Twitch Bans Streaming of "Adults Only" Games - Update

[Callate]

That sounds like a lot of huffing and puffing to, in essence, bar one game. (I mean, I'm guessing no one was livestreaming Lula 3D or Rianna Rouge prior to this moment?)

Whatever. I think Twitch just put Hatred into the hands of about a thousand more "reverse psychology" buyers, though.

 

[VanQ]

Let's see here. http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/05/rules-of-conduct-update-adult-oriented-games/

A quote from their Rules of Conduct:

Our goal at Twitch is to create a safe, welcoming, inclusive community platform where everyone can feel comfortable and have fun.

A quote from this update:

Simply put, AO games are not welcome on Twitch.

Then not everyone is welcome to have fun Twitch. Some people had fun streaming harmless stuff like Huniepop on Twitch and some people had fun watching those streams. Now they're not welcome there anymore.

This safe space shit needs to stop. It's always hypocritical.

 

[Dragonbums]

If this decision really came about simply because of Hatred, then that's disgusting; more so then Hatred itself.

I honestly don't think it's due to Hatred. It just happened to be coming out and the wrong time and place. I honestly thought this was a response to the rising popularity of that hentai game called Hunnie Pop which is basically a game where the better you are at beating a bejewled puzzler the faster you go through dates with various women, slowly strip them of clothing, and then have sex with her- which depending on if you chose male/female you get a fully illustrated hentai picture with or without...certain liquids.

 

[thewatergamer]

Huh remember when steam tried to pull this crap? Remember how well that worked out for them? Apparently twitch forgot...

Look Hatred looks like a terrible video game trying to cover that up by being uber-controversial to drive sales, hilariously all these attempts to censor it are fueling its publicity and probably going to fuel its sales

As for the concept itself? I don't understand it, I already find Twitch rather dodgy when it comes to its Terms of Service, stuff like "you can only talk about video games on the website and if you aren't talking about video games we will ban you" was already stupid but this? As far as I am concerned as long as people are fully aware of what the game is and are fully aware before going in that the game being shown has been rated AO then it should be allowed to be streamed on the website, end of story

 

[Strazdas]

And thus killing games by rating system continues, where if people rating your game doesnt like you they can effectively shut you down.

"Previously, we made game-specific decisions about which games would and would not be available for broadcast - sometimes due to overtly sexual content, sometimes due to gratuitous violence. This is unsustainable and unclear, generating only further confusion among Twitch broadcasters," said Twitch, explaining the change.

so instead of doing the smart thing and stop doing this shit you did the stupid thing and decided to censor everything instead.
Good job twitch.

What's even worse than this being a move to block Hatred from being streamed (probably giving a few days of decent traffic to HitBox) is the complete list of games banned from Twitch. Some make sense, then Indigo Prophecy shows up....

Indigo prophecy has a scene of extremely unrelistic woman taking a shower naked for 3 seconds. it also has a "fade to black" sex scene in the european version (except germany). This was enough to get the game banned from youtube before. americans are really crazy about naked bodies. They like to pretend sex doesnt exist.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Indigo prophecy has a scene of extremely unrelistic woman taking a shower naked for 3 seconds. it also has a "fade to black" sex scene in the european version (except germany). This was enough to get the game banned from youtube before. americans are really crazy about naked bodies. They like to pretend sex doesnt exist.

Correction, American media is really crazy about naked bodies.

When I go out, most of the women wear dresses that barely cover their ass on a good day and a much-too-tight top without a bra. Then again, this is Florida, so eh.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

As an Australian, let me apologise right now for any games that Twitch bans because under our puritan system they're 18+.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

As an Australian, let me apologise right now for any games that Twitch bans because under our puritan system they're 18+.

Fortunately, that'll be no apologising at all for you then. The Story has just updated to say it's going on the US AO rating only.

If a game's US version is rated Adults Only by the ESRB, you should not broadcast that game on Twitch. However, ESRB rated Mature versions of Adults Only titles are permitted for streaming, such as Mature versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy.

Games rated 18+ by other rating systems are fine to stream, so long as they are not rated AO by the ESRB, and they don't violate the standard language of our RoC and ToS.

 

[CrystalShadow]

They even give you a list of games that you should not play, and it's less then 10.
http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/1992676-list-of-prohibited-games

Second Life huh?
Are people really making that many dicks in Second Life?

Uh... While I've never tried it (but have been on IMVU which has some overlap in terms of how people behave), I would say... Yes.
Theoretically you can use it for many other less sexual reasons,
But... Cybersex tends to be the number one activity that ends up going on...

Everything from virtual prostitution to people just... Getting it on.
Who knows why twitch banned it outright though.
I mean, I do wonder what the odds are of just randomly running into sexual stuff there if you stay out of the 'adult' regions...

Still, second-life had a lot of problems. Years ago they had an issue with people acting out child sex stuff...
They eventually banned that, but it caused a lot of confusion, because it's... Well, two adults using child avatars to act out something...
Which... Well, you know. That's just confusing and contradictory. Is it consensual, since they are in fact adults? Is it child porn because of what the avatars are like?
But... It probably tells you something about the typical activities that people get up to in Second life that that came up as a problem they needed to address somehow...

I can certainly see why Twitch might ban streaming of Second Life, just as a perhaps rather heavy-handed precaution...

 

[Strazdas]

Indigo prophecy has a scene of extremely unrelistic woman taking a shower naked for 3 seconds. it also has a "fade to black" sex scene in the european version (except germany). This was enough to get the game banned from youtube before. americans are really crazy about naked bodies. They like to pretend sex doesnt exist.

Correction, American media is really crazy about naked bodies.

When I go out, most of the women wear dresses that barely cover their ass on a good day and a much-too-tight top without a bra. Then again, this is Florida, so eh.

Like i said - crazy. they seem to be obsessed about it to the point where they pretend it doesnt exist. they both do it in as extreme way as they can and then complain when other people do.

Which... Well, you know. That's just confusing and contradictory. Is it consensual, since they are in fact adults? Is it child porn because of what the avatars are like?

Are children being coopted into making sexual acts? No? then its not child porn. and no, Australian government thinking petite girls are child porn does not count. I can understand why some people do not like such reenactments, but in my opinion its just pixels on the screen, these people arent harming anyone, let them have their fun.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Still can't stream HuniePop on Twitch. Rip in pieces.

Regardless, it's Twitch's decision to make on these sorts of things. Honestly, if I want to stream something not allowed on their services there are multiple other options and outlets for me to do so. Hitbox for one, since it's becoming quite a popular alternative to the monster that is Twitch.

 

[SecondPrize]

Let's see here. http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/05/rules-of-conduct-update-adult-oriented-games/

A quote from their Rules of Conduct:

Our goal at Twitch is to create a safe, welcoming, inclusive community platform where everyone can feel comfortable and have fun.

A quote from this update:

Simply put, AO games are not welcome on Twitch.

Then not everyone is welcome to have fun Twitch. Some people had fun streaming harmless stuff like Huniepop on Twitch and some people had fun watching those streams. Now they're not welcome there anymore.

This safe space shit needs to stop. It's always hypocritical.

Most people who use the word inclusive these days utter just before or after trying to exclude something.

 

[MatParker116]

As an Australian, let me apologise right now for any games that Twitch bans because under our puritan system they're 18+.

Fortunately, that'll be no apologising at all for you then. The Story has just updated to say it's going on the US AO rating only.

If a game's US version is rated Adults Only by the ESRB, you should not broadcast that game on Twitch. However, ESRB rated Mature versions of Adults Only titles are permitted for streaming, such as Mature versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy.

Games rated 18+ by other rating systems are fine to stream, so long as they are not rated AO by the ESRB, and they don't violate the standard language of our RoC and ToS.

Was about to say this rule would kill twitch as the following games would technically of been banned:
http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,426/offset,75/so,0a/

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Regarding the update: So sex minigames with PS2 level graphics are banned? Oh, no. Where will I be able to see primitive polygonal approximations of human anatomy? It's not like there is a plethora of video and images sites that have tons of user submitted content covering the Hot Coffee and Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy sex scenes.

Seriously, I think they should go on a case by case basis. The stuff in those two games mentioned by them in the update are extremely mild compared to Hatred's hyper-violence and any AO rated games based on sexual assault. There's only a handful of games with that rating anyway, so it's not like they would piss off much of their user based by banning about 20 games and then looking at any future AO games when they come out to decide what to do.

 

[thethain]

I think it sucks. There are plenty of movies and books that depict things just as bad as GTAV. Hell the NYT bestseller for the last year was 50 shades of gray. Which was a BDSM-light romance novel. This is the gaming equivalent of one of the many "dating" games.

I guess I am just sad that an important player in video gaming is jumping on the "Games are for kids" bandwagon.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Lets just call it like it is

 

[Shinkicker444]

Would this be something TWITCH came up with or something their overlords came up with (they were bought out by Google weren't they?).

 

[Ogami]

Indigo prophecy has a scene of extremely unrelistic woman taking a shower naked for 3 seconds. it also has a "fade to black" sex scene in the european version (except germany). This was enough to get the game banned from youtube before. americans are really crazy about naked bodies. They like to pretend sex doesnt exist.

One correction, the game is not censored in any way in germany. Genereally we here in germany do not give a fuck about nudity or sex in videogames. We had games that were rated "M" in the US with "USK 12" ratings when the reason for the rating was nudity or sex.
Now violence on the other hand....

 

[Amir Kondori]

God Twitch sucks. They are such puritanical idiots, this is the internet and we are all wearing out big boy pants.

 

[scotth266]

I foresee a large number of "Definitely not Hatred/Huniepop/etc" streams popping up.

I just don't get the point of trying to prevent certain content from being shown. The San Andreas thing in particular is absurd given that nobody would know if you're streaming the AO version unless you both installed the mod that unlocks the AO content and then were dumb enough to play it on air. EDIT: Meanwhile, The Witcher 3 is totally okay to stream.