Twitch giant Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel has called on the Amazon-owned streaming platform to crack down on stream snipers, especially those who do so to promote their own broadcasts on the site.
Few things irritate streamers like stream snipers. The term refers to players who, by watching a Twitch stream, are able to track the player down in-game and ruin their match, often eliminating them.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for game devs to clamp down on, and some call for greater intervention by streaming platforms themselves.
We’ve seen streamers like Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins react furiously to Fortnite stream snipers ruining matches and, in a May 6 broadcast, xQc joined his colleague in having some choice words for those who snipe to ruin streamer’s games.
The former Overwatch pro was playing the horror/puzzle title Poppy Playtime when he went off on players who have TTV in their name – usually done for purposes of self-promotion.
It’s easy to imagine the player sniping xQc in order to broadcast their name to his audience and, on reaching the same conclusion, the streamer lashed out at the sniper and Twitch themselves.
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“This goes to all the TTV Andys,” he said, “If you’re a TTV Andy, you’re a f**king sucker and a cucklord and if you snipe as a TTV, you should just get perma’d. Literally. I don’t report them because I’m not petty but the reality is they should get perma’d.”
The majority of xQc’s Twitch chat echoed his comments and demanded speedy bans for any accounts stream sniping for the purposes of self-promotion.
Unfortunately, Twitch have long been quiet on the issue and frustrations with the platform’s opaque banning system continue.
If massive names like xQc are consistent in their calls for change, though, it seems more likely to happen one day.