternative to consuming the "product" through legitimate means?

Pretty sure Devs can stop games being streamed and in turn if the are streamed you can get banned from streaming to Twitch. I also believe that a big streamers streaming a game will make their fans buy into it and make sales go up, it benefits the developer as well.

Streaming games and providing commentary is an actual skill. You need to be entertaining, informative and skilled all at once. Also, you have to be impervious to insults because the internet’s Gibbs internet.

As Green Gecko said, gamers are having children now and these streamers seem ordinary to lots of us. In fact I often hear my daughter (unknowns to her) commentate on her own games of Minecraft while she plays, my wife thinks it’s hilarious and it is but her general vocabulary is extremely high, she’s excelled at it on school and I think it’s partly to do with watching streamers and reading stuff in games generally.

Knoyleo wrote:Edit: in the case of your premier league podcast, are you actually broadcasting the games? If not, there's no reason to need to compensate the clubs or players involved. If you are then yes, absolutely. Basically, could someone use your podcast as an alternative to consuming the "product" through legitimate means?

Ah, but the difficulty here is that how do you define "consuming the product"?

In my example I would most likely just be talking about the games, the results, who scored, did any particular incidents come up etc. I may use clips of the match, or of a particularly commentary from the match to make a point ("what the hell is this commentator saying!?" etc.)

For some people all they would want from the "offiical product" is to know the outcome of the game, in which case - boom, job done, I've provided an alternative that for this category of consumer nullifies their need to watch the actual product in any form. Should that now be banned? Or a fee be levied against such a service?

What constitutes "consuming the product" will differ by the category of product and the particular needs of any one user. For football for example a "hard core superfan" type may travel to every single game for a club and only feels satisfied if they have had that live experience, others may feel they get their joy from watching it in a pub with their mates, some may just want to watch it live on Sky at home, or listen on the radio, or just read the result and highlights on a website or newspaper. All valid but very different ways of consuming the same product, and all legitimate.

For games, which are an interactive medium, watching someone else play sections of a game, in a very different way to how I might approach them, whilst providing a unique commentary on the game, and maybe doing audience participation stuff at the same time, is a completely different "product" that I am consuming compared to just "playing the game" myself. The game is certainly an aspect of this secondary product that I am consuming but the stream is certainly something distinct. One compliments the other rather than them cancelling out.

There are games that I would play but not watch someone stream, there are games that I would watch a stream of but never play myself, and there are games that I would both play and watch others play. They are such different experiences that the idea of a stream being a straight up alternative to consuming the product directly doesn't even make sense.

Perhaps for a very linear and narrative game, where the user involvement is limited and all that it really has to offer is the story or the FMV etc. in that case I can see how streaming the whole thing to others is basically giving them the same experience and removing the need for them to ever play it themselves. But that feels like a very narrow category of games (and is much easier to equate to the movie scenario)

Twitch is now recomending a porn channel on Ninja's account. He's understandbly not happy. Not sure of the rules so won't be posting a twitter screenshot of it.

twitter.com/Ninja/status/1160635604507471872

Would that recommendation have been manually put there and if it was I'm wondering if the thumbnail is auto-generated because surely Twitch wouldn't do that?! One thing about this saga I've learnt is that Ninja had a whole lot of old videos removed prematurely by Twitch which is not cool if it is your library of work.

twitter.com/shroud/status/1187413389582061568

He had the 3rd highest subs on twitch. Probably not a coincidence that COD is coming out on Friday.

Wow.. MS really pumping cash into Mixer.

Monkey Man wrote:

twitter.com/shroud/status/1187413389582061568

He had the 3rd highest subs on twitch. Probably not a coincidence that COD is coming out on Friday.

Not totally applicable, but still:

twitter.com/Gothalion/status/1188487236083433472

Apparently he's the biggest Destiny streamer, does some other games as well.

Not really Mixer specific but streaming related:

British Fortnite gamer FaZe Jarvis, 17, is given life-time ban for CHEATING after using forbidden hack to defeat opponents in game streamed to his 2million YouTube fans

A teenager has issued a grovelling apology to fans today after admitting he has been banned from playing Fortnite because he was caught cheating.
YouTuber Jarvis Kaye - known as FaZe Jarvis - apologised to his 2 million subscribers and revealed he has been given a permanent ban by Epic Games.
The pro gamer did not cheat during a competitive match, but did upload videos showing him using aimbots - which allow competitors to shoot others without taking careful aim - in a public game using an alternative account.
In a tweet the 17-year-old, who has nearly 600,000 followers on Twitch, said: 'I'm going to take accountability for my actions and I understand completely why this has happened, I just wish I had known how severe the consequences were at the time and I would have never thought about doing it.'

Even I know Faze Clan is a massive online team with big money behind it like American sports teams have. Faze Jarvis is British and must have excellent skills to be offered a place. He didn't cheat in a competitive match so I'm wondering if it makes it all less bad? Maybe as a 17 year kid he thought using aim bots in a non-competitive match wasn't bad or was just fun, I don't know - but killing his career before it's had a chance to start I do feel some sympathy.



https://www.dailyfail.co.uk/news/articl ... ATING.html

what a bell

I have no sympathy for him. You don't accidentally install an aimbot, and he knew what he was getting into. If you're one of the faces of the game you have to expect these kinds of things.

Idiot.

But I think a lifetime ban is a bit stupid here. Using the bot in competition I think would warrant a significant punishment, possibly even this kind of ban, but using it in a public game? Seems like a more nuanced punishment could have been found.

I'm down for full bans on any use of cheating software, personally. If there are jail servers, where cheaters can only play with other cheaters, that's a decent alternative, but beyond that, get them out of the general population.

When you offer leeway to cheaters they just become commonplace.

Fortnite Aimbot Prank GONE WRONG!!!

This story's blown up, it's now the banner for MailOnline.

Met wrote:I have no sympathy for him. You don't accidentally install an aimbot, and he knew what he was getting into. If you're one of the faces of the game you have to expect these kinds of things.

I've seen a clip of a video and he's explicitly telling his audience that he's using the aimbot. So the other players in the match would have been cheated, but it seems the purpose of his video was to show his audience what the bot does.