Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek is one of the biggest streamers on Twitch, and during his August 11 stream, explained why he feels the ‘TwitchIsOverParty’ campaign is “ridiculous,” and why he would never take part in it.
Twitch came under scrutiny once again on Sunday, August 11 when Mixer streamer Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins called the platform out for turning his now-defunct channel into a promotional tool for other streamers, only for the page to promote an account broadcasting porn for two hours.
Ninja’s public criticism of the site’s actions led to the term “TwitchIsOverParty” trending on Twitter, with many using the hashtag to claim that the platform should be punished, and users should flock to rival websites such as Mixer. Shroud, however, doesn’t agree with the movement, and explained why there won’t be a mass exodus of users and creators.
“Are you riding the Twitch over party?” a member of chat asked the former CS:GO pro. “Hell no, I’m not riding the Twitch over party. I don’t know if you’ll ever catch me in a movement like that.”
“That is ridiculous. While I do think Twitch kind of has to get their shit together, it’s not something to create this weird movement over.”
The 25-year-old’s chat continued to discuss the situation, with some pondering whether they would see a massive shift from Twitch to other sites, another idea that shroud disagreed with.
The streamer continued: “Are there so many streamers moving from Twitch to other platforms? No, not unless they get paid for it. There’s no reason for any single person on Twitch to move to any other platform unless they’re getting paid for it.”
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“Unless Twitch as their platform isn’t making them any money. It is too much of a risk to drop everything you’ve built on this platform. There’s too much to risk. You can, you certainly can if you want to, but it’s not worth it. Nobody’s actually doing that.”
“The reason why this is coming up now is because people are actually getting paid,” concluded shroud. “Big moves are being played by these other companies, which is good, but go back two years nobody fucking cared to contest Twitch.”
“Now that there is actually competition, that’s why the conversation is coming up. That’s the only reason. It has nothing to do with how Twitch is doing. Twitch has always been the same. While I do think they always need to improve, Twitch has always been the same in terms of what they’ve done. It’s getting bigger, and the bigger it gets the more chaos brews on social media.”
While shroud may not have any intentions of leaving Twitch, members of the community remain outraged at the platform, with CEO Emmett Shear issuing a public apology to Ninja over the incident which caused this unrest.
Whether or not we will indeed see a mass exodus of users and staff remains to be seen.